I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 969: Aftermath and Conjecture

In the end, after one more three-way combined strike, the ninth-level creature finally staggered to a halt.

Its mental fluctuations grew feeble.

After it took yet another combined strike from the three plane wizards, its body went limp and it lost consciousness completely.

For a moment, the battlefield fell quiet.

Seeing this, the three plane wizards withdrew cautiously and turned to look at Wizard Fate. Only after he nodded to confirm that the creature really had been beaten unconscious did the three of them stop.

Wizard Fate stepped forward and raised a hand toward the unconscious ultimate creature.

In Jie Ming’s vision, the law-fixation rune network that had hung over the ninth-level creature all this time began to contract. Countless runes folded inward again and again, overlapping layer upon layer.

Already unconscious, the ninth-level creature had no strength left to resist at all. Its body was quickly compressed into a special seal made of runes.

Crack.

As the final sealing structure closed, this ninth-level life was finally and completely sealed.

Wizard Fate drew back his palm. He looked at the unconscious ninth-level life sealed inside the sphere of light before him, and his eyes held an excitement he could not hide. “It’s over.”

Hearing him say this, the wizards around them let out a breath too.

…

…

Several months later, Jie Ming and Jack walked among the ruins of a human city.

The buildings on both sides of the road had long since lost their former appearance. Some were reduced to weathered walls, and others had collapsed entirely after years without maintenance.

Now and then a few relatively well-preserved high-rises could still be seen, but no one had lived in them for a long time.

Plants had overrun their outer walls, and their broken windows gaped black.

Every so often, Black Giants hundreds of meters tall passed by the two of them.

These giants of astonishing height paid no attention to the crumbling walls beneath their feet. Following a route planned out in advance, they laid slabs of special material on the ground one after another, then used their own power to activate the runes inside the material.

As line after line of patterns gradually extended outward, the abandoned roads and buildings became part of a large-scale array.

Watching all this, Jack could not help feeling a little sentimental.

This was, after all, the place where he had once lived.

Though he had seldom looked at this city through an ordinary person’s eyes since becoming a wizard, now that he truly stood on these streets, familiar and strange at once, he could not help feeling that the place remained while the people were gone.

“Teacher, do you remember what you said to me when you first took me on as your disciple?”

At that moment, Jie Ming’s attention was fixed on an array node a Black Giant was laying ahead of them. His True-False Void-Piercing Pupil was running continuously, letting him see the rune structure of that area with perfect clarity.

Hearing Jack’s words, he answered offhandedly. “What did I say?”

“You said that as long as I was willing, you could simply hand me the right to rule this plane and let me be its World Lord for a few hundred years.”

Jack smiled a little, his gaze sweeping over the busy Black Giants.

“At the time I thought you were joking. After all, how could a plane this big just be handed over to me on your say-so? It was only after I became a wizard that I realized you hadn’t been lying at all.”

Jie Ming withdrew part of his attention and glanced at him. “What, regretting it now?”

“Not that.” Jack shook his head. “It just feels strange. Back then I thought that if I could really become the master of this world, I would never have to worry about resources or status for the rest of my life. But now that I’ve actually reached that point, I find I have no interest in it at all.”

“Managing a plane sounds impressive, but in reality it’s a headache. You have to arrange the distribution of resources, maintain order, and deal with every conflict large and small. If you really dropped me here for a few hundred years, I’d probably be sick of it before long.”

“It seems you’ve finally made a little progress.” Jie Ming looked at him and laughed.

“For the vast majority of wizards, managing a territory was never something to envy. What we pursue is knowledge, power, and drawing ever closer to higher truths through research. Who would be willing to waste their time on such trivialities?”

“Of course, there are exceptions. Some wizards like building up a power base, some like studying social structures, and some simply enjoy the feeling of dominating everything. But those are just personal choices.”

Jie Ming shot Jack a glance. “As for you…”

“I’m glad you’ve come to see things this way, but even if you were really given a plane, do you think that with the strength of a first-level wizard you could actually manage one properly?”

The smile on Jack’s face stiffened for an instant. “Teacher, I was only musing.”

“Then study and research more. Musing without the strength to back it up is nothing but idle complaint.”

With that, Jie Ming paid him no more mind and turned his attention back to the array in front of him.

Jack could only shake his head helplessly. It felt rather like facing his parents back in the day.

Still, Mentor Jie Ming was not wrong.

Only after becoming a wizard had he truly understood the things that had once seemed so incredible.

To an ordinary person, the right to rule a plane was wealth and power beyond imagining.

But to a wizard who truly stood at the top, a plane more often meant resources to command, an environment to study, and manpower that could be mobilized at any time.

The right to rule itself mattered far less.

Because power was authority!

Whenever Jie Ming wished, he could hand this place over to Jack to manage, without needing to apply to anyone.

But Jack no longer needed that kind of authority to prove himself, because he now had the means to increase his own strength.

At that thought, he looked at Jie Ming ahead of him and could not help asking, “Teacher, why have you been staring at these arrays the whole time? They’re complicated, but surely not enough to absorb you this much?”

