Chapter 533: A Living Plane?

Chapter 533: A Living Plane?

Time rewound to two days earlier.

Jie Ming and Viola followed behind Clark, exiting through the command center’s side door and walking deeper along the corridor.

When Clark reached the end of the corridor, he stopped in front of what appeared to be an ordinary metal wall.

He raised his hand and pressed lightly on a certain spot on the wall.

The wall parted silently like an illusion being dispelled, revealing a hidden door just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Behind the door was an extremely simple device that looked like an elevator.

However, calling it an “elevator” was generous—it was nothing more than a metal platform. Surrounding it was a deep vertical shaft, with endless darkness above and below.

Clark stepped onto it first.

Viola followed closely behind, not forgetting to shoot Jie Ming a “don’t just stand there” look.

Jie Ming took a deep breath and stepped onto the platform.

After Clark confirmed his authority with the array on the platform, it began to descend.

Jie Ming could clearly feel that they were being pulled downward at a steady speed by some stable force toward the depths of the earth.

The rock walls of the shaft flew upward rapidly. Occasionally, faint glowing runes embedded in the rock layers could be seen—traces of reinforcement spells.

One minute.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Jie Ming silently calculated the time, and the astonishment in his heart grew stronger.

At the speed of this lifting device, after descending for ten minutes… they were probably already more than fifty kilometers underground.

Beside him, Viola had also dropped her usual lazy expression. Her silver-gray eyes flickered with thoughtful light.

Finally, after descending for nearly another ten minutes,

the platform trembled slightly and came to a stop.

The rock wall ahead automatically split open to both sides, revealing a spacious exit.

Clark stepped out.

Jie Ming and Viola exchanged a glance and followed closely behind.

Then, both of them froze at the same time.

Before them was an underground hollow that was far too vast.

No, the word “vast” was nowhere near enough to describe it.

Jie Ming looked as far as he could, yet he could not see the boundaries of this hollow, which was clearly just flat ground.

The entire hollow was so enormous it felt as if an entire sky had been inverted and buried underground.

The walls of the hollow were as smooth as mirrors, clearly artificially excavated.

There were no unnecessary decorations, no facilities for living—only one thing…

An array.

A super-giant array covering the ground before them, with a diameter exceeding one thousand kilometers.

Soft white light emanated from every line of the array, illuminating this underground megastructure.

The light was gentle yet not dim, warm yet not glaring, like moonlight scattered across a tranquil lake.

Jie Ming stared at the array for a while, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Those extremely intricate patterns, those layers upon layers of nested structures, and the familiar combination of runes at the core that seemed to pulse with a kind of spiritual rhythm…

“This is…” A thought formed in Jie Ming’s mind.

Viola had recognized it as well.

Her silver-gray eyes widened into perfect circles, and her breathing halted for an instant.

“Starfall’s… Awakening Technique?” she blurted out.

Correct.

Although the array before them had clearly undergone countless modifications, optimizations, and adjustments, and although its scale had been enlarged thousands upon thousands of times, the core framework of this array and its unique “spiritual” flavor were exactly the same as the technique Starfall had used back then to awaken her own plane into a living plane!

Jie Ming and Viola exchanged another glance, both seeing the same shock and sudden realization in each other’s eyes.

The Awakening Technique.

It was because of this technique that Starfall had received a first-class cultivation protocol.

Within the entire Noren Workshop, the number of people who truly mastered its core technology could be counted on one hand.

Starfall herself was naturally one of them.

Clark and his disciples had also obtained the core rune construction of the Awakening Technique thanks to Starfall’s gratitude.

Mentor Clark had even spent a long time personally guiding Starfall in the activation of her living plane.

It could be said that, in the short term, he was the person in the world who understood the Awakening Technique best aside from Starfall herself.

Jie Ming and Viola had also deeply studied parts of the essence of this technique.

Although they were far from being as proficient as Clark and Starfall, at the very least, they could recognize it and understand its principles.

Now, in this secret space buried who knows how many kilometers underground, seeing such a super-giant Awakening Technique array…

What Clark—or rather, what the Noren Workshop—intended to do was self-evident.

“Mentor…” Viola spoke with difficulty, her voice wavering slightly. “You couldn’t possibly be thinking of…”

Clark turned around and looked at their shocked expressions. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

“It seems you’ve already guessed it.”

He raised his hand and pointed upward.

There lay thick layers of rock, endless darkness, and the surface of the battlefield where a brutal reconnaissance war was currently raging.

“From the very beginning, the Workshop prepared two layers of plans.”

His voice was calm, yet carried the certainty of someone who controlled the overall situation:

“On the surface, we made a batch of high-rank wizards disappear, and we truly were deploying the super-wide-area transmutation array. The existence of this camp itself appeared to be nothing more than cover for the super-wide-area transmutation array. But in reality, the camp that seemed to be bait was actually laying down another layer of trump card.”

He paused, then continued:

“And thanks to both sides’ mutual wariness. They kept strict surveillance on our high-rank wizards, but this actually helped us. For someone of my level, as long as I remained inside the camp and stayed in a ‘monitored’ state, it was the least likely to arouse suspicion.”

As Jie Ming listened, the fragmented pieces of information in his mind connected into a complete picture.

He raised his head and looked at the super-giant array covering over a thousand kilometers. His voice was somewhat hoarse as he spoke:

“So the Workshop’s true trump card… was never the super-wide-area transmutation array?”

“Not exactly. The transmutation array is real,” Clark corrected. “But strictly speaking, it isn’t the trump card either. Rather, it is…” He looked meaningfully toward the center of the array, where a faint, almost imperceptible spiritual light was slowly pulsing: “…nourishment.”

Jie Ming’s pupils contracted sharply.

Viola also understood in an instant.

“You mean…” Her voice trembled slightly from shock. “The true purpose of the super-wide-area transmutation array was never to counter the enemy’s trump cards, but to provide materials… for this array?”

Clark gave a slight nod:

“This plane is essentially just a crude splicing of more than a dozen abandoned planes. Its elements are thin, and all traces of life have long since vanished. The biggest difficulty in applying the Awakening Technique to such a ‘dead thing’ is the lack of sufficient suitable matter and energy to construct a soul.”

He looked at the giant array radiating soft white light:

“That is why we need the super-wide-area transmutation array. Using it to decompose the elements of this plane and reconstitute usable matter and energy as nutrients to nurture new life.”

Jie Ming felt his heartbeat accelerating.

He finally understood the true face of the Workshop’s entire strategy.

The first layer, the surface-level reconnaissance war, was to mislead the enemy’s judgment regarding the super-wide-area transmutation array.

The second layer, the hidden super-wide-area transmutation array, was to conceal the real trump card.

Everything had been for the third layer: to cover the giant array beneath their feet.

From the very first day of the war, the Workshop had never intended to compete with the enemy using conventional trump cards.

Because every wizard in the Noren Workshop understood clearly that there was no decisive technological gap between the three major factions. Relying solely on conventional techniques to create a gap while fighting one against two was almost impossible.

But since conventional techniques could not work, they could only use something unconventional.

What they intended to do was make this abandoned plane