Jie Ming looked at the magic model before him and fell silent for a moment, then reached out and marked the several places where the data contradicted itself, closed the light screen, and leaned back in his chair to rest.
“Just what you’d expect of an immortal art.”
Even though he had already advanced to the Great Ascension Realm, with his nature cultivation markedly improved and his control over his own power and the laws far surpassing what it had been, researching this immortal art still left him straining.
He had spent a considerable time deducing every detail of Reflected Projection over and over, from the calibration of the primordial spirit coordinate system to the way the laws of the inner world were given concrete form in the outside world, and every step demanded extremely tedious research.
By his estimate, fully completing the Mustard Seed Dao-Holding True Body Art would take close to a thousand years.
That was a startling amount of time to spend.
But considering the level of the Mustard Seed Dao-Holding True Body Art, it was not exactly unacceptable either.
What truly made Jie Ming feel fortunate was that, ever since the dual cultivation of nature and life had completed its breakthrough, his Dao Integration state had been greatly strengthened.
Problems that had once required repeatedly consulting materials and vast amounts of deduction to understand could now be gradually cracked open simply by contemplating them in depth.
Even so, fully cultivating this immortal art would still take close to a thousand years.
Had it been before his advancement to the Great Ascension Realm, Jie Ming would not even have dared to imagine how long it would take.
Back then, his mastery count in the Spiritual Qi Law had been only three hundred points, and those three hundred points had been accumulated bit by bit over several thousand years.
Extrapolating from his research efficiency at the time, fully mastering the Mustard Seed Dao-Holding True Body Art might well have taken a span measured in the hundreds of thousands of years.
Looking back now, the fact that he had once planned to finish cultivating this immortal art entirely while still in the Dao Integration Realm had been somewhat overreaching.
Fortunately, he had now advanced to the Great Ascension Realm, and a thousand years was not long for a high-level wizard.
So long as the direction was right and the research resources sufficient, that span of time was entirely acceptable.
Jie Ming rested a short while to recover his spirits, then reopened the magic model and continued refining the parts where he had already found a direction for a breakthrough.
Just then, the laboratory door suddenly opened.
“Junior Brother!” A familiar voice came through.
Jie Ming raised his head, and when he made out who it was, his eyes went wide.
“Senior Sister Viola?”
The woman standing in the doorway had a head of long silver-gray hair, undisguised smugness in her eyes, and on her face a smile that looked as if she could not wait to announce good news to the whole world.
What surprised Jie Ming was that he sensed an entirely different aura from her.
That was… a seventh-level wizard!
“You’ve advanced to the seventh level?”
Viola lifted her chin smugly. “Well? Surprised? Didn’t see that coming?”
Jie Ming quickly thought of the reason.
What Viola had mastered was the Law of Pain, which excelled at drawing power from fear, despair and trauma.
That sudden brush with death last time would have been no small trouble for an ordinary wizard; many wizards might even have needed a good deal of time to readjust to their own power.
For her, though, it could become an extremely special experience.
Especially the pain she had endured before dying: that experience of going through death in person and then returning by means of a prepared contingency might well have given her a new understanding of her own law.
Looking at Viola, who seemed ready to wag her tail, Jie Ming had already formed a fair judgment.
Counting it up roughly, since Viola had died on the battlefield last time and revived through a Substitute Death Doll and a spare body, only about a hundred and fifty years had passed.
In such a short time, she had actually succeeded in advancing to the seventh level?
It seemed that death had brought her quite a harvest.
“Not bad, Senior Sister,” Jie Ming said with a smile. “That’s no slow pace of advancement.”
“Naturally!”
Viola grew even smugger, hands on her hips, looking as if this were only to be expected.
“Too bad that old man isn’t here. Otherwise I could show off properly right to his face!”
The corner of Jie Ming’s mouth twitched. “Better not.”
He could almost picture Mentor Clark’s expression on hearing those words.
“Why?”
“Mentor Clark’s breakthrough is slow because he took the route of mastering every law, and because he spent a great deal of time making money. If you went and showed off in front of him, you’d probably get a beating before you even finished talking.”
