Chapter 135: Identity and Purpose

As they gradually approached and finally stopped at a wide pipe junction in front of Gao Jie Ming, he finally made out their figures.

They were similarly shrouded in various disguises, but the unique witchcraft resonance emanating from them signaled that these individuals no longer intended to pretend.

He ceased hiding, slowly stepping out from the shadows, his footsteps sounding exceptionally clear in the silent sewers.

Upon hearing his footsteps, the four figures, who had previously been wary of one another, froze in unison before whipping around.

"Although I guessed there were many witches within the Royal Capital, the fact that you all managed to infiltrate such high positions truly makes one wonder if you aren't geniuses after all."

Gao Jie Ming stepped forward slowly, taking the initiative to break the silence among them: "We don't have much time; since you all have reservations, let this nameless nobody start things off..."

"You are hardly a nameless nobody."

A clear and beautiful voice interrupted his words, prompting Gao Jie Ming to naturally turn his gaze toward the relatively petite figure.

The other party wore a black robe that concealed their face, but judging by the voice and physique, it should be a woman.

"Surely no one would consider Your Excellency, who took first place on the Contribution List, to be a nameless nobody, correct? Am I right, Mr. Gao Jie Ming?"

Upon hearing Gao Jie Ming's identity, the other three paused slightly, then revealed expressions of understanding, several curious gazes immediately fixing on Gao Jie Ming.

As for Gao Jie Ming, upon hearing the other party's words, he was genuinely surprised.

Although the name "Gao Jie Ming" should indeed be very famous among the witches of the Plane Nuolun Workshop now, Gao Jie Ming was also very clear that apart from the wizard apprentices of Academy No. 13, others should not know his specific circumstances or appearance.

Moreover, he had altered his appearance; he was currently using the adventurer appearance named "Jack."

However, upon seeing the face revealed when the other party lifted their black robe, and sensing the comfortable aura emanating from them, a flash of understanding passed through Gao Jie Ming's eyes:

"So it is Miss Mary... no, I should say it is Miss Anya."

"Eh?"

That human baroness's daughter possessing powerful affinity, Miss Mary, suddenly retracted the comfortable aura surrounding her, revealing her ethereal and vibrant true temperament—it was indeed Anya!

The reason Anya could discover his identity was likely because she relied on her innate talent to sense the abnormal life aura on him.

After all, back in the square of the Plane Nuolun Workshop, the other party had also relied on innate perception to spot him at a glance from within the crowd.

She looked at Gao Jie Ming, curiosity in her eyes: "How did you recognize me?"

"The aura emanating from Your Excellency is too familiar; although it has undergone certain disguises, that kind of affinity toward life force is something I have only seen on you." Gao Jie Ming smiled.

Anya furrowed her brows: "That makes no sense; was my disguise really that poor?"

Gao Jie Ming did not answer.

Of course, he would not tell the other party that the most important reason he could identify her was her gaze.

Back at the banquet, when this "Miss Mary" had gazed at him with what she believed was a well-hidden look, Gao Jie Ming had already noticed.

After all, that longing for experimental subjects within her gaze was simply too conspicuous for a cultivator like Gao Jie Ming, who had recently been frequently absorbing Red Dust Qi.

However, with the two of them setting an example, the remaining three ceased hiding themselves as well.

The disguise shrouding the other tall figure dissipated like thin mist, revealing her exquisite beauty—it was precisely the arrogant leader of the Elf Diplomatic Mission.

A flash of surprise and understanding passed through her eyes, then she smiled lightly, whispering with a hint of amusement:

"Gao Jie Ming? What a surprise... I never expected to encounter you, the top-ranked one, here. I am Seraphina."

As she spoke, Seraphina's body flickered like an unstable image, then reverted to her appearance as a level-ten genius.

"That is long in the past; I am probably ranked outside the top ten now." Gao Jie Ming waved his hand, "Your Excellency's great name is like thunder reverberating in my ears."

Seraphina's speaking served as a signal; the remaining two did not hesitate either, removing their disguises one after another.

The rough and bold Orc warrior saw the beast fur and wild aura covering his body recede, revealing his refined scholar's countenance—it was Kaelen!

He grinned, a trace of self-mockery in his expression: "Finally meeting comrades; I thought I was the only fool who had to pretend to be a brute here."

Next, the hearty and rough female dwarf saw her characteristic stout Dwarven temperament dissipate, revealing a male figure who looked somewhat unfamiliar.

