Translator: AnubisTL
"You may keep the original copies of these books, Excellency."
The leading wizard pointed to the bookshelves. "We have already copied the information, which is sufficient for our needs. These physical books may contain hidden details that scans cannot fully capture, or they themselves might be special conduits. It is only fitting that they be left for an alchemist like you to study."
Jieming nodded without refusal.
The idea that the medium of knowledge itself could hold secrets was common knowledge among wizards.
The other party's decision to leave the physical books to him was also a form of compensation.
The three wizards didn't linger. With their substantial gains, they quickly retreated along the path they had come, likely eager to digest their findings and exchange them for military merits.
In an instant, the vast treasure vault was left with only Jieming and the silent Black Giant beside him.
The once-mountainous piles of resources had been cleared out, leaving only the few rows of heavy bookshelves and the lingering traces of energy and soul crystals in the air.
After storing all the books from the vault into his internal space, Jieming felt no lingering attachment.
He ordered the Black Giant to set up several high-energy demolition charges and then quickly withdrew.
As he flew out of the cave entrance and landed on the surface, a muffled roar echoed behind him, and the entire ground trembled slightly.
The underground complex, once a hidden trove of wealth and knowledge, completely collapsed and was buried in the chain of explosions, severing any possibility of enemies ever utilizing it again.
For the next three days, Jieming continued his patrol in the outer perimeter clearing.
Relying on his Scouting Eye and his own senses, he managed to locate a few scattered resource points and hidden small warehouses, salvaging some of the local specialty metals and energy blocks.
But compared to the staggering haul from the treasure vault on the first day, these were merely trivial additions.
In his spare time, he roughly skimmed through the books he had acquired.
As he had expected, the vast majority of them were cultivation manuals used by the Giant Spirit Realm's native powerhouses. They detailed how to temper the spirit (or rather, the core consciousness), manipulate energy, and achieve deep fusion with various mechanical and biological limbs.
The level of these manuals was clearly not low, embodying the unique power system and wisdom of the Giant Spirit Realm Civilization.
For Jieming, the value of these texts lay not just in the cultivation methods themselves, but in their role as a window.
Through these manuals, he could reverse-engineer the deeper physiological structure, soul characteristics, and energy operation patterns of the Giant Spirit Realm's indigenous beings.
This held immeasurable significance for any subsequent targeted strikes or technological countermeasures.
Three days later, he received a recall order from the outpost camp. A new mission was dispatched to his and other logistics wizards' magic net terminals.
The mission content was familiar—the "old trade" of logistics wizards: [Research the physiological characteristics of the Giant Spirit Realm and its affiliated plane servant races, and develop targeted spells based on this research.]
However, unlike previous missions that typically required "preserving valuable samples as much as possible" or "controlling the spell's destructive range," this mission's notes explicitly stated—the primary objective was "annihilation," with no restrictions on spell power, aiming only for the most efficient killing and destruction.
Beyond that, the time constraint was even more pressing.
The camp command ordered that results must be delivered as soon as possible, preferably before the enemy's next large-scale counterattack.
According to intelligence from the forward reconnaissance unit, the Giant Spirit Realm was frantically mobilizing its native army and urgently recalling experts fighting in other planes.
It was estimated that in at most one month, a fierce assault far exceeding the scale of the landing battle would arrive.
In other words, the logistics wizards had less than one month to conduct research, analysis, and develop effective targeted weapons!
This was an almost impossible mission.
Complex biological research, spell configuration design, testing and optimization... which of these steps didn't require a massive amount of time?
However, when Jieming rushed back to the camp, he saw the "help" the command center had provided to solve this problem.
In the center of the camp, in what had once been an empty area, now stood a magnificent building of a completely different style.
Its entire structure was made of a certain dark silver metal, its surface flowing with rune lines as precise and intricate as clock markings. The overall shape was like a slightly flattened giant egg, emitting a strange force field that distorted the surrounding light.
"What is this thing?"
Jieming couldn't help but ask the logistics management wizard responsible for registration and coordination beside him as he looked at the building, which was in its final stages of calibration.
The management wizard, with a hint of pride on his face, explained, "This is the 'Chamber of Time Laws.' The command center explained the situation to the Star Ring Federation, so the Federation specially requisitioned and assembled this time acceleration field from the 'Void Architecture Institute' on an urgent basis."
"The time flow inside this thing can be stably accelerated by more than tenfold! This way, you all will effectively have ten months of research time."
Hearing this, Jieming couldn't help but feel amazed.
It wasn't just the technical level of this thing that was impressive, but also its origin.
Simple time acceleration wasn't particularly difficult; even expanding it into a time acceleration field was something many wizards could achieve.
