Chapter 172 A Word of Advice From a Senior

Although Hao Ren and Anthony were on the same level in terms of rank, he had to admit that there was a difference between an old employee and a new one. Just look at how grand this old mage with thousands of years of experience was! Just look at his mage tower! Just look at his Phase Hall! Just look at his high-end seamless map switching method that could scare people! Hao Ren’s biggest feeling after arriving at Anthony’s Tower was that this place would be considered an epic dungeon for any team of adventurers. No matter how you looked at it, it was much more high-end than his own two-story building…

He was so busy admiring Anthony’s magical technology that he completely forgot about the army of hundreds of millions of drones and the countless space outposts he had built in the Dream Plane…

After the obsidian dome opened, what was outside was the boundless universe. A layer of transparent magical barrier enveloped the Phase Hall, maintaining the gravity and atmospheric environment of the area where everyone was. Anthony was obviously very proud of this thing he had carefully managed for so many years, and he introduced in detail the mage tower system he had built among the stars—although no one asked him about it:

“I built thousands of mage towers in Chadell—some were built on planets, and some were built directly in space. These mage towers can teleport to each other, and more importantly, each mage tower has a Phase Hall like this. These halls allow me to easily detect the universe within the Chadell star region. The Phase Halls of each mage tower are mapped to different places. The top of some towers may be mapped to the stratosphere of the local planet, while the two parts of some towers are far apart. This place belongs to the second situation: I built the tower on the sixth planet of Laplani, but the Phase Hall is mapped near the Chadell star, with an interval of almost a hundred light-years. To be honest, sometimes I also feel that the spatial mapping relationship of these mage towers is a bit too chaotic, but I feel that I can’t sort it out. This is the result of my construction for thousands of years. When I built many things, I was still a rookie. At that time, I didn’t know how to use the powerful power bestowed by the Goddess, so I built a lot of messy things with a feverish mind. Now, when I want to sort it out from the beginning, I find that it has become a chronic disease.”

Hao Ren nodded as he listened. At first, he was just listening to the excitement, thinking that the old mage was chatting with him casually, but as he spoke, he realized what was going on: this was a senior in the workplace reminding a newcomer of some precautions. Hao Ren believed that Anthony, as one of the most senior Inspectors in this universe, must have experienced countless difficulties and challenges in his early years, and he had probably experienced every mistake that every novice would make: now, these lessons had become valuable experience, and the Inspectors were happy to share this kind of thing with their colleagues.

“Inspector, you have powers that ordinary people can’t imagine. Sometimes we can even think that we are no longer ‘mortals,’ but you must always remember that you are not much nobler than ‘mortals.’ If you can’t be mature and stable in your mind, then you are not much better than a new employee who makes trouble at work when you make mistakes,” Anthony looked at Hao Ren with a smile, “Of course, the Goddess must have considered something when choosing Inspectors, so I don’t need to measure your mind. I just hope you don’t make the mistakes I made back then.”

Hao Ren agreed with Anthony’s words, but he couldn’t believe the sentence “must have considered something.” Who here didn’t know that the Goddess had something wrong with her brain? The old mage himself was appointed by the Goddess after she was drunk…

“That over there is Yggdrasil,” Anthony’s voice pulled Hao Ren back from his daze. The old mage pointed to a piece of space on the left side of the Phase Hall, “Or rather, a part of it… This thing is so huge, and the space chain formed by nine different dimensions is even more incredible. I can’t figure out its specific shape and the complete scale hidden in the cracks of time and space. Alas, the main reason is that I don’t dare to get too close. It will run away.”

Hao Ren looked up and followed the direction Anthony pointed. In the vast space, he clearly saw a huge crack, or rather… a huge, curtain-like strange band of light.

It was like a mirage floating in the universe. A series of uneven light and shadows suddenly suspended in the dark space, and the scenery of another space was faintly revealed between the light and shadows. From it, one could vaguely see the scenery of the ancient Norse god realm. Those were the entrances to Yggdrasil, but obviously this entrance was in a semi-open and semi-closed state: the ‘eldest son’ in the space chain was recuperating here, and it slightly opened its realm to absorb external energy.

