“What did you do?!”
The moment the living Flame-Frost Plane fell utterly silent under the layered seal of the spell formations.
Viola practically lunged to Jie Ming’s side, staring at him intently!
Her face no longer bore the previous sickly fervor but an unprecedented shock.
Viola’s current demeanor completely upended Jie Ming’s understanding of her.
Her silver-gray eyes were now wide as saucers, her pupils even trembling slightly from the surprise!
On her icy cheeks, a rare expression of near-stupefaction appeared, her lips parted as if to speak, yet choked silent by the sheer unexpectedness, emitting no sound.
Her breathing quickened, and a powerful wave of mental force uncontrollably leaked from her body, betraying the extreme turmoil within.
She remembered clearly: the earth-shattering, plane-level battle that had just concluded, with its pivotal turning point in the tide of victory, had begun right after Jie Ming asked that seemingly irrelevant question—about why the two monster kings had surrendered.
As long as Viola wasn’t a fool, she could figure it out even with her toes: there had to be some connection between Jie Ming and the ultimate reversal of this battle!Most importantly, Viola realized she couldn’t fathom at all what Jie Ming had actually done!
Wizards based their power on knowledge.
Even as a freshly ascended sixth-level wizard, far surpassing Jie Ming in rank, her inability to comprehend meant that in some aspect, Jie Ming’s knowledge reserves vastly exceeded her own!
Such barriers of knowledge were sometimes even harder to surmount than differences in level!
However, after a brief shock, Viola quickly regained her composure, forcibly suppressing the overwhelming waves of astonishment in her heart.
Looking at the calm Jie Ming, she hesitated twice but ultimately chose not to press further.
After all, in the wizard power system, knowledge was a wizard’s most vital and core secret!
Casually inquiring, especially about matters clearly involving advanced knowledge systems, was a grave taboo in wizard society.
Even if their relationship was decent, prying rashly would only breed resentment in Jie Ming toward her.
Moreover, at her current wizard level, such questions might even trigger the prohibitions of the Star Orbit Tribunal.
Once she snapped out of it, Viola could only bury that shock and her myriad questions deep within.
“Never expected my junior brother to be so… astonishing.” Viola sighed inwardly, the admiration and surprise even overshadowing her curiosity about the unknown. “No wonder… that old coot Clark values this young whippersnapper so highly…”
Jie Ming knew Viola had guessed something, but he offered no explanation.
His decision to activate the “Baleful Prohibition Curse” was purely for the sake of his own survival.
After all, in that situation, if they lost, with the two planes connected and unable to disengage quickly, the high-level wizards might be fine, but low-level ones like him would likely be doomed.
Moreover, he was well aware of wizard customs.
As long as he didn’t admit it, Viola’s suspicions, without concrete evidence or eyewitness proof, meant nothing.
“Who knows?” Jie Ming looked at Viola.
Seeing her shocked and disheveled expression now, he suddenly felt a spark of amusement. Mimicking her signature, slightly perverse playful smirk from before, he flashed a meaningful smile: “Senior Sister, you looking so pained… and a bit shocked and flustered… it’s really making me… feel quite refreshed!”
“You!”
Viola’s just-calmed face instantly shifted from composure to astonishment.
She blinked, then expressionlessly extended her hand, pressing heavily on Jie Ming’s shoulder.
Beneath her palm, a powerful aura carrying the might of a sixth-level wizard instantly spread out.
Though no physical attack, the oppressive pressure was enough to render Jie Ming immobile!
“Seems I’ve been too amiable, letting you get a bit… full of yourself.” Viola’s voice was now as cold as polar ice, each word laced with the undeniable coercion of a superior.
“I’m sorry, I was wrong!” Jie Ming felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and promptly surrendered decisively, instantly wiping the “perverse” expression from his face and offering a sincere apology.
Satisfied, Viola revealed a pleased look and withdrew her hand.
This little scuffle between them was, in truth, a way to unwind and release tension after the battle’s end.
With the living Flame-Frost Plane successfully sealed, this heart-pounding planar war finally drew to a complete close.
…
…
Several months later.
Jie Ming once again found himself in the void, but not aboard the ship-plane; instead, he stood on a vast, arbitrarily suspended continental fragment.
This continent was one of the countless floating islands formed from the disintegration of the Flame-Frost Plane’s surface matter.
At the moment, he was busily bent over, gathering ecological data on the various organisms there.
He carefully placed a patch of moss, glowing faintly with ethereal blue light and growing in a rock crevice, into a sample bag.
Then, with a specialized probe, he gently touched a thumb-sized black insect slumbering in the ice, recording its life fluctuations and elemental structure…
With the core consciousness of the Flame-Frost Plane sealed away, it didn’t mean the work for logistics wizards like Jie Ming was over.
