Translator: AnubisTL
Fifteenth Reincarnation, Core Laboratory of the Wizard Camp.
Outside, the thunderous roars of battle and the surges of energy were sealed away by the heavy protective magic arrays, leaving only a low hum as background noise.
Inside the laboratory, the light was constant and soft, the air pristine. The only sounds were the faint crackle of runes in operation and the silent glide of data streams across light screens.
Jieming was not focused on a specific experiment or data analysis like the other wizards.
He sat alone at a circular workbench in a corner of the lab. Spread before him was not a single research report, but a macro-research map and a general war progress chart he had compiled himself, spanning all fifteen reincarnations.
Now that all the wizards had acquired the "Time Anchoring" ability, and the vast research system could sustain itself without relying on him as the sole information hub, Jieming was finally liberated from his role as a constant firefighter.
He finally had the breathing room to truly settle his mind and, like a genuine observer, piece together everything from this long cycle of reincarnations.
And the more he connected the dots, the clearer that unsettling feeling in his heart became.
From the very beginning, I was never unique.
After piecing together all the clues, the thought struck him like a needle of ice piercing his mind.
Everything he had done—relying on his internal grotto-heaven to preserve information, using the body tempering method to evolve and resist memory resets, driving the wizard's reverse engineering of the Scythe-Skull Race's memory mechanisms—was it truly something only he could achieve, in principle?
No.
Jieming knew all too well that there was at least one person who could definitely do it.
And do it better.
That person was the eighth-tier wizard who had thrown them into this Reincarnation Battlefield, the one who stood guard outside the plane: Starforger Artorius.
Setting aside the fact that an eighth-tier wizard's mastery of law solidification could make him immune to the effects of time reversal.
With an eighth-tier wizard's understanding and control over the laws, would it be difficult to create an "information storage point" independent of the plane's time flow?
With an eighth-tier wizard's unfathomable soul strength and knowledge reserve, would it be difficult to directly analyze, copy, and even improve upon the Scythe-Skull Race's memory mechanisms?
It would likely be easy.
But Artorius chose not to do so.
He chose a completely different method: throwing Frost's Vanguard Legion into the Reincarnation Battlefield to be consumed, and then, every three reincarnations, symbolically deploying a batch of "elite reinforcement troops" like Jieming.
Why?
As Jieming's thoughts deepened, the macro-charts before his eyes seemed to come alive. The intersecting lines of data revealed a depressing truth.
Their fifteen rounds of research had completely parsed the Scythe-Skull Race's physiology, society, and energy system; they had identified the trigger conditions, scope of effect, and some of the internal rules of time reversal; they had even developed wizardry to counter memory resets.
It seemed like a brilliant achievement. But all this research was merely painting an exquisite and complex shell.
They were studying "how the Scythe-Skull Race responds to reincarnation" and "what phenomena reincarnation manifests in the Scythe-Skull Race."
They had not—and could not—truly touch the core of "reincarnation itself."
The "mechanism" or "will" that drove everything, existing like the underlying code of the plane, remained hidden in the absolute, profound darkness.
The Scythe-Skull Race and time reversal were like two concentric circles. They appeared closely adjacent, but in reality, an impassable gap existed between them.
No matter how many Scythe-Skull creatures the wizards eliminated or how thoroughly they studied their characteristics, they were only clearing the larger outer circle placed on the surface. The smaller inner circle, the core, remained completely unaffected.
"So..." Jieming sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair and gazing at the energy runes on the laboratory ceiling that simulated a starry sky. "Wizard Artorius must have seen through this long ago."
"He understood that simply 'studying the Scythe-Skull Race' and 'accumulating experience through reincarnations' was like climbing a tree to catch a fish—a futile effort that would never touch the core of the problem. That's why he couldn't be bothered to waste time on these seemingly effective but ultimately superficial measures, unlike me."
Then, what was the point of everything this Starforger had arranged?
Jieming recalled the procedure for reinforcement operations.
Elite combat units like theirs were typically dispatched only after the commander-in-chief of a planar battlefield assessed the situation and requested reinforcements from the Star Ring Federation Headquarters.
Their total force of thirty thousand had been deployed specifically at Wizard Artorius's request.
But thirty thousand... in a grand war involving an entire plane, such a reinforcement was a mere drop in the bucket.
Even if every single one of them was an elite, what difference could they possibly make against a trillion-strong insect tide and the bizarre time reincarnation?
And then there was that bizarre method of reinforcement—dividing the forces into multiple parties, deploying only one every three cycles, at fixed intervals, like a slow drip.
"Just this few people... what good will they do?" Jieming muttered to himself, his fingertips unconsciously tapping the sparse dots of light on the chart that represented the reinforcement forces. "And that method of reinforcement... What is that Starforger trying to do..."
"Of course, it's to introduce more variables."
A gentle, calm male voice, yet one that seemed to resonate directly within the depths of his soul, answered Jieming's words without any warning.
Jieming froze all over, his heart skipping a beat.
He turned his head like lightning.
Less than a meter away from him, a person had appeared out of nowhere.
It was a man who looked to be about thirty, with an ordinary face and wearing a grey wizard's robe so simple it was almost crude.
There was no trace of any energy or law fluctuations on his body, making him look like an ordinary person who had accidentally wandered into the laboratory.
He was looking at the macro-chart displayed in front of Jieming with great interest, a nearly benevolent smile on his face.
The Starforger, Artorius.
Jieming recognized him instantly. It wasn't just his appearance—the aura he exuded, even when completely suppressed, still made one's soul instinctively feel "small" and "profound." It could only belong to that Level 8 Existence.
How is he here?
When did he come in?
Why aren't the other wizards reacting?
Jieming's gaze swept across the laboratory.
Allison was a short distance away, frowning as she calibrated a high-precision soul resonance apparatus. Great Master Moreas was arguing in low tones with his assistant over a gene coding optimization scheme.
The other wizards were all focused on their own work, not a single one glancing his way. It was as if Artorius's presence was transparent to them.
No... not transparent.
Jieming forced himself to calm down and observed closely.
He noticed that where Artorius stood, the dust on the floor remained completely undisturbed.
This isn't a physical entity.
A guess formed in Jieming's mind.
"...Mass Projection?" he asked tentatively, his voice steadier than he had expected.
Artorius turned his head, his gaze falling upon Jieming. A flash of clear surprise crossed his eyes, which quickly melted into a smile of admiration.
"Oh? You actually know about 'Mass Projection'? It seems your knowledge is quite extensive." He did not deny it.
Mass Projection was a top-rank technique that allowed one to project a portion of their mass, energy, and even conscious information to a distant location through superluminal action.
The projection possessed senses and a certain level of interactive capability nearly identical to the original body, but it was not a true material existence and relied on a stable channel for maintenance.
This explained how he had appeared silently and why the other wizards had noticed nothing—the "presence" of a projection could be precisely controlled, manifesting only to specific targets.
(End of the Chapter)
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