Chapter 2328: Arcane Difficulties, Projections Seeking Opportunity

However, immortality does not necessarily have to be obtained all at once; longevity itself can be considered one of the steps on the ladder to immortality, and Xia Duo has already traveled much further along this path than the average person.

He believes he has a chance to see true immortality, or at the very least, he can take the path of Ascension to Godhood, though there are too many black boxes involved, and it is currently impossible to determine if this path contains irreversible hidden dangers.

If it could be confirmed that there are no irreversible hidden dangers, and in the absence of an Arcane Path to follow, it might not be impossible to use it as a final fallback.

Although Xia Duo has no intention of ascending to godhood, he has not neglected any of the relevant preparations; he lacks neither Order Force nor Faith Power, and as long as he is willing, he can perform the Ascension Ritual at any time.

It is precisely because of this that he is particularly concerned with the more universal Arcane Path.

To use a perhaps inappropriate analogy, Ascension to Godhood is like ascending to the heavens in one step to become an Elder; while the Arcane Path is starting from the grassroots and being promoted step by step, eventually also becoming an Elder, but every step in between is well-founded, traceable, and can become a path for others to replicate.

Although Xia Duo would very much like to ascend to the heavens in one step, in all honesty, he still feels that step-by-step, well-founded progress is more beneficial for personal development.

Applied to the magical world, a god might be the upper limit of the Ascension to Godhood path, but a Quasi-God is not necessarily the upper limit of the Arcane Path; perhaps one could even surpass the gods!

Lacking an understanding of the key steps for advancement, everything that follows is built on the foundation of unknown black boxes, and the path will only grow narrower as one walks it.

The Arcane Path, however, is built on universal laws, and the path will only grow wider.

Most crucially, the path of Ascension to Godhood is destined to be a path for a lone individual, where one must walk alone in the future, whereas the Arcane Path gathers the Wisdom of an entire civilization; it is not difficult for Xia Duo to make a judgment on how to choose.

Of course, the best situation for him would actually be to have a god he can trust cooperate with him on various researches along the Arcane Path.

The most ideal would naturally be the Lady of Mysteries, but such things can only be imagined; even for the Princess, Xia Duo might have been able to discuss some cooperation with her before she ascended to godhood, but toward the Princess after her ascension, he almost keeps his distance.

The disparity in power is simply too great, making it impossible to establish trust; the other party might trust him, but he cannot necessarily trust the other party.

It is similar to a mouse cooperating with a cat to study how to turn a mouse into something like a cat; it is unlikely that any normal mouse would have such an idea.

As a secondary option, there is another choice: when the Arcane Path is on the verge of a breakthrough, find a hostile god, capture them to study them, or simply attack them; perhaps that would allow the Arcane Path to successfully cross that threshold.

However, god wars or cooperating with gods are still too far off, but research beyond the Great Arcanist is not far at all, or rather, this should be the great cause to which Xia Duo needs to devote more time, energy, and resources.

It is just that this subject is still too grand, and Xia Duo currently has no clue at all; he can only make some inferences based on the Ascension Ritual, and the vast majority of these inferences cannot be verified, or are very difficult to verify.

Only by waiting for the civilization to develop and gathering the strength and Wisdom of more people to work together will there be a glimmer of hope.

This path is destined to be difficult, and may even overturn the existing order of the entire Universe.

Just think, a large Plane might only have one or two creatures that can successfully ascend to godhood, but if the Arcane Path is cleared, a single Plane might see the emergence of countless Quasi-Gods.

What an exaggerated, what a terrifying scene that is!

This path is not only difficult in itself, but also has many external factors; the biggest factor of uncertainty is the gods, and if things go wrong, it could result in the gods destroying the world.

But regardless, accumulating strength is never wrong; the gods and such are still too far away, and the biggest crises in the Main Plane at the moment should be the collapse of the Dragon Madness Mythallar and the Demon Descendants changing time and space.

If one cannot even pass this current hurdle, forget about the gods; there likely won't be a future.

Especially the crisis of the Demon Descendants changing time and space; it is very likely that even if one escapes the Main Plane, one will still be affected.

Therefore, after the New Apprentices were settled, Xia Duo immediately drew up personnel to establish the Plane Exploration Center; there was no need to find another site, as it could just be in the Plane Exploration Layer of the Tower of Time.

There were twelve Advanced Rank Mages in total; although they had not yet passed the Job Rank Assessment for level 10 Mages, there was absolutely no problem with them executing operations according to his Indication.

Currently, the Supervisor of this Plane Exploration Center is still Dewan, who, as an Astral Mage whom Xia Duo had vigorously cultivated, had already done a lot of groundwork for the establishment of this official institution.

Later, he was included in the first Inheritance Ritual that Xia Duo conducted at the Tower of Time; currently, Dewan has not reached the level of an Advanced Rank Mage, let alone passed the Job Rank Assessment for a level 10 Mage, but as Xia Duo's partner from his early days, and currently the only candidate for an Astral Mage in the Tower of Time, if one were to ask if Xia Duo supports Dewan being the Supervisor, he would certainly support him!

In addition to the twelve Advanced Rank or Quasi-High Mage, including Dewan, the Plane Exploration Center also equipped each of them with two new Mages as assistants.

Currently, their main work is to continuously accumulate detection data to facilitate Xia Duo's summary; of course, they can also try to summarize it themselves.

As for how to accumulate it, it is by uninterruptedly using the Plane Exploration Array to conduct "deep space exploration" within the Ether Interlayer; this is a huge consumption of Plane Crystal, and it is fortunate that Weide previously compensated Xia Duo with a Plane Crystal for his actions against the Savile Territory, otherwise he really wouldn't have been able to make this resolution.

But having only this one spare is not enough; perhaps he could purchase from the Seven Towers, but obviously, the Seven Towers cannot provide on-demand sales, and the price of such important strategic materials is also very debatable; a slight delay could mean waiting months or even years.

Xia Duo does not want to delay the exploration, so the construction of the 【World Incubator】 is even more necessary; he wants to try to obtain Plane Crystals by destroying Semi-planes.

It is foreseeable that this will by no means be a very smooth path, but Xia Duo is already mentally prepared to use quantity to pile it up, and building a few more 【World Incubator】s is not a problem either.

The time required for true Plane Creation is too long, and one can prepare now; such a facility can only perform one task at a time, and if it were to perform a true Plane Creation task, it would not be able to do other things.

In summary, Xia Duo needs to build at least two 【World Incubator】s in the Floating City.

One is for the future, dedicated to true Plane Creation, and the other is to protect the present, mainly used as a Semi-plane factory to support the Floating City's infrastructure construction, the Plane Storage Chamber of Commerce, Plane Crystal acquisition, and other plans that require the use of Semi-planes.

For the future, one is enough, after all, the cycle is too long and there are too many variables, but to protect the present, just one 【World Incubator】 might still be slightly insufficient.

The biggest consumption point for Semi-planes in the future might be Plane Crystals.

Xia Duo is prepared to decide how many 【World Incubator】s to add based on the "drop rate" of Plane Crystals after the destruction of a Semi-plane, to ensure the continuous operation of the Plane Exploration Center.

In addition, the Tower of Time's Plane Exploration Array also needs to be updated and expanded, which is also one of the items that needs to be considered in the near future.