novelraw Chapter 403: Assembly
Chapter 403: Assembly
Time passed in research with silent swiftness.
When less than a day remained until the assembly time, Jie Ming finally lifted his head from the workbench.
Three staffs hovered before him, slowly rotating. Their bodies gleamed with a dark golden metallic sheen, and at the tip of each, embedded diamond-shaped crystal cores faintly revealed pinpoints of light compressed to the extreme – those were the sealed states of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
“About done.”
Jie Ming reached out and grasped one. The touch was faintly warm.
Inside the staff, the energy circuits were stable and surging, ready to unleash that beam of annihilation at a mere thought.
The crafting process had gone more smoothly than he anticipated.
As someone from the Alchemy Department, the very wizard who had personally created the talisman-sealed wizard artifact system, encapsulating a mature spell model into a traditional wizard artifact frame presented no fundamental obstacles.
He was quite satisfied with the final products.
Each staff could store and release one full-powered instance of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light. Relying on the fifth-ring large elemental pool within his Inner Cave Heaven, the recharge interval was only three minutes. Although the number of releases per cycle was limited, they were more than sufficient as “emergency trump cards” or for “tactical surprise attacks.”
After all, he could cast the spell himself. The staffs were mainly intended for those moments when there simply wasn’t time to charge.
“Unfortunately… time was still too short.”
Jie Ming put the staffs away with some regret.
If he could have transformed one more defensive spell, such as the “Qian Yuan Protective Divine Gang” or “Xuan Ming True Water Barrier” recorded in the Great Dao Book Pavilion, then both offense and defense would have been equipped with cross-system killing moves.
But this was his first attempt at converting a spell model, and he had started with a high-end Spirit Transformation realm spell. A century was only enough to thoroughly master Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
Defensive spell models were even more complex; he could only leave them for the future.
He turned and walked toward the laboratory exit.
For this expedition, he decided to streamline the forces he brought.
The reason was simple: intelligence was unclear, caution came first.
The time reversal mechanism of the Reincarnation Plane affected “all existences within the plane.”
So what about his Inner Cave Heaven – this small world attached to him personally yet existing as an independent space? Would it be affected?
If it wasn’t affected, what state would items taken out of the Cave Heaven before the reversal return to after the reversal?
Would they retain the fact of having been “taken out,” or be forcibly “returned” to the Cave Heaven?
No one could give him an answer.
“No risks.” Jie Ming made his decision.
Moreover, from the battlefield intelligence, the individual combat power of the Sickle-Skull Clan was not particularly outstanding.
The wizard army held absolute superiority on the frontal battlefield. The real problem was not “being unable to win,” but that “after winning, everything would be reset.”
Therefore, in the end, Jie Ming only brought the black giant leader “Molten Mountain” and five thousand fifth-tier elite black giants.
These were the cream of the crop, produced through centuries of continuous energy absorption and multiple rounds of natural selection and evolution.
Their surface liquid-metal layers were denser, their time manipulation ability had reached microsecond precision, and their physical resistance could withstand direct bombardment from conventional fifth-ring witchcraft.
As for those one-in-ten-million “black giant priests” with extremely high intelligence, Jie Ming didn’t bring a single one.
After all, they were research-oriented units. Though their combat power was strong, sending researchers to the battlefield would be a tremendous waste.
After confirming all preparations were in order, Jie Ming stepped into the teleportation array.
The coordinates had long been entered into the Netherweb Terminal—the assembly point provided by the military department, located in a modified transit plane.
The dizziness of teleportation lasted only an instant.
When his vision cleared again, Jie Ming found himself standing on a dull gray wasteland.
The sky was a heavy leaden gray, without clouds, sun, moon, or stars—only a uniform diffused cold light source, clearly artificial illumination.
Beneath his feet was a hard alloy ground, its surface etched with regular heat-dissipation patterns.
The air was dry, carrying a faint smell of ozone and the aftermath of metal cooling.
“Ship-plane.” Jie Ming recognized the environment at a glance.
What appeared to be a wasteland was actually the internal deck of a plane-grade warship.
A standard practice among wizard forces within the Star Ring Federation: transforming an entire small plane into a mobile war fortress, its internal space expanded through multiple folds, capable of carrying vast numbers of troops.
The surface was disguised as natural terrain, serving both as camouflage and, when necessary, as a deployable combat platform.
However, judging from the current state of this ship-plane, the Reincarnation Plane’s combat power truly was as unremarkable as the intelligence suggested. The entire vessel was functioning purely as a transport ship.
Around him, teleportation lights continued to flare up one after another.
Wizards stepped out from them one by one. Most wore standard or semi-standard combat robes, with badges of different academies or factions pinned to their chests.
Jie Ming swept his gaze over them. From their auras, the majority of this batch of wizards ranged between first-ring and second-ring; third-ring wizards were already rare.
Occasionally a third-ring wizard appeared, and the surrounding first- and second-ring wizards would consciously step back, showing respectful attitudes.
But when Jie Ming—a figure clearly radiating the fluctuations of a fourth-ring wizard—fully materialized, the area within a hundred-meter radius fell silent for an instant.
More than a dozen nearby young wizards instinctively took half a step back and bowed their heads in greeting.
A few sharp-eyed ones seemed to recognize the Noren Academy Alchemy Department badge on his chest and the low-profile yet exceptionally high-quality black robe he wore. Surprise and curiosity flashed through their eyes.
Jie Ming paid no attention to the stares. He simply stood quietly, observing the entire assembly area.
“It seems the Federation has judged the ‘conventional threat level’ of this plane to be low.” He analyzed inwardly. “Most of the dispatched personnel are newcomers, or young wizards who have only recently advanced and need to accumulate military merits.”
This was very reasonable.
The strangeness of the Reincarnation Plane lay in its “mechanism,” not its “frontal combat power.”
As long as the condition for time reversal was not triggered, the wizard army could essentially steamroll forward with almost no losses.
For newcomers, this was an ideal real-combat training ground—plenty of low-tier enemies to practice on, with high-tier wizards present to provide a safety net.
“As for why I received an invitation…” Jie Ming touched his chin.
He didn’t consider himself a battlefield rookie, but the number of times he had participated in plane wars as an “elite combat unit” was actually quite small.
By his count, the only true instance of participating as an “elite combat unit” had been the war against the Justice Plane.
And it was in that very war that he had experienced his first “death.”
“Perhaps the military department values my experience in unconventional battlefields,” Jie Ming thought.
After all, the number of wizards in the entire Star Ring Federation who had walked out alive from a distorted law environment and returned with complete data could be counted on one hand.
Time passed in waiting.
More and more wizards gathered on the wasteland until the total stabilized at around thirty thousand.
The crowd was somewhat noisy.
Newcomers who had only experienced one or two plane wars—or even this was their first formal plane war—spoke in low voices, exchanging battlefield rumors and guessing at the content of this mission.
Veterans, on the other hand, were mostly silent, either inspecting their equipment or meditating with closed eyes.
Jie Ming noted that among this batch of wizards, the number who had truly reached fourth-ring—including himself—was no more than ten.
“Definitely a ‘low-risk’ configuration,” he confirmed his judgment.
At that moment, the ground in the center of the wasteland suddenly split open.
A circular platform more than a hundred meters in diameter slowly rose. Three wizards stood upon it.
In the center was an old man wearing a deep blue starry-law robe, eight silver stars encircling a badge on his chest—the mark of an eighth-tier Archwizard.
To his left and right stood one male and one female seventh-tier wizard, their auras solid and mountain-like.
All noise vanished in an instant.
The gazes of thirty thousand wizards simultaneously focused on the platform.