Translator: AnubisTL
When Jieming slowly awoke from his deep coma, his vision was still blurry. His eyelids felt as heavy as lead, and the world swayed in a hazy blur of light and shadow.
In his dazed state, he vaguely sensed a blurry figure beside him, as if someone had been quietly watching over him.
"You're awake," a gentle, soothing voice murmured in his ear, as soft as water and imbued with healing power. "Is there anything else wrong with your body?"
The voice was filled with genuine concern, causing Jieming's nerves, strained by his severe injuries, to unconsciously relax slightly.
But at that very moment, his blurred vision finally focused, becoming clear.
What followed was an incredulous bewilderment.
For he discovered that the one standing beside him, watching over him, was not a gentle female healer at all, but an automaton constructed entirely of a liquid metal-like silver-white substance, its joints glowing with blue energy... an automatic puppet.
The gentle female voice emanated from a voice synthesizer within the puppet's chest cavity.
"!!!"
The stark contrast struck Jieming like a thunderbolt, instantly shattering his lingering drowsiness.
He snapped awake, bolting upright from the soft sickbed.
His body instinctively shifted into a combat-ready stance, but he quickly realized the automaton harbored no hostility, merely standing quietly at his side.
He swiftly assessed his physical condition.
Both his mental power and true essence were fully restored, brimming with energy.
The agonizing, tearing injuries he had sustained had vanished without a trace, leaving his body even slightly stronger than before the battle.
It seemed the camp had administered potent magic potions during his unconsciousness to accelerate his recovery.
"No, something's not right..." Jieming frowned, his keen senses detecting a deeper, more fundamental change within his body.
This transformation wasn't due to the magic potions; it stemmed from his body's very origin.
After a moment's reflection, he deduced that this was likely the result of the body tempering method, which had further enhanced his body's innate resilience against the extreme weakness and backlash damage caused by Light Transformation.
"Adaptive evolution?"
A flash of understanding lit up Jieming's eyes.
This meant that the next time he faced similar weakness and injuries, his body would adapt more effectively, recover faster, and sustain less damage!
He couldn't help but marvel inwardly.
Body cultivation truly lived up to its reputation as the cultivation method specifically designed for conquest and warfare in the immortal cultivation world!
Its core principle lay in seeking ultimate power through constant destruction and reconstruction.
In essence, every injury survived—short of death—granted the body a precious "adaptive evolution"!
As a body cultivator endured more diverse and increasingly severe injuries, their physical resilience would become increasingly absurd.
What might be a fatal blow for an ordinary cultivator could be a mere scratch requiring no recovery time for a High-Tier Body Cultivator.
"This is good," Jieming thought, clenching his fist and feeling the denser, more resilient power within him. "Next time I encounter something like this, I'll be able to resist more effectively. At least I won't immediately collapse after using Light Transformation."
After marveling at the miraculous changes in his body, Jieming turned his gaze to the silver automaton beside him.
"What's the situation at the camp? How long have I been unconscious?" he asked in a deep voice, a hint of urgency in his tone.
The silver automaton replied in its gentle, feminine voice, meticulously answering Jieming's questions:
"Wizard Jieming, greetings. You were unconscious for less than half a day. Thanks to the crucial intelligence you provided, our second defense node has successfully tracked the movements of the combined lava giant and snow monster legion."
"Consequently, the command center has deployed accordingly. Most battle wizards have already been dispatched to reinforce and fortify the third defense node."
"Additionally, you have received a mandatory mission from the camp. Master Roland (another fifth-tier wizard) has instructed that upon your awakening, you are to immediately proceed to your laboratory and begin manufacturing bioweapons to provide cannon fodder support for the frontline!"
"Understood," Jieming nodded.
The situation was even better than he had initially anticipated.
Now that his body had fully recovered, Jieming saw no reason to rest any longer.
Jieming swiftly swung his legs off the hospital bed, left the temporary ward, and hurried back to his laboratory.
When the laboratory door slid open, the sight before him made him pause in surprise.
His once spacious laboratory was now piled high with materials, forming a mountain-like heap.
The materials were diverse. Only a small portion consisted of bloody flesh and organs, while the majority comprised energy cores still radiating residual heat from lava giants, along with various high-energy crystals.
Moreover, a steady stream of materials continued to emerge from the spatial teleportation array nearby.
