Chapter 449: Cause and Conception

“Good for you, huh?!”

Viola’s fury blazed like tangible flames in her eyes.

She rushed straight to Wizard Starfall in an instant, completely ignoring the other’s translucent, wavering soul state, and raised her hand to deliver a resounding slap right on Starfall’s head.

Though her palm passed through the illusory strands of hair, the intense spiritual impact and raging intent carried along with it struck solidly.

“How could you possibly be fine?! Where’s your body?! Where did it go?! What idiotic thing have you done this time?!!” Viola’s roar echoed through the vast, ruined laboratory, shaking the remaining instruments until they buzzed.

“Ouch!”

Wizard Starfall let out an exaggerated cry of pain. Even though she was now a soul body, she was genuinely knocked off balance by the slap. The entire “person” swayed unsteadily and, with a soft thud, dropped from her hovering state onto a relatively intact experimental table below.

The originally ethereal, otherworldly aura of her soul form instantly shattered into pieces.

She awkwardly “floated” back up, rubbing the nonexistent back of her head, her face showing a mix of embarrassment and guilt.

“Well… ahem, I just… accidentally overdid it.” Starfall’s voice was still clear, but the ethereal echo was gone, replaced by a very human, placating tone.

“In the final stage of activating the plane, the intensity of the spiritual backlash far exceeded even my most optimistic estimate… My physical body couldn’t withstand it and was ‘digested’—used as the ignition fuel and foundational framework.”

“Thankfully, Wizard Clark arrived just in time. He forcibly stabilized my soul core and helped me sort out the connection with this newborn plane consciousness. Otherwise, I might have really been done for—either completely turned into this big idiot’s ‘built-in intelligent management system’ or fully assimilated.”

She drifted over to Clark’s side and struck a pose that clearly meant “all thanks to the big boss.”

Then she turned to Viola and Jie Ming, trying hard to make her expression look relaxed. “But really, everything’s fine now! Even though I temporarily don’t have a body, my soul core is intact, my consciousness is clear, I didn’t dissipate on the spot, and there are plenty of ways to rebuild a body or transform my form of existence later. Plus, this experience has given me explosive new insights into ‘spirituality,’ ‘matter conversion,’ and ‘planar life forms’! A blessing in disguise—I’ve found a path that fits seventh ring much better…”

“Shut up!” Viola raised her hand again in fury.

“Viola.”

Mentor Clark’s calm voice sounded—not loud, yet like a bucket of ice water instantly extinguishing Viola’s raging fire.

His gaze beneath the gray robe swept calmly over her. “Your emotional fluctuation just now stimulated it again.”

Jie Ming had also sensed the anomaly.

The moment Viola exploded in anger, her spiritual power surging violently, a clear chain reaction rippled through the entire laboratory and even outward.

The atmosphere trembled with unease, like a calm lake suddenly struck by a boulder.

In the distance, through the laboratory’s damaged walls and dome, the outlines of the continuous mountain ranges could be seen subtly yet unmistakably quivering.

Beneath their feet, the ground emitted a low, indistinct hum, as though some enormous being were twitching faintly from discomfort.

The living plane consciousness—which had been silently observing this place all along and regarded Starfall as its “mother” or “creator”—had clearly been startled badly by Viola’s aggressive, rage-filled spiritual outburst. It felt threatened and distressed.

Viola’s body stiffened. She immediately realized the potential consequences of her anger.

She abruptly closed her eyes, her chest heaving violently several times before she took a long, deep breath and slowly exhaled.

When she opened her eyes again, the fury within them had been forcibly suppressed, leaving only restrained worry and lingering fear.

“Sorry,” she said in a low, slightly hoarse voice.

Clark gave a slight nod. His gaze turned toward the still-unsettled mountains and rivers outside, affected by the consciousness fluctuation. “It has only just been born and is still clumsily learning to control its enormous body and power. It is extremely sensitive to external stimuli. This place is not suitable for lingering, nor for intense discussion. Let us leave first.”

Starfall, Viola, and Jie Ming had no objections.

