I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 787: Verification
Having spent a while getting used to how his raised aptitude felt, Jie Ming worked the puppet body over to the experimental area on the other side.
Compared with the hall he had just left, with its six hundred-odd cultivation pods, the space here was a great deal smaller.
Only ten pods stood in neat rows, pale blue nutrient solution circulating slowly inside them with a regular, faint hum.
Ten figures floated quietly within.
They had faces exactly like Jie Ming’s, and were clearly his clones as well.
Only the life aura they gave off was entirely different from the Dao Integration clones next door.
Jie Ming stood before the pods, worked the light screen beside him idly, and data soon surfaced.
Life level: sixth.
Mental strength: sixth-level standard.
Physical strength: sixth-level standard.
Beyond that, there was not a single figure worth remarking on.
Seeing it, Jie Ming nodded in satisfaction.
Strictly speaking, these clones could not be called sixth-level wizards. They only counted as sixth-level beings.
That was the greatest difference between the wizard civilization and the cultivation system.
A cultivator’s power derives in large part from his realm.
Even a rogue cultivator with no inheritance to speak of, relying purely on the natural command of external spiritual qi that comes with a higher realm, can obtain quite respectable combat power so long as his realm is high enough.
But a wizard’s power derives mainly from knowledge.
The clones before him had sixth-level mental energy and sixth-level bodies, but without the corresponding high-level knowledge of alchemy, runecraft, spatial studies and soul studies to support it, they amounted to nothing more than beasts with an extremely large reserve of energy.
A genuine sixth-level wizard could use knowledge to cut through an army of same-level beasts with ease.
Looking at the ten bodies in the pods, the corner of Jie Ming’s mouth slowly lifted.
“Making a genuine sixth-level wizard is expensive. But making a sixth-level being… is a great deal cheaper.”
Setting combat power aside, cultivating a sixth-level being required only continuously pouring in energy, strengthening the mind and raising the life level, and the whole process barely called for any technical skill.
All told, cultivating a sixth-level clone consumed far fewer resources than a Dao Integration clone.
If a Dao Integration clone cost a hundred units of resources, then a sixth-level clone like this probably cost less than ten. These, in fact, were simply an offhand use for the resources left over from cultivating the Dao Integration clones, at very low cost.
It was precisely because of that that Jie Ming grew steadily more confident about the commercial value of his future aptitude enhancement technique.
Low cost was, after all, an enormous advantage in itself.
With that in mind, Jie Ming waved a hand, and all ten pods opened at once.
The pale green nutrient solution drained slowly, and ten sixth-level clones opened their eyes and walked out.
Their gazes were empty, and they looked no different from Jie Ming’s puppet.
Jie Ming did not hesitate in the slightest. Beneath his feet, an enormous blood-colored array covering the entire hall lit slowly.
Dark red lines spread rapidly like blood vessels, blood-colored runes linking all eleven figures.
Jie Ming stood at the array’s center, with the other ten clones standing in order around the outside.
As he raised his right hand, the whole array roared into operation.
Hmmm…
The next moment, all ten clones began breaking down at once.
Body, soul, bloodline… everything turned rapidly into countless streams of crimson light, converging along the array’s lines and pouring at last entirely into Jie Ming.
Boom!
But partway through that continuous infusion, the expression on Jie Ming’s face suddenly changed slightly.
Because he could feel that not long after the ritual began, the power had abruptly turned aside and driven straight into his body and soul. His flesh began strengthening continuously, his spiritual sea began expanding rapidly, and his mental energy rose like a tide.
Jie Ming slowly closed his eyes and quietly felt out everything happening inside him.
A moment later he opened them again, and something odd surfaced in his gaze.
“…so that is it.”
By his understanding of the Blood Sacrifice Method, only one situation produced this phenomenon.
That the beneficiary’s aptitude had already reached the limit his current realm could contain.
Further sacrifice could no longer raise aptitude, and so the remaining offerings automatically turned into the purest life origin, used to raise cultivation, body and mind instead.
Jie Ming was silent a moment, then could not help stroking his chin.
“My wizard aptitude… is already that high?”
But thinking it over, back when his aptitude had been measured at Noren No. 13 Academy, it was precisely Qi Refinement’s expansion of his soul and mind that had raised his talent level considerably.
At that thought, Jie Ming grew reflective.
“That makes sense. The cultivation system is itself continuously expanding the soul. The stronger the soul, the higher the mental potential.”
“Which amounts to… raising wizard aptitude in step.”
He tapped lightly at the experiment bench.
Seen that way, the localization of the Blood Sacrifice Method he had developed really was effective.
But what had just happened left Jie Ming uneasy.
“Since there are too many variables in my own case, I should find a proper wizard to run the experiment on.”
At that thought, Jie Ming did not hesitate. He picked up the magic network terminal beside him.
A light touch of mental energy, and a call went out.
Before long a familiar light screen unfolded in midair, and Viola’s figure appeared on it.
She wore a black and gold robe, and behind her was the continent of a plane in the middle of being remade.
In the distance, countless alchemical floating platforms were moving slowly.
Evidently she was still as busy as ever.
Seeing Jie Ming, Viola laughed.
“What is it? Junior Brother, could you not bear the loneliness any longer? Do you want your senior sister to come and take over the academy garrison early?” She blinked.
“No trouble at all. I would be very happy to help.”
The corner of Jie Ming’s mouth twitched, and he decisively ignored his senior sister’s teasing.
“I have an experiment here that needs your cooperation.”
At the word experiment, the smile on Viola’s face only deepened.
She propped her chin on her hand and looked at Jie Ming on the other side of the screen.
“Worked out something new again? Is it dangerous?”
Jie Ming shook his head. “No. I have verified the whole experiment many times over, and there is essentially no risk. I am just short one high-level sample…” Before he had finished, Viola nodded without hesitation.
“All right. How do you need me to help?”
At that, a certain warmth rose in Jie Ming.
Both Mentor Clark and Viola trusted him without reservation.
He let out a light breath and said with a smile:
“For now I only need a couple of things.”
“Which are?”
“A little of your genetic material, Senior Sister, and a little soul debris.”
Viola blinked, then narrowed her eyes.
“Hm? You want my soul?”
She looked him up and down, the corner of her mouth slowly lifting.
“Little Junior Brother, you would not finally be preparing to study me, would you?”
Jie Ming put a hand to his forehead helplessly. “They are only experimental samples. Rest assured, nothing dangerous is involved.”
Viola gave a light laugh. “Understood. Wait a moment.”
The call closed.
In less than two minutes, the small teleportation array beside the laboratory lit with silver-white light.
Two transparent test tubes, already sealed several times over, came to rest quietly at the center of the teleport platform.
One held a thread of pale golden blood.
In the other floated a small, soft, bright cluster of soul light.
Jie Ming walked over and picked the two tubes up gently.
Feeling the familiar life aura in them, Jie Ming nodded.
“Then… let us begin the verification.”