Given that Jieming's primary research focused on lava giants, the camp command had assigned him the mission of providing cannon fodder to reinforce the front lines in the Blazing Sun Realm.
"Time is of the essence..." Jieming took a deep breath, wasting no time on idle chatter.
He quickly sorted the materials, organizing them into categories, and then plunged into the laboratory, immersing himself in a frenzy of creation.
Another half-month passed.
In the laboratory, Jieming stood before a row of neatly aligned bioweapons, a satisfied expression on his face.
Before him stood a line of creatures resembling enlarged lava giants, but with far more grotesque and terrifying forms.
Their basic structure retained the lava giants' solidity and sense of power, but Jieming had subjected them to devilish modifications.
Some possessed multiple heads capable of spewing flames of different elemental attributes, while others sported six or even eight massive arms, each ending in razor-sharp bone blades or heavy hammers.
Their interiors no longer contained simple magma, but rather Jieming's own concoction: an alchemical molten liquid that was both explosively volatile and corrosively potent.
"Go forth, my children," Jieming nodded in satisfaction, activating the space teleportation device beside the laboratory.
With a surge of spatial energy, these meticulously crafted killing machines were precisely teleported to designated supply distribution points on the frontline.
Having completed his task, Jieming glanced at the now-empty laboratory.
His stored materials had been completely exhausted, and to his dismay, the camp command seemed to have ceased supplying new resources.
Instead, a mandatory mission from the command center popped up on his magic net terminal:
Order: All wizards are to immediately evacuate the camp core area and proceed to their designated defense nodes to assist in combat!
The mission's directive carried an inexplicable sense of unease.
Abandon the fortified stronghold and actively engage the enemy outside the city walls?
In any military strategy, this would be considered suicidal.
Yet, surprisingly, when the order was issued, the wizards across the camp remained remarkably calm, showing no signs of panic or dissent.
After all, from the moment Master Augustine forcibly piloted the ship plane away from the Flamefrost Plane, every wizard knew that the higher-ups must have other plans.
Those left behind were likely both defenders and... bait.
However, when signing up for this planar war, the wizards had also entered into binding contracts.
These contracts explicitly stipulated that no wizard could desert their post without the explicit permission of the top-tier fifth-tier wizards or a sixth-tier wizard.
Fortunately, the contract also imposed limitations on the commander.
When assigning combat missions, the commander had to consider the overall skill level and survival rate of the wizards, ensuring that mission losses remained within acceptable limits.
Therefore, no matter what earth-shattering plans Wizard Augustine might have, unless he completely miscalculated due to insufficient intelligence, every mission assigned would be within the capabilities of the assigned wizards.
It might be dangerous, but it would never be a guaranteed death sentence.
Jieming shared this perspective.
He casually shut down the magic net terminal, pondered briefly, and then dismantled the auxiliary equipment he had used to create bioweapons in the laboratory over the past few days, stuffing it all into his space expansion pouch.
Without a trace of sentimentality, Jieming left the laboratory.
Outside the camp, he saw solemn-faced wizards departing from the core citadel in all directions.
Like streams flowing into the sea, they converged upon the scattered protective nodes surrounding the area.
Behind these wizards followed massive numbers of bioweapons, each with bizarre shapes and grotesque forms.
There were lava giants with multiple heads and arms, crafted by Jieming, as well as terrifying creations made by other wizards, such as metal spiders, skeletal dragons, and flesh-stitched abominations.
An allied force of wizards and monsters was rapidly forming.
Jieming checked his magic net terminal and saw he had been assigned to a node near the Blazing Sun Realm.
It seemed the three fifth-tier wizards in overall command had considered their assignments carefully, rather than making arbitrary decisions.
Following the terminal's guidance, Jieming quickly located his assigned defense node.
The node already housed over a dozen wizards. Upon his arrival, they reacted calmly, merely glancing at him before returning to their tasks.
Soon, a piercing emergency alarm reverberated across the sky, halting all activity.
Jieming, who had been installing equipment, abruptly looked up, his gaze stretching toward the distant horizon.
There, a dense, impenetrable elemental torrent of fire and lava surged from the horizon, rolling toward them like a burning continent in motion!
From afar, it resembled not an army, but a vast, mobile, burning continent!
(End of the Chapter)
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