novelraw Chapter 540: News of the Fallen and Differences in Plans
Chapter 540: News of the Fallen and Differences in Plans
Chapter 540: News of the Fallen and Differences in Plans
After the kneeling civilians dispersed like a receding tide, the area around the teleportation array finally quieted down.
At this point, everyone was aware that reading I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality at anywhere else but ProjectOnigiri would result in eternal damnation!
David looked around at the dozen or so wizards and broke the silence:
“Everyone, before we officially begin work, there’s something I need to remind you all about.”
All eyes turned to him.
David pointed at the backs of the departing civilians, his tone serious:
“When speaking with these people, you can’t be too gentle.”
He paused, then explained:
“They have been ruled by the Chaos Secret Cult for three hundred years. That strict sense of hierarchy and deference has already been carved into their bones. If we interact with them using the Noren Workshop’s approach of ‘equality,’ they will instead feel at a loss, and may even…” He shook his head. “Develop ideas they shouldn’t have.” Someone frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It means they’ll think we’re easy to bully,” a wizard who looked somewhat experienced chimed in. “Don’t laugh, I’ve really encountered it. If you speak nicely to them, they think you’re weak and start complying in public but opposing in secret, or even causing trouble behind your back. But once you show your real power, they get scared half to death and kneel begging for mercy.”
David nodded. “So, in the initial stage, maintaining appropriate dignity is necessary. There’s no need to be fierce or terrifying, but we must make them understand that we are the rulers and the ones who set the rules. Once they gradually adapt to the Noren Workshop’s ways later on, we can slowly adjust. It won’t be too late then.”
Everyone nodded one after another, indicating they understood.
Next, according to their respective areas of expertise, the dozen or so wizards quickly divided up the tasks.
Some were responsible for investigating the overall structure of the plane, some for drawing detailed maps, some for counting population distribution, and some for detecting residual array formations and spell traces.
Jie Ming and David were tasked with investigating the current core city.
After receiving their orders, the others each used their own methods and scattered in all directions.
Jie Ming and David walked side by side into the city.
The city was quite large, accommodating roughly five hundred thousand people.
On both sides of the streets were stone-and-wood buildings, none taller than three stories.
The roads were paved with rough stone slabs, with simple drainage ditches on either side.
The air carried a faint mixed smell of livestock manure and cooking smoke—the typical scent of an agricultural civilization.
As the two walked, they scanned everything around them with their spiritual power.
“Speaking of which,” Jie Ming suddenly spoke up, “how are the others doing?”
David’s footsteps paused slightly.
After two seconds of silence, he sighed:
“Rex has fallen.”
Jie Ming’s brows furrowed.
Rex… he had once cooperated with him in the Justice plane. He was the type who seemed cold on the outside but warm on the inside.
“How did he go?”
“During the war, he went out for reconnaissance,” David said. “He was targeted by a fifth-ring wizard from the Chaos Secret Cult. The other party used a sacrificial-type curse spell, and he couldn’t hold out until reinforcements arrived.”
Jie Ming was silent for a moment.
In his mind appeared that face that always carried a smile.
“…What a pity.”
David nodded and continued, “The others are fine. However…”
He gave a bitter smile. “They all did the same as me, forced their way to fifth-ring out of survival pressure.”
Jie Ming looked at him.
Fifth-ring was already a very good achievement for most wizards; it was the level of the backbone wizards in the Noren Workshop.
“Knowledge couldn’t keep up?” Jie Ming asked.
David’s bitter smile deepened. “Yeah…”
“Haha, it’s fine. You’ll get used to it… just like me.”
David sighed. “My physical body and spiritual power barely reached fifth-ring standards, but my knowledge is still stuck at the fourth-ring wizard level. I can’t use any of the spells that require profound knowledge to cast.”
Jie Ming patted his shoulder and said nothing.
The two walked in silence for a while.
David suddenly spoke, his tone carrying a hint of complexity:
“Speaking of which, you’ve been doing quite well for yourself.”
Jie Ming raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”
“I heard about it,” David said, looking at him. “You took down at least four sixth-ring wizards. Two of them were even titled wizards… [Annihilation Hand] and [Imaginary], right?”
Jie Ming was stunned for a moment, then shook his head:
“Just got lucky.”
He meant it sincerely.
In the fight against [Annihilation Hand], he was definitely the one who should have died. It was just that neither of them had expected him to survive.
In the fight against [Imaginary], if Augusta hadn’t arrived in time to buy him that one second, his outcome wouldn’t have been pretty either.
“It really was luck.” Jie Ming emphasized again.
David looked at him and suddenly laughed:
“You know, the way you are right now makes people really want to punch you.”
Jie Ming was puzzled.
“Clearly ridiculously strong, yet you act like you don’t even know it.” David shook his head. “On the battlefield you took down four sixth-ring wizards, one of whom was [Imaginary], who could single-handedly clear a plane during conquest. And you tell me it was luck?”
Jie Ming opened his mouth, wanting to explain, but after thinking about it, he closed it again.
Forget it. It was impossible to explain clearly.
David didn’t press further and simply sighed:
“Never mind. People can’t be compared. Someone like me with tenth-grade talent originally thought I could advance smoothly all the way, but I got stuck at fifth-ring.”
Jie Ming frowned. “You, with tenth-grade talent, still call it ‘only’?”
David shook his head instead:
“Things like innate talent become less helpful the higher the rank.” He pointed at Jie Ming. “When advancing from fourth-ring to fifth-ring, my talent was already of little use. Do you know what that means?”
Jie Ming remained silent.
