Chapter 307: The Void Architecture Institute and the Research Mission

"These original books, please keep them, my lord."

The lead wizard pointed at the bookshelves: "It is sufficient for us to have copied the information. These physical books may still hide details that scanning cannot fully capture, or they might themselves be some kind of special medium; leaving them for the Alchemist my lord to study is most appropriate."

Gao Jie Ming nodded and did not decline.

That the carrier of knowledge itself sometimes harbors secrets is almost common knowledge for wizards.

The other party yielding the physical books to him could also be considered compensation in another aspect.

The three wizards lingered no longer; carrying their abundant harvest, they swiftly retreated along the path they had come, evidently eager to return, digest their gains, and exchange them for military merit.

In the vast treasury, in the blink of an eye, only Gao Jie Ming remained, along with the silent black giant beside him.

The resources once piled like mountains had been cleared away, leaving only those rows of heavy bookshelves and the lingering aftertaste of energy and soul crystals not yet fully dissipated in the air.

After storing all the books from the treasury into his internal space, Gao Jie Ming felt not the slightest attachment.

He ordered the black giant to set up several high-energy demolition points, then swiftly withdrew.

When he flew out of the cave entrance and landed on the surface, a muffled thunderous roar came from behind him, causing the entire ground to tremble slightly.

That underground complex, hiding wealth and knowledge, collapsed completely and was buried amidst a series of explosions, cutting off any possibility of enemies utilizing it again.

For the next three days, Gao Jie Ming continued his patrols in the outer cleansing zones.

Relying on his Eye of Reconnaissance and his own perception, he did manage to find some scattered resource spots and hidden small warehouses, harvesting some local specialty metals and energy blocks.

But compared to the astonishing harvest from the treasury on the first day, these could only be considered mere extras, better than nothing.

In his leisure time, he roughly browsed through the books he had acquired.

As expected, just as he had anticipated, most of them were scriptures used by the native powerhouses of the Giant Spirit Realm for cultivation, recording how they tempered their spirits (or rather, their core consciousness), manipulated energy, and the methods for deeply fusing with various machines and biological limbs.

The grade of these scriptures was evidently not low, containing the wisdom of the Giant Spirit Realm civilization's unique power system.

For Gao Jie Ming, the value of these scriptures lay not merely in the cultivation methods they recorded themselves, but more in that they served as a window.

Through these scriptures, he could reverse-engineer the deeper physiological structures, soul characteristics, and energy operation modes of the Giant Spirit Realm natives.

This held immeasurable significance for subsequent targeted strikes or technological countermeasures that might be conducted.

Three days later, he received a recall order from the outpost camp; a new mission was issued to his and other logistics-system wizards' Magic Net terminals.

The mission content was familiar, the "bread and butter" of logistics-system wizards: 【Study the physiological characteristics of the Giant Spirit Realm and its subservient races from affiliated planes, and based on this, develop targeted sorceries.】

But unlike previous missions that usually required "preserving valuable samples as much as possible" or "controlling the destructive scope of sorceries," the remarks for this mission clearly stated the primary objective was "annihilation," placing no limits on the power of the sorceries and pursuing only the most efficient killing and destruction.

Beyond that, even more pressing was the time requirement.

The camp command ordered that results must be produced as soon as possible, preferably before the enemy's next large-scale counteroffensive.

According to intelligence returned by forward reconnaissance units, the Giant Spirit Realm side was frantically mobilizing its local armies and urgently recalling powerhouses fighting in other planes.

It was estimated that within a month at most, a fierce assault far surpassing the scale of the landing battle would arrive.

This meant that the time left for the logistics-system wizards to conduct research, analysis, and develop effective targeted weapons was less than a month!

This was almost an impossible task.

Complex biological research, sorcery configuration design, testing and optimization—which of these links did not require consuming a massive amount of time?

However, when Gao Jie Ming rushed back to the camp, he saw the "assistance" the command had provided to solve this problem.

In the center of the camp, where the area had originally been empty, now stood a magnificent building of a completely different style.

It was composed entirely of some dark silver metal, its surface flowing with precise and complex rune lines like clock markings; its overall shape resembled a slightly flattened giant egg, emitting a strange force field that distorted the light around it.

"What the heck is this thing?"

Looking at this building, which was in its final debugging stage, Gao Jie Ming could not help but ask a logistics management wizard nearby who was responsible for registration and coordination.

That management wizard wore a trace of pride on his face and explained: "This is the 'Chamber of Temporal Law.' The command explained the situation to the Star Ring Federation, so the Federation specially emergency-dispatched and assembled this time-acceleration field from the 'Void Architecture Institute'."

"The time flow inside this thing can be stably accelerated by more than ten times! In this way, you all effectively have ten months of research time."

Hearing this, Gao Jie Ming could not help but feel amazed in his heart.

Not only at the technical level of this thing, but also at its origin.

Mere time acceleration is not difficult; even expanding it into a time-acceleration domain, there are plenty of wizards capable of doing so.

