Chapter 216

"What have you done?!"

The moment the living Flame-Frost Plane fell into complete silence under the sealing of layers of magic arrays.

Viola almost immediately dashed to Jie Ming's side and stared at him!

Her face no longer held the previous pathological fanaticism, but a kind of unprecedented shock.

Viola's performance at this moment completely overturned Jie Ming's perception of her.

Her silver-gray eyes were now wide open, and her pupils were even trembling slightly due to surprise!

On her cold cheeks, a rare expression of near-stupor appeared, her mouth slightly agape, as if she wanted to say something, but was choked in her throat by extreme surprise, unable to make any sound.

Her breathing became rapid, and a powerful wave of spiritual power uncontrollably escaped from her body, showing the extreme unrest in her heart at this moment.

She remembered very clearly that the turning point of the battle that decided the outcome of the earth-shattering plane-level battle just now began after Jie Ming finished asking that seemingly irrelevant question—the question about why the two monster kings surrendered.

As long as Viola wasn't stupid, even if she thought with her toes, she could realize that there must be some connection between Jie Ming and the final reversal of this battle!

Most importantly, Viola discovered that she couldn't understand at all what Jie Ming had actually done!

Wizards base their strength on knowledge.

Even though she was a newly promoted Tier 6 Wizard and her level was much higher than Jie Ming's, not being able to understand meant that Jie Ming's knowledge reserve in some aspects far exceeded hers!

This barrier of knowledge is sometimes even harder to overcome than the gap in levels!

However, after a brief shock, Viola quickly reacted and forcibly suppressed the overwhelming waves in her heart.

Looking at the calm-looking Jie Ming, she hesitated for a moment, and in the end, she didn't ask anything more.

After all, for a power system like wizards, knowledge is a wizard's most important and core secret!

Asking questions casually, especially those that obviously involve high-level knowledge systems, is a major taboo in the Wizarding World.

Even if the relationship between the two sides is good, asking rashly would only make Jie Ming harbor resentment toward her.

What's more, if she were to ask like this with her current wizard level, it would very likely trigger the ban of the Star Trail Tribunal.

After Viola reacted, she could only bury that surprise and countless questions deep in her heart.

"I didn't expect this junior of mine to be so... astonishing." Viola sighed inwardly, the appreciation and surprise even overshadowing her curiosity about the unknown. "No wonder... that old guy Clark values this young brat so much..."

Jie Ming knew that Viola had guessed something, but he had no intention of explaining.

The reason he chose to trigger the "Forbidden Sha Curse" was purely for the sake of his own life.

After all, if they had lost in that situation, with the two planes connected and unable to escape in a short time, high-tier wizards would be fine, but low-tier wizards like them would most likely be finished.

Moreover, he knew the rules of wizards very well.

As long as he doesn't admit it, even if Viola has some guesses in her heart, it is meaningless without substantial evidence and having seen it with her own eyes.

"Who knows?" Jie Ming looked at Viola.

Looking at her shocked and uncomposed expression at this moment, he suddenly became interested, imitating her signature expression of a hint of perverted playfulness, and revealed a meaningful smile: "Senior Sister, your appearance of being in such pain... and slightly shocked and uncomposed, is really... refreshing to me!"

"You!"

Viola's complexion, which had just calmed down, instantly turned from calm to astonishment.

Viola blinked, then suddenly reached out expressionlessly and pressed heavily on Jie Ming's shoulder.

Under her palm, a powerful aura carrying the pressure of a Tier 6 Wizard instantly permeated.

Although there was no physical attack, that sense of oppression was enough to make Jie Ming unable to move!

"It seems I was too kind, making you, this guy, a bit... cocky." Viola's voice was as cold as polar ice at this moment, every word carrying the undeniable oppression of a superior.

"I'm sorry, I was wrong!" Jie Ming felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and he decisively and quickly admitted defeat, instantly putting away the "perverted" expression on his face and apologizing sincerely.

Seeing this, Viola showed a satisfied expression and then withdrew her hand.

The two of them messing around like this could actually be considered a way to relax and release some pressure after the battle ended.

With the living Flame-Frost Plane successfully sealed, this thrilling plane war finally came to a complete end.

A few months later.

Jie Ming appeared in a void again, but he was not on a ship plane, but standing on a vast fragment of a giant continent floating in mid-air.

This continent was one of the countless floating islands formed after the surface matter of the Flame-Frost Plane disintegrated.

At this moment, he was busy bending down, collecting ecological information on various creatures on it.

He carefully placed a moss glowing with a faint ghostly blue light growing in a rock crevice into a sample bag.

Then he used a special detector to gently touch a black insect the size of a thumb sleeping in the ice, recording its life fluctuations and elemental structure...

The core consciousness of the Flame-Frost Plane was sealed, which did not mean that the work of logistics wizards like Jie Ming was over.

On the contrary, because of the unprecedented existence of a "living plane," its appearance made the things this group of logistics wizards had to do more and more complex.

