I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 823: The Reception

Toward evening, the reception hall was brightly lit.

Above the dome, one floating crystal stone after another gave off a golden radiance.

At the center of the hall stood a banquet table a good several hundred meters long, laid out with specialty refreshments from every great civilization.

Autonomous dolls of every different form hurried through the crowd carrying drinks, and a faint fruit fragrance hung in the air.

Sixth- and seventh-level wizards gathered in twos and threes, raising their glasses and talking quietly.

Because the overwhelming majority of wizards passed information to one another by mental energy, the whole hall was unexpectedly silent.

To the wizards, though, one could feel clearly that the hall was filled throughout with the lively atmosphere that comes of thought colliding with thought.

Released at last from the “dark little room,” Jie Ming used alchemy to shape himself a new black robe, patted his face to wake himself up a little, and only then walked slowly into the hall.

Very nearly the instant he entered, a good many nearby gazes turned toward him as one.

After all, over these past days, from researching together with Savien daily, the two names of Jie Ming and the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol had long since spread through the whole exchange conference.

Had it been merely a specialized stabilization technique for assisting low-level wizards, however widely it spread, a great many people here would not have cared.

Putting it unkindly, quite a few of those present carried one or even several similar techniques of their own.

But add Savien to it… and especially the ability to research together with Savien, and the gold content of the thing was another matter entirely!

A good many people were full of interest in this young wizard.

It was purely out of awe for Savien’s name that nobody had dared disturb Jie Ming this past month.

But today’s welcome reception had been held for the very purpose of letting everyone get acquainted, which counted as a proper official endorsement, so naturally some began to grow restless.

It would be no exaggeration to say that in the instant Jie Ming stepped into the hall, several rounds of covert engagement had already been fought throughout it, and an order of precedence was quickly “decided.”

An eighth-level wizard from the Crimson Court, likewise an extra invitee, had just prepared to walk over with his glass when, on the other side, an elder from the Anti-Entropy Alliance smiled and set off as well.

Beyond that, several more eighth-level wizards were moving together, meaning to come forward and make Jie Ming’s acquaintance.

But before any of them could draw near, a familiar voice sounded first. “So you have finally turned up, boy!”

Savien, wearing a silver-gray robe, was somehow already standing beside Jie Ming.

At the sight, the faces of the crowd who had been so eager to come forward fell one after another, and they withdrew obediently.

Savien swept a glance over those around him and then, as though he had seen nothing at all, said directly to Jie Ming, “Come with me. They have been waiting a long time for you.”

Jie Ming smiled and did not refuse. “All right.”

The two headed straight for the depths of the hall.

Watching their backs recede, one of those who had meant to come over and strike up a conversation sighed helplessly. “It seems there will be no getting acquainted with this rising star today.”

“Nothing to be done. Wizard Savien is right there; who is going to fight him for the man?” Another shook his head with a wry smile. “Never mind, we will look for a chance later. The exchange conference has a good while left to run in any case.”

At that, the crowd that had gathered there dispersed as well.

Someone watched Jie Ming’s departing back, eyes full of envy.

…

…

The atmosphere in the depths of the hall was entirely different from outside. There were only a handful of round tables here, and few people, and yet very nearly the most eminent figures of this exchange conference were gathered among them.

As Savien brought Jie Ming in, two figures at one of the round tables raised their heads together.

One of them was a male wizard, tall and imposing, his hair gone gray, his body as straight as a spear.

He merely sat there quietly, and yet the space around him faintly took on an exceedingly strange sense of balance.

It was as though any unnatural spatial fluctuation that came near him would settle of its own accord into stillness.

The other was a female wizard in a pure white robe, her expression mild, long dark green hair falling to her waist.

Floating around her were transparent crystals of varying sizes, and each crystal seemed to have an independent little space sealed away inside it.

On seeing the two, Savien produced one of his rare smiles. “Introductions. This is Jie Ming, the young fellow I told you about.”

Then he introduced the two to Jie Ming. “That old fellow is Bastian, of the Anti-Entropy Alliance, and the other is Morna, of the Void Architecture Academy.”

Hearing those two names, Jie Ming’s gaze tightened slightly.

Even though he had had some expectation of how eminent the people he was about to meet would be, ever since Savien said he wanted to introduce a few people, he still felt the pressure now.

Because these two were, in the whole spatial academic world, legendary figures in the true sense of the word.

Bastian above all, one of the most senior eighth-level spatial wizards the Anti-Entropy Alliance still had.

So far as Jie Ming knew, the man had already stood at the peak of the eighth level hundreds of thousands of years ago, and had simply never managed to break through to the ninth.

But a very important reason Bastian had never broken through to the ninth level was that he had poured the overwhelming majority of his energy into perfecting fundamental spatial theory.

Today, over thirty percent of all the large-scale spatial teleportation systems in the whole of wizard civilization were built, directly or indirectly, on his theories.

In the field of spatial studies, the wizards whose achievements surpassed his… numbered exactly one ninth-level wizard!

As for Morna, she was one of the Void Architecture Academy’s actual academic leaders today.

Many super-scale construction projects spanning multiple planes, including even legendary structures such as the Titan’s Grip, had been designed under her personal direction.

If Savien was a master of spatial theory, then Morna was the one who could turn those theories into reality.

Jie Ming had long since seen these two names cited as references in countless textbooks and papers, and had never expected to meet them in the flesh here today.

“This junior, Jie Ming, greets Lord Bastian, greets Lady Morna…” Jie Ming at once performed a standard wizard’s salute.

Bastian smiled and waved a hand at Jie Ming, his voice mild and weighty. “Sit. There is no need for such courtesy; there is no distinction of senior and junior here.”

Morna nodded with a smile from beside him. “Anyone Savien brings over personally is qualified to sit at the same table as us, so there is no need to be overly formal.”

Savien clapped a hand on Jie Ming’s shoulder as well. “Boy, you were never this stiff facing me. Why so careful with these two?”

Jie Ming felt rather helpless at that, but sat down obediently in the chair all the same.