I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 899: Gains and Ideas

Not until the three figures had vanished completely did Wizard Noren turn around.

“You have all worked hard.” His gaze fell on Jie Ming and the four of the investigation team, and then he nodded in satisfaction. “This mission was completed very well. The Wonder’s causes of formation, the peripheral data, and the results of the subsequent analysis will all be recorded on file by the Workshop. The mission reward is ten billion in high-level military merit each, and it will be paid directly into your accounts shortly.”

The eyes of the several of them lit up at once.

Ten billion in high-level military merit!

By no means a small figure.

In the Noren Workshop, many seventh-level wizards toiled for several thousand years and might still not be able to accumulate military merit so vast.

Ed could not even help whistling, while Tori chuckled and rubbed his hands together.

“Lord Noren is generous indeed, as expected.”

Wizard Noren smiled and said nothing, then seemed to remember something suddenly.

“That reminds me. If any of you have need to replenish your Substitute Death Dolls, you may come to me. As for the price…” He thought it over a little. “In view of the danger of this mission, I will give you forty percent off, and your reservation places can be moved further up as well.”

The moment these words came out, the eyes of the four seventh-level wizards turned instantly eager.

They had only just died once; as to how important a Substitute Death Doll truly was, no one understood it better than they did.

Though it did feel somewhat like a recovery of their wages, whatever else might be said, this thing genuinely was a necessity.

Forty percent off, and an earlier place in the queue on top of it. No one could refuse an offer like that.

Jie Ming laughed along with them. “I want to reserve one too!”

The Substitute Death Doll he had prepared last time was still there; it had not been used up for the moment.

But of course, the more of a thing like this the better, since no one could know what he might run into next time, so he reserved one from Wizard Noren as well.

“That is fine.” Wizard Noren nodded.

The two sides quickly settled the particulars. Just as everyone was preparing to go their separate ways, a black shadow suddenly darted over from the side.

“Hey!”

Before Jie Ming could react, Grand-Mentor Anton had already sidled up next to him.

This eighth-level wizard, who looked no bigger than a child, moved with startling speed. He glanced left and right, and after confirming that no one was paying attention, furtively stuffed something into Jie Ming’s hand and made a gesture for silence.

“Do not make a fuss about it.”

Jie Ming was caught between laughter and tears by this whole performance of his; every one of the people around them was a high-level wizard, and in others’ eyes what difference was there between his movements and setting the thing out in plain sight.

Thinking this, Jie Ming lowered his head to look without meaning to, and his pupils contracted abruptly.

In his palm, astonishingly, was a transparent sphere of light the size of a marble.

And inside the sphere was sealed a silver-gray mechanical altar.

Though it had been compressed under layer upon layer of sealing, its build shrunk down in proportion as well, Jie Ming could still feel clearly the power sleeping within that altar.

The densely packed circuitry on top of the altar especially, even reduced countless times over, still maintained a certain uncanny sense of precision.

Jie Ming looked at Grand-Mentor Anton in shock. “This is… that altar?”

Grand-Mentor Anton grinned, a smile that looked thievish however you regarded it.

“That is right. We old things took no small haul this time, and keeping this thing would not be much use to us, so it is a gift for you all.”

For a moment Jie Ming had no idea what he ought to say.

Something that was plainly a ninth-level creation, and it was called “not much use”?

The several seventh-level wizards had clearly noticed the anomaly too.

They turned their heads, and after one look at the sphere of light in Jie Ming’s hand their breathing plainly grew heavier.

The few of them, calm enough a moment ago, closed in around him in an instant like sharks that had caught the scent of blood, eyes blazing, until even their gazes began to give off light.

But no one opened their mouth to ask for it.

Because everyone understood clearly that in this operation the one who had contributed most was Jie Ming, and beyond that this was something Grand-Mentor Anton had given him directly.

Looking at the expressions of the several of them, Jie Ming felt he could understand.

They were wizards after all; faced with an unknown yet intact high-level creation, no one could be truly unmoved.

Jie Ming pondered a moment, then spoke suddenly. “I can lend it to you to study.”

Hearing this, the expressions of the four lit up instantly.

“Really?”

“How much is the rent?”

“I do not want rent, but I have one condition.” Jie Ming held up a finger. “Every technical result you obtain from studying the altar, you must copy a set for me.”

“Done!” Tori shouted it out at once, as though saying it a moment late would let Jie Ming go back on it.

Ed hurried to nod as well. “No problem. Of course no problem!”

Chloe and Alma exchanged a glance, and both of them smiled. “Then we have got the better bargain.”

“It is no matter. It is only each of us taking what we need. And working with you before was very pleasant, so I trust you will not disappoint me.”

Jie Ming handed the sphere of light over offhandedly.

Watching the several of them unable to hold back the delight showing on their faces, Jie Ming’s own mood was in fact just as good.

Because he understood very well that this was the most reasonable way to use the resource.

In his hands now, he had already accumulated too much high-value research material in the truest sense.

The ninth-level endless energy source he had obtained from the octopus-man civilization alone was still sealed away in the deepest part of his laboratory; to this day he had not had enough time to take it fully apart and study it.

Beyond that, Jie Ming still had to finish as soon as possible his own research into the four great elements, and there were all sorts of techniques and knowledge from the cultivation civilization that needed studying as well.

So in the short term, these things left in his hands could only sit idle.

Go on doing all the research himself?

That was far too slow, and it might not bring out the greatest value either.

Letting people who were genuinely skilled in some field do what they were best at, and then having the results shared back, that was the most efficient way.

Thinking this, an idea surfaced rapidly.

If even a ninth-level mechanical altar could be brought out for shared research, then what about that other ninth-level creation?

That endless energy source, could it not be done the same way?

Hand it over to the people most skilled in energy engineering to study; he need only provide the access rights and the samples, and what came back might be an entire complete set of technical materials.

He might even, riding the same current, exchange it for a few genuinely precious favors.

The more Jie Ming thought, the brighter his eyes grew.

“Though I will have to consider the party I entrust it to carefully…”

Working behind closed doors could of course guarantee that the results stayed entirely in his own hands, but the problem was that it was too slow.

Wizard civilization, developed to this day, lacked nothing so little as knowledge, and lacked nothing so little as geniuses.

As it happened, what Jie Ming was very short of was talent and time.

At the present stage the research teams of the races under him were still not enough to complete research at this level; that being so, finding an “external laboratory” was only natural.

To be honest, it was because of the Great Dao Book Pavilion that Jie Ming could have a trouble like this at all; which other wizard was not racking their brains over how to obtain new knowledge?

Only some of the fairly top-level wizards had the standing to have surplus research projects and to found research teams.

If other wizards knew Jie Ming had ideas like these, they would very likely be envious to the point of red eyes.

Thinking this far, Jie Ming had already begun considering what things would be suitable to put out for the wizards to study.