Chapter 263: Decision

Jie Ming came to Levin Mills, who had completely lost the ability to resist, with a cold gaze.

The two looked at each other, both seeing the killing intent in each other's eyes.

Jie Ming did not hesitate at all and punched down, instantly destroying his physical body.

The soul of a Level 3 wizard is strong enough to survive briefly after leaving the body.

But Jie Ming would not give him any chance.

He reached back and took out a special Level 4 attack wizard tool from his body space—in which a Level 4 wizardry specifically used to destroy the soul was sealed.

Seeing Levin Mills's weak soul fly out from the remnant body, trying to escape, Jie Ming immediately activated the wizard tool.

But he deliberately deflected the angle by a thread, so that the soul wizardry did not completely annihilate him, but severely injured him to a near-death state.

The result was about the same as Jie Ming expected; Levin Mills's soul was suspended in mid-air, losing consciousness, and constantly dissipating.

Seeing this scene, Jie Ming reached out and cast "Soul Search" on him.

After the Level 4 wizardry shock just now, most of Levin Mills's memories had suffered irreversible damage.

But according to the characteristics of the soul, those memories with the deepest obsessions and the deepest impressions would still remain.

And it was precisely in these remaining memory fragments that Jie Ming found the information he urgently needed—the truth of the whole thing.

Initially, Levin Mills and his group did accept the camp mission to search for the missing wizard squad.

Although Levin Mills kept calling Jie Ming a genius, his own talent was not bad, and after advancing to Level 3, he also mastered some basic spatial knowledge.

Precisely because of this, he dared to take over this mission with risks.

Everything went smoothly at first, and they successfully found the wizard squad lost in this twisted space.

However, just as they were preparing to lead the other party to withdraw, that squad suddenly launched an attack without warning!

Fortunately, that squad only had six wizards, and the high-level combat power among them was only two Level 3 wizards who had just advanced not long ago, and they hadn't even fully mastered their own power.

Coupled with the cunning Levin Mills leaving a backup plan before meeting, hiding some team members on the periphery to support.

Relying on the tenacious vitality of the "vitality" rule, Levin Mills luckily didn't die and led the team members to counter-kill several people on the opponent's side with a numerical advantage.

The surviving enemy Level 3 wizard saw that the assassination failed and actually recklessly mobilized his unskilled spatial rules, trying to forcibly tear space to escape.

This move triggered a chain of spatial turbulence in this already unstable area, forcing Levin Mills and others to withdraw temporarily, waiting for the space to calm down.

And through the memory extraction of the soul of the beheaded, Levin Mills discovered a heaven-shaking secret that shocked them incomparably: the core area of this space-twisted area actually contained extremely precious free-state "plane origin"!

"Plane origin," besides being directly extracted by Level 7 wizards with great power, will also spontaneously condense in specific energy bodies or substances in the plane under certain special conditions, forming precious resources containing origin.

Such naturally formed origin is not as pure as that extracted by Level 7 wizards, but it can still greatly assist the wizard's path of advancement.

And more importantly, the origin produced here is the rare and precious "spatial rule" origin!

This also explains why that Level 3 wizard was so unfamiliar with his own power—he advanced by forcibly absorbing "plane origin," but didn't have time to accumulate corresponding knowledge and control.

As for why they attacked Levin Mills's squad?

It was because the characteristics of this area were special: if you want to obtain origin, you must use special means to "sacrifice" high-quality matter and information.

Due to violent spatial fluctuations, the plane origin here is extremely unstable, and through sacrifice, the origin within it can be "exchanged" out.

Matter is still easy to solve, but "high-quality information" is extremely rare.

Although in the eyes of wizards, information carriers are everywhere, pure information itself is very rare.

Besides pure plane origin, the most suitable medium for carrying information is the soul.

And so-called "high-quality information" means that the souls of local ordinary beasts are useless, and the most suitable sacrifices are intelligent lives—especially the souls of wizards, which are highly condensed and gather a large amount of knowledge!

Therefore, that squad saw that Levin Mills and others were not strong and launched an attack, intending to harvest more souls to exchange for origin.

After all, for ordinary wizards, there is simply no willpower to resist high-end resources like plane origin.

But they didn't expect Levin Mills to have a backup plan, and their strength was insufficient, eventually overturning the car.

The subsequent development was everything Jie Ming experienced personally.

Levin Mills's squad, in order to search for the remaining enemies more efficiently, and also to cover up this shocking secret, specially hired a batch of low-level wizards as cannon fodder.