Wizard Starfall drifted to the center of the laboratory. She gently pressed her hands into empty air as though sensing something, then nodded toward a certain direction.

Soon, a passage edged with soft green light appeared out of thin air from their position, extending straight outward toward the planar barrier.

This was a “safe passage” that the living plane consciousness had actively opened for them under Starfall’s guidance.

Before leaving, Wizard Starfall floated to a damaged breach at the edge of the laboratory. She bent down, extended her translucent palm, and gently pressed it against the exposed rocky ground below.

Her expression was tender and apologetic as she murmured a few inaudible words.

As though it could understand her whisper, a deep yet resonant rumble came from the depths of the earth beneath.

The rumble was not violent; instead, it carried a sense of attachment and reassurance—like the low, contented growl a giant beast makes in its throat to say “understood.”

The faint trembling of the entire plane, triggered earlier by Viola’s anger, gradually calmed in response to that rumble.

“Good boy, we’ll be back soon,” Starfall said softly at last. Then she turned, following Clark, Viola, and Jie Ming as they flew into the green passage together.

Inside the passage, flowing light and color filled the space, brimming with gentle life energy.

As they approached, the planar barrier parted softly to both sides like a living membrane of water, forming a neat circular exit that “sent” them out.

They returned once more to the chaotic, multicolored void. Looking back, that green plane still hung silently in place.

But the “fluffed-up” writhing on its barrier surface had calmed considerably; only occasional faint ripples of energy spread outward—like a giant infant who had just finished crying and was still hiccupping.

Viola expanded her protective shroud to include the soul-state Starfall as well. Together with Jie Ming, they hovered in the void.

Soon, the four of them returned to the warship.

The warship’s stable ecological circulation system resumed. The cabin air was fresh, the lighting soft—a stark contrast to the chaotic void outside.

Clark, Viola, Jie Ming, and the soul-state Starfall sat together in a simple lounge. The previous tension had dissipated.

Starfall’s experience had already been briefly summarized at its core: the activation experiment succeeded, but her physical body was “digested” by the plane, and her soul was timely stabilized and rescued by Clark.

Naturally, the focus shifted to Mentor Clark.

Clark remained as expressionless and calm as ever. He lifted the hot drink delivered by a construct and spoke simply:

“I didn’t do anything particularly special. I located the laboratory, detected the internal energy anomaly and the sharp decline in Starfall’s soul signal, breached the barrier, entered, severed the connection at the critical moment before she was fully assimilated, and brought her out. That’s all.”

He spoke lightly, as though he had merely gone next door to retrieve a misplaced item.

But all three understood that in the chaotic, rejection-filled environment of a plane activation with nascent consciousness, every step—precise location, violent breach, safe extraction—required unimaginable strength, judgment, and absolute control over risk.

Clark paused, his gaze sweeping over Viola and Jie Ming before continuing:

“After rescuing Starfall and understanding the specific circumstances of this plane activation, I realized that while my intrusion was necessary, the timing and manner of it were, to that newborn consciousness, the absolute worst kind of stimulation—like a powerful stranger suddenly bursting into an infant’s room and taking away the ‘mother’ it had vaguely recognized.”

He looked toward Viola, offering a rare, clear affirmation: “Fortunately, Viola, you maintained sufficient calm and restraint on the outside. You did not rashly launch a destructive attack in response to the plane’s stress reaction, and your adjustment of the binding strategy was remarkably timely.”

“Otherwise, caught between internal and external pressure, even if I could have brought Starfall out, this newborn plane consciousness might have completely collapsed from extreme terror and aggression, or spiraled into uncontrollable rampage. The outcome would have been unpredictable.”

Hearing her mentor’s praise, Viola froze for a moment. Then, unusually, a faint, unnatural flush appeared on her face. Her gaze began darting around, and her fingers unconsciously twisted together.

Clark, being who he was, saw through her guilty expression with a single glance.

His eyebrows beneath the gray robe twitched almost imperceptibly. A flash of understanding passed through his eyes before he turned his gaze to Jie Ming, who had remained steadily composed beside Viola the entire time.

