I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 881: The Wedding

“Oho, now this soul structure really is interesting.”

On the workbench before him lay a first-level mushroom-man only just cultivated, and as Jie Ming examined it with an observation array he could not help clicking his tongue in wonder.

The modification of the dragonblood mushroom-men had gone quite smoothly. Jie Ming had already allotted them a batch of resources and sent them off to breed and raise their levels.

He had not, however, converted every mushroom-man into a dragonblood creature; he had kept a batch of them in their original state as research material.

The one in front of him now was newly cultivated.

Besides that, Jie Ming had raised mushroom gardens of various levels as material for his more advanced studies.

“The standard of this soul-linkage technology is fairly ordinary, and yet with nothing but time and natural evolution it could reach a level like this? So life really does find a way. Truly interesting…”

Jie Ming could feel it clearly: by studying the properties these mushroom-men carried, both the level of his biochemical technology and his mastery counts in the life-type laws were climbing steadily.

His chief goal at present was still to raise his cultivation level and his wizard level, and whichever of the two he meant to raise, he would have to push his mastery count in the Spiritual Qi Law as high as it would go.

And now that he understood the relationship between the Spiritual Qi Law he had created and the native laws of the wizard world, his next step was to walk the path of all the laws as far as he possibly could.

To accomplish that, and to shorten the time it would take as much as he could, Jie Ming needed to obtain the Level-One Cultivation Protocol.

As for the technology by which he meant to obtain it, he had planned that out long ago; but limited by his own standard of knowledge, he could not yet develop it.

At this stage, all he could do was accumulate the various kinds of knowledge he would need.

“Fortunately, in the technology I have in mind, the knowledge relating to spiritual qi is all of very low difficulty. Otherwise I would be stopped up at both ends.”

His study finished, Jie Ming casually pressed the cleaning button beside the workbench, pinched the bridge of his nose, and prepared to go back to his work on the four elements.

“Soul and biochemistry are only auxiliary knowledge. Beyond the four elements, the other core of what I study next ought to be entropy… luckily I have the entropy-increasing flame, so I can take that as my foundation and work from there.”

Just then, an alert tone sounded from his magical network terminal.

“Hm? Is it that time already?”

One glance at the notice on the terminal and Jie Ming hurried out of the laboratory, making for the teleportation array.

By the time he stepped out of the array again, he had changed into formal robes.

The deep blue robe fitted close to his frame, collar and cuffs embroidered in silver thread with the mark of the Noren Workshop.

It was no more than the Workshop’s standard dress for formal occasions, but for Jie Ming it counted as a rather rare thing to be wearing.

After all, the overwhelming majority of his time was spent either inside a laboratory or on the way to one.

So what he had on was invariably a work robe hung about with protective arrays of every kind.

“Look at you. Put you in formal robes and you actually look rather sharp.” Viola’s voice came from one side.

Jie Ming smiled and nodded to her. “Senior Sister. What a coincidence.”

Viola rolled her eyes. “Coincidence my foot. I have been standing here waiting for you!”

“Eh?”

“Eh what? If you had forgotten what day it is, I would have had to go into that laboratory of yours and drag you out! Luckily you did not forget, so I have saved myself a little trouble.”

Jie Ming gave an awkward laugh. “Whatever else, I would hardly forget a day this important. And I am not even late…”

Viola snorted and stepped up to smooth a crease out of his robe. “No, you are not late. But any later and you would have been. Come on, Mentor’s wedding is about to start!”

“Right!”

The two of them set off for the venue at a brisk walk.

The date of Clark and Kastilla’s wedding had been settled ten years ago, and invitations had gone out to Jie Ming and the rest.

And today was the day the two of them were to be married.

The site Clark had chosen was a medium-sized plane within the Noren Workshop’s sphere of influence, one of the few planes the Workshop kept purely for their scenery.

When Jie Ming followed Viola out of the palace that housed the teleportation array, his step faltered slightly. The view before him really was beautiful to an excessive degree.

Beneath their feet lay a vast meadow growing on top of the cloud layer, a boundless sea of cloud spread out below, soft emerald blades stirring gently in the breeze; to tread on it was to feel something firm inside the softness.