The task Jie Ming received in these few months was to count the remaining ecological system and various resources of the Flame-Frost Plane.

After all, it was fun to "fight" with the living Flame-Frost Plane, but the price was also abnormally heavy.

The entire Flame-Frost Plane's original surface matter had evaporated by at least 90% under multiple plane-level impacts!

And the remaining land had all become floating islands, suspended above the core surface that had been pierced through.

These floating islands varied in size, the smallest possibly only a few hundred meters, while the largest were tens of kilometers.

They were connected to each other by a chaotic and peculiar force field, floating shakily in the void.

Wanting to completely count these fragmented areas, as well as the remaining ecology and resources on them, undoubtedly required a lot of time, energy, and even a certain amount of risk.

Jie Ming sighed and put away the detector in his hand.

He knew that before these data were analyzed and a new plane transformation plan was formulated, their running around would probably not stop.

Including Wizard Augustine, the entire expedition team was busy to the point of not touching the ground.

In fact, Jie Ming himself was happy to be busy here; after all, compared to others, he could have other extra gains.

After collecting the information, Jie Ming pinched a spell in his hand and stomped his foot slightly.

Then wisps of black Yin Sha Qi drifted out and were collected by Jie Ming into the Sha-Gathering Gourd.

This was his extra gain.

Although most of the Yin Sha Qi was consumed by the living plane, during the process of the opponent's resistance, a lot of Yin Sha Qi was blasted away and scattered on the surrounding floating islands.

Jie Ming didn't have the ability to collect this kind of high-grade Yin Sha Qi when it was gathered together before, so now it could be considered a blessing in disguise.

After Jie Ming completed the statistical work of the remaining ecological system and resources on the floating continent, his figure flashed, passed through the re-stabilized space crack above, and returned to the ship plane.

Seeing Jie Ming land, several snow monsters next to the space crack showed respectful expressions.

Wizard Augustine wouldn't waste resources; since the situation had been determined, he decisively signed a contract with the two monster kings.

Having witnessed the scene of wizards manipulating the ship plane to fight the Flame-Frost Plane, the two monster tribes now appeared somewhat fawning when seeing wizards.

Jie Ming didn't care about this; he walked straight to the logistics department of the temporary camp and uploaded all the information he had collected over the past few months to the core database via the terminal.

Having completed the task, Jie Ming was planning to take a short rest.

When leaving the logistics department, he found that many people in the camp were gathered in front of an open space, making buzzing discussions.

Out of curiosity, he also went over to watch and found that in the center of the camp surrounded by a group of wizards was a huge magic array flickering with mysterious runes.

Jie Ming identified it and found that this magic array was used to provide spatial coordinate positions.

In the magic net terminal, Master Augustine's notification also arrived at the right time: "Wizards, please note, the plane channel has been connected, welcome the colleagues coming from afar!"

Not long after, as the magic array emitted a brilliant light, circles of spatial ripples rippled in the center of the magic array.

The sky of the ship plane was torn apart again by an invisible force.

However, the opposite side of the crack this time was not some unknown plane, but dozens of figures of different shapes.

Those figures were much smaller in size compared to the narrow crack in the sky that was originally stable but not designed for large team transmission.

But Jie Ming found that the figures seemed to have a sense of embarrassment of not being able to squeeze through.

It seemed that this huge crack couldn't let them pass at all, as if behind those figures, there were even larger main bodies.

Several of the figures erupted with extremely powerful power auras.

As they exerted their power, they actually forcibly tore the space crack even larger!

Under their joint efforts, the space crack in the sky finally reached a shocking scale of more than ten kilometers long and several kilometers wide.

Only then did that group of figures manage to barely "squeeze" down!

As soon as the wizards crossed the space crack and "descended" onto the ship plane, several suffocatingly powerful power auras instantly permeated the entire ship plane.

The impact mixed with powerful elemental fluctuations and rule auras instantly made Jie Ming realize—these people were all Tier 6 wizards!

Among them, several auras were so strong that they should have reached Tier 7!

"Tsk, look at this bunch of lunatics, each one has an expression like a hungry wolf seeing fresh meat."

Viola popped out from some corner nearby, gently clicking her tongue, her silver-gray eyes flashing with a playful look of watching the fun.

Without waiting for Jie Ming to ask, she explained the matter to Jie Ming in a flat tone:

"After the news that Wizard Augustine successfully captured the living plane spread, the junction point almost exploded. Countless wizards, especially those focused on plane research and rule exploration, crazily applied to come and study this rare living plane."

Hearing this, Jie Ming's eyes moved slightly: "Oh? In that case, this Wizard Augustine has made a huge profit."

Viola couldn't help but sigh, her tone carrying a hint of complexity and helplessness: "Yes, originally, developing a plane is a 'investment' with quite a large upfront cost. Many ordinary Tier 6 wizards, if they want to start a plane development project, need to be in debt of military merits in the hundreds of millions to barely complete the preliminary development of the plane."

