I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 630: Preparation

“I believe it’s probably the latter. It finished its task and then vanished,” Jie Ming set aside the salt grains and glanced at the other wizards. “The question I wanted to raise before was—where precisely is the main body of this entity?”

His statement plunged everyone in the room into a momentary hush.

The middle-aged wizard clad in the deep blue robe approached the stove and tapped its wooden rim lightly with a finger. “True enough, that finger served merely as a terminal.”

“To be exact, it acted as a disposable conduit,” the curse witch agreed with a nod.

Her prior assessment proved utterly accurate. The finger handled forging the genetic link and inscribing the curse directly into the victims’ souls.

With the inscription finished, its role concluded.

“Thus, Carl’s abrupt onset moments ago stemmed from the finger emitting its last signal prior to destruction.”

Jie Ming turned to the burly male wizard, receiving a confirming nod.

“And then it vanished,” Jie Ming concluded. “Since it was conjured temporarily by some force to begin with. After fulfilling its aim, no purpose remained for its existence.”

Soft murmurs of debate echoed through the kitchen.

The curse witch lifted her gaze. Her pale gray eyes under the hood fixed on Jie Ming. “Are you suggesting the Strange lacks a physical form?”

“At minimum, the finger didn’t have one,” Jie Ming replied. “It functioned solely as its instrument, much like our sorcery artifacts for spellcasting. After use, an artifact gets stored away, yet it isn’t the caster’s core self.”

“Logical,” the thin male wizard rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The finger’s genetic makeup closely matched the Hans family’s, indicating it was likely a single-use creation, generated briefly from scanned data.”

One by one, the wizards nodded in agreement.

The line of logic held firm. Each had cross-checked it against their own expertise, deeming it the strongest theory.

“This loops us back to the origin,” the middle-aged wizard in the deep blue robe folded his arms. “Where does that Strange’s true body hide?”

“I reckon it possesses no permanent core,” the curse witch stated. She moved to the window, flung it open, letting the wind flutter her cloak’s hems.

Beyond lay the town’s street scene—paved stone walks, squat homes, the far-off hospital steeple. All appeared serene and orderly.

Still, under that calm lurked a subtle, unnerving wrongness.

“Recall the intel from Wizard Austin?” she pressed on. “The mission brief noted these Strange rule phenomena had ‘permeated’ in. That term ‘permeate’ holds the clue.”

Jie Ming accessed the mission details via his magic network terminal and scanned Austin’s exact phrasing anew.

“Several unique rule phenomena have permeated over and infected my back garden.”

Permeate and infect.

“Hence this Strange—” Jie Ming spoke deliberately, “or better yet, most of these Stranges aren’t standalone beings. They resemble… viruses more. Lacking inherent shape, they blend into the nearby surroundings, exploiting all elements there to propagate.”

“Precisely,” the curse witch affirmed with a nod. “Normally, they’d lack any solid form, weaving straight into the ambient environment instead. The scope likely centers on this town, though exact limits remain vague.”

“It only takes physical shape under specific triggers—that finger,” the young female wizard continued seamlessly. “Then it executes murders per its rules.”

“What triggers it, though?” the burly male wizard inquired.

Once again, the wizards sank into contemplation.

“Genetic ties,” Jie Ming proposed. “Or the notion of ‘family.’ Notice how it strikes one lineage at a time. The Hans family, and those prior forty-seven fatalities, were likely felled in family clusters. It avoids wiping out the whole town outright, tackling households sequentially.”

“Not out of sadistic ‘fun,’” the thin male wizard reflected on Old Herman’s records. “Just the rules’ inherent limit.”

“How do we track it down?” queried a wizard who’d spoken little till now. “With no body and fused into the surroundings, barring us from ransacking the entire village, what’s our way to pinpoint it?”

“We await its next emergence,” Jie Ming declared. “Pre-kill, it must materialize—that finger. The instant it shows signals peak vulnerability. That’s our window to trace its core, or at least its location.”

“Yet right now, we’re blind to the curse inscription speed post-finger,” the young female wizard furrowed her brow. “Should it wrap up in a flash, we might spot the finger only after it’s fled.”

“We must prepare ahead of its appearance,” Jie Ming declared. “No need to passively wait for it to emerge in a salt shaker. Instead, we can deliberately craft the right conditions to make it manifest.”

“You mean—” the curse witch’s eyes lit up.

