Chapter 463: Chapter 399: Trade and Information
In the core control room of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, Jeming was suspended in mid-air.
Thousands of runic light belts swirled around him, each connecting to a massive stereoscopic array model below—an optimization scheme for a certain spell.
His left hand grasped at the air, forming a slowly reshaping liquefaction of pale golden incense power, while his right hand swiftly traced the void, leaving behind complex Wizard Rune imprints.
At this moment, a deep purple crystal embedded in the corner of the control room wall slightly trembled.
That was Viola’s dedicated communication rune, only a select few recognized by Jeming could directly initiate a teleportation request to the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.
Jeming’s eyebrow slightly raised as his Divine Sense swept across the crystal, confirming it carried his senior sister’s aura, before he slowly descended to the ground.
He snapped his fingers, and his research robe was instantly replaced by a simple black Wizard Robe, its hem subtly showing fine silver string talisman prints.
"Accept the teleportation."
As his words fell, the space at the side of the control room began to distort, rapidly forming a stable teleportation gate.
Stepping through, Jeming appeared in the reception room at the other end of the plane.
The layout here was markedly different from the traditional style of the Wizard World: the walls were made from gentle jade materials, the floor covered with a flame velour carpet able to automatically adjust temperature, and in the room’s center floated furniture carved from obsidian and magma crystal—all native to the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.
The teleportation light faded, revealing Viola’s figure.
Jeming was momentarily stunned.
The image of his always elegant and composed senior sister, with silver-gray hair like a moonlit waterfall, now appeared somewhat... disheveled.
Her dark purple Wizard Robe was dusty, with singed marks around the edges, strands of her smooth hair stood on end, and even a faint gray mark marred her face.
More importantly, her aura was evidently unstable, the law fluctuations typical of a Sixth Level Wizard had become erratic.
Viola, upon appearing, slumped back onto the nearest obsidian chair like a zombie deprived of support, exhaling deeply.
"Senior sister?" Jeming seated himself across from her, raising a hand to brew two cups of spiritual tea, "This blend, using specialties ’Molten Heart Flower’ and ’Frost Moss’ from the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, is remarkably effective in stabilizing the spirit."
Viola accepted the tea cup, downed it in one go, regaining her composure.
"Almost got caught in that lunatic’s experimental aftermath..." she murmured, then glanced at Jeming, "Your environment here is rather nice, much better than that godforsaken place Starfall occupies."
"Starfall Wizard?" Jeming immediately grasped the crucial point, "You just returned from there?"
"What else?" Viola massaged her temples, "That fellow, having obtained ’ideal elements’ from you found her path to Seventh Level, completed preliminary verification, then kicked me, her ’temporary assistant,’ out saying she needed to retreat for core construction."
"So, senior sister, you came here this time for..." Jeming probed.
"Procurement." Viola sat up, despite her disheveled appearance, her silver-gray eyes had regained their characteristic sharpness, "A large procurement. Starfall asked me to pass this on."
She flicked out a transparent diamond-shaped crystal, landing it on the table.
Jeming’s Divine Sense scanned it, eyes immediately narrowing.
The crystal stored a string of military merits account information, alongside a number shocking enough to astonish: 10 billion low-level military merits.
"This..." Jeming awkwardly expressed, "Senior sister, such a quantity, I fear I can’t gather it in a short timeframe. Recently, using ideal elements for plane transformation has been quite consuming."
He gestured outward, through the observatory window of the reception room, the defining dark red sky of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane and distant flowing lava rivers were visible.
Even with the continuous transformation of Incense Fire Divine Dao, and tens of billions of Black Giants as believers generating incense power, converting through the Elemental · Spirit Conversion System into spiritual qi... the accumulated total over these years doesn’t reach this level.
Moreover, Jeming also needed to sustain the plane’s own operations and his research consumption.
Viola gestured dismissively, indicating he needn’t worry.
"Starfall knows, of course. Her exact words were: ’Take as much initially, continue sending batches over time as it’s available.’ Anyway—" she paused, her mouth curving into a subtle smile, "According to her estimates, even with the path found, achieving true Seventh Level advancement will take at least a few thousand years. There’s time enough for you to slowly produce."
Jeming sighed in relief, yet subsequently furrowed his brows.
Thousands of years of sustained supply?
Such demand at this scale couldn’t possibly be ordinary experimental consumption...
His mind rapidly flashed back to their conversation prior to departing the Starfall Wizard’s plane, a possibility emerged.
"She wants this much..." Jeming slowly began, a probing tone in his voice, "Could it be... planning to... animate the entire plane?"
Viola’s smile froze for an instant.
Though only a fraction of a second, Jeming sharply captured that slight unnaturalness.
"Really can’t hide anything from you." Viola sighed, not denying it, "Indeed, that’s her ’project’. Using the ideal elements you provided as core medium, combining her own Spiritual Law and my provision of living plane data, she’s attempting to fully animate her controlled ’Fragment Star Plane’."
Jeming couldn’t help drawing a sharp breath.
He truly hadn’t expected that this Starfall Wizard would actually bring what sounded like a pipe dream into practice.
