I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 836: The Return

The rest of the journey went smoothly, and the three of them soon returned to the Noren Workshop.

Wizard Noren and Grand-Mentor Anton Buchanan very nearly could not wait to follow Jie Ming onto the Infernal Sulfur Plane’s teleportation array.

Standing beside the laboratory’s teleportation array, the child-shaped Grand-Mentor Anton kept rubbing his two plump little hands together in front of him, an expectant smile on his face entirely unbefitting his standing as an eighth-level wizard.

“Hurry up, hurry up!” he urged, chin lifted, undisguised impatience in his tone. “Noren you old thing, what are you dawdling for? Get moving!”

Wizard Noren shook his head with a laugh. “Do not be so unsteady. A dignified eighth-level wizard, and you see one stone and act as though you have never been out in the world.”

For all he said it, Wizard Noren’s own pace quickened somewhat.

“This is no ordinary stone.”

Grand-Mentor Anton muttered, his eyes never once leaving Jie Ming.

The two followed Jie Ming through layer after layer of protection and soon reached the area set aside for storing important items, where Jie Ming took out the Reflection Prism wrapped in layer upon layer of seals.

Across the obsidian-like surface of the prism, beneath the suppression of layered seal runes, a dim luster still moved.

That luster was extraordinarily restless, as though some giant beast were sealed within.

Jie Ming set the Reflection Prism lightly on the experimental bench, then called up the contract template on his magical network terminal, fingertips rapidly drafting a standard loan agreement on the light screen.

Jie Ming passed the contract over, a certain gravity in his tone:

“Here are the terms as agreed. This thing is lent to you both for research, but a complete copy of all related knowledge produced in the course of that research is to be given to me. And when I need it, it is to be returned at once.”

Anton did not even look before pressing his own mental imprint onto the contract, moving as though afraid Jie Ming might change his mind if he were a moment late.

Wizard Noren, by contrast, read the terms through carefully and unhurriedly before nodding. “Reasonable and fair. This is what we agreed in the first place.”

With that, he likewise left his mental imprint on the contract.

Then he looked up at Jie Ming, a note of approval in his tone:

“You handled the various matters this time very well, cautiously enough. It seems you have learned no little from Clark over these years.”

“You flatter me.” Jie Ming smiled. “What this thing involves is too important; a little caution is always to the good.”

Anton, off to one side, had by now crowded up to the Reflection Prism, unable to wait, and reached out to touch it, only to have Wizard Noren slap the chubby little hand aside.

“Your temperament turned reckless once your body shrank!” Wizard Noren glared at him. “The seal is not undone yet and you already want your hands on it?”

Wizard Anton withdrew his hand sheepishly. “That is only concern clouding judgment…”

Then he turned to look at Jie Ming again, the smile piling back onto his face:

“Boy, your luck really is good, better than that wretch Clark’s. But now that this thing is lent to me like this, are you sure it does not pain you?”

Jie Ming looked entirely indifferent and spread his hands. “Grand-Mentor, you jest. At my present level, even if what is inside the prism were set out in front of me I could not bite through it. Better you two research it first than have it sitting here going to waste.”

“And if you two blaze a trail first, then when I reach that level in future I can simply pick the fruit. What you research will save me the effort of researching it myself. Why would I not?”

“You put it plainly enough.” Wizard Noren nodded.

Anton found it thoroughly amusing too and winked at Wizard Noren. “Listen to that. This boy has it worked out more clearly than anyone.”

But then something seemed to occur to Wizard Noren, and he shook his head helplessly. “Yet simple as the reasoning is, that attitude of yours is still rare. Anyone else, even knowing the logic, might not bear to hand this thing over so readily.”

Jie Ming was mildly curious at those words, but Anton had already pulled him over beside the Reflection Prism. “Enough, stop holding up the real business!”

Jie Ming nodded, sketched a few runes offhandedly, and the seals on the Reflection Prism broke themselves layer by layer.

Looking at the energy source beside the Reflection Prism, Wizard Anton clicked his tongue in wonder. “Your luck really is something, boy. Only sixth-level and you have got hold of two ninth-level creations, one of them a treasure this precious.”

