The fifteenth reincarnation, the core laboratory of the Wizard Camp.

Outside, the roaring battles and energy fluctuations were isolated by the heavy Protective Array, leaving only a low humming as the background.

Inside the laboratory, the light was consistently soft, the air clean, with only the slight hiss of runes operating and data streams flowing quietly across the light screen.

Jeming did not focus on a specific experiment or data analysis like the other wizards.

He sat alone at the circular work desk in the corner of the laboratory, with not a research report before him, but a macro research map and a war progress overview spanning fifteen reincarnations, organized personally by him.

When all wizards acquired the "time anchoring" ability and the immense research system could self-perpetuate without relying on him as the sole information hub, Jeming was finally liberated from the firefighter-like state.

He now had the leisure to truly calm down and, like a genuine observer, sort through everything in this long cycle.

And the more he sorted, the clearer that uneasy feeling in his heart became.

From the start, I was not unique.

After sorting through all the clues, this thought first emerged like a cold needle piercing his mind.

Everything he did—preserving information through his Inner Grotto Heaven, using the Body Refining Technique to evolve against memory reset, pushing the wizards to reverse engineer the Reaper Race’s memory mechanism—principally, could only he accomplish these tasks?

No.

Jeming was very aware that at least one person must be able to do it.

Moreover, could do it better than he could.

That person is the Eighth Level Wizard, the Star Caster Artarius, stationed outside the plane battlefield, who threw them into this cycle battleground.

Not to mention the Law Solidification held by the Eighth Level Wizard, which allows him to be immune to the effects of time reversal.

Given the mastery and understanding of laws by an Eighth Level Wizard, would creating an "information storage point" independent of the plane time flow be difficult?

With the unfathomable Soul Strength and knowledge reserve of an Eighth Level Wizard, would deciphering, copying, and even improving the Reaper Race’s memory mechanism be difficult?

I fear not.

Yet Artarius did not do so.

He chose an entirely different path: deploying Frost’s vanguard legion into the cycle for depletion, and only symbolically deploying a batch like Jeming’s "elite support troops" every three cycles.

Why?

As thoughts delved deeper, the macro diagram before Jeming seemed to come alive, with data lines intertwining, revealing a disheartening truth.

In their fifteen cycles of research, they completely analyzed the physiology, society, and energy system of the Reaper Race; they identified the trigger conditions, effect range, and some inherent rules of time reversal; they even developed witchcraft to counter memory reset.

While the achievements seemed remarkable, all this research was like crafting a delicate and complex shell.

They researched "how the Reaper Race copes with reincarnation" and "how reincarnation manifests in the Reaper Race."

They have not, nor could they, truly touch the core of "reincarnation itself."

The mechanism or will that drives everything, existing like the underlying code of a plane, remains hidden in absolute profound darkness.

The Reaper Race and time reversal are like two concentric circles, seemingly closely spaced but actually separated by an unbridgeable gap.

However many Reaper Race members the wizards eliminate, however thoroughly they research their characteristics, they are only clearing the large circle on the surface, with no impact on the core small circle.

"So..." Jeming sighed deeply, leaning against the chair back, staring at the energy runes simulating the starry sky on the laboratory ceiling, "Artarius the Wizard, I fear he long saw this point."

"He knew long ago that simply ’researching the Reaper Race’ and ’accumulating experience in reincarnation’ is barking up the wrong tree, unable to touch the core of the problem. So, he doesn’t bother, like me, to engage in these seemingly effective but fundamentally trivial undertakings."

Then, what is the significance of this arrangement by the Star Caster?

Jeming recalled the support operation process.

Elite combat units like theirs are usually dispatched after the supreme commander of a plane battlefield evaluates the situation and requests reinforcements from the Star Ring Federation headquarters.

All thirty thousand of them came precisely at the request of Artarius the Wizard.

But thirty thousand... for such a massive war involving an entire plane, this reinforcement force is a mere drop in the bucket.

Even if each one is an elite, faced with the trillion-level insect influx and bizarre time reincarnation, what can be changed?

And that strange support method—divided into multiple teams, deploying one team every three cycles, with fixed intervals, like drip irrigation.

"Just these few people... what use is there?" Jeming murmured, unconsciously tapping the sparse light dots representing the support troops on the chart with his fingertip, "And that support method... What exactly is that Star Caster planning..."

"Of course, it’s to increase the variables."

A gentle, calm male voice suddenly continued Jeming’s words, as if directly sounding in the depths of his soul without any forewarning.

Jeming froze, his heart skipping a beat.

He turned his head like lightning.

Less than a meter beside him, at some unknown time, there was another person.

It was a man appearing to be around thirty, with an ordinary face, dressed in a gray wizard robe so simple as to be almost plain.

There were no traces of energy or law fluctuations on him, as if he were an ordinary person who accidentally entered the laboratory.

He was intently examining the macro diagram spread before Jeming, wearing a nearly kind smile.

The Star Caster, Artarius.

Jeming instantly recognized the other, not just because of his appearance, but that aura of "insignificant" and "profound" that was felt inherently by the soul even when completely restrained, could only belong to that Eighth Level being.

How could he be here?

When did he come in?

Why were other wizards unresponsive?

Jeming’s gaze swiftly swept across the laboratory.

Alison was calibrating a high-precision Soul Resonance Device nearby, frowning slightly; Master Morayas was quietly arguing with an assistant about some gene coding optimization scheme.

Other wizards were also focused on their respective work, no one glanced this way, as if Artarius’s presence was transparent to them.

No... not transparent.

Jeming quickly calmed down, observing carefully.

He noticed the dust on the ground where Artarius was standing hadn’t changed position one bit.

This wasn’t a physical entity.

A guess emerged.

"...Mass projection?" Jeming tentatively asked, feeling his voice calmer than expected.

Artarius turned his face, his gaze falling on Jeming, with a flash of obvious surprise in his eyes, immediately turning into an appreciative smile.

"Oh? You actually know about ’mass projection’? It seems your knowledge accumulation is very solid." He didn’t deny it.

Mass projection, a top-notch technology that projects one’s partial mass, energy, and even consciousness information to a distant location through superdimensional action.

The projection possesses almost indistinguishable senses and certain interaction capabilities from the body, but is not a real material existence and relies on a stable channel to maintain.

This explains why he could appear silently and why other wizards were oblivious—the "presence" of the projection can be precisely controlled, appearing only to specific targets.