I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 830: Transition and a New Technique

As everyone gathered into the hall, a fresh light screen unfolded slowly at its center.

【Topical Symposium】

【Today’s subject: Exploring the Optimal Fit Between Mental Energy Fluctuation and Rune Combination】

【Chair: Wizard Rades】

Looking at the subject on the light screen, Jie Ming was slightly taken aback.

Rades’s subject, of all things, and the very content he had presented today.

Jie Ming looked instinctively around him, and found the wizards nearby were not in the least surprised; on the contrary, eager looks had surfaced on their faces.

It seemed the technique Wizard Rades had released really had roused a good many people’s interest.

“Just as well, though. I happen to be very interested in this technique myself.”

While Jie Ming was thinking this, another conference-room passage unfolded at the side of the hall, and at the sight the crowd surged toward it in a rush; Jie Ming naturally followed along.

…

…

Compared with the by-the-book instruction of the earlier session, the so-called topical symposium was in fact a genuine brainstorming session.

Wizard Rades stood at the center of the venue and, rather than demonstrating any more spells, raised a hand and unfolded a vast mental energy frequency model in midair.

“At this symposium, our main task is to look for the pattern in here…”

As he spoke, points of light spread out like a river of stars, and set after set of runes arranged themselves in order.

“Why do they need different frequencies? Why is there no unified pattern? Is there a common frequency between different laws…”

One question after another was thrown out, and in only a moment the whole venue had come thoroughly to the boil.

Jie Ming listened to the brainstorming and recorded and worked through it furiously.

The entire topical symposium ran a full two hours, and by the time it ended the night outside was deep.

What followed it was, naturally, the dinner.

Compared with the restraint of the earlier welcome reception, once the exchange conference proper had begun the atmosphere of the whole dinner was plainly a great deal more relaxed, and quite a few wizards moved through the crowd with glasses in hand.

Many exchanged magic network contact details with one another and agreed on future dealings, and a fair number even settled joint research plans on the spot.

Jie Ming likewise made a good many new acquaintances, and although he met no one at the level of Savien, every one of these researchers had quite deep attainments in his own field.

By the time the day’s exchange had ended, Jie Ming felt he had gained a great deal.

…

…

Over the next several days, the academic exchange conference held to this rhythm throughout.

Jie Ming moved between different sessions through the day, took part in the topical symposium in the evening, and after dark attended the dinner or free exchange, packing his whole schedule very nearly airtight.

In one short week he came into contact with a great many research directions he had never touched before, and a good number of techniques opened up new lines of thought for him.

On the eighth day after the exchange conference began, his own report came round at last.

That morning, Jie Ming stood before the full-length mirror in his room, checking himself over.

The young man in the mirror wore a dark golden robe, its hems crisp, without the slightest crease.

Jie Ming reached out and adjusted his cuffs lightly, confirmed the medal worn at his chest, then put the stack of materials already prepared on the desk away into his spatial ring.

Perhaps influenced by the atmosphere of the conference these past days, Jie Ming was unusually somewhat tense.

He drew a deep breath, pressed down the barely perceptible thread of excitement at the bottom of his heart, pushed open the door and set off for the conference’s main hall.

Along the way, people kept nodding to him in greeting of their own accord.

“Good morning, Wizard Jie Ming.”

“Wizard Jie Ming, I am looking forward to today’s report.”

Jie Ming nodded and answered each with a smile, his pace unbroken, and soon reached the main hall.

After listening to today’s keynote address, Jie Ming confirmed with the committee member on duty which venue was his for the day, then set off for his own session.

But the instant he pushed open the venue’s doors, his steps came to an abrupt halt.

Because… there were far, far too many people!

As far as the eye could see, the whole hall was packed with wizards in robes of every kind.

The space, which could originally hold several hundred people, had at some point been extended again and enlarged several times over.

And even so, every seat was full.

At a rough sweep, Jie Ming estimated at least close to ten thousand people were seated.

That number accounted for most of the entire academic exchange conference’s attendance.

…

…

Rewind a little.