The key was that as a tool for developing new spells, it had to accelerate time without affecting the properties of various elements compared to their normal state.
This was utterly staggering.
As everyone knew, time belonged to the water element branch. Once accelerated, the element itself would be influenced by the fundamental water element.
Eliminating this influence involved distorting the rules of the four fundamental elements.
To maintain a tenfold time acceleration while ensuring elemental stability—and to cover such a vast area—required law-level techniques that could only be described as divine craftsmanship.
This was a feat an ordinary eighth-tier wizard couldn't achieve; it was practically half-step ninth-tier technology.
Furthermore, the Void Architecture Institute was an entity on the same level as the Star Ring Federation and the Crimson Court—one of the four great powers of the wizard civilization.
To mobilize the Void Architecture Institute against such an unremarkable civilization... It seems the wizard civilization truly shows no mercy to any civilization it deems a threat, Jieming thought, silently mourning the triangular plane for three seconds.
One day later, all the logistics wizards assigned to the mission, including Jieming, entered the "Chamber of Time Laws" with a mixture of anticipation and urgency.
The interior space was far more vast than it appeared from the outside, divided into tens of thousands of independent laboratory units.
A slight sense of stagnation lingered in the air—the subtle sensation brought about by the distortion of time.
Through the specially treated observation windows, the outside world looked as if it had been paused.
In the laboratory Jieming was assigned, several indigenous Giant Spirit Realm specimens had already been prepared, each sealed within a high-intensity containment force field. These were the semi-fluid, slime-like creatures.
Observing them up close, Jieming noticed that their basic forms vaguely resembled humanoid outlines, but the number of their limbs was extremely unstable.
Some had extra tentacle-like structures, while others had only a blurry torso and a raised head.
The research proceeded rapidly. After a series of complex dissections, energy detections, and soul-level scans, an initial conclusion was quickly reached:
These Giant Spirit Realm natives have no gender distinction. They can produce new offspring by exchanging life information with any member of their own kind—a process akin to fusion and re-division at the cellular level.
Their most core peculiarity lies in the unimaginable compatibility of their semi-fluid bodily tissues with various mechanical devices and the limbs or organs of other biological entities!
Their cells secrete a special bio-enzyme and energy field that can almost completely neutralize the rejection reactions between different organisms and energies.
Combined with their innate, powerful control over their own cells as mucus-like creatures...
This means that once they encounter a creature with powerful physical innate talents, they can directly disassemble and transplant its limbs or organs for their own use!
Even more terrifyingly, leveraging their pinnacle biomimetic mechanical technology, the Giant Spirit Realm Civilization can mass-produce mechanical prosthetic limbs with nearly identical functions after obtaining the "blueprint" of a certain biological limb, and rapidly equip their entire army!
This was the root of the Giant Spirit Realm's terrifying evolutionary potential and adaptability—they were a monstrous entity capable of rapidly iterating their entire civilization's military power by "plundering" and "replicating" the innate talents of others' bodies!
After reaching this conclusion, Jieming fell into deep thought.
"In that case... our wizard civilization might actually be quite a hard counter for them, in a way?"
The core of a wizard's power lay in knowledge—using knowledge to leverage power.
While physical strength was certainly important, it was not the decisive factor.
All the Giant Spirit Realm could plunder were innate talents of the body.
And the physical talents of wizards were often unremarkable among peers of the same level. Compared to the power leveraged through knowledge, they could even be called "frail."
If the Giant Spirit Realm's indigenous beings went to great lengths to seize a wizard's bodily tissue, only to find nothing but a weak shell and mediocre elemental affinity, wouldn't that be a "negative buff"?
But Jieming quickly shook his head, dispelling this underestimating thought.
"I can't underestimate the enemy. What if they have a means to directly read or replicate memories?"
"Moreover, according to intelligence, the 'mental realm' in the triangular plane specializes in mind control and illusion magic. After such a long three-way competition, the giant spirit realm couldn't possibly lack some ability to deal with souls and acquire knowledge."
"But..." Jieming's gaze refocused on the constantly writhing semi-fluid tissue of the experimental sample, his train of thought gradually clearing. "Perhaps I can start with their very 'strong compatibility' ability."
"To be able to connect to and drive the bodies of alien creatures so easily, there must be some unique structure or pheromone within their bodies that I haven't fully understood yet, used to coordinate, control, and 'translate' the signals of alien life. If I can disrupt this thing..."
Having found a possible research direction, Jieming's spirit lifted, and he immediately immersed himself in deeper microscopic-level research.
Not only him, but other logistics wizards in the surrounding laboratory units, after completing the initial physiological characteristic analysis, also began intensive research along different lines of thought based on their own professional judgment and inspiration.
(End of the Chapter)
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