“Grand-Mentor, this thing is not sitting here at random…” Jie Ming explained the Reflection Prism’s signal-emission principle carefully.

Wizard Noren nodded from one side. “I see. That is indeed quite a common method, and fortunately easy enough to handle.”

As he spoke, without either of them appearing to do anything, Jie Ming’s True-False Void-Piercing Pupil registered that the fluctuations the Reflection Prism gave off had been shielded in an instant.

“Very well, we will not disturb you.”

Grand-Mentor Anton said so, but his hands had already hoisted the Reflection Prism up, unable to wait.

Jie Ming did not even have time to take proper leave of the two before he watched them carry the Reflection Prism out of the laboratory in high delight.

Even Wizard Noren, who had behaved with such steadiness throughout, walked inexplicably fast.

Jie Ming could even hear Grand-Mentor Anton, at the moment of stepping onto the teleportation array, still arguing with Wizard Noren over who should get to research it first.

“I am younger than you, so I should go first!”

“What sort of crooked logic is that?!”

The two voices vanished into the teleportation light, arguing the whole way.

Jie Ming smiled and did not much mind, and went back to putting that ninth-level creation, the energy source, properly away again.

A moment later, the teleportation array lit up once more.

Viola and Clark walked out one after the other.

The moment she saw Jie Ming, Viola folded her arms and looked him up and down with a complicated gaze mixing envy, jealousy and indignation.

Those eyes very nearly had “what gives you the right to steal that much of the spotlight from a mere conference” written all over them.

“Jie Ming, you brat. You go to one academic exchange conference and come back with a reputation this size.” Viola drew the words out, sour and long.

“I hear even the spatial-studies great figures of the Void Architecture Academy and the Anti-Entropy Alliance praised you publicly. Do you know what they are calling you out there now?”

“What are they calling me?” Jie Ming looked at her with interest.

“The rising new master of the spatial field!” Viola bit down on the words with particular force.

Jie Ming said nothing, only watched her with a faint smile.

“Stop putting on airs, you!”

Unable to bear Jie Ming’s attitude, Viola lunged at his head and bit down.

But Jie Ming did not go tearing about the place as he had before. He merely gave a few cold laughs. “Heh heh heh heh… you did not expect this, did you, senior sister? This body of mine is only a puppet now, and I have not installed a pain system!”

“What?!” Viola raised her head with a shocked face. “Playing petty tricks like that!”

The two of them scuffled a while, until in the end Clark could no longer bear the sight and picked Viola up by the collar and tossed her aside.

Clark glanced at Jie Ming and nodded slightly. “You did well this time.”

That said, he dragged Viola off, as though he had teleported over solely to say those few words.

Of course, given Clark’s own nature, going out of his way to say those few words was already an extremely high assessment.

As for whether “did well” meant he had done well at the academic exchange conference or done well in his handling of the Reflection Prism… that was left to individual interpretation.

Judging by Viola’s reaction, though, Jie Ming thought Clark had most likely not told her about the Reflection Prism, and had not let slip so much as a hint of it.

Which was as it should be.

Wizard civilization has no end of means of detection, and while a soul cannot be searched directly, there are plenty of ways to learn a piece of information if one truly wants it.

For important matters, the fewer who know the better.

The Reflection Prism involved the experience of ninth-level advancement, and if information of that order leaked, never mind the public star region; a great many eighth-level wizards even among the four great powers, especially some of the old monsters who had existed none knew how many years without being able to advance, might well take the field in person.

Having seen the two off, Jie Ming returned to the workbench in the main laboratory, sat down, and began going carefully through the gains of this trip.

Apart from the Reflection Prism, already carried off by Wizard Noren and Grand-Mentor Anton, the main gain this time was naturally the growth of knowledge.

The great mass of frontier theory Jie Ming had absorbed at the academic exchange conference, the mental energy fluctuation regulation technique from the combat session, and the new lines of thought that had come out of discussing spatial studies with Savien and the other two had all solidly enriched the system of knowledge in his mind.

Reflected in law mastery, taking one hundred percent mastery as a base of one, after all these days of the academic exchange conference Jie Ming’s greatest gain, the spatial law, had reached thirty, while his other laws had all risen by two to five as well.

