Chapter 178: One Year

The torrent of time silently washed over the war-torn Flamefrost Plane.

Since the wizard army landed, a year had passed in the blink of an eye.

Over countless days and nights, the war had long settled into a grueling stalemate.

What was once a grand invasion of the plane had now fragmented into countless battles, large and small, a daily grind of bloodshed.

Both sides fought fiercely, their corpses soaking nearly every inch of the land.

Jie Ming let out a long breath, setting down his rune pen. The final witchcraft model, refined through complex deductions and simplifications, displayed the word “Completed” on his magic network terminal.

After a year of intense research, he had finally completed most of his tasks.

From Master Erwin’s “Lava Annihilation” to Master Roland Varnal’s “Frost Soul Disintegration,” these two highly targeted destructive witchcrafts, with the aid of numerous wizards, had been successfully dimensionally reduced and modularized.

They could now be tailored to the level and needs of combat wizards, with versions ranging from Level 1 to Level 5, each with progressively greater power.

This gave the wizard legion unprecedented efficiency in annihilating the native inhabitants.

However, since these targeted destructive witchcrafts left little in the way of spoils, most combat wizards preferred not to use them unless absolutely necessary.

As a result, the camp issued a series of tasks to modify these destructive witchcrafts.

For instance, the project Jie Ming was currently working on involved transforming the downgraded Level 1 Lava Annihilation into a non-lethal, area-suppression witchcraft.

“Finally, I can relax a bit,” Jie Ming said, stretching with a faint crackle of his bones.

Over the past year, the Flamefrost Plane remained dominated by the relentless influx of troops from the Lava Giants and Snow Beasts.

Their respective territories seemed like inexhaustible sources of soldiers, with new legions emerging daily from the depths of the earth or the ends of icy veins, launching routine assaults on the wizard camp.

The wizards had grown accustomed to these normalized battles. The camp stood like an unbreakable nail, firmly lodged at the boundary of the Flamefrost realms, clashing with the natives in skirmishes of varying scale each day.

Yet, the massive assaults of millions that marked the war’s outset had not recurred. Both sides cautiously balanced their losses and reinforcements, avoiding excessive provocation.

Overall, while the wizards still only controlled the initial camp area, they held an absolute advantage in combat.

Even Viola, a seasoned wizard, was astonished by the natives’ unyielding will to fight.

For an entire year, thousands to tens of thousands of monsters attacked the camp almost daily.

For any ordinary race, such overwhelming disadvantages would have long shattered their resolve, even sparking internal conflicts.

Jie Ming, Viola, and other logistics wizards had discussed this, concluding that the natives’ unique life forms likely led them to mistake the wizards’ cannon fodder units for their kin.

In their eyes, the wizard civilization’s main force must be the bizarre cannon fodder, with the wizards themselves as elite units.

Moreover, neither the Lava Giants nor the Snow Beasts reproduced sexually. Instead, they split off cores and placed them in high-energy nurturing fields for asexual reproduction.

With sufficient energy, juveniles could rapidly mature into adults.

Thus, in their view, their battles against the wizards were likely seen as evenly matched.

Even so, their sustained fervor for combat was astonishing, making live captives of both races increasingly valuable.

After all, such resilient, battle-hungry, and easily reproducible life forms were the perfect foundation for cannon fodder enhancements!

“Still… their relentless aggression saves us a lot of trouble,” Jie Ming muttered with a sigh.

Viola, passing by, paused at his words. “Exactly. In the past, we’d have to feign weakness after a few months to boost their confidence. This time, it’s much easier.”

She paused, her tone turning somber. “But because these guys are so tenacious, our logistics tasks have piled up more than ever…”

Jie Ming nodded, still shaken. The past few months had been manageable, but during the busiest period, if he hadn’t fortified his body with the Body Forging Method beforehand, he might have collapsed under the workload.

Just then, a commotion erupted among the nearby wizards.

“What’s going on?” Jie Ming stood, instantly alert.