She looked at Wizard Augustine in the distance, her tone carrying a hint of irrepressible envy: "But with a rare resource like a living plane, Wizard Augustine might just rely on collecting 'admission tickets' from these wizards to earn back all his upfront investment, and even make a profit!"

Jie Ming also sighed along, but there was also some regret in his heart.

He probably wouldn't see such a precious resource as a living plane again for a short time.

Unfortunately, the periphery of the Flame-Frost Plane core was covered with dense maple-leaf-shaped translucent runes.

Those runes formed powerful isolation force fields, not only sealing the consciousness of the living plane but also isolating the prying eyes from the outside world.

Unless there was Wizard Augustine's consent, no one could get into the core at all, let alone conduct research.

And with his current technical level, let alone touching the core, he couldn't even get close to those runes, let alone have the ability to conduct research on an existence of this level.

He was still a low-tier wizard, and he was still too far away from the realm where he could freely contact and study the plane core.

Jie Ming suddenly felt a bit strange, and he turned to look at Viola: "Senior Sister, why did you come?"

After all, with Viola's personality, she shouldn't be interested in watching the fun like this, unless this fun could make many people feel pain.

Viola was just about to answer when a familiar voice answered Jie Ming's question for her.

"Because... I'm going to drag her back to pay off her debts properly."

Jie Ming turned his head abruptly and found that the person who came was actually Mentor Clark!

The other party was still as unkempt as before, and even that iconic messy hair seemed to be slightly balder.

The whole person looked like a tired "senior old ox-horse."

With two big dark circles under his eyes, it was as if he had just crawled out of some laboratory.

Hearing this, Viola couldn't help but sigh.

Knowing she couldn't escape, she explained to Jie Ming with a hint of helplessness: "Back then... that tube of 'Soul Sublimation Potion' was something I could only buy by taking a loan from my mentor!"

The helplessness and depression in her tone were almost overflowing: "The price was... needing to work for him for over a thousand years! It's simply a slave contract!"

Clark looked at her expressionlessly: "With your ability to earn money, it is a very reasonable price to only let you work for a thousand years."

He paused and added: "Of course, at the current stage, you have just been promoted to a Tier 6 Wizard. If you can hone your potion-making skills further and be promoted to a Potion Master, this working time should be shortened to within a hundred years."

Hearing this, Viola wailed, and even Jie Ming next to her couldn't help but shrink his neck.

Even if it was shortened to a hundred years, for Jie Ming, this was a quite exaggerated debt that could be called an "astronomical figure"!

Recalling that he seemed to have a loan to pay off at his teacher's side, Jie Ming suddenly felt a sense of sympathy for his senior sister.

He immediately understood that Mentor Clark came here just to drag Viola, this "invaluable" Tier 6 Wizard, back to be an ox-horse!

Mentor Clark looked at Jie Ming again and nodded at him, which counted as a greeting.

Jie Ming tidied his clothes slightly and bowed to Mentor Clark with a solemn expression: "Mentor..."

"Hmm, not bad." Clark nodded slightly, "To be able to encounter such a thing on your first independent expedition, your luck is truly enviable."

Jie Ming smiled, not knowing what to say.

This kind of thing is indeed good luck for a high-tier wizard, but for a low-tier wizard like him, it should be considered bad luck, right?

Clark ignored what Jie Ming was thinking and just turned to look at the high-tier wizards who were still falling from the sky one after another:

"I came here this time not only to study the living plane but also because I was invited by Augustine to help him install the cross-plane space teleportation array. It is estimated that we will be working together for a short time."

Hearing this, Jie Ming's face showed joy, but then he suddenly thought, if this is the case, wouldn't he have to "pay off the loan" again?

The problem is, although wizards can still provide a steady stream of Red Dust Power, the quantity is not too much.

Judging from the collection results of these few months, it is probably not easy to provide two tubes of Red Dust Potion on time every month.

Thinking of this, Jie Ming couldn't help but grind his teeth, and his face slumped slightly.

Clark seemed to see through his thoughts and couldn't help but laugh: "Don't worry, at least before the space teleportation array is finished, you don't have to worry about the debt problem."

Then, regardless of Jie Ming's relieved expression, Mentor Clark grabbed Viola's back collar skillfully, like picking up a chick.

Ignoring Viola's helpless and powerless struggling eyes, Clark directly dragged her toward Wizard Augustine, who had been waiting for a long time and was smiling so hard that his face was about to bloom.

Jie Ming clicked his tongue, shrank his head, and left the place directly.

Obviously, before returning to the school to be an "ox-horse" for Mentor Clark, Viola would probably have to be an assistant for Mentor Clark here for a long time to earn "interest"!

If he doesn't hurry up and gather resources to pay off his debts, he will probably become an ox-horse working like Viola.

(Only one chapter today.)

(End of chapter)