I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 799: The Research Team

After that battle ended, Jie Ming did not immediately throw himself into new research.

Back in his laboratory on the Infernal Sulfur Plane, he sat quietly by the window for a while, then closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into his spiritual sea again. Every detail of his exchange with Augusta was traced back in full by the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil, turning into slowly flowing images of light and shadow within it.

From the first collision of fists, to the Void Ash Return to Origin Hand reversing a state of existence, to the final forcible reversal of his own state through “the meter running backward,” all of it was taken apart down to the finest detail.

After a long while, Jie Ming slowly opened his eyes and murmured, “…as expected. Still not enough.”

The Void Ash Return to Origin Hand had performed better in a real fight than he had originally estimated.

It could not only knock an enemy’s attack back into a state of existence where it had “not yet happened.” Used on himself, it could reverse his own point in time outright, restoring spiritual power, mental energy and even injuries to their peak.

But the more that was true, the more clearly he realized that the technique was nowhere near his own limit.

Fighting Augusta, there had been several occasions when, facing her continuous compound offensives, his Void Ash Return to Origin Hand had been half a beat slow. It was not that his spiritual power was insufficient, nor that his computation could not keep up. It was that his level of understanding of the Law of Time was too low, leaving the technique stuck at the stage of merely “being castable.”

When the technique responded, every reversal of a state of existence required him to actively parse the target’s temporal anchor and then overwrite its information of existence. That process could have been faster.

Fast enough, even… that an enemy would never realize he had been hit.

“Law mastery is still short by a stretch.”

Jie Ming let out a light breath.

At that thought, he raised a hand and opened his magic network terminal, the pale blue federation interface unfolding in an instant.

He did not hesitate at all. He went straight to the Star Ring Federation’s strategic resource marketplace and swept up a batch of plane origin relating to the Law of Time. Order confirmed, military merits transferred.

As the identity and authorization check completed, the terminal gave a light shudder.

[Purchase successful.]

[Estimated delivery time: four hours.]

Seeing the prompt, Jie Ming closed the screen offhandedly.

Once, a purchase like that would have left him aching for a long while.

But the hundred billion-scale low-level military merits the Blood Sacrifice Method now brought in steadily each year were enough to turn the overwhelming majority of his cultivation problems into simple questions of funding.

A problem that can be solved with money has never been a problem.

Two hours later, the first batch of temporal plane origin arrived.

In the quiet chamber.

Masses of plane origin hung around Jie Ming, each like a frozen river of time, countless fine temporal patterns flowing slowly within.

Jie Ming sat cross-legged and let his consciousness probe slowly into them.

In an instant, countless pieces of knowledge concerning time poured into his spiritual sea like a torrent.

At the same time, the Entropy Brain talent began running at high speed.

Vast quantities of knowledge were sorted automatically, then interwoven with the systems of knowledge Jie Ming already held on spatial law, water elemental law, life law and the rest. At the center of his spiritual sea.

The golden thread representing the Law of Time began extending continuously, and finally came slowly to rest at a level equivalent to one thousand percent law mastery. Jie Ming did not immediately withdraw from cultivation, but quietly felt out the changes in his spiritual sea.

A moment later, he shook his head lightly.

“As expected. That earlier gain already combed through the knowledge I had, so this time the effect is not so large.” The direct growth brought by plane origin was still a fixed hundred percentage points.

Adding the seventy percent of law mastery he had gained over this past century working out the Void Ash Return to Origin Hand, that meant this batch of new knowledge had added only around a hundred and thirty percent of law mastery.

Compared with the very nearly explosive gain when he had absorbed temporal law origin the last time, the rate of growth had clearly slowed considerably.

Which meant his knowledge in the other laws had not grown much.

He had anticipated that.

His current mastery of the Law of Time was already sufficient for the Void Ash Return to Origin Hand at its present stage.

It could even be said that Jie Ming’s comprehension of the technique might not require law mastery this high.

Jie Ming slowly raised a hand.

Hmmm…

Pale gray light surfaced in his palm again.

Only this time, compared with before, faint golden tracery had appeared within the gray.

That was not spiritual power. It was the Law of Time in the truest sense.

Laws resonating with one another, and the phenomenon that arises naturally out of it.

Gray and gold turned slowly, and the whole hand seemed to drift free of time itself.

He pointed lightly at the experiment bench, and a half-used vial of reagent on it took on a faint gray glow.

The liquid in the bottle began flowing backward, its surface rising slowly, and in a blink it had returned to the full bottle it had been when first unsealed.

The whole process was fluid and smooth, and the change was no longer abrupt but natural, with even the fluctuation of magical force far weaker than before. Jie Ming nodded in satisfaction.

Only now did the Void Ash Return to Origin Hand genuinely qualify for use in high-level combat.

He waved the gray-gold light from his palm, picked up the volume on the sixth-level runic system beside him, and went on studying.

Several more years passed, and Jie Ming, in the middle of his studies, suddenly raised his head. He had felt a faint fluctuation run through the Incense Fire Divine Dao in his spiritual sea. A communication request surfaced, and by its soul aura it came from the research team he had established.

