I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 861: Setting Out

After that meeting, several more years slipped by in the blink of an eye.

For Jie Ming, those years could hardly be called easy.

Noren Workshop's admissions reform had been rolled out in full.

Several years had now passed since the first batch of students raised under the new system enrolled, and the actual results had far exceeded the original expectations.

The number of new students had indeed shot straight up, exactly as anticipated. An intake that in the past had taken five or six consecutive rounds of recruitment to fill could now be met in full by a single round.

But set beside the growth in quantity, the improvement in quality was the more outrageous of the two.

As for the rise in talent, the wizards had in fact known of that much back when the education reform was first proposed.

Only after experiencing it in practice, however, could anyone appreciate deeply just how outrageous an improvement it was.

The Blood Sacrifice Method forced an apprentice's talent up to the theoretical limit of the current stage, so that tenth-level-talent apprentices, who in the past had appeared only occasionally and only with a stroke of luck, had turned outright into mass-produced standard issue.

The gain for the logistics system was not especially large, but for the combat system, which held the greatest numbers, the growth in a wizard apprentice's combat power was visible to the naked eye.

Because the previous batch of wizard apprentices had not yet graduated, and had not had time to gather resources enough to strengthen themselves with the Blood Sacrifice Method, it had even become common within the combat system for the new batch of wizard apprentices to crush the older batch outright in combat power.

The facts had proven it. This system genuinely worked.

Because the new batch of wizard apprentices cultivated at a speed far beyond any earlier record, some mentors had already begun to hope the graduation requirements would be revised, so that a wizard apprentice who advanced to first-level wizard within ten years could still go on studying.

For a variety of reasons, however, the Workshop's leadership had not agreed to it for the time being.

Jie Ming stood before the academy's newly built admissions hub, checking the data on the light screen one last time.

“Soul sampling, stable.”

“Clone cultivation, stable.”

“Blood Sacrifice array status… perfect!”

He swept over the final line of data, confirmed there were no anomalies, and closed the light screen with a casual motion.

“That will do. It is essentially confirmed. This system can run on its own.”

The admissions system he had designed with his own hands had now entered fully automated operation.

From soul sampling at the fetal stage, to cultivating the clone body, to the Blood Sacrifice array completing the aptitude reconstruction, the entire process had been broken down into a standardized procedure.

So long as it ran to the parameters, swapping in an entirely different set of operators would cause no great problem.

Which meant that he could finally take his hands off the matter for good.

Having confirmed one last time that he had completed the academy's assignment, Jie Ming began arranging affairs on the Infernal Sulfur Plane.

The Black Giant legion's daily training was handed to Molten Mountain and several Black Giant priests.

The research project on the Tentacle Tree Civilization would continue to be driven forward under Hadar's direction.

As for the refinement of the array eyes for the All-Heavens Star Grand Array, the Creation System kept it running automatically, so it needed none of his attention for now.

Once he had confirmed that everything was properly arranged, Jie Ming checked over the equipment on his person once more.

Only then did he step onto the teleportation array.

The light of teleportation swallowed his figure entirely.

…

…

Another transit plane.

Dazzling silver light lit the center of the teleportation array, and Jie Ming walked out of the ripples in space.

“You are here at last.”

A familiar voice came from one side.

Jie Ming turned his head to look. Viola was standing not far off.

Today she had clearly dressed with intent: a brand-new deep blue robe, her long silver-grey hair gathered behind her head in a crisp high ponytail. There was rather less than usual of her everyday languor about her, and rather more of the capable professional.

She raised a hand and waved at him casually. “What were you dawdling over in the laboratory before we set out?”

“I was giving the admissions system one last check.” Jie Ming stepped down from the teleportation array. “It is running stably now.”

“Good, then.” Viola nodded.

Clark, beside her, wore the same insipid look as ever, and gave a slight nod once Jie Ming had come closer.

“Mentor.” Jie Ming bowed respectfully.

Clark answered lightly. “Mm.”

Having joined the two of them, Jie Ming stood alongside them and went on waiting.

Viola, however, was not a creature fond of keeping still. Having at last got hold of someone to talk to, she had barely let Jie Ming settle beside her before she opened up, all smiles:

“With us going to fetch our mentor's bride this time, that Azrael on the other side is hardly likely to let the matter rest.”

Jie Ming's gaze shifted slightly. “Does this Azrael hold a very high position over in the Scarlet Hive?”

So far as Jie Ming understood it, the man ought to be no more than a seventh-level wizard.

One had to remember that even a power on the level of Noren Workshop had upward of a thousand seventh-level wizards, and the Scarlet Hive was several times larger than Noren Workshop.

Unless this Azrael's talent was extraordinarily high, a seventh-level wizard's position ought not to count for very much.

“His position really is not low.” Viola looked thoroughly enthused. “The school he belongs to is one of the Scarlet Hive's principal schools, and that school alone has two eighth-level wizards above him.”

“And the fellow counts as a rare genius of the Law of Decay besides. He is a genuine veteran seventh-level wizard.”

Put that way by Viola, Jie Ming understood.

A genuine veteran seventh-level wizard meant that this Wizard Azrael had also researched law deepening and law extension at the same time while at the sixth level, raising his own law mastery base to ten thousand before he advanced.

“And you know how it is. If this fellow could corroborate and combine his law with Teacher Kastilla's, he would most likely reach the eighth level, so that school of his is certainly backing him rather heavily at the very least.”

Jie Ming turned it over. “By what you are saying, the Scarlet Hive's other schools are probably not too pleased about it?”

Viola's face broke into a wicked grin. “No wonder you are my junior. You may have no social experience to speak of, but you are clever enough!”

“The middle part of that was unnecessary…”

“Broadly speaking, different factions are bound to have their own conflicting interests.” Viola ignored what he had said entirely. “Wizards settle matters by strength to begin with, so anything that can directly raise a critical piece of strength, and a level along with it, is certain to run into considerable trouble.”

Hearing her put it that way, Jie Ming understood. Plainly put, it came down to the power being too large.

A middling power like Noren Workshop, with only two eighth-level wizards, had so few people at the top that it could actually pull together all the more readily.

The Scarlet Hive was likewise called a middling power, but so far as Jie Ming understood, they had at least a dozen or more eighth-level wizards.

The more people there were, the more tangled the interests became.

“Then how much strength can he mobilize?” Jie Ming asked.

Viola curled her lip. “Not too much. With those at the top holding one another in check, the most troublesome force is certainly the man himself. He is a peak seventh-level wizard, after all.”

“This fellow we can leave to Mentor to handle himself, though. Mentor is certainly going to want to school him with his own hands.”

As she spoke, Viola elbowed Clark beside her.

Clark glanced at her and made no reply.

But Jie Ming and Viola, as his students, recognized their mentor's attitude at once.

“That fellow is done for.”

Jie Ming shook his head, silently mourning in his heart for the Wizard Azrael he had never met.