“It means that from now on, my path can only rely on grinding it out the hard way.” David said. “Knowledge, comprehension, insight—these things, talent can’t help with. Even if I really make up for my knowledge, I don’t think I could beat a sixth-ring wizard, let alone those titled wizards.”
Jie Ming fell silent.
He knew David was speaking the truth.
On the path of wizards, the higher one went, the lower the weight of talent and the higher the weight of wisdom.
Tenth-grade talent only let you walk faster than others in the low ranks.
At the mid-to-high ranks, everyone stood on the same starting line.
“Take it slow,” Jie Ming finally said only these three words.
David smiled and didn’t continue the topic.
“Alright, let’s split up,” he said, pointing at a towering building in the distance.
It was a typical religious-style temple, its spire piercing the clouds, the outer walls carved with intricate Chaos Secret Cult runes.
“I’ll head to the temple and talk with the high-level figures of this city. What about you?”
“I’ll examine the arrangement of arrays in this city,” Jie Ming said.
The two nodded and separated.
Jie Ming rose into the air above the city, overlooking the entire layout from above.
Then, he began using his spiritual power to sense the array patterns hidden within the buildings, roads, and deep underground.
Soon, his brows furrowed.
The array system the Chaos Secret Cult had set up in this city was quite complete.
Moreover, its functions were very clear.
Arousal arrays.
Birthing assistance arrays.
Cognitive modification arrays.
The three worked together to form a complete “production assembly line” targeting the population.
Jie Ming closed his eyes and expanded his perception range to several surrounding cities.
Then he expanded it to the entire province.
The result was the same.
Similar arrays were everywhere.
He opened his eyes, a trace of complexity flashing through them.
It seemed the Chaos Secret Cult was the type of force that only treated wizards as “intelligent beings of the same civilization.”
As for ordinary humans… in their eyes, they were no different from the native creatures of other planes—they were all resources, all tools.
Arousal arrays ensured the birth rate.
Birthing assistance arrays ensured the survival rate of newborns.
Cognitive modification arrays ensured the people would forever remain in awe and obedience.
Combined with sufficient material supplies and various transcendent-level medical techniques provided by the “temples,” it could be said that the Chaos Secret Cult’s population production system operated with extreme efficiency.
Jie Ming couldn’t help but think of the Noren Workshop’s approach.
The workshop also hoped that the human groups under its command would reproduce as much as possible.
After all, for planes that had not yet achieved universal transcendence, the birth of wizards was entirely dependent on luck.
And even in planes with universal transcendence, whether geniuses would be born was also a matter of luck.
The larger the base population, the more likely a few super-geniuses would emerge through mutation.
But the workshop never used such methods.
Instead, they employed an entire set of carefully designed policy systems and environmental influences, taking a long detour to guide the natural reproduction of human groups.
For example, they were well aware of a basic biological principle: when material abundance becomes excessive, a group’s willingness to reproduce actually declines.
Therefore, the workshop carefully regulated the total material volume for every human group under its command, keeping it “just enough” but “not overly abundant,” thereby maintaining moderate reproductive pressure.
It sounded rather harsh.
But compared to the Chaos Secret Cult’s method of directly using arousal arrays to force reproduction, it was as gentle as a spring breeze.
In terms of results, the advantage of the Chaos Secret Cult’s approach was rapid population growth, which naturally led to a higher absolute number of wizards being born.
But in terms of quality…
Jie Ming recalled the data from that war.
The combined number of third-ring and above wizards from the Chaos Secret Cult and the Tower of Annihilation was only fifty percent more than that of the Noren Workshop.
Leaving the Tower of Annihilation aside for now, considering that the Chaos Secret Cult’s population base was at least several times that of the workshop, this “fifty percent” seemed quite pitiful.
“Trading quantity for quality.” Jie Ming murmured to himself. “It’s not entirely wrong…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he already had a conclusion in his heart.
He took out his magic net terminal, briefly described the situation he had detected, and sent it to all his colleagues carrying out missions on this plane.
Soon, replies came in one after another.
The investigation results from the others matched his own.
The entire plane was filled with such arrangements everywhere.
In the end, the dozen or so wizards discussed for a while in the channel and reached a consensus:
Since all the cities across the entire plane had been built according to this “breeding factory” model, they might as well tear them all down and rebuild from scratch.
Jie Ming had originally planned to directly use his alchemy technique to create a new city for the people.
In his view, this was the simplest and most efficient method.
With his current strength, he only needed a few minutes to raise a fully functional, rationally laid-out new city from the ground.
But David raised a different opinion.
“Don’t be in a hurry,” he said. “The process of rebuilding the city is itself the process of rebuilding their worldview.”
Jie Ming was stunned for a moment, then immediately understood what he meant.
If he directly used alchemy to create a city, the people would only passively accept it.
They would think “the saints are indeed immensely powerful,” but they would not understand why the city was built this way, nor would they change their way of thinking during the process.
But if they did it themselves…
“That makes sense. Let them tear it down and build it themselves,” Jie Ming said in the communication channel. “We only provide guidance and necessary assistance. Let them see with their own eyes that a city can exist without temples or those statues that make them kneel; let them personally build schools, hospitals, and assembly halls; let them slowly understand the value of ‘human beings’ in the process.”
The channel was silent for a few seconds.
Then someone replied: “I think it’s good. I agree.”
Another person said: “But this way, the timeline will be extended.”
“It was already going to be a decades-long mission,” Jie Ming said. “A few more years won’t matter.”
He looked down at the city that existed entirely for “breeding,” and a thought suddenly came to him.
Decades later, when the residents of this city personally built their new home, they would probably look back on the past.
And then, they would understand…
What was truly worth protecting.