“Genetic material,” Jie Ming confirmed with a nod. “Each time it appears, it draws genetic data from the victim’s family line. By using someone’s genetic material as lure in a controlled, sealed space, we could draw it out to manifest voluntarily.”

“That sounds logical, though designing the experiment will take some time,” the middle-aged wizard in the deep blue robe remarked. “But first, there’s another crucial step we must handle.”

His eyes scanned the room, lingering on each of the other eight wizards’ faces.

“Stop it from getting away.”

Not a single objection arose.

Even though Wizard Austin’s intel indicated most Stranges acted like earth-bound spirits with restricted movement areas, nobody could swear this one wouldn’t abruptly relocate.

Should it flee to another town and resume its murders, the nine wizards’ reputations would suffer badly.

“Set up a barrier,” the deep blue-robed middle-aged wizard commanded. “Enclose the whole town plus a wide buffer zone using a formation array. Keep the energy low, but our skills can make up for weak power through precision.”

“I’ll design the barrier,” the young female wizard volunteered, hand raised. “Energy barrier arrays are my specialty.”

“Count me in to help,” the skinny male wizard offered. “My skill in microscopic analysis will refine the barrier’s node layout.”

“The outer structure is mine,” the muscular male wizard cracked his knuckles. Dark green glows flickered from the rings on his fingers.

“East side construction falls to me,” one wizard announced.

“West is my post.”

“South side, got it.”

“I’ll cover the north.”

Tasks were swiftly assigned among the eight wizards.

All eyes then turned to Jie Ming.

“Remain here,” the deep blue-robed middle-aged wizard instructed. “I saw you employ fate-related techniques earlier. You’re ideal for preparing the bait and surveillance.”

“But for safety, hold off on the bait. Stay central in town, extend your spiritual power, and vigilantly watch every spot. Alert us the instant that finger resurfaces.”

Jie Ming gave a nod.

The plan made perfect sense.

As the wizard noted, Jie Ming had delved into fate knowledge, bolstered by the Fate Subsystem to sift anomalies from vast data flows rapidly.

Any emergence of that finger anywhere in town would be detected by him immediately.

“How much time for the barrier?” Jie Ming inquired.

“Slow pace: one hour. Quick: half an hour tops,” the young female wizard gauged. “Key challenge is capping energy below limits. Precision work trumps brute force in spots, slowing things down.”

“One hour it is,” the deep blue-robed middle-aged wizard said, eyeing the view beyond the window.

Amber glow bathed the landscape uniformly. Lacking day-night shifts, this plane rendered time meaningless.

“In one hour, regroup at town center to launch the capture operation.”

The wizards fell silent. Each morphed into luminous streaks, darting away variously.

Jie Ming exited blacksmith Hans’s home, reaching the town’s central square.

An old stone fountain dominated the square’s heart. Crystal-clear water revealed its depths, where red koi glided calmly.

Stone tiles formed the fountain’s encircling plaza. Pathways of stone radiated outward, connecting to the town’s far reaches.

Few folks lingered in the square right now.

Now and then, a resident strolled through. Spotting Jie Ming by the fountain, they cast a quick curious look and moved on.

With the fresh Strange havoc, tension gripped the town. Nobody spared thoughts for extras.

Jie Ming settled cross-legged on the fountain’s stone rim.

Eyes shut, spiritual power flooded from his core like waves, fanning across every direction.

Every spot his spiritual power touched revealed houses, streets, trees, and people in vivid clarity within his mind.

He perceived a housewife slicing vegetables in her kitchen, the knife's edge bearing a faint curl. He perceived an elderly man napping in a rocking chair, his breaths coming evenly. He perceived two kids pursuing each other down an alley, one with an untied shoelace.

His spiritual power kept spreading outward, enveloping the whole town before reaching the nearby fields, woods, and rivers.

Simultaneously, the Fate Subsystem activated.

Deep within his mind, the Incense Fire Divine Dao's information network hummed at top speed, drawing in every data stream from his spiritual power for scrutiny.

Drawing from his mastery of fate-related insights, Jie Ming envisioned endless causal threads twisting and clashing across an illusory grid.

His eyes deepened with intensity as he sifted through the countless lines. Every sign of irregularity got flagged instantly.

Jie Ming remained perfectly still next to the fountain.

Just like a spider at its web, lying in wait for prey to brush the silken threads.