He was all too familiar with such disturbances, almost conditioned to react.

Every time a commotion like this arose, it meant a wizard had made a major discovery—and that usually meant a flood of new tasks.

Viola reacted similarly, but both relaxed after checking their magic network terminals.

The terminal’s message revealed that a wizard had uncovered the primary reason for the mutual animosity between the Lava Giants and Snow Beasts.

Most intelligence about the two races had already been extracted from the souls of killed or captured natives.

However, some questions remained, answers to which existed only in the souls of higher-ranking members, leaving the wizards in the dark.

The most perplexing question was why the two races despised each other so fiercely.

To the wizards, outsiders to the conflict, the enmity between the Lava Giants and Snow Beasts was utterly irrational.

Their ecological habits and environments were entirely different. Though they shared the same plane, they might as well have lived in separate worlds.

If each race possessed resources coveted by the other, the conflict might make sense.

But according to the wizards’ gathered intelligence, neither race’s survival depended on the other’s resources, and they could coexist without interference.

Unable to thrive in each other’s environments and lacking tangible conflicts of interest, the very idea of interaction—let alone enmity—was absurd.

Yet, before the wizards’ arrival, the Lava Giants and Snow Beasts waged massive wars every few years.

The lower-tier natives knew no reason for this, only that every few years they left their comfortable habitats to fight to the death in the chaotic energy zone where the Flame and Frost realms met.

Recently, a logistics wizard skilled in resource surveying made a breakthrough while studying the geological environment, uncovering a possible cause: the wars were not meaningless. The losing side’s territory would shrink.

“Who would’ve thought the boundary between the Flame and Frost realms shifts with the outcome of their battles?” Jie Ming said, surprised, as he read the terminal’s findings.

“But… what’s the underlying principle? Isn’t the Flamefrost Plane’s unique climate due to projections from the Fire and Water Elemental Planes?”

“It’s hard to comprehend, but geological drilling samples show the boundary between the Flame and Frost realms is constantly shifting, and the changes correlate with the annual war outcomes,” Viola said, intrigued by the data.

“It’s likely the leaders of both races have special methods to influence the elemental plane projections after a victory…”

Jie Ming’s eyes widened. “They can influence that?!”

“It’s possible, but it’s high-level technology. Even our wizard factions specializing in this can only do so after reaching Level 6,” Viola said, licking her lips. “If a native civilization has this tech, Wizard Augustine’s hit the jackpot.”

Jie Ming nodded in agreement.

Undoubtedly, such knowledge was held by the leaders of both races—the two Level 6 Monster Kings.

Thus, the one most likely to obtain this knowledge was the mission’s initiator, Level 6 Wizard Augustine.

With the Star Orbit Tribunal’s treaty in place, no one dared defy a Level 9 wizard to steal another’s knowledge.

Surrounding factions, including Noren Academy, would have to purchase this technology from Augustine.

Since he’d need vast resources to build his own plane later, he’d likely be open to trading it.

This single piece of knowledge might recoup all of Augustine’s investments, both early and late.

As someone who’d half-participated in plane construction, Jie Ming knew the immense resources required to build a “Wizard Tower.”

He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy.

“But that’s all too far off. For now, the most useful intel is this…” Jie Ming shook his head, focusing on the geological survey data below.

Due to limited manpower and time, the wizard’s data was rough, but it contained critical insights.

Drilling revealed that the boundary’s shifts were dramatic, with the deepest changes penetrating over 80% of each side’s territory.

Jie Ming rubbed his chin. “They keep fighting despite losing 80% of their land? That’s…”

“Fantastic!” Viola finished his sentence.

They exchanged a glance and shared a knowing smile.

Wizards never feared fierce resistance from enemies. What they feared was enemies driven to desperation.

The stronger the enemy’s resilience, the less likely they were to resort to mutual destruction. By the time they realized defeat was inevitable, they’d already lost the ability to fight back.