“Ha! This lawn alone must have taken no small amount of thought.” At Jie Ming’s present standard of knowledge, he could see how outrageous a level of knowledge lay inside it.

Simply making a lawn on top of the clouds that one could walk on was not difficult. What was difficult was turning that lawn into natural life, life that could even propagate on its own.

Viola could not help reaching over and rapping him on the head. “Put away whatever is going on in that head of yours. We are not here to do research today!”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I have gone a bit obsessive with my research lately.”

Jie Ming rubbed his head with a laugh and followed Viola on toward the wedding venue.

As for where that venue was, it was quite conspicuous enough.

For at their feet ran a path laid with star sand, and all around the path countless tiny luminous flowers hung hidden in the air, winking on and off.

Seen from a distance, they were like fireflies without number drifting above a green sea.

Guided by the flowers and the path, the two of them soon came to a garden.

Passing the stone pillars that served as its gate, Jie Ming could hear a crisp ringing of bells; but what gave out the sound were the flowers growing on the vines that served as the surrounding walls.

“Not bad at all. Did Teacher arrange this place herself?” Jie Ming could not help remarking.

Viola shook her head. “No. The old man picked it out himself.”

Jie Ming was taken aback. “Mentor?”

Viola dropped her voice, grinning. “Did I not tell you already? The old man is a closet romantic! He said Teacher likes a lively occasion but does not care for anything too elaborate, so in the end he chose a place like this.”

Jie Ming glanced around and nodded.

It was true; one could see that from the very start there had been no intention of holding any grand celebration.

Guests were arriving in a steady trickle by now, though not in any great number, and most of those who came were old friends close to Clark and Kastilla.

On the Noren Workshop side, Grand-Mentor Anton and Wizard Noren had already arrived, the two eighth-level wizards deep in talk with several acquaintances.

Apart from them, the rest were for the most part fellow disciples of the same lineage, the ones he had seen at the ceremony for Grand-Mentor Anton’s advancement to the eighth level.

The few wizards who were not of the lineage seemed unusually familiar with Mentor Clark as well, and were gathered around him at the moment, saying something with a laugh.

Mentor Clark, too, had left off the research robe he wore every other day, plain to the point of having almost no ornament at all, for a formal black gown.

From the corners of his mouth, noticeably softer than usual, it was plain that he was in a good mood today.

Teacher Kastilla stood not far off, in a vivid red gown with fine golden runes scattered along the hem.

As she moved, the whole of her was like a flame wrapped in a cluster of starlight.

She was saying something to her own mentor, Wizard Morin, and when she saw Jie Ming and Viola come in she raised a hand from across the garden. “Over here! You two got here at last!”

Viola promptly dragged Jie Ming over. “Teacher, you look beautiful today!”

Kastilla beamed. “Of course. I am the bride today!”

And with that she deliberately turned a full circle to let the skirt flare out. “Well?”

Viola nodded again and again. “Extremely beautiful!”

Jie Ming nodded along beside her. “Beautiful!”

Teacher Kastilla laughed and patted the two of them on the head. “What good children you are!”

Just as Viola and Kastilla fell into conversation, a familiar voice came from beside Jie Ming.

“Jie Ming.”

He turned his head. It was Berta Vera Augusta.

She too had dressed formally today, which was rare for her; the black combat gear she wore on ordinary days had given way to a deep purple robe, and her hair was bound up high.

“It has been a long time, Augusta.”

“It has not even been a hundred years since we last met. That is hardly a long time.”

Augusta came to stand before him and nodded with a smile. “As it happens, though, there is something I need to tell you.”

Jie Ming looked puzzled. “What is it?”

Augusta leaned in a little closer. “That research from before, on the mushroom-men and their original plane. The family has produced preliminary results.”

“Oh?” Jie Ming was curious at that. “As fast as all that?”

“Only preliminary results, and the reason for them is rather particular.” Augusta shook her head.

“How so?” Jie Ming pressed.

“The details are somewhat complicated. Let us fix a time once the wedding is over.” Augusta glanced at him, then turned her head and let her eyes sweep the garden.

Jie Ming looked around as well and understood at once. It was true; today was not the day for discussing such things.

And even as the two of them were talking, a ring of soft light kindled at the centre of the garden.

