I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 887: The Investigation Team

“An investigation team has two missions. The first-stage mission is to confirm the nature of the disaster’s outer reaches, its range of influence and its rough structure. The second-stage mission is to attempt to find a means of weakening, or even of breaking, the disaster in advance.”

Having said this much, Wizard Noren let his gaze sweep across the whole hall.

“Accordingly, the investigation teams will be composed of the finest high-level wizards we have, and the personnel selected will include specialists in space, time, fate, life, soul, the elements… in all of these directions.”

Throughout the hall, the expression on one high-level wizard’s face after another began to turn grave, and expectant.

The danger of a mission of this kind was of course very high. It was, after all, an unknown disaster born within the endless chaotic void, and the closer one drew to the core region, the less predictable that danger became.

But turned around, the profit in a reconnaissance mission of this kind was high enough as well. One did not even need to take into account the mission rewards the Workshop would hand out; simply being able to study the causes of the disaster’s formation through to the bottom was, more often than not, a considerable gain in itself.

After all, so long as those causes could be studied thoroughly, wizards were perfectly capable of reproducing the thing on the strength of their own knowledge.

Even if this were nothing more than a purely destructive disaster, it would still furnish wizards with a means of attack out of the common run.

What was more, for the vast majority of the “Wonders” able to form within the endless chaotic starry sky, the technology obtained once one had studied them thoroughly would assuredly not have “destruction” as its only function.

Feeling the gazes below him grow more and more fervent, Wizard Noren continued.

“Because several investigation teams are to be divided off, and because the specific mission of each team differs, the specific personnel will be assigned by Attack and Defense as a whole. I will now announce the list…”

As name after name was read out by Wizard Noren, a look of regret appeared on the faces of many of the high-level wizards below.

Clearly, they knew perfectly well where they stood.

With a designated list of this sort, wizards like themselves, who had no special strength of their own, stood essentially no chance of being chosen.

Jie Ming, in the crowd, was in fact of exactly the same mind, for he knew himself well enough.

Setting aside the various kinds of special knowledge he had obtained by relying on the Great Dao Book Pavilion, his own natural talent could not really be called good.

So once he had heard the matter through, Jie Ming’s mind had already begun to wander by reflex, working through the data he had left unfinished in his experiment earlier.

Then, all at once, Wizard Noren’s gaze fell in a certain direction.

“Jie Ming.”

Jie Ming’s expression went blank for an instant, but by reflex he straightened up in his seat. “Here!”

Wizard Noren’s voice rang through the entire hall. “You have been assigned to the First Investigation Team, responsible for the analysis of spatial structure and the detection of anomalies. Your principal task is to assist the team in judging the spatial stability of the Wonder’s outer region, and to record any spatial anomalies that may exist. The specific arrangements will be sent directly to your magical network terminal shortly.”

Though Jie Ming was rather puzzled that the choice should have fallen on him at all, faced with an opportunity like this he nodded without the slightest hesitation. “Yes!”

He glanced by reflex at the other wizards around him, only to find that not one of them wore anything resembling jealousy. A good many were in fact looking at him with open envy.

From the attitude of these wizards, Jie Ming quickly understood.

Wizard Noren’s reason for choosing him this time was, in all likelihood, genuinely not to put a little gilding on a man who had got in through connections. The Workshop truly did need a wizard well versed in the knowledge of the spatial discipline, and it had settled on him.

As for why the choice had fallen on him… by the look of it, the appraisal Savien and the other two great figures of the spatial discipline had given him at the academic exchange conference all those years ago had indeed carried enormous weight.

For three veteran eighth-level wizards of vast influence in the spatial field to acknowledge him and think well of him all at once had, to a certain extent, genuinely lifted him clear of the constraints of his level.

Of course, the drawback was every bit as obvious. That a mission of this level should have brought him to mind before anyone else left Jie Ming able to say only that he was flattered and more than a little alarmed.

“Erm… fortunately I have the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil. If it is purely a matter of carrying out an investigation, there should not be much of a problem.” Jie Ming let out a quiet breath of relief.

Over these years of cultivation, Jie Ming’s True-False Void-Piercing Pupil had passively improved a great deal amid his ceaseless research and study; for the simple recording of phenomena, he was still confident of ensuring that nothing would go wrong.

…

…

The assembly point for the First Investigation Team was a side hall in the eastern district of Noren Academy No. 1.

By the time Jie Ming got there, the other four had already arrived ahead of him.

He had no sooner set foot in the hall than a female wizard who looked to be around thirty came forward to meet him.

She wore a robe of grass green, dense vines and leaves climbing all the way from its hem to her shoulders and neck, squirming slowly in time with her breathing.

She put out her hand first, her smile easy. “Chloe Nash, elemental environment analysis. I have long heard your name, Wizard Jie Ming.”

“Jie Ming. You are too kind, Wizard Chloe.”

The two shook hands briefly.

Immediately afterward, a tall, lean male wizard came over as well.

He was draped in a gray-blue robe and his manner was refined; when his eyes moved, fine shadows of rune-light flickered ceaselessly in the depths of his pupils.

“Hello, Wizard Jie Ming. I am Ed Danka, runic structure analysis.” He seemed unexpectedly animated. “That paper you published on life stabilization field technology, I went over it several times. The core stabilizing structure above all. It really is remarkable.”

“You flatter me.” Jie Ming smiled.

The remaining two came over after them.

One of them wore a black robe as Jie Ming did, slender in build, though his bearing seemed rather indolent.

“Tori Merlin.” The man gave a casual nod. “My main line of research is temporal fluctuation.”

The last had black hair to her shoulders and pale skin, her eyes always half-lidded, the look on her face so indifferent that it verged on the gloomy.

“Alma.” She gave nothing but her name. “Fate discipline.”

“A pleasure, both of you…”

Every one of them an elite seventh-level wizard…

A single glance at the four of them was enough for Jie Ming to reach his judgment.

Every one of the four before him gave even the newly updated version of himself a certain sense of threat, and at this stage anyone who could make him feel threatened could without question only be an elite seventh-level wizard.

The strength this investigation team had been configured with could fairly be called extravagant.

Still, it made sense on reflection. For wizards, knowledge was power.

And every one of these people was a master capable of standing out from a crowd of seventh-level wizards in one particular respect, which naturally made them elite seventh-level wizards.

Turned around, the truly outrageous thing was that a sixth-level wizard like himself had got onto an investigation team at all.

What was more, judging by the attitude the four of them took toward him, there was none of the distance high-level wizards habitually kept when facing a low-level one, still less anything perfunctory.

Jie Ming could only say that he had once more to thank those three great figures, Savien, Bastian and Morna, for their endorsement.

Chloe clapped her hands. “Since everyone is here… none of you should have anything more to prepare, I take it?”

As she said it, her gaze rested chiefly on Jie Ming, so which of them the remark was meant to prompt went without saying.

Jie Ming shook his head decisively.

“Good. Since everyone is ready, then let us be off.”

Chloe called them along with a smile and took the lead in front.