Jie Ming’s expression stirred, and he accepted at once.

The image of a Black Giant priest in prayer surfaced in his mind, and a voice came through immediately.

“Reporting to our Master. The dragonman bloodline rune upgrade program has completed final verification. All test results are within expectation. We respectfully request our Master come and inspect them.” Jie Ming set down his book and rose slowly.

“Understood. I will come at once.”

A pillar of spatial teleportation light rose from the quiet chamber.

The next instant, Jie Ming stood in the research park in the southeast of the Infernal Sulfur continent.

This was the largest comprehensive experimental base on the entire plane.

Compared with the personal laboratory Jie Ming ordinarily used, the space here was several times larger.

Its dome stood over a hundred meters high, countless floating platforms crossed one another, all manner of large experimental apparatus ran continuously, and the air was thick with the particular scent of psionic energy interwoven with the elements.

In one experimental zone, Black Giant priests were distributed among the workbenches, the vertical pupils on their chests vibrating without pause as they exchanged experimental data in their distinctive low-frequency waves.

On the other side, a Tentacle Tree researcher waved dozens of tendrils, operating a dozen or more precision instruments at once.

Its crystal eyes flickered at high speed, continually correcting the experimental parameters on a light screen.

In a room beside the laboratory stood an enormous ecological pod.

Through the transparent energy barrier one could see a whole dense forest growing inside.

Here, countless plant-people had taken root, tens of millions of individuals together forming a vast plant network.

Clearly, after all these years of development, the plant-people had sent their own population to serve as researchers as well.

When Jie Ming appeared, the entire forest seemed to wake at once.

Countless branches and leaves swayed gently, leaves brushing one another with a faint and pleasant rustling.

That was how plant-people expressed delight and welcome.

“Master.”

A Tentacle Tree researcher came forward at a quick pace.

To be precise, dozens of tendrils moved rapidly at once.

He bowed respectfully to Jie Ming and reported on the whole experiment at speed:

“After thirty-seven rounds of structural optimization, ninety-four rounds of stability verification, and over seven hundred simulated experiments, we have completed the final version of the dragonman bloodline rune.”

As he spoke he waved a tendril and worked the data tablet in his grasp to unfold a light screen, dense data very nearly filling the whole field of view.

“The batch of dragonmen you brought did not have a particularly high innate concentration of true dragon bloodline. Left to grow naturally, their ceiling of life level would have stopped at around the fifth.”

“But that is no longer the case.” There was undisguised excitement in Hadar’s voice.

“The new bloodline rune can continuously activate the true dragon bloodline within them, the line that comes from Suoyuan.”

“In theory, given sufficient resources and time to grow, every one of them has the potential to advance to eighth-level life.” Jie Ming took the data tablet, his gaze running quickly over the results.

Judging by the outcome, the dragonmen affected by the bloodline rune had improved substantially in dragon blood activity, scale density and wing load capacity alike.

Very nearly every metric showed a leap.

“Because the observation period has been limited, we have so far only completed batch verification at the sixth-level stage,” Hadar went on.

“However, by our current observations and model projections, there should be no structural defect in their subsequent growth.”

Jie Ming nodded slightly. “Even so, be cautious when rolling it out. Observe for as long as you can and watch for any unknown side effects… where are the dragonmen who were tested?”

“They are undergoing their daily routine examination at the moment. This way.”

Hadar pointed respectfully with a tendril, then led Jie Ming toward the experimental zone on the other side.

Several of the modified dragonmen stood at the center of a detection array.

Compared with the dragonmen Jie Ming remembered, the change in them was extremely obvious.

Their broad wings had very nearly doubled in size, their scales showed a dark golden luster, and fine tracery flowed faintly along the edges.

And deep in those golden vertical pupils, a true dragon mark extremely similar to Suoyuan’s turned slowly.

The sixth-level life aura of these dragonmen was steady and substantial, without the slightest hollowness of growth forced too fast.

Jie Ming examined all three in turn, confirmed there was nothing abnormal, and found them better even than he had expected.

He closed the data tablet, and a trace of a smile finally appeared on his face:

“You have all done very well. Better than I expected, in fact.”

His voice was not loud, but the whole experimental hall fell silent in an instant.

Every researcher stopped work at very nearly the same moment.

The Black Giant priests lowered their heads in salute, and the Tentacle Trees dipped their crystal eyes slightly.

Even that rolling forest in the ecological garden swayed gently in unison, branches and leaves brushing with a pleasant rustle. Jie Ming let his gaze travel slowly across them all. “It may be a little early, but I think we can essentially declare that this research project has been a complete success!” At that, the researchers present broke into cheers.

This was the first time the research team had genuinely completed a large-scale scientific project independently, without Jie Ming presiding over it in person.

From theoretical derivation to scheme design.

From experimental verification to data analysis.

And through to forming a complete technical system that could be reliably put into application.

The success of the bloodline rune meant not only that the dragonman civilization now had a foundation for genuinely reaching high-level life, but that the research team Jie Ming had built had truly come into being.

They had begun to possess research capability of their own.

Set beside the dragonman bloodline rune itself, that was this experiment’s greatest gain.