“It is drawing power from the ruined star of Chadell. I have observed the process of stellar residual energy being drawn, but I don’t know how it did it.” Anthony pointed to the lower left of the mirage-like band of light. There, a star that was almost completely extinguished was struggling to survive. The surface of the star was covered in darkness, and sporadic dark red spots of light moved irregularly outside the star, making it look like a huge coal ball that had been burned to exhaustion. The star itself still had a certain brightness, but most of its light was filtered out by the magic barrier of the Phase Hall. From here, everyone could only see a dark celestial body full of oppressive and dangerous atmosphere, faintly glowing, making people uneasy.

“The Chadell star went out very suddenly. At that time, an extremely rare cosmic event occurred, which I call the sudden death of the star,” Anthony shrugged, “But even an extinguished star still has a very strong power, and this ‘eldest son’ is like a greedy gluttonous monster, devouring this dead sun that is countless times larger than it. I think it must be starving after running in the universe for so long, and now it is eating everything.”

A faint and hazy band of light connected the Chadell star and the Yggdrasil entrance. The span of this band of light reached tens of millions of kilometers, and the last remaining energy of the dying star was constantly being devoured by the ‘eldest son’ through this band of light. This scene was eerie and frightening.

Yggdrasil once again showed a level of power completely different from those conventional eldest sons in the Dream Plane: Zhuom could not absorb the energy of the sun like this, even if it was just a dead star.

Hao Ren took out the data terminal: “Can a signal connection to Yggdrasil be established from here?”

“The signal link from the Petrified Tortoise is normal here. We only need an antenna system to transmit Mimir’s voice over.”

After hearing the voice of the data terminal, Anthony immediately replied, “There is a high-power antenna here: the Phase Hall under our feet. This hall is built on a huge piece of Hebern Crystal. I usually use it to detect the energy background in the universe and monitor the condition of the Chadell star.”

The data terminal immediately whistled loudly—considering that this guy didn’t have a mouth, it just played a whistling sound effect: “Whew, Hebern Crystal? And a whole piece of rough? Tsk tsk, you must also be a victim of the Fia Li Void Consortium… I didn’t expect that senior employees would also be fooled by those profiteers.”

Anthony’s stern expression suddenly collapsed. He looked at the brick floating in the air, tumbling around, with a pale face: “This… why is this data terminal so individual?”

Galia Zhuo Er turned his head and muttered in a low voice: “You also think so, right—I suspect that Hao Ren’s terminal was bought back by our Goddess from the counterfeit market.”

Hao Ren pretended not to hear the whispers of the two seniors behind him, and instead established a data link between the Petrified Tortoise and the Chadell star with the terminal.

After a while, Anthony issued an instruction to a certain device in the Phase Hall, and the Hebern Crystal under everyone’s feet slowly entered working state.

The dim and dying Chadell star quietly lurked in space. The last bit of residual heat released from the stellar core formed winding dark red spots on the surface of the star. In the space tens of millions of kilometers away from the star, dozens of intersecting light and shadow cracks stretched out wantonly. The eldest son Yggdrasil was drawing the last remaining energy of this star, but this exhausted ancient creature did not notice that in a corner under its ‘feet,’ a small and inconspicuous spire was gradually becoming brighter.

The upper part of Anthony’s mage tower floated in space. Part of its rock shell slowly peeled off, revealing the metallic luster of the inner liner inside. This inner liner, cast from mithril and magic-energy gold, bloomed like petals. Inside it was a huge crystal that was hundreds of meters wide, filled with a mysterious light purple light. This mysterious mineral called "Hebern Crystal" was a natural energy amplifier and resonant antenna. When it was full of energy, it could transmit a huge amount of information to any point within its radiation range at a speed faster than light in an instant.

The moment the crystal was charged, the space crack clusters floating near the Chadell star suddenly reacted. Some small-scale cracks suddenly became flickering, as if they were ready to dissipate at any time. Yggdrasil finally noticed that someone was peeking nearby. Although extremely exhausted, this powerful ancient creature still tried to escape from this place, but just as it was about to do so, a voice suddenly crossed the distant space barrier.

"Calm down! My friend, it is I."

Mimir shouted.