I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 981: The War Begins, and Thoughts of Advancement

Learning that the Level-One Cultivation Protocol had given him a certain degree of administrative authority, Jie Ming breathed a sigh of relief.

Even so, he did not rashly make the decision on anyone else’s behalf. He first asked Mentor Clark and the other two whether they wanted the timing and tasks of their war conscription arranged in advance, so as to steer clear of the most dangerous battlefields.

To his surprise, all three gave the same answer:

“No need.”

Clark’s reply was blunt. “Since the war can no longer be avoided, there is no call to interfere unduly with task assignments for the sake of personal safety.”

He looked at Jie Ming through the magic network terminal and, rarely for him, smiled. “It warms me that you have the thought, but have a little more faith in your teacher. So long as a task isn’t certain death, I am confident I can come back alive.”

Kastilla likewise declined Jie Ming’s kindness.

She was grateful for his concern, but held that since she had already made her preparations, there was no need to arrange any special treatment for herself in advance.

As for Viola, her reaction was as theatrical as ever.

“What? You’re planning to arrange a safer battlefield for me?” In the projection from the magic network terminal, Viola first put on a look of astonishment, then waved the idea away.

“No need! I was planning to use the war to get some proper exercise! You know my latest research happens to need more live combat data. A stage this big doesn’t come along often, so how could I hide from it? Besides…”

At this point Viola broke into a sickly smile. “A war like this is sure to give birth to pain in vast quantities. I’ve been looking forward to it for ages!”

Watching her, Jie Ming could not help reminding her, “Senior Sister, this is no ordinary war. The Fourth Seat has personally intervened in fate. You ought to know what that means.”

“Of course I know!” Viola said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

“That’s exactly why the pain this war produces has me so excited! Don’t worry, I’ve prepared quite a few Substitute Death Dolls for myself. Even if I wanted to die, it wouldn’t be easy.”

With that, she gave Jie Ming a smile.

“Relax. Once my Substitute Death Dolls are used up, I’ll come looking for you. Then you can pull some strings for me and arrange an easier task. Until then, just let me enjoy the war!”

Jie Ming was silent for a moment, and in the end could only shake his head helplessly. “Senior Sister, you really are a deviant.”

“Thanks for the compliment. What, is that a problem?”

“Fine, fine, fine. As long as you’re happy.”

Jie Ming did not press the matter further, and ended the call.

He had been thinking that since he now held a certain degree of administrative authority, he could at least make some arrangements in advance for the people he knew.

But judging from the attitude of all three, none of them intended to rely on that kind of convenience.

That being so, he would not force the issue.

Rather than spend his energy meddling with other people’s choices, he would do better to seize the time and raise his own strength.

Just as he had foreseen, one hundred and thirty years later, the four major powers issued the war conscription orders simultaneously.

As the order spread across the wizard civilization through the magic network terminals, every major wizard power entered a state of tense mobilization.

Apart from the sixth-level wizards in desk posts who handled the necessary logistics, research and administrative work, every other high-level wizard was to proceed in batches to designated regions as arranged, to take part in the coming war.

The order left little room for bargaining.

After all, this was a war conscription for the entire wizard civilization, and a rare one at that, an order issued by several ninth-level wizards at once.

When the news spread, the many wizards who had until then only been guessing realized at once that the war was unavoidable, and that it was close at hand.

Yet thanks to the peculiar nature of the wizard civilization, the overwhelming majority of the high-level wizards being conscripted were only startled for a moment on hearing the news, and then one after another they sank into a state of excitement.

An enemy taken this seriously was bound to be very strong.

But compared with the brutality of the coming war, what the wizards cared about more was that an enemy so powerful was sure to offer far more knowledge!

As for the war being brutal and all that…

Please! Which of those who had become high-level wizards had not fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood?

So after the compulsory conscription order went out, the wizard civilization fell instead into a bizarre state of excitement.

None of this needed much of Jie Ming’s attention, however. Compared with the war conscription, he had a far more important matter on his hands.

His Third Layer Dharma Form had reached perfection.

Over these hundred and thirty years, with the resources the Level-One Cultivation Protocol provided and the study plan Felix had drawn up for him, Jie Ming’s understanding of the various laws had risen markedly.

With Felix’s help, he had been able to study the knowledge of different fields in a sensible order, then combine it with his own Spiritual Qi Law and his existing research results, fusing the new understanding into a coherent whole.

Over the past hundred and thirty years, his mastery count in the Spiritual Qi Law had risen by another fifty-odd points.

And the perfection of the Third Layer Dharma Form was the most visible change once the Spiritual Qi Law reached that level.

Standing in the universe that served as his testing ground, Jie Ming released his Dharma Form.

With a surge of energy, a deep, dark-golden figure gradually condensed in the void.

The enormous structure of the Dharma Form unfolded layer upon layer, all manner of runic patterns flowing over its surface and forming extremely tight connections with one another.

Jie Ming could feel clearly that this Dharma Form had reached the limit of its current stage.

The power it could now bear had hit the ceiling of its current stage.

A Dharma Form was, after all, the outward expression formed jointly by a practitioner’s understanding of the Dao and his own power.

The deeper the understanding of the Dao, the more power the Dharma Form could bear.

And only when its user’s understanding reached the corresponding level could the Dharma Form go on to break through its former limits.

Jie Ming’s Third Layer Dharma Form had reached perfection. To raise it any further, he had to complete the next step: fusing the Dharma Form into a true body.

By the original logic of cultivation, he should first refine this Third Layer Dharma Form into a true body of the same scale, then use that true body as the foundation on which to begin constructing a Fourth Layer Dharma Form.

That way, true body and Dharma Form could keep rising in alternation, step by step pushing his own power toward a higher level.

But Jie Ming did not choose to carry on down that road. “With power like this… I could just about start preparing to advance.”

After all these years of study, he had come to realize just how difficult complete mastery of all the laws was.

Jie Ming had made an estimate from the efficiency of his studies over this period. Even with Felix’s assistance, and without any need to worry about resources, relying on all the laws to drive the Spiritual Qi Law forward and advance to the seventh level would take him more than ten thousand years.

So he needed a faster way to cultivate.

At the same time, he had to find some way to make up for how slowly his combat power would grow in the meantime.

And the conclusion he reached was that he could give priority to raising his level in the cultivation system.

In other words… it was time to prepare to advance to the Great Ascension Realm!