Endowing a plane, originally only experiencing basic material cycles and energy flows, with a rudimentary self-aware consciousness... it’s tantamount to artificially creating a Living Plane!
If successful, not only would Starfall transcend into the Seventh Level, she might immediately secure a high standing within the Seventh Level ranks.
Failed...
"What about the safety measures?" Jeming asked in a deep voice. "Once the complete activation experiment spirals out of control, it could lead to rampant plane consciousness, cascading law collapse reactions, energy tide backlash... even an out-of-control activation of the plane alone will have quite severe consequences."
Viola shrugged without any care for image.
"This is what I’m going to do next," she said with eerily calm composure. "I’m preparing to purchase and prepare three sets of ’plane destruction devices’, custom-order ’phase isolation barriers’ from the Void Architecture Institute, and buy a batch of ’law stabilizing anchors’ from the Anti-Entropy Alliance... If the experiment fails, I’ll have to initiate the destruction procedure in a short time, erasing the Starfall Plane and any potential malformed consciousness it may give birth to completely from reality."
Jeming was silent for a moment, finally shaking his head with a sigh.
"Such... boldness."
Even to a Seventh Level Wizard, a fully controlled plane is an extremely precious asset.
And for a Sixth Level Wizard, a plane is practically their entire livelihood.
Starfall dares to use her core plane to conduct such a gamble-all experiment; this decisiveness truly deserves her name "Starfall."
"So, how much can the first batch provide?" Viola returned to the main topic.
Jeming closed his eyes and gathered his divine sense, connecting to the core of the plane manipulation array.
The panoramic view of the Incense Fire Divine Dao network unfolded in his consciousness: Energy veins covering the entire Purgatory Sulfur Plane, spread across 360 ’Elemental Spirit Conversion Towers’, with enormous amounts of elements supplied by the Seventh Level Large Elemental Pool continuously being converted into spiritual qi, stored in the natural spirit vein deep within the earth.
"Current reserves can spare half," Jeming opened his eyes, "but I will need some time to perform high-purity compression and packaging—using a Sixth Level Small Elemental Pool as the container can minimize transportation loss."
"That’ll do," Viola nodded. "Container costs will be deducted from the account."
Jeming didn’t hesitate, directly accessing the array’s permissions.
The entire Purgatory Sulfur Plane trembled slightly.
Deep within the earth, large amounts of light-blue spiritual qi were extracted, gathered through the Incense Fire Divine Dao network into the control tower at the plane’s core.
Jeming manipulated the plane control array, consolidating this outrageous power.
The spiritual qi visibly condensed from gaseous to liquid, then compressed from liquid into viscous gel, finally forming into thousands of nail-sized blue crystals.
This process lasted a full six hours.
When the last spiritual qi crystal dropped into the prepared Sixth Level Small Elemental Pool, the surface of the pool was already covered in a layer of blue light.
The runes that had dimmed due to energy depletion lit up again, shining even more brightly than during their peak.
"Here," Jeming pushed the sealed Small Elemental Pool toward Viola, "approximately equivalent to the total energy from five hundred standard Fifth Level Elemental Pools, all stored in crystal form. Before use, release it with the decompression array I provided, or extracting directly will cause energy to spiral out of control."
Viola accepted the Elemental Pool, feeling the surging energy waves within, nodded in satisfaction.
She flicked out a silver rune crystal: "Afterward, deliver it directly to this coordinate. Starfall has set up an automatic reception array, as long as the energy signature matches, the goods will be directly sent to the Starfall Plane’s reserve vault."
Transaction completed, Viola stood up to leave.
But just as the teleportation light shone, she seemed to suddenly remember something, turning to look at Jeming.
"By the way, your mandatory rest period... it should be near the final deadline, right?"
Jeming hesitated and then nodded: "About three years left."
"Any news on the next support plane?"
"Uh..." Jeming showed a rare awkward expression, "I’ve been immersed in iterations of my witchcraft and knowledge for decades and haven’t checked the military’s task notifications."
Viola shook her head, showing a "just as expected" expression on her exquisite face.
"You... really should step out of the lab and get some fresh air sometimes," she said helplessly, "look into it soon and be prepared. This should be your last short mandatory rest period, once you advance to a Fifth Level Wizard, your rest periods will be forcibly extended."
With her words falling, the teleportation light engulfed her figure.
The reception room returned to tranquility.
Jeming stood in place, pondering for a moment, then raised his hand to summon the Magic Network Terminal.
A semi-transparent light screen unfolded in the air, with a glaring "Unread Messages: 127" in the top right corner.
Most were automatic notifications from the military system, revenue reports on technical patents, and some collaboration invitations.
He directly filtered to the "Military Orders" category.
Three messages marked with emergency symbols popped up.
The first one was sent two hundred years ago, notifying him that his rest period was halfway over and he could apply for battle in advance.
Which was totally useless to him.
The second one was from fifty years ago, asking if he was interested in participating in a "High-risk Plane Development Plan" (expired).
The third one...
Sent seven days ago.
