I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 833: Robbery

Early the next morning.

The reception plane the Void Architecture Academy had set aside lay bathed in morning light.

Beside the teleportation hall, people were already scattered about preparing to leave.

But as these wizards left, they still could not help glancing toward one particular teleportation array.

There, the four most conspicuous figures of this academic exchange conference were gathered together.

Jie Ming stood before the teleportation array, taking his leave of Savien and the other two one by one.

“Boy, if you have questions in future, contact me any time.” Savien waved his own magical network terminal offhandedly, his tone casual.

“Spatial studies are hardly a thing one can research to the bottom in an exchange or two.”

Bastian laughed aloud as well. “If you come to the Anti-Entropy Alliance next time, remember to tell me in advance. I will take you to see the laboratories those few old fellows at the Alliance keep at the bottom of the trunk.”

Morna smiled faintly and nodded lightly. “Take care on the road. There are a great many more people watching you now than when you first arrived.”

At that Jie Ming bowed in all seriousness. “Thank you, all three of you, for looking after me these past weeks. I hope there will be a chance to seek your instruction again in future.”

Savien waved a hand and cut his courtesies short:

“Enough of these empty forms. Hurry back and get on with your research.”

“Next time we meet, I hope you can still produce something new enough to astonish all three of us.”

Jie Ming smiled, a certain earnestness in his eyes:

“Of course.”

As the spatial array slowly lit up, a silver-white pillar of light burst open and swallowed his figure entirely.

…

…

The first half of the journey back was unusually smooth.

Jie Ming passed through several public junction points in succession. Registration, payment, teleportation; the whole procedure was very nearly identical to the way out, without a ripple.

That was within Jie Ming’s expectations too, since he had only recently left the Void Architecture Academy and was still within the sphere of its controlled territory, naturally a great deal more stable than the central part of the public zone before.

Until… Jie Ming stepped onto a teleportation array once again.

As space began folding layer by layer, that familiar sensation of weightlessness came over him again.

But Jie Ming, standing quietly at the center of the teleportation light array, felt his gaze sharpen abruptly an instant before the teleportation was to begin!

Wrong!

The destination’s spatial coordinates had been altered!

Under normal circumstances an ordinary sixth-level wizard genuinely could not detect whether a public teleportation array’s spatial coordinates had been changed.

But Jie Ming had experienced it once when the black wizards attacked him, and on top of that he was currently in the particular state of the Mustard Seed Dao-Holding True Body Art, with extremely acute perception of space, so he noticed that thread of wrongness at once.

Someone had tampered with his teleportation destination!

Jie Ming’s gaze went cold in an instant.

He did not rashly interrupt the teleportation, though; the teleportation had already begun, and to break out of it by force midway would very likely mean falling into a spatial crevice, with consequences hard to predict.

Fortunately, Jie Ming had long anticipated the accidents that might occur.

A magical network terminal appeared in his hand. Jie Ming stroked a finger across it, and then his whole person vanished into the silver light.

Hmmm…

As the silver light before him slowly dispersed, solidity returned underfoot.

Just as Jie Ming had thought, what met his eye was not the public junction point he had booked.

Around him was an utterly desolate floating continent, with not a single building to be seen within a range of several hundred kilometers, nor any trace of a living creature.

The sky too was a dull gray expanse, pressing down until it was hard to breathe.

“It seems… the same approach as the black wizards before, using part of a fragment of some abandoned plane as a battlefield.”

Feeling the violent elemental turbulence howling past without pause, Jie Ming was in no hurry to act, but first unfolded the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil to scout for intelligence.

Very soon, Jie Ming turned his gaze in one particular direction.

His field of vision pierced instantly through layer upon layer of spatial barrier and “saw” a figure hidden within a spatial crevice.

Apparently realizing he had been found, a figure walked slowly out of the spatial crevice.

It was a tall middle-aged wizard in a black robe bearing no marking of any kind.

Although he looked utterly unremarkable on the surface, Jie Ming went on alert the instant the man appeared, his whole being bristling like a cat.

The reason was the aura about the man.

Seventh level!

Although the mental energy fluctuation still carried a certain unsteadiness, and the oppressive weight of his power fluctuation was not so heavy, indicating he had broken through not long ago, he was nonetheless a genuine seventh-level wizard!

“Has the fact that the Reflection Prism is in my hands been exposed?!”

Seeing a seventh-level wizard lying in wait for him, Jie Ming thought of that instinctively.

But he rejected the idea at once.

If the Reflection Prism’s existence really had been exposed, then the one lying in wait for him now would certainly not be merely a newly promoted seventh-level.

The middle-aged wizard looked at Jie Ming, and yet a very nearly guileless smile appeared on his face.

He did not attack immediately; on the contrary he waved at Jie Ming quite warmly. “Wizard Jie Ming? I have been waiting for you at last.”

As he spoke, this wizard actually gave a very polite bow. “Let me introduce myself first. My name is Hogg, and I am a… mm…”

At that point he actually paused in all seriousness to consider his wording, then spoke with great gravity: “Freelance resource redistribution worker.”

“A what?” Jie Ming frowned.

Freelance resource redistribution?

What kind of profession was that?

Seeing the plain confusion on Jie Ming’s face, Hogg coughed lightly, a somewhat embarrassed look coming over him.

“Ahem… there is actually a more common way of putting it… robber.”

Jie Ming: “…”

The air seemed to go suddenly still for a moment, and even with Jie Ming’s self-possession the corner of his eye could not help twitching.

A seventh-level wizard… working as a robber?

And able to say it with such perfect self-assurance, no less?

Hogg showed not the slightest embarrassment, however, and smiled with complete composure:

“Nothing to be done. I have only just broken through to the seventh level and I am genuinely a little short of funds. I hear the Mobius family compensated you with a good many resources, so I would like to borrow some from you, Wizard Jie Ming.”

He said it so naturally that his tone sounded very nearly as casual as borrowing pocket change from a good friend.

Jie Ming was silent a moment. “Borrow?”

“That is right!”

Hogg nodded in all seriousness. “Only borrow a little. Though of course, when I return it is another matter.”

At this Jie Ming was finally certain that this fellow really was a robber!

…At least on the surface.

Jie Ming looked Hogg up and down, calculating rapidly in his mind.

That the man could know about the Mobius family’s apology gift meant his source of information was not a low one… he had at least come into contact with some information internal to the academic exchange conference.

Yet the man’s manner of conducting himself was nothing at all like an operative some power had deliberately cultivated.

Of course, it was also possible he was simply disguising it well.