That morning, no sooner had the address ended than a good many people had run over here to claim seats early, and were now talking in lowered voices.

“We have finally reached this day.”

“I hear the technique Wizard Jie Ming is bringing out this time still has to do with the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol?”

“It will be those techniques he researched together with Lord Savien, presumably?”

“No, I hear Wizard Jie Ming developed it himself, though Lord Savien seems very interested in it too!”

Just then a slight stir came from the venue’s entrance, and three figures walked in side by side.

They were precisely Savien, Bastian and Morna, the three most eminent existences in the spatial academic world.

The three came in with calm expressions and walked straight to the seats in the very front row.

And the appearance of these three left the whole hall instantly a good deal quieter.

Right after that, countless mental energy fluctuations began circulating quietly through the crowd.

“Those three… came together, of all things?!”

“Were there not two other eighth-level wizards giving reports today? They did not go to listen to those?”

“By the look of it they turned everything down. It seems they really are here for Jie Ming!”

“Outrageous. I hear that at the welcome reception they had already publicly acknowledged Wizard Jie Ming’s talent, and today they have actually come in person to hear the report…”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. The significance of that is entirely different. This is no longer mere acknowledgment; this is standing behind him!”

“Indeed, and three great figures standing behind him together!”

“Is this Jie Ming really worth these three doing this? He does not have some enormous backing, does he?!”

When Jie Ming came in, he could feel clearly that although the venue was quiet, it was full of flowing mental fluctuation.

And once Jie Ming had entered, countless gazes focused on him again for a moment, all of them full of envy.

Standing at the entrance, Jie Ming looked over the very nearly full hall, then turned his gaze to the trio seated in the front row.

Savien and Morna only smiled at Jie Ming with reserve, which counted as a greeting.

Bastian was more direct, and waved a hand at Jie Ming:

“Boy, hurry up and begin. I am rather impatient! Do not disappoint me!”

Jie Ming smiled and nodded to the three by way of answer.

“Hssss!!!”

Hearing Bastian address him so “affectionately,” the wizards in the venue could not help drawing in a collective breath.

Those wizards who had been certain the three were backing Jie Ming because he had some great backing could not help their mouths falling open at Bastian’s words.

An attitude like that was not something mere backing could produce!

Having greeted Savien and the other two, Jie Ming stood at the center of the podium, expression calm.

“Thank you all very much for coming to hear my report today.”

Jie Ming smiled at everyone present, then raised a hand slightly.

As his mental energy poured out, the enormous light screen behind him unfolded slowly.

Runes spread rapidly one after another, sketching out an exceedingly stable three-dimensional array in midair.

At the sight, the nearly ten thousand wizards present fell silent together, the mental energy fluctuation that had circled the whole venue vanished rapidly, and all that was left in the session hall was the faint hum of runes in operation.

Jie Ming had no intention of exchanging pleasantries either; one sentence of greeting and he went straight to the point.

“Everyone present should be aware that the core function of the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol I invented earlier is to maintain absolute stability and absolute closure of an environment.”

As the words fell, the rune model in the light screen abruptly contracted into a silver sphere of light that hung in midair, turning quietly.

Runes of various kinds surfaced across the sphere: the Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol.

“And what I am going to speak about this time is this technique’s advanced form.”

Jie Ming raised a hand and tapped lightly, and that silver-white sphere of light flew abruptly to the other side.

There, at some point, a standard model of a human body had been projected, hanging lifelike at the center of the light screen.

In the instant the two made contact, the silver sphere merged straight into the body model, and a layer of silver rune tracery surfaced across the model’s surface.

Jie Ming’s voice sounded at the same time. “The focus of this technique still rests on stabilizing a target, but the difference from the earlier Self-Stabilizing Field Regulation Protocol is that the new technique moves the object of stabilization from the surrounding environment to the living body itself!”

As the words fell, the whole venue was unexpectedly silent.

Because a good many of the wizards present had not immediately grasped it.

After all, the technique Jie Ming had introduced sounded very simple, and yet also as though it were not simple at all.