What that gain brought was a further increase in the rate at which Jie Ming’s Law Solidification Domain grew.

His Dharma Form was simply too large at present, though, so the Law Solidification Domain still could not be put to use in combat in the short term.

The other gain was of course that after the Life Homeostasis Field technique was uploaded, his military merit income soared again.

Add to that the fact that the Blood Sacrifice Method’s income had not yet entered a stable period and was still selling continuously, and these two income streams meant he had no need whatever to worry about array eye materials, nor to live tightly ever again.

Beyond that, the gains in personal connections were enormous as well.

The friendship of Savien, Bastian and Morna, the three spatial-studies great figures, goes without saying, and Jie Ming had made a good many other acquaintances at the academic exchange conference besides.

He had only met these people once, with no friendship to speak of, so there was naturally no point hoping they would help with anything.

But a large proportion of these fellows came from eighth-level wizard families, and for Jie Ming their greatest use was as customers.

If nothing else, the pairing of the hallucination resistance device and liquid Essence Gold, whose sales had already stalled, sold a good deal more on the strength of these people.

Beyond these gains, however, there were things Jie Ming was not satisfied with, such as that battle with the seventh-level wizard.

Granted, being able to defeat a seventh-level wizard was already enough for the overwhelming majority of sixth-level wizards to boast about.

But Jie Ming, who had actually crossed hands with Hogg, knew perfectly well that Hogg was a raw recruit not long promoted to the seventh level.

Whether in his manner of using a Law Solidification Domain or in his accumulation of various kinds of knowledge, he was still at the sixth-level stage; it was purely that the volume of his law and mental energy had reached the seventh-level baseline.

And even against an opponent like that, Jie Ming had not been able to take him down easily.

He had relied on the Ash Return to Origin Hand to bear the man’s attacks by brute force, and on the double reinforcement of the Dharma Form and the Light God Transformation to barely hold the upper hand in the contest of energy, and in the end had ground the man down bit by bit through attrition.

Having fought that battle, Jie Ming was quite clear that the gap between himself now and Mentor Clark at the same sixth level was enormous.

After all, at the sixth level Clark had once faced over a hundred and thirty seventh-level wizards alone, and suppressed them head-on at that.

And those were over a hundred genuine seventh-levels, no few of them seasoned veterans.

Yet before Clark as he was then they were crushed with ease, and had there not been another two thousand-odd sixth-level wizards coordinating with them, those seventh-level wizards might well have been slaughtered outright.

That crushing dominance stood in enormous contrast to the sorry state of Jie Ming now, needing repeated maneuvering and self-healing to barely win against one newly promoted seventh-level.

“Strictly speaking, though, I have only been promoted to the sixth level a short while myself, and Mentor had been at the sixth level for many years by then, so I still have a chance to catch up.”

Nor did Jie Ming belittle himself; as he said, he still had considerable room to improve.

Leaning back in his chair, Jie Ming thought silently for a while, then sat up straight again and called up the Talisman-Rune Artifact modification plan on his terminal.

At this stage there were a great many paths Jie Ming could take to raise his combat power.

But whether accumulating knowledge, improving the Law Solidification Domain, or comprehending the Mustard Seed Dao-Holding True Body Art, none of them could be completed overnight.

Reckoning it up a little, Jie Ming found that the closest to completion was in fact the development of the sixth-level new-version Talisman-Rune Artifact.

And as it happened, having attended this academic exchange conference his accumulation of knowledge had gone up another notch, and he could already attempt to create sixth-level spells of his own.

“That reminds me. In that case I could first look into the technique Wizard Rades taught; it could raise a spell’s destructive power a fair amount.”

The rune frequency combination skill Wizard Rades had taught at the academic exchange conference could on average raise a single spell’s destructive power only by around five percent.

But there was no getting around the fact that Jie Ming’s Talisman-Rune Artifacts also employed a cultivator’s energy-control techniques, so even a five percent increase became a considerable return once amplified.

“Then… let us create an offensive spell first.”

The spells suited to a Talisman-Rune Artifact were chiefly simple, brute-force energy bolts and beams of various kinds.

Thinking it over, Jie Ming unfolded a light screen, called up information on sixth-level beam-type spells, and buried himself in research.