At the sight of it, every conversation in the place gradually died away.

The guests turned, one after another.

At the far end of that path of star sand, Clark was walking slowly toward them.

And from the other side, Kastilla came out of the flower hall.

Some tens of metres apart, the two of them looked at one another.

Clark held out his hand to her; Kastilla smiled, and walked toward him step by step.

“You look very nervous today,” she said in a low voice.

Clark shook his head. “I am not.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Kastilla stared at him for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed aloud.

“Liar.”

A ripple of good-natured laughter went round at once, and even Jie Ming could not help laughing along.

Clark only looked at her, and then said in earnest, “I am very glad. A dream I have held a long time has come true at last.”

Kastilla’s smile grew warmer still. “So am I.”

The two of them took each other’s hands.

The star sand underfoot flared without warning, silver light running the whole length of the path, and the ring of stone pillars around them lit up in the same instant.

Wizard Noren and Wizard Morin stepped forward together, the two eighth-level wizards taking their places on either side of the couple, and began the most important rite of the wedding, the witnessing.

“Clark.” Wizard Morin spoke. “Are you willing to walk the years to come together with Kastilla?”

Clark looked at Kastilla.

“I am.”

Wizard Noren nodded, and then looked to Kastilla.

“Kastilla, are you willing to bear the road ahead together with Clark?”

Kastilla answered with a smile.

“I am.”

Both eighth-level wizards smiled with great satisfaction, and Wizard Noren gave a nod. “Then you may now exchange your tokens.”

Kastilla looked at Clark. “Do you still remember the promise we made back then?”

Clark said, “I have never once forgotten it.”

Clark and Kastilla raised their hands at the same moment.

Formal as the two of them were dressed this time, they wore almost no ornament at all; only the crudely worked bands on their wrists caught the eye, and caught it remarkably.

Their hands met, and the bands on their wrists slowly kindled with light.

As the alchemy took hold, the two bands wove together.

The materials of the bands interlaced with one another, then swiftly parted into two portions and congealed again, before the pair of them, into new bands.

The new bands looked altogether unremarkable, save that the two names had now been stamped upon them.

But Jie Ming, watching from below, could not help his eyes going wide.

Because he could feel quite clearly the sense of threat coming off those two bands!

Which was to say that Mentor Clark had refined two bracelet wizard artifacts out of ordinary materials, and they could actually pose a threat to him!

Viola curled her lip beside him and sent him a message on the sly by mental energy. “See? What did I tell you. Closet romantic! I suspect the old man took up alchemy in the first place purely to make good on his promise to Teacher.”

Jie Ming glanced at the pair of them, the focus of every eye in the garden, and could not help nodding. “Tru dat.”

One look at the scene before him told the whole story: childhood sweethearts, no doubt, playmates from an age too young for suspicion, who had promised each other as children to make one another the finest wizard artifact they could, or something of that sort.

In short: ugh, he could not bear to look. So sickly sweet!

Elsewhere, the ceremony was still going on.

Each of them took up the band before them, and Clark put Kastilla’s on for her while Kastilla did the same for him.

In the sky, points of starlight beyond counting blazed for an instant, as though the whole sea of stars had given its answer in that moment.

Grand-Mentor Anton, still keeping his child’s shape, was the first to applaud. “There! Now it is properly done!”

Applause broke out across the garden at once.

Viola clapped along, then gave Jie Ming a covert poke.

“Did you notice? The old man actually smiled.”

Jie Ming raised his head.

Sure enough, there was a smile on Mentor Clark’s face, and it came from the heart.

“Damn! In all these years I have never seen any other expression on Mentor’s face.” Jie Ming’s own face was a picture of shock.

Viola said, “As if I ever have!”

Whatever clowning the two of them got up to over their mental link, the wedding ceremony came to a smooth conclusion.

Once it moved on to the banquet, the place grew lively soon enough.

Several eighth-level wizards fell to talking among themselves, Wizard Noren and Wizard Morin got onto spatial technology, and Clark was drawn off to one side by a few old friends.

Jie Ming, for his part, found himself a relatively quiet spot.

He picked up a pale blue drink and looked up at the starry sky.

“…Ha!”

All at once he found himself laughing, his mood unaccountably light.