Then again, his Senior Sister had been beaten by their Mentor who knew how many times already; she was presumably used to it by now.
Yet after hearing him out, Viola not only failed to rein herself in, she tilted her head back even more proudly. “Not scared!”
She even deliberately puffed out her chest, as if, having advanced to the seventh level, she had considerably more nerve even when facing their Mentor.
Jie Ming looked at her, and in the end could only shake his head helplessly. “Looks like you’re used to it.”
Forget it.
It was not him who would be taking the beating, anyway.
Viola clearly had no intention of letting the topic go at that.
She stepped forward, slung an arm around Jie Ming’s shoulders with practiced ease, and leaned her head in with a beaming smile. “By the way, Junior Brother. When are you advancing to the seventh level?”
Jie Ming glanced at her. “Soon, soon.”
The words had barely left his mouth when the smile on Viola’s face suddenly froze.
She slowly narrowed her eyes and looked Jie Ming up and down, as if she had just heard some unbelievable piece of news.
“Something’s off. Something’s off about you!”
As she spoke, Viola reached out and gripped Jie Ming’s shoulder, a dangerous smile surfacing on her face.
“You never used to say that. What do you mean, soon? How is it soon? Have you made some gain again that you’re hiding from me?”
“Mm-hm!”
Jie Ming did not answer, only deliberately put on an inscrutable expression.
His mastery count in the Spiritual Qi Law had already begun to climb rapidly, and he was only a final stretch away from the standard of an elite seventh-level wizard.
Add to that the strengthening of his Dao Integration state that the Great Ascension Realm had brought, and advancing to the seventh level truly was no longer far off.
But there was no need to tell Viola any of this right now.
Let her guess.
The less Jie Ming said, the more Viola felt something was wrong.
She stared at Jie Ming for several seconds, then suddenly broke into a smile that was a little too dazzling.
“Fine, Junior Brother. Since you won’t say, I’ll check for myself!”
“Wait, what are you doing?!”
Jie Ming’s words had barely fallen when Viola lunged at him and bit down on his head.
“Ow!”
For a moment, law light flickered in rapid succession through the laboratory.
A moment later, Jie Ming finally seized his chance and shook off Viola’s grip.
“Enough!” Jie Ming said testily, clutching his head.
“I really am not hiding anything special from you. It’s just that my research has been going rather smoothly.”
Viola stared at him for a while, apparently still wanting to press him.
In the end, she gave it up for the time being. “Hmph, forget it, I’ll spare you for now! However fast you advance, you’ll still be advancing after me!”
She smoothed her long silver-gray hair, the smugness on her face not diminished in the slightest.
“Anyway, I’m seventh-level now, so from here on I go wherever I like. As for you, you’d better hurry up and catch up. I hope that when I come back next time, you won’t still be standing in the same place.”
Jie Ming could not be bothered to rise to her provocation and merely waved her off. “Fine. Thank you, Senior Sister, for your boundless kindness.”
“No fun. I’m going out to play!” Viola’s spirits recovered at once.
She had only just advanced to the seventh level and needed real combat to get familiar with her new power.
The war was still going on, and on every battlefield against the Behemoth Alliance there were still great numbers of combat missions waiting for wizards to handle.
She could hardly wait to find some suitable opponents and get reacquainted with her own combat rhythm.
“I’m off to take a few missions and have a proper fight with those behemoths, loosen up a bit!” With that, she waved at Jie Ming again. “Junior Brother, when you advance to the seventh level, I’ll come find you again!”
Before Jie Ming could respond, Viola had already turned and left the laboratory.
Watching her back vanish rapidly, Jie Ming could not help rubbing his head.
“That hurt. She actually got through the pain resistance from my Body Forging Method, and I’m at the Great Ascension Realm… Her comprehension of the Law of Pain is a bit much, isn’t it?!”
Still, this too showed that Viola was a genuine, bona fide genius.
“Luckily, the me of today counts as a genius too.”
Jie Ming set the laboratory back in order, confirmed that the equipment had suffered no damage, and went on dealing with his research plan.