The key point is that, as something used to develop new sorceries, while accelerating time, it must also be able to not affect the various data of each element compared to normal conditions.

This was quite exaggerated.

As everyone knows, time belongs to the Water Element branch; once time is accelerated, it means the elements themselves will be affected by the foundational Water Element.

Wanting to eliminate this influence already involves distorting the rules of the four foundational elements.

Ensuring element stability while maintaining tenfold time acceleration, and covering such a large area, involves law-level techniques that can be described as ghostly and divine craftsmanship.

Ordinary Grade 8 wizards cannot achieve this ability; it can be said to be a half-step Grade 9 technique.

On the other hand, the Void Architecture Institute is an existence on the same level as the Star Ring Federation and the Crimson Royal Court, one of the four major powers of wizard civilization.

"To mobilize the power of the Void Architecture Institute just to fight such an inconspicuous civilization; it seems wizard civilization truly goes all out against civilizations that pose a threat." Gao Jie Ming could not help but silently mourn for three seconds for the civilization of the Triangle Plane in his heart.

One day later, all logistics-system wizards who had received the mission, including Gao Jie Ming, stepped into this "Chamber of Temporal Law" with a mix of anticipation and urgency.

The internal space was vaster than it appeared from the outside, divided into tens of thousands of independent laboratory units.

A slight sense of stagnation permeated the air, a subtle sensation brought about by the distortion of time.

Through specially treated observation windows, one could see the scenery outside as if the pause button had been pressed.

In the laboratory assigned to Gao Jie Ming, several Giant Spirit Realm native samples were already prepared, sealed by high-intensity containment fields—those slime-like creatures whose true forms were semi-fluid.

Observing them up close, Gao Jie Ming discovered that the basic form of these creatures vaguely presented a human-like outline, but the number of limbs was extremely unstable.

Some had several extra tentacle-like structures, while others possessed only a vague torso and a head protrusion.

The research proceeded rapidly; through a series of complex dissections, energy detections, and soul-level scans, preliminary conclusions were soon reached:

These Giant Spirit Realm natives had no distinction of gender; they could produce new offspring by exchanging life information with any of their own kind—a process similar to fusion and re-division at the cellular level.

Their most core peculiarity lay in the unimaginable compatibility of their semi-fluid bodily tissues with various mechanical devices and the limbs of other creatures,

and organs!

Their cells can secrete a special biological enzyme and energy field that almost completely neutralizes rejection reactions between different organisms and energy types.

Coupled with their innate, extreme control over their own cells as slime-based lifeforms...

This means that once they encounter a creature possessing powerful physical talents, they can directly dismantle and transplant its limbs or organs for their own use!

Even more terrifying is that, relying on their peak-level bio-mimetic mechanical technology, once the Giant Spirit Realm civilization obtains the "blueprint" of a certain biological limb, they can mass-produce mechanical prosthetics with nearly identical functions and rapidly equip their entire army!

This is the root of the terrifying evolution and adaptability displayed by the Giant Spirit Realm: they are a fearsome existence capable of rapidly iterating their entire civilization's military power by "plundering" and "replicating" the physical talents of others!

After reaching this conclusion, Gao Jie Ming instead fell into deep thought.

"In that case—to a certain extent, isn't our Wizard Realm quite effective at countering them?"

The core of a wizard's power lies in knowledge; they leverage knowledge to mobilize power.

Physical strength is certainly important, but it is not the decisive factor.

What the Giant Spirit Realm can plunder is merely physical talent.

Yet, among peers, a wizard's bodily talents are often unremarkable; compared to the power leveraged through knowledge, they could even be described as "frail."

If a native of the Giant Spirit Realm expended great effort to seize a wizard's bodily tissue, only to find nothing but a weak shell and merely average elemental affinity, would that not be a "negative enhancement"?

But Gao Jie Ming quickly shook his head, dispelling this notion of underestimating the enemy.

"We must not look down on them. What if they possess methods to directly read or replicate memories?"

"Moreover, according to intelligence, the Mind Realm within the Triangular Plane excels at manipulating thoughts and illusions. After competing for so long, the Giant Spirit Realm surely possesses some capability to deal with souls and acquire knowledge."

"However—" Gao Jie Ming refocused his gaze on the constantly writhing semi-fluid tissue of the experimental sample, his train of thought gradually clarifying, "perhaps we can start with this ability of theirs: their extreme compatibility."

"Since they can so easily connect to and drive the bodies of alien species, there must exist within their physiology some unique structure or pheromone, not yet fully understood by me, used to coordinate, control, and 'translate' alien life signals. If we could disrupt this thing—"

Having found a possible research direction, Gao Jie Ming felt a surge of spirit and immediately plunged into deeper microscopic research.

Not only him, but other logistics-system wizards in the surrounding laboratory units, after completing preliminary analyses of physiological characteristics, also began intensive research along different lines of thought based on their own professional judgments and inspirations.