Gao Jie Ming looked at the other party with some uncertainty, but Kaelen recognized him: "Rex? It seems I haven't seen you without your alchemical construct in a long time."

Rex?

Gao Jie Ming subtly sized up the other party's temperament, unable to reconcile him with that tall mechanical figure.

A wise light that seemed to see through everything flickered in Rex's eyes: "I never expected to meet you all here; it seems everyone is a smart person."

Five witches who could all be called geniuses within the Plane Nuolun Workshop had now reunited in the sewers of the Eloisia Royal Capital.

Gao Jie Ming sized up the four familiar yet strange faces before him, suddenly unable to suppress a soft chuckle.

He thought of his previous complaint; it seemed this world had not secretly updated its version, as those whose threats he could detect were all geniuses of the same level.

However, his laughter still attracted the gazes of everyone.

Gao Jie Ming raised his hand to his mouth and gave a dry cough to mask his embarrassment, then spoke with a touch of emotion in his tone:

"It seems our goals are consistent; truly, great minds think alike."

"No, no, no, no... you overestimate me."

"Who thinks alike with a madman like you?"

"I am not as crazy as you..."

"Hey! Don't slander me! I am not that crazy!"

Contrary to Gao Jie Ming's expectations, as soon as he uttered this sentence, the other four reacted as if pricked by needles, their hackles rising, with one even involuntarily taking two steps back to distance themselves from him.

"?"

Gao Jie Ming tilted his head: "What do you all mean by this?"

Kaelen, possessing a good-natured personality, pursed his lips upon seeing this and said: "You should know we are only level-one witches, right?"

"Yes."

"Then you, a level-one witch, plotting against hundreds of creatures ranging from a minimum of level four to a maximum of level seven, don't you think that is a bit too crazy?"

"Huh?" Gao Jie Ming felt his brain couldn't turn fast enough, "Leaving aside the fact that you guys are also plotting against deities, what is there to be afraid of in plotting? Are you even proper witches?!"

"Precisely because we are proper witches, we would not do such a thing!" Seraphina couldn't help but retort, "As witches, shouldn't the most important thing be to rationally calculate the cost and gain of a matter? We are not those brainless brutes from the combat faction..."

Kaelen's expression also looked somewhat helpless:

"Although both schemes target the deities, their nature differs entirely. Our original plan was, at most, to secretly administer poison, but judging by the formation you arranged, you intend to feed them excrement right to their faces!"

"Uh..." Gao Jie Ming involuntarily choked up.

Recalling the several formations he had discovered, his expression inevitably turned strange.

It seemed... it truly appeared he had misunderstood.

Ever since Gao Jie Ming was thrown into the Elosia Plane, a question had constantly churned in his heart: How could this group of wizard apprentices possibly exert an effective, or even decisive, influence on the war situation within such a vast cluster of medium-sized planes?

He knew clearly that even if they advanced to First-Rank Formal Wizards within the plane, their combat power would, at best, only equate to the Legendary experts of this world.

That sounded formidable, sufficient to crush everything in the mortal realm.

But one must not forget that besides mortals, the Elosia Plane also housed tens of thousands of angels, and behind them, hundreds of deities.

Even a single angel equivalent to a Third-Rank being was enough to force his current self into a deadly predicament.

And if a deity personally descended leading angels, this group of wizard apprentices, even combined, would merely be beaten like dogs by the angels under the deity's command.

Relying solely on destruction and combat, the contribution they could achieve could even be described as countable on one's fingers, utterly insignificant.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Gao Jie Ming realized they could not approach this plane war using traditional combat models.

He had to find a clever breakthrough point, a key capable of leveraging small forces for great gains to pry open the core of the entire plane.

After meticulously studying the divine power faith network of the Elosia Plane, as well as the complex relationships between the deities and faith in this world, a bold idea gradually formed in Gao Jie Ming's heart: He could entirely find a way to contaminate faith, thereby affecting the deities from the side!

Apart from the sole native deity—the God of Gods—all other deities in the Elosia Plane were not native deities but faith deities.

This meant the foundation of their power stemmed entirely from the faith power of mortals, thus making them significantly susceptible to the purity of that faith power.

And even that sole native deity, the God of Gods, due to the deities' deliberate indulgence and willful neglect over many years, had passively absorbed no small amount of mortal faith.

While this boosted the deity's strength considerably, it also meant He was not entirely transcendent.