In this way, even if the plan was exposed, they could silence them at any time, and even take advantage of the situation to treat these wizards as "high-quality resources" needed for sacrifice, used to exchange for spatial origin.

The Level 3 wizard who luckily escaped, after finding that Levin Mills and others had been blocking the exit, had nowhere to go.

Had to sacrifice all his dead companions, exchange for massive plane origin to forcibly advance, trying to fight for a glimmer of life by relying on the level advantage.

Browsing these fragmented memory fragments, a hint of understanding flashed in Jie Ming's eyes.

He finally understood Levin Mills's true plot, and also understood why that Level 4 wizard was so weak—essentially, he was just a Level 2 wizard who was forcibly piled up to the level by origin.

Having Level 4 spiritual power strength and physique, but no corresponding knowledge and skills, naturally vulnerable.

But Jie Ming soon turned his attention to the most critical part of the intelligence: that treasure land that could exchange for "plane origin"!

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

After a long while, Jie Ming made up his mind.

He turned around and looked at the Level 4 wizard who was still weakly lying on the ground.

The other party had just witnessed the whole process of Jie Ming dealing with Levin Mills, and now seeing Jie Ming's gaze sweep over, only bitterness remained on his face.

The magic-prohibiting field had not yet completely dissipated, and he himself was seriously injured and near death, so he chose to submit without hesitation: "Don't kill me... I am willing to accept the camp's trial and audit."

Jie Ming nodded and didn't say much, just condensed a new contract and handed it over.

The Level 4 wizard smiled miserably and finally branded his spiritual mark on it.

For Jie Ming, this was the safest way to handle it for the time being.

On the surface, the wizard civilization strictly prohibits killing among the same race.

As long as it is not discovered, it is naturally fine, but conversely, if the evidence is conclusive, the violator will inevitably face a severe trial.

Unless the circumstances are extremely bad, it usually doesn't lead to death, but wizards have plenty of means to squeeze the value of criminal wizards to the extreme, making them use their long remaining lives to repay their crimes.

And as the whistleblower and escort, Jie Ming will permanently enjoy a portion of all the benefits squeezed from this Level 4 wizard—regardless of resources, knowledge, or military merits.

In other words, this Level 4 wizard will become a "living mineral deposit" under Jie Ming's name for the rest of his life.

Of course, all this is based on the premise that he can pass the so-called "audit."

Compared with the relatively public "trial," "audit" is more secretive.

It is usually only started when the camp or higher-level forces suspect that wizards have abnormal conditions such as "thought pollution," "soul replacement," or "spiritual incubation."

And this way of forcibly advancing by relying on a single source of plane origin is one of the key review situations.

Theoretically, wizards can indeed advance by relying on pure "plane origin," but the premise is that these origins must come from different planes.

Because plane origin is essentially the aggregation of information, and consciousness and spirit are also a form of information.

If a high-level existence is willing to decompose its own soul information into basic origin and be completely absorbed by others, it can perfectly replace the underlying consciousness of the opponent without causing abnormal soul fluctuations!

In fact, this situation is also the most common situation during audits.

As long as the world master of a world (the strongest creature in this world) has enough wisdom to see through the true power behind the wizards, then he easily understands that he faces only two paths: death, or becoming "war loot."

Although many with strong personalities will decide to drag the enemy to die together, there are still many who don't want to die and will think of ways to save themselves.

And this kind of similar seizing method is easy for creatures that can communicate with plane origin to think of.

Thinking of this, Jie Ming couldn't help but remember that before he officially advanced, he had seen a legendary senior who returned from the "Shadow Plane"—advanced five levels in five years.

After knowing the inside story of the relevant knowledge later, he specifically checked the academy archives and indeed found that the name of that "senior" had long been quietly listed on the casualty list.

Undoubtedly, that "lucky one" had long been "seized" by the world master of the Shadow Plane.

But precisely because of paying such a price, the Shadow Plane, which was extremely difficult to deal with, was quickly pacified by the strong of the Nuolun Workshop.

Thinking about it now, the smile his mentor Clark had at that time was probably because he had received the news in advance, so he smiled so playfully.

"...... Let's go."

Jie Ming withdrew his thoughts, glanced at the ashen-faced Level 4 wizard and the group of survivors who were still in shock.

He didn't say much more, swept the war loot on the ground, and took the lead in flying toward the direction he came from.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 264 =====