What it genuinely meant, nobody dared draw a hasty conclusion about.

Jie Ming paid these reactions no mind and went on with his explanation:

“As everyone knows, a living body is in itself a continuously changing dynamic system. Flesh, mental energy and soul influence one another and feed back to one another. A violent fluctuation in any of them causes overall stability to fall.”

“And the technique I am reporting today will neither heal a life’s injuries nor raise a life’s strength. Its one and only function… is to keep a living body’s flesh and soul stable at all times!”

Screech!

At the suddenly intruding sound of a chair scraping, everyone present instinctively turned their attention to the back of the hall, every gaze swinging that way at once.

There, a seventh-level wizard had shot to his feet.

This area was where the combat wizards were concentrated, so compared with the other seats it looked rather empty.

The number of combat wizards who had come to Jie Ming’s report was not large; or rather, in the overwhelming majority of the reports there was no sign of a combat wizard at all.

After all, even if they came, all they could do was let their minds go blank.

Yet at this moment those combat wizards, who ought to have had vacant eyes, were all staring wide-eyed, their breathing quietly turning rapid.

Everyone could plainly feel that these combat wizards, ordinarily each steadier than the last, now had eyes bright to the point of being frightening.

Only on noticing that the whole room was watching him did this seventh-level wizard suddenly realize how he had lost his composure, and at once sit back down as though nothing had happened.

But although his body was seated again, those eyes stayed fixed on Jie Ming on the stage, not moving a fraction.

Several sixth-level logistics wizards to one side could not help looking puzzled.

“What is the matter with them?” someone could not help asking his companion in a low voice.

The combat wizards’ reaction really was too extreme; quite a few of them were so worked up that their Law Solidification Domains had surfaced despite themselves.

And subtle fluctuations had appeared across the surfaces of those Law Solidification Domains as well, like ripples rising on water.

Not every wizard failed to understand, though.

One wizard who had handled plane wars for years let out a slow breath, a certain weariness deep in his eyes. “Because they know better than anyone what this thing actually means.”

“You have been high-level wizards too long; you have probably long since forgotten. Back when you were low-level wizards, the first thing the vanguard did on setting foot in an unfamiliar plane in any plane war was never to fight. It was to adapt!”

The several sixth-level wizards were briefly blank, and then realization came over their faces.

Yes. Because they had been sixth-level wizards so long, they had forgotten that back when they were low-level wizards, the first enemy to be dealt with on entering a new plane was not the native creatures but the environment!

Every plane’s elemental concentration, elemental ratios, law structure, gravity, rate of time flow, spatial structure… all had their own particular characteristics.

Within some rather unusual planes, even the way mental energy propagated might be entirely different.

Wizards above the sixth level could still force adaptation and isolation by way of a Law Solidification Domain, but wizards below that could only adjust themselves by brute force.

This wizard slowly closed his eyes, as though recalling something he would rather not raise again:

“Facing planes whose laws differed too greatly, a great many young wizards who ought to have had boundless futures did not lose to the enemy. Their mental energy fell out of balance the moment they set foot on the battlefield, and they were cut down by the enemy with ease in the next instant.”

The combat wizards’ faces were grave.

This was a sore point that everyone who had lived through a plane war knew perfectly well and could not solve.

An unfamiliar plane means absolutely unfamiliar rules, and however outstanding a wizard’s talent, he needs time to adapt.

But war has never given anyone that time.

And as the vanguard of every war, combat wizards understood that predicament best of all.

That seventh-level combat wizard looked toward Jie Ming on the stage, his gaze complicated beyond words:

“If this technique really is as he says, and can ensure a wizard’s mental and physical stability after setting foot on an unfamiliar plane, then even if it holds for only a few short seconds, that is enough to let countless young lives survive!”

“In that case the floor of a wizard legion’s combat power will rise by a whole level at a stroke, and the vanguard’s death rate would probably fall substantially because of it!”

More and more people realized the importance of the matter, and could not help their eyes going wide.

This apparently simple capability seemed in fact to be a technique that could genuinely rewrite the shape of war for the wizard legions!