What Gao Jie Ming intended to do was simple: manipulate the faith power to consequently affect the entire pantheon of the Elosia Plane.

The higher-ranking the deity, the more faith they collected, and thus the greater the impact of the contamination.

Of course, he also knew clearly that even exerting his utmost effort, the influence he could exert on the deities was actually quite minuscule, perhaps lasting only an instant.

But he did not need to cause a massive impact; all he required was to distract their attention.

Even distracting them for merely an instant would be sufficient!

Because outside the Elosia Plane cluster, more than half of the High-Rank Wizards from the Plane Nuolun Workshop were waiting!

With the strength of these High-Rank Wizards, dispatching even a single Seventh-Gao Jie Wushi could sweep across the entire plane cluster, crushing the mortals, angels, and even faith deities here into slag.

The reason they had yet to act was solely to prevent the deities of the Elosia Plane, like cornered dogs leaping over a wall, from triggering the plane's origin and dragging the entire plane into mutual destruction.

Mentor Clark had once told Gao Jie Ming that in such a stalemate, wizards usually had three methods to seize a plane's origin: finding a higher-rank wizard to handle it, weakening the origin power saturating the plane, or having a wizard advance directly to Sixth-Rank within that plane.

Essentially, these three methods all aimed to ensure that beings above Sixth-Rank in that plane could not immediately trigger the origin power to destroy the plane.

And what Gao Jie Ming intended to do operated on this same principle.

As long as the contaminated faith power could distract the deities' attention, even for a mere instant, it would be enough!

The High-Rank Wizards surrounding the area from the outside could fully utilize this opportunity to suppress and capture the deities of the Elosia Plane.

Although he had not communicated with the outside world at all, Gao Jie Ming believed that given the wisdom of the High-Rank Wizards outside and their understanding of plane warfare, they would not let this opportunity slip away.

Especially after he preliminarily studied the divine power faith network of the Elosia Plane, he profoundly realized the wizards' longing for "deities" as high-grade experimental specimens.

This longing was sufficient to make them seize any fleeting opportunity, no matter how brief.

Prior to this, Gao Jie Ming had always assumed the other four present shared his same line of thinking, that they were all striving toward this common goal in their own ways.

But now he discovered that things seemed not quite right.

"Initially, we only intended to trigger the negative emotions of the mortal races in this plane, causing the faith power they provided to become impure."

On the way to the formation nodes, the other four explained to Gao Jie Ming.

Rex, who had previously played the role of a female dwarf, couldn't help but sigh: "Take me, for instance; I have already mobilized most of the dwarves' emotions regarding 'sloth'."

Seraphina and Kaelen nearby nodded in agreement; they too had mobilized large amounts of negative emotions within the races they were disguised as.

"So those three formations..." Gao Jie Ming's mouth twitched.

"... were simply energy dispersion formations. Their purpose was merely to spread the energy of the props on their persons throughout the entire human kingdom, thereby triggering negative emotions among humans," Anya sighed.

"Those three worked so hard to delay negotiations just to buy enough time to arrange the formations. I acted slightly later, so I originally planned to hitch a ride on their efforts, but I never expected you to directly alter the very essence of the entire formation."

"So now we are also on your pirate ship; if we don't want all our previous efforts to be wasted, we have no choice but to follow through with you."

At the current stage, there were a total of four methods for novice wizards to earn contribution points within the Elosia Plane.

The first method was simple slaughter and destruction; however, given the strength of novice wizards, the amount of contribution points earned this way was not large, and with bad luck, there was a high probability of being killed in return.

The second method required considering the overall situation, devising ways to make the various races of the Elosia Plane provide more armies for the wizard camp to slaughter.

The third method was similar to what geniuses like Anya and Kaelen had previously intended: influencing the state of the deities by impacting the mortal world.

Although the effect was not significant, considering the inherent importance of the deities themselves, the contribution points awarded were definitely not low.

As for the fourth method, that was Gao Jie Ming's approach; while also primarily aiming to influence the deities, the means were far more extreme and intense.

"Ah, this..."

Gao Jie Ming now realized it as well; how many proper wizard apprentices would, like him, spend a massive amount of time researching knowledge related to the divine power faith network at the critical moment for earning contribution points?

He had previously calculated the energy dispersion effects of those three formations and subconsciously assumed the others shared his same idea, never expecting it to be a misunderstanding.

Originally, he even felt these few individuals' proficiency in formations was lacking, so he kindly helped them add and modify "a little bit" of runes.

(End of Chapter)