Translator: AnubisTL
Time flew by.
Shortly after confirming the magic artifact he wanted to create, Jieming submitted his application to leave the academy and set out on his travels.
After all, Noren Academy was a self-contained microcosm, its environment exceptionally stable. Seeing the sunrise was already a rare treat; as for moonlight, starlight, or rainbows after the rain, they were simply unimaginable unless someone specifically created them.
Therefore, to gather the materials needed for his magic artifact, Jieming had no choice but to leave Noren Academy and wander the world.
Fortunately, as a target of the second-tier cultivation protocol, Jieming possessed rights equivalent to those of a formal wizard, allowing him to apply for leave.
Otherwise, simply collecting the raw materials would have been a daunting task.
However, upon leaving the academy, Jieming didn't immediately begin gathering materials. Instead, he followed his application's stated purpose and traveled through various regions.
After all, since transmigrating to this world, he had spent the first half of his life in a small village, only ever seeing the scenery of a medieval rural settlement.
Then, one day, a lord's attendant suddenly arrived at their home, informing him that his innate talent as a wizard had been detected.
Whether traveling to the lord's manor or arriving at Noren Academy, Jieming had always used teleportation formations.
Moreover, during those times, Jieming's heart was filled with fear, leaving him no room to appreciate the customs and culture of this world.
"But now I can confirm that the wizard civilization's system for cultivating future talents is remarkably comprehensive," Jieming murmured after leaving a city.
His travels didn't last long. He soon discovered that cities across Noren Plane No. 13, regardless of their region, seemed to have been molded from the same template.
Apart from variations in clothing due to regional climate differences, everything else—from cultural customs to urban planning, and even the number and distribution of surrounding villages—was strikingly uniform.
The wizards maintained a delicate balance over the civilization's productivity. Most people could secure food and shelter through diligent work, but achieving true wealth remained a challenge.
Basic education focused solely on fundamental literacy and arithmetic, ensuring that students wouldn't require additional remedial training upon entering the academy.
Even in the most remote villages, wizards ensured that children had access to proper healthcare and basic education.
Of course, the style of basic education varied depending on the region's economic level.
In small mountain villages, for example, education might consist of "the literate old village chief, who returned from the city, teaching reading and writing for free."
In the township where Jieming grew up, schools were established. For a modest fee, students could receive a year of formal education.
"This is unbelievable," Jieming thought. "I assumed artificial souls would be rare, but it seems the entire plane is riddled with the wizards' eyes and ears..."
Indeed, whether it was the village chief of a small settlement or the city lord of a major metropolis, every key political figure in every town and city was an artificial human.
Though indistinguishable from ordinary humans in intelligence and physical appearance, Jieming had learned enough through his studies to tentatively identify these individuals as alchemically created artificial humans.
Both their bodies and souls were alchemically crafted. While the constructs appeared crude—many exhibited a lack of coordination between body and soul—there was no doubt they were artificial.
"That's right. Ordinary humans are too unpredictable. Only artificial humans can perfectly execute the wizards' policies."
At this thought, Jieming couldn't help but shudder.
He felt a surge of gratitude for his own caution since transmigrating to this world. He had been meticulously careful to conceal any unusual traits that might mark him as an outsider.
"In that case, I should thank that lord from back then. If he hadn't revealed the truth about this world 'just in time,' who knows what might have happened to me?"
The attendant of the second-tier wizard lord had appeared at Jieming's doorstep less than a month after he had broken through to the first layer of qi refining.
If the attendant had arrived even a few days later, Jieming, feeling confident in his newfound power, might have ventured out to gain experience. The consequences of such a rash decision were easy to imagine.
As for how the lord had discovered his innate talent, Jieming had come to understand the truth during his travels.
The uniform distribution and structure of cities and towns weren't merely for administrative convenience. Each region was, in fact, a vast magic formation composed of numerous interconnected settlements.
The purpose of these magic formations was to assess the aptitude levels of the internal personnel. This eliminated the need for lords to individually test each resident under their command, saving them considerable time and effort. By activating the detection arrays at regular intervals, they could gather sufficient data.
"Temperature, terrain, ecological environment, human culture, economic level... everything has been meticulously arranged. Is this the extent of the wizards' ability to transform the planes they've mastered?"
After scanning the entire forest with his scouting eye and confirming that the distribution of biological species was identical to that of another forest thousands of kilometers away, Jieming couldn't help but marvel.
As he marveled, Jieming abandoned his plans to continue traveling.
Since even the wild creatures were under strict control, there was little point in further exploration. It was better to focus on the real purpose of his journey.
Based on his understanding of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror concept and the guidance from the Great Dao Library Pavilion, each concept of light needed to be successfully condensed at least three to five times to accumulate sufficient "mass" as the foundation for the magic artifact.
The Morning Glow Light was the easiest to collect, and Jieming had already gathered most of it before leaving the academy.
His second target was Moonlight.
Moonlight embodied the concepts of "quiet concealment" and "enduring continuity."
It represented the characteristics of a soft, persistent light that moved silently through the darkness, never fading.
The optimal time for harvesting Moonlight was on a full moon night, when the moonlight was as clear as water, unobstructed by clouds, and far from human settlements, ensuring an environment of perfect tranquility and purity.
Leveraging his exceptional mobility, Jieming chose a remote, sparsely populated plateau far from any towns.
The night sky here was exceptionally clear, and during the full moon, the moonlight blanketed the land like silvery frost.
The Wizard World was structured as a cluster of planes. While the specific structures varied across planes, most were of the "heavenly dome and earthly square" type, with only a few resembling spherical planets.
However, this didn't mean these planes lacked suns and moons. Instead, the suns and moons in most planes weren't conventional stars and planets but rather projections from the Fire Elemental Plane and Water Elemental Plane.
Whether stars existed depended on the specific conditions of each plane.
In some planes, the stars are the Divine Kingdoms of the native divine beings. However, in most planes, the stars are actually projections from neighboring planes.
(End of the Chapter)
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