Quite the opposite: the unprecedented existence of a “living plane” meant far more—and far more complex—tasks for these logistics wizards.
Over the past few months, Jie Ming’s assignments had been to catalog the residual ecological systems and remaining resources of the Flame-Frost Plane.
After all, while battling the living Flame-Frost Plane had been exhilarating, the cost was extraordinarily heavy.
The entire original surface matter of the Flame-Frost Plane had been vaporized by at least ninety percent under the repeated plane-level impacts!
The surviving landmasses had all transformed into floating islands, hovering above the pierced core surface.
These floating islands varied greatly in size: the smallest might span only a few hundred meters, while the largest stretched dozens of kilometers.
They were linked by chaotic yet peculiar force fields, wobbling as they drifted in the void.
Fully cataloging these shattered regions, along with their lingering ecosystems and resources, would undoubtedly demand vast amounts of time, effort, and even some risk.
Jie Ming sighed, stowing his probe.
He knew that until these data were analyzed and new planar reconstruction plans were drafted, their toil would show no sign of stopping.
Including Wizard Augustine, the entire expedition team was run ragged.
In truth, Jie Ming himself rather enjoyed the busyness here, for compared to the others, he could reap some extra benefits.
After gathering the information, Jie Ming formed a hand seal and stomped lightly.
Strands of black Baleful Yin Qi then wafted out, drawn into his Baleful Qi Harvesting Gourd by Jie Ming.
This was his extra gain.
Though most of the Baleful Yin Qi had been expended on the living plane, during its resistance, quite a bit had been blasted apart and scattered across the peripheral floating islands.
This high-grade Baleful Yin Qi had been beyond Jie Ming’s ability to collect when it was concentrated; now, it was a case of fortune from misfortune.
After completing the survey of the residual ecosystem and resources on the floating continent, Jie Ming flickered and passed through the newly stabilized spatial rift overhead, returning to the ship-plane.
As Jie Ming landed, the several frost monsters nearby displayed deferential expressions.
Wizard Augustine wouldn’t waste resources; with the situation settled, he had decisively contracted with the two monster kings.
Having witnessed the wizards manipulating the ship-plane in battle against the Flame-Frost Plane, the two monster races now regarded wizards with a touch of sycophancy.
Jie Ming paid them no mind and headed straight to the logistics hub of the temporary camp, uploading all the information he’d collected over the months via the terminal to the core database.
With the task done, Jie Ming planned a brief rest.
But as he left the logistics area, he noticed quite a crowd gathered around an open space in the camp, buzzing with discussion.
Curious, he joined the onlookers and saw, at the center of the encircled wizards, a massive spell formation inscribed with arcane runes.
Jie Ming identified it as one providing spatial coordinates.
At the same time, the maginet terminal timely relayed a notification from Master Augustine: “Fellow wizards, take note: the planar channel is connected. Welcoming our distant colleagues!”
Before long, as the formation emitted a soft glow, ripples of space undulated at its center.
The sky of the ship-plane was once more torn open by an invisible force.
However, on the other side of this rift was not some unknown plane, but dozens of figures of varying shapes.
These figures, in terms of size, were far smaller than the narrow rift in the sky—which, though stable, wasn’t designed for large-team teleportation.
Yet Jie Ming noticed the figures seemed cramped, as if unable to squeeze through.
It was as if this massive rift couldn’t accommodate them, with even larger main bodies lurking behind.
Several figures erupted with extraordinarily powerful auras.
As they exerted their power, they forcibly widened the spatial rift a bit!
Under their combined effort, the rift in the sky was eventually torn to a terrifying scale: over a dozen kilometers long and several kilometers wide.
Only then could this group of figures barely “squeeze” down!
The moment the wizards crossed the spatial rift and “descended” onto the ship-plane, several suffocatingly immense power auras instantly permeated the entire ship-plane.
The shockwave, mingled with potent elemental fluctuations and rule essences, made Jie Ming realize—these were all sixth-level wizards!
Among them, a few auras were so intense they had likely reached the seventh level!
“Tsk, look at these lunatics, all staring like hungry wolves eyeing fresh meat.”
Viola emerged from some nearby corner, smacking her lips lightly, her silver-gray eyes gleaming with amused spectatorship.
Without waiting for Jie Ming to ask, she explained flatly: “After news spread of Wizard Augustine successfully capturing the living plane, the Junction Point nearly exploded. Countless wizards, especially those focused on planar research and rule exploration, went mad applying to come study this rare living plane.”
Jie Ming’s eyes flickered slightly: “Oh? So that means Wizard Augustine has struck it rich.”
