Cultivating in the Wizard World
Chapter 342 - 306: Void Architecture Institute and Research Mission
"These original books are left to you, sir."
The leading Wizard pointed to the bookshelf, "We have already copied the information, which is sufficient. These physical books might still conceal details that scanning can’t fully capture, or they themselves may be a special medium, making them perfect for the Alchemist’s research."
Jeming nodded, not declining the offer. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
The medium of knowledge sometimes contains secrets, which is almost common sense for a Wizard.
Allowing him to have the physical books could be considered compensation in another way.
The three Wizards did not linger any longer and, with their rich harvest, swiftly withdrew along the way they came, eager to digest their gains and exchange them for military merits.
In the vast treasure vault, only Jeming and the silent Black Giant beside him remained.
The mountain of resources had been emptied, leaving only the heavy bookshelves and the lingering energy and Soul Crystal essence in the air.
After collecting all the books from the treasure vault into his internal space, Jeming showed no sign of reluctance.
He ordered the Black Giant to set up several high-energy blast points before quickly retreating.
When he flew out of the cave and landed on the surface, a dull roar sounded behind him, causing the ground to tremble slightly.
The underground complex, which hid wealth and knowledge, collapsed completely in a series of blasts, eliminating any possibility of enemies reusing it.
For the next three days, Jeming continued to patrol the cleanup area.
Relying on the Eye of Scouting and his own senses, he found some scattered resource points and concealed small warehouses, gaining some local specialty metals and Energy Blocks.
But compared to the astonishing haul from the treasure vault on the first day, these findings were merely a meager addition.
In his spare time, he roughly skimmed through the collected books.
As expected, most were classics used by the strong natives of the Giant Spirit Realm, detailing how they tempered their spirit (or core consciousness), manipulated energy, and deeply fused with various mechanical and biological limbs.
The level of these classics was evidently high, containing the unique wisdom of the Giant Spirit Realm’s civilization power system.
For Jeming, the value of these classics lay not merely in their recorded cultivation methods, but in the fact that they served as a window.
Through these classics, he could reverse-engineer the deeper physiological structures, soul characteristics, and energy operation modes of the natives of the Giant Spirit Realm.
This held immeasurable significance for potential targeted strikes or technical confrontations in the future.
Three days later, he received a recall order from the forward camp, and a new mission was dispatched to his and other Logistics Element Wizards’ Magic Network Terminal.
The mission content was familiar, being the "old routine" of Logistics Element Wizards: [Research the physiological characteristics of creatures from the Giant Spirit Realm and its subordinate planes’ servitor races, and develop targeted witchcraft based on that.]
However, unlike the usual requirements to "preserve valuable samples as much as possible" or "control the extent of witchcraft damage," this mission’s note clearly stated—the primary purpose was "annihilation," with no restrictions on the power of witchcraft, aiming only for the most efficient killing and destruction.
More urgent still was the time requirement.
The camp command post ordered that results must be delivered quickly, preferably before the enemy’s next large-scale counterattack.
According to intelligence from the scouting units ahead, the Giant Spirit Realm was frantically gathering its native army and urgently recalling its strongmen fighting in other planes.
It was estimated that, at most, in a month, a far more fierce assault than a landing battle would come.
Which meant that the Logistics Element Wizards had less than a month to conduct research, analysis, and develop effective targeted weapons!
This was almost an impossible task.
Complex biological research, witchcraft configuration design, test optimization... doesn’t each step require a massive amount of time?
However, when Jeming returned to the camp, he saw the "help" provided by the command post to solve this problem.
In the center of the camp, an area that was originally vacant now stood a majestic building of distinct style.
It was entirely made of some dark silver metal, its surface flowing with precise and intricate Rune lines akin to clock scales, shaped like a slightly flattened giant egg, emitting a strange force field that twisted the surrounding light.
"What is this?"
Jeming looked at this building in its final testing stage and couldn’t help but ask a Logistics Management Wizard responsible for registration and coordination beside him.
The Management Wizard, with a trace of pride on his face, explained, "This is ’Between Time and Law,’ the command post informed the Star Ring Federation of the situation, so the Federation specially expedited from the ’Void Architecture Institute’ and assembled a Time Acceleration Field."
"This thing can stabilize the internal time flow to more than ten times the speed! This way, it’s equivalent to having ten months of research time."
Hearing this, Jeming couldn’t help but feel astonished.
Not just the technical level of this thing, but also its origin.
Simple time acceleration is not difficult, even expanding it into a time acceleration field, many Wizards can achieve it.
The key is that, as something used for developing new Witchcraft, while accelerating time, it must also not affect various elements’ data compared to normal conditions.