“I see.” Clark’s voice remained calm, yet now carried a clear note of approval. “It was Jie Ming who held firm, judged that the plane consciousness bore no malice and was merely frightened, and convinced you to change your strategy, correct?”

Jie Ming gave a slight bow. “This student merely offered one perspective. The final decision and precise execution were all thanks to Senior Sister.”

“Well done.” Clark nodded. Those three simple words carried the weight of his highest praise.

“Exactly, exactly!” Wizard Starfall immediately drifted over beside Jie Ming. Her translucent hand patted his shoulder in a show of pride. “Little Jie Ming is reliable at critical moments! So calm and sharp—far better than a certain reckless fool who only knows how to charge ahead and almost blasted my ‘child’ and all of us straight to kingdom come!”

“Who are you calling reckless, you soul-only egg?!” Viola instantly exploded again.

The earlier guilt and awkwardness were thrown to the wind. She shot up from her seat and pounced toward Starfall’s soul with bared teeth and claws:

“Do you know how many military merits I burned through for your mess this time?! Do you know how desperate I felt watching the binding formations about to collapse?! I went through hell worrying and planning, and in your mouth I’m just a reckless fool?!”

Starfall nimbly dodged while laughing and retorting: “Oh come on, can’t even speak the truth anymore? If Little Jie Ming hadn’t stopped you, someone’s extermination beams would’ve come blasting right over! Reckless! Totally reckless!”

The two (or rather, one person and one soul) actually started chasing and tussling right there in the lounge.

Jie Ming remained seated and unmoved, completely ignoring the antics of his two senior sisters. He calmly accepted Mentor Clark’s praise, lifted his own drink, and took a sip.

He also felt the praise was well-deserved—after all, these were the results he had earned through sweat and effort.

“Enough.”

Clark’s calm voice sounded once more—not loud, yet carrying indisputable authority.

The tussling Viola and Starfall froze simultaneously, quickly separated. Viola straightened her mage robe, Starfall adjusted her soul glow to pretend she was doing the same, and both obediently returned to their seats.

Viola took several deep breaths to calm herself, then brought the topic back on track. She looked at Starfall, her expression turning serious once more. “Alright, no more messing around. Starfall, what exactly is your current condition? And what are your concrete plans moving forward?”

When it came to serious matters, Starfall also dropped her joking demeanor. Excitement lit up her soul-form face.

“My theory has been perfectly validated! Activating a plane and pushing the law of spirituality to the level of creating life is feasible! Although I lost my body this time, with Wizard Clark’s help my soul suffered no damage. Instead, having gone through the complete process of ‘fusion—separation,’ I gained a far deeper understanding of the essence of spirituality and matter conversion! This is absolutely the key turning point for my advancement to seventh ring!”

She grew more and more excited as she spoke: “Once the new body is cultivated, I can revive at full strength! At that point, I’m confident I can attempt to break through the seventh-ring barrier within one or two thousand years at most!”

Advancing to seventh ring was the dream crossing that countless sixth-ring wizards yearned for.

That Starfall, after encountering such an “accident,” could instead see a clearer path forward and give the relatively optimistic estimate of “one or two thousand years” was proof enough of how enormous her gains had been.

Yet that was not what Viola was asking about.

“I’m not asking about your path of advancement.” Viola shook her head. Her sharp gaze fixed on Starfall, as though looking through the warship walls toward the green plane outside. “I’m asking about… ‘it.’ This living plane—what do you plan to do with it? Is it now your creation? Your possession? Or… an independent, newborn intelligent lifeform?”

The question struck straight at the core.

The excitement on Wizard Starfall’s face gradually faded. She fell silent for a moment. The light of her soul form flickered slightly, revealing inner thought and struggle.

She looked at Viola, then at Jie Ming, and finally let her gaze settle on the ever-calm Clark who had been listening quietly.

After a few seconds, she seemed to reach a decision. Raising her head, her eyes became exceptionally resolute. She spoke each word clearly and deliberately:

“I intend to let ‘it’… also become a wizard.”

“What?!”

Even with Jie Ming’s steady temperament, he couldn’t help but draw in a sharp breath of shock and stare at Starfall in astonishment.