Viola couldn’t help but sigh, her tone laced with complexity and helplessness: “Yeah, developing a plane is usually a massive ‘investment’ with huge upfront costs. For many ordinary sixth-level wizards, launching a planar development project requires incurring debts of military merits numbering in the billions just to barely complete the initial setup.”
She glanced at the distant Wizard Augustine, unable to suppress a hint of envy: “But with a rare resource like a living plane, Augustine might recoup all his prior investments just from charging these wizards ‘admission fees’—and even turn a profit!”
Jie Ming echoed the sentiment, though a pang of regret stirred in his heart.
A precious resource like a living plane was something he’d likely not encounter again anytime soon.
Unfortunately, the periphery of the Flame-Frost Plane’s core was now covered in dense, maple-leaf-shaped translucent runes.
These runes formed powerful isolation fields, not only sealing the living plane’s consciousness but also blocking external probes.
Without Augustine’s permission, no one could enter the core, let alone conduct research.
Moreover, with his current technical level, forget touching the core—even approaching those runes was impossible, much less studying an entity of that caliber.
He was still just a low-level wizard, far from the realm where he could freely access and research planar cores.
Jie Ming suddenly felt a bit puzzled and turned to Viola: “Senior Sister, why are you here?”
After all, given Viola’s personality, she shouldn’t be interested in mere spectacle unless it involved widespread suffering.
Viola was about to reply when a familiar voice from the side answered for her.
“Because… I need to drag her back to properly repay her debt.”
Jie Ming whipped his head around to see that the speaker was none other than Mentor Clark!
The man was as disheveled as ever, his signature messy hair seemingly a tad balder.
He looked every bit the “veteran workhorse,” utterly fatigued.
With massive dark circles under his eyes, as if he’d just crawled out of some lab.
Viola sighed upon hearing this.
Knowing escape was futile, she explained to Jie Ming with a touch of helplessness: “Back then… that vial of ‘Soul Sublimation Potion’ was something I bought by borrowing from the mentor!”
The helplessness and frustration in her tone nearly overflowed: “The price is… I have to work for him for over a thousand years! It’s practically a indenture of servitude!”
Clark glanced at her expressionlessly: “Given your earning potential, making you work a mere thousand years is a very fair rate.”
He paused, then added: “Of course, at your current stage, you’ve just ascended to sixth-level wizard. If you hone your potion-making skills further and become a potion master, that work period could probably be shortened to under a century.”
Viola let out a mournful sigh, and even Jie Ming beside her couldn’t help but wince.
Even shortened to a hundred years, for Jie Ming, that was an outrageously exaggerated debt, practically an “astronomical figure”!
Recalling that he himself had a loan to repay to his teacher, Jie Ming suddenly felt a deep camaraderie with his senior sister.
He got it now: Mentor Clark had come here precisely to drag back this “priceless” sixth-level wizard Viola to serve as his workhorse!
Mentor Clark then turned to Jie Ming, nodding in greeting.
Jie Ming straightened his clothes slightly and bowed solemnly to Mentor Clark: “Mentor…”
“Mm, not bad.” Clark nodded faintly. “To encounter something like this on your first independent expedition—your luck is truly enviable.”
Jie Ming smiled, unsure what to say.
Such an event might be good fortune for high-level wizards, but for a low-level one like him, it should count as misfortune, right?
Clark ignored whatever Jie Ming was thinking and glanced at the high-level wizards still descending from the sky one after another:
“I’m here this time not just to research the living plane, but also at Augustine’s invitation to help install the cross-planar spatial teleportation array. Looks like we’ll be working together for a while.”
Jie Ming’s face lit up with joy, but then he suddenly realized: if so, wouldn’t that mean he’d have to “repay the loan” again?
The issue was, though the wizards could continuously provide Mortal Dust Power now, the quantity wasn’t abundant.
From the past few months’ collections, providing two vials of Mortal Dust Potion on time each month might prove quite difficult.
At the thought, Jie Ming ground his teeth, his expression souring slightly.
Clark seemed to see through his mind and chuckled: “Relax, at least until the spatial teleportation array is finished, you don’t need to worry about the debt.”
Then, ignoring Jie Ming’s visibly relieved face, Mentor Clark grabbed Viola by the back of her collar like a chick, his movements practiced.
Disregarding Viola’s helpless and futile struggling gaze, Clark directly hauled her toward the nearby Wizard Augustine, who had been waiting with a grin nearly splitting his face.
Jie Ming smacked his lips and slunk away with his head down.
Clearly, before returning to school to serve as Mentor Clark’s “workhorse,” Viola would first have to assist here for quite some time, earning “interest” for Clark!
If he didn’t hurry to gather resources and clear his debt, he’d likely end up as a workhorse just like Viola.