This is quite outrageous.
As everyone knows, time belongs to the Water Element branch. Once accelerated by time, it means that the element itself will be influenced by the basic Water Element.
To eliminate this influence involves the distortion of the four fundamental Elemental rules.
Ensuring elemental stability while maintaining ten times time acceleration and covering such a large range involves a level of rule-based technology that is truly masterful.
This capability is beyond ordinary Eighth Level Wizards; it’s essentially half-step Ninth Level technology.
On the other hand, the Void Architecture Institute is a force on par with the Star Ring Federation and the Deep Red Royal Court, and is one of the four major forces in the Wizard Civilization.
"Deploying the Void Architecture Institute’s resources to tackle such an insignificant civilization... It seems the Wizard Civilization is indeed ruthless towards threatening civilizations." Jeming couldn’t help but silently mourn for the civilization of the Triangular Plane for three seconds.
A day later, all the Logistics Element Wizards who received the task, including Jeming, entered the "Between Time and Law" with anticipation and urgency.
The internal space is even more vast than it appears from the outside, divided into tens of thousands of independent laboratory units.
The air holds a slight sluggishness, a subtle experience brought about by the distortion of time.
Through a specially treated observation window, one can see the outside world as if the pause button has been pressed.
In the laboratory assigned to Jeming, several samples of native beings from the Giant Spirit Realm — a slime-like organism in semi-fluid form — are prepared, sealed by a high-strength Imprisonment Force Field.
Upon close observation, Jeming realized these organisms have a basic form vaguely resembling a humanoid outline, but the number of limbs is extremely unstable.
Some have several tentacle-like structures, while others only have a vague torso and head bulge.
Research quickly proceeded; after a series of complex anatomical, energy detection and soul level scanning, initial conclusions were swiftly reached:
These natives of the Giant Spirit Realm have no gender distinction and can exchange life information with any peers — similar to cellular-level fusion and redividing — to produce new offspring.
Their core specialty lies in the extraordinary compatibility of their semi-fluid bodily structure with various mechanical devices and other biological limbs and organs!
Their cells can secrete a special biological enzyme and energy field, almost completely neutralizing rejection reactions between different organisms and energies.
In addition to their innate powerful control over their own cells as mucus-type organisms...
This means they can directly dismantle and transplant limbs or organs from a biologically gifted entity for their own use upon encounter!
More terrifyingly, utilizing their pinnacle biomimicry mechanical technology, once obtaining the "blueprint" of a certain biological limb, the Giant Spirit Realm civilization can mass-produce mechanical prosthetics with almost identical functions and rapidly equip their entire army!
This is the root of the terrifying evolutionary and adaptability shown by the Giant Spirit Realm — they are a formidable entity capable of swiftly iterating civilizational military force by "plundering" and "replicating" others’ physical talents!
Having reached this conclusion, Jeming fell into contemplation instead.
"In that sense... our Wizard Civilization, in some respects, is rather restrained against them?"
The core of the Wizard’s power lies in knowledge, leveraging power through knowledge.
While physical strength is certainly important, it is not a decisive factor.
What the Giant Spirit Realm can plunder is only physical gifts.
And the Wizards’ physical gifts are often not significant at the same level, compared to the power leveraged by knowledge, and could even be described as "weak."
If the natives of the Giant Spirit Realm went to great lengths to seize a Wizard’s physical body only to find, besides a frail shell and not particularly outstanding Elemental Affinity, nothing else, wouldn’t that be a "negative enhancement"?
But Jeming quickly shook his head, dismissing this underestimation.
"Never underestimate the enemy. What if they have means to directly read or copy memories?"
"Moreover, according to intelligence, the ’Mind Realm’ in the Triangular Plane excels at manipulating thought and Illusion Techniques. After such prolonged competition among the three factions, the Giant Spirit Realm must have some capability to deal with the Soul and acquire knowledge."
"However..." Jeming’s gaze once again focused on the constantly squirming semi-fluid organism of the experimental sample, as his thoughts became clearer, "Perhaps we can start with their inherent ’high compatibility’ capability."
"Being able to connect and command the bodies of alien organisms so effortlessly, there must exist some construction or pheromone within their body that I haven’t fully understood yet, used to coordinate, control and ’translate’ alien life signals. If we can disrupt this thing..."
Having found a potential research direction, Jeming was invigorated and immediately delved into deeper microscopic-level research.
Not only him, but other Logistics Element Wizards in the surrounding laboratory units, having completed preliminary physiological trait analysis, each began earnest research based on their professional judgment and inspiration, pursuing different approaches intensely.