“It’s certainly not only the arrays themselves,” Jie Ming said. “I’m studying the essence of how they operate.”

Jack was somewhat puzzled. “Aren’t these arrays just for integrating all of my home plane into the Infernal Sulfur Plane? Is there some special technique involved as well?”

“Plane integration itself is hardly a novel technique. What’s truly worth studying is the spatial fusion and energy conversion involved, and the way the origins of different planes are joined together.”

As he spoke, Jie Ming raised a hand and pointed at a section of the array not far away that had already been laid. “Look there.”

Jack followed his finger and saw only runes and nodes crisscrossing the ground.

They looked extraordinarily intricate, with clear differences in hierarchy between the individual nodes.

At his current level, he had no way to understand the principles behind them.

Jie Ming had not expected him to understand either. He simply went on. “Connecting two planes isn’t so simple. Planes repel one another, so the spatial relationship between the two worlds has to be adjusted step by step until that mutual repulsion is reduced to a minimum, and then part of their structures can be integrated. The Infernal Sulfur Plane will gradually take in this plane’s spatial and material structures, and in the end it will absorb your home plane into its own world system.”

“That doesn’t sound like something that can be finished in a hurry.”

“Of course not.” Jie Ming nodded.

“What’s being laid now is only the initial array. Once it’s running, there’s still a great deal of work to do. Adjusting the spatial structure, merging the plane boundaries, rebuilding the energy cycle, and reconciling the various rules will all take time. As for how many years it will take in the end, that depends on how it actually runs.”

He did not explain further, instead turning his gaze back to the arrays.

There was one thing he had not mentioned. The real reason he was so absorbed was his True-False Void-Piercing Pupil, which was gradually “regressing.”

After Wizard Fate and Wizard Starfall had departed with the sealed ninth-level creature and the three plane wizards, the wizards who remained behind had begun handling the aftermath of the operation.

This operation centered on the Central World had achieved astonishing results, which also made the clean-up work troublesome.

They needed to sort through what the exploration had yielded, distribute the valuable research materials, confirm the ownership of each plane, and fold the planes that no longer needed to exist independently into the existing plane system.

Jack’s plane was one of them.

This region had long been under the control of wizard civilization. Letting it continue to exist as an independent plane would only add to the cost of managing and maintaining it.

Rather than that, it was better to integrate it into the Infernal Sulfur Plane, so that its resources, spatial structure and other valuable assets gradually became part of the Infernal Sulfur Plane.

Jie Ming had come in person this time partly to take charge of the corresponding clean-up work, and partly because he wanted to use the opportunity to study the various techniques involved in the plane integration process.

But there was another, more important reason.

Ever since that ninth-level creature had been sealed by Wizard Fate, Jie Ming had clearly felt his True-False Void-Piercing Pupil begin to show signs of “decline.”

After entering the Central World, his True-False Void-Piercing Pupil had suddenly broken past its original level and reached a height that even he could not understand.

But after the ninth-level creature was sealed, Jie Ming had found that the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil was gradually losing that near-omniscient vision.

“It’s probably not simply tied to that ninth-level creature.”

Jie Ming pondered silently. “It should… have something to do with the ‘injury’ it had at the time.”

…Though this inference had no evidence whatsoever behind it.

But one thing was clear.

This opportunity absolutely could not be wasted.

Even if this state was about to vanish, as long as he could understand the patterns behind as many different phenomena as possible before it faded, he had a chance to turn this experience into a gain of his own.

More importantly, he also hoped that through intensive use, the Body Forging Method would try to adapt to this state.

The Body Forging Method itself possessed a certain capacity for adaptive evolution toward beneficial states.

As long as he kept the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil at this special level and observed different rune structures intensively, his body might gradually adapt to the state, turning what had been a transient change in ability into a more stable physical trait.

Of course, Jie Ming did not expect the Body Forging Method to fully adapt to the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil in so short a time.

But even if he could not keep this final state, as long as enough positive adaptation took place and his body drew closer to it, he would be able to bring the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil back to this level more easily in the future.

That was exactly why, over these past few days, he had let almost no chance to observe slip by.

Take the integration arrays being laid before him. He was studying them closely through the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil, trying to find the deeper principles of their operation.

As the last few nodes were connected, the entire array was finally laid.

The Black Giants in charge of inspection confirmed the array’s status one section at a time, then passed the results to the Black Giant priest in the distance.

“All main nodes stable. Spatial anchoring complete.”

“Energy cycle normal.”

“Ready to activate.”

Several voices came one after another.

Jie Ming gathered his focus and locked his gaze firmly on the whole array.

The next moment, the array was formally activated.

Countless runes lit up in sequence, and energy flowed swiftly along the preset paths.

The nodes scattered everywhere seemed to come alive all at once, establishing one stable connection after another between them.

Then, with the vision he now possessed, Jie Ming saw subtle changes he had never been able to perceive before.

The runes representing spatial structure were adjusting.