Viola’s eyes widened as though she hadn’t heard correctly.

Let a living plane… become a wizard?!

The idea was so staggering that both of them were momentarily speechless.

The strength of wizards lay in knowledge.

It lay in the ability, through understanding of laws, to take a portion of energy or an element and unleash dozens, thousands, or even billions of times its original destructive power or utility.

This was a qualitative leap, wisdom crushing brute force.

And the terror of a living plane lay in its incomparable “quantity.”

The total energy, material foundation, and breadth of laws controlled by a single living plane were beyond the reach of any individual below ninth ring.

Even though a wizard could multiply the power of their controlled energy manyfold, when facing the sheer scale of an entire plane, they often still felt powerless.

That was precisely why living planes could frequently challenge higher-tier wizards across ranks.

So if an entity that already possessed “plane-level” scale were to additionally master the wizard’s knowledge of “multiplying” power…

Jie Ming merely sketched the possibility in his mind, and already felt his scalp go numb. He couldn’t help but draw another sharp breath!

What kind of concept would that be?

An existence capable of taking the power of the “entire plane” it controlled, converting, compressing, erupting, and combining it with the same high-efficiency methods that wizards used for spells?

Honestly, Jie Ming already felt his own system was quite broken.

But compared to the power of heaven and earth itself, the amount a conventional cultivator could mobilize was… simply too weak.

Viola had clearly imagined the same terrifying scenario. She exchanged a glance with Jie Ming, and both saw shock in the other’s eyes—along with a trace of… indescribable excitement.

“Is something like this… really possible?” Jie Ming pressed down the storm in his heart and asked the most crucial question.

This was not merely a technical issue. It also concerned the fundamental nature of the plane consciousness, its capacity for learning, and its compatibility with the wizard knowledge system.

This time, it was Mentor Clark who answered.

“It is possible.” Clark’s voice remained steady, as though stating a long-verified theorem. “This newborn plane consciousness already possesses intelligence level, logical comprehension ability, and information-processing capacity that meet the prerequisite standards for systematically learning wizard knowledge.”

“In certain aspects—such as its intuitive perception of its own constituent laws and its macroscopic energy manipulation—it even holds natural advantages.”

He paused. His gaze beneath the gray robe grew profound. “The current key issue is not technical feasibility, but regulatory permissibility. We must confirm whether the Star Ring Federation—and at higher levels, the Star Orbit Tribunal—will allow a special entity such as a ‘living plane’ to sign the Contract.”

Jie Ming immediately understood Clark’s meaning.

The contract that every wizard must sign before formally embarking on the path of study.

The core content of the contract was not harsh: mainly to safeguard the secret knowledge of wizard civilization and not betray the overall interests of the civilization.

Beyond that, it imposed very few compulsory restrictions, granting wizards vast freedom to explore.

In truth, wizard civilization was not exclusionary.

Throughout history, there had been numerous outstandingly intelligent members of other races who, after strict review and signing the contract, were likewise accepted as wizards.

Such outsiders often underwent certain bodily modifications to more effectively learn and apply wizard knowledge, bringing themselves closer to the human form predominant in wizard civilization.

Occasionally, some peerless geniuses of other races were accepted in their original forms.

From both the literal rules and the underlying spirit, as long as the conditions of “high intelligence,” “voluntary signing of the contract,” and “compliance with basic terms” were met, theoretically any form of intelligent life could become a wizard.

So a living plane… seemed not to have been explicitly excluded?

Mentor Clark’s affirmation injected a powerful dose of confidence into Wizard Starfall’s idea.

Excitement lit up the eyes of all three.

Starfall in particular was thrilled, as though she could already see an incomparably bright future for her “child.”

“Since it’s theoretically feasible, then let’s act!” Wizard Starfall decisively stood up, her soul form radiating eager brilliance. “I’ll submit a formal application right now through the terminal to the relevant civilization acceptance department of the Star Ring Federation!”

Her action speed was as swift and decisive as ever.

Watching her departing figure, Clark calmly continued sipping his hot drink, while Viola and Jie Ming exchanged a silent glance.