The boundary of all of Jack’s plane began to draw toward the Infernal Sulfur Plane in the way the array dictated.

At the same time, some of the spatial parameters inside the plane changed as well, and structures that had once been independent of each other gradually showed signs of interlocking.

The change was not violent. On the surface at least, the city was still the same city, and the abandoned buildings showed no obvious difference.

But in Jie Ming’s vision, the spatial structure of the entire plane had already entered a new phase of operation.

He quickly concentrated on several key nodes, observing how the connections between the runes changed and how they completed their transitions between different structures.

A moment later, a satisfied look came over his face.

Though many details still needed further study, he now had a fairly clear understanding of at least the basic principles by which this array operated.

Not long after that, the decline of the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil crossed some critical point and suddenly accelerated.

The rune structures that had been perfectly clear began to blur.

The details he had been able to see directly vanished from his vision one after another.

Certain complex relationships between the runes no longer revealed themselves to him, as if an invisible barrier had once again fallen between him and the world.

Jie Ming immediately concentrated, trying to memorize as many of the final details as he could.

Unfortunately, this decline was not subject to his will.

A few breaths later, the world in his eyes had returned to the way it used to be.

The True-False Void-Piercing Pupil’s level had fallen completely back to normal.

Jie Ming slowly let out a breath. He showed no great disappointment.

He had seen almost everything there was to see, and the information he had just gained was enough for him to study at leisure once he returned.

As for that higher level of vision…

“I’ll find it again sooner or later.”

Jie Ming felt the dull ache in his eyes from running the True-False Void-Piercing Pupil so long, and the stirring of the Body Forging Method, and he was satisfied.

“Teacher, is it over?”

Jack asked, watching the array gradually stabilize.

“The initial activation is over,” Jie Ming said.

“There’s still a lot of work ahead. For some time to come, spatial structure adjustments will continue here until the integration of the two planes reaches a stable state… What you saw was only the very first step of the whole project.”

Jack nodded and committed the information to memory.

Jie Ming looked at him and suddenly asked, “What do you plan to do next?”

“Keep cultivating, then complete the task you assigned me,” Jack answered quickly.

Jie Ming did not respond at once.

He had thought of the “test” Wizard Starfall and Wizard Fate had run before.

The test’s successful conclusion had not put Jie Ming at ease. Quite the opposite: its results had sounded an alarm in his heart.

Wizard Starfall’s and Wizard Fate’s actions clearly pointed toward a future that was fast approaching.

Jie Ming had a vague sense of it: within a few thousand years at most, they would have to take part in a brutal war.

“Jack,” he said abruptly.

Jack was taken aback. “Yes?”

“From now on, don’t waste your energy on things that don’t matter. You need to raise your strength as quickly as possible, and fill in your knowledge systematically at the same time.”

Jack noticed that Jie Ming’s tone had changed, and his expression grew serious too. “Teacher, has something happened?”

“Not yet,” Jie Ming said calmly. “But I have a feeling that trouble is coming very soon.”

Jack’s expression gradually turned grave.

He knew very well that Jie Ming was not the sort to raise alarms for nothing.

If his teacher had gone out of his way to warn him, then this could not possibly be an idle remark.

“I understand,” Jack answered earnestly. “I’ll raise my strength as fast as I can.”

Jie Ming nodded and said nothing more.

He had given what warning he could. How far Jack went in the end would ultimately depend on Jack himself.

The two of them continued on through the ruined city until they reached the temporary transit node.

Next, Jack still had to complete his upcoming conscription duties, and Jie Ming had to hand over the follow-up work to the wizards in charge of this plane integration.

Jie Ming and the Black Giant priest went through the key matters one by one, and once he was sure nothing had been missed, he prepared to leave.

Jack stood to one side watching him, and suddenly hesitated. “Teacher.”

“What else is there?”

“Do you think I’ll really be able to help you someday?”

Jie Ming stopped and glanced back at him.

“Of course you will.”

Jack was visibly stunned.

Jie Ming raised a hand and patted him on the shoulder.

“Heh heh heh heh… You little fellow, you think far too little of yourself. I’m very lucky, you know. I just happened to grab a genius like you as a disciple without even trying.”

“A genius? Me?” For a moment, Jack could hardly believe it.

Yet Jie Ming nodded in earnest. “Of course. Though in my view, when it comes to research in the logistics discipline, you are admittedly… hmm… a bit slow on the uptake.”

“Uh… Teacher, you really don’t need to put it so delicately.”

“Ahem… But in the field of the combat discipline, your talent is greater than your teacher’s.” Jie Ming gave an awkward cough. “As I see it, you can at least reach Augusta’s standard, so don’t sell yourself short.”

Jack drew a deep breath and nodded solemnly. “Yes, Teacher.”

Then he turned and left.

Jie Ming watched his figure gradually disappear. Once he had confirmed that all the follow-up matters were properly arranged, he activated the spatial teleportation and left this abandoned city.

Author’s Note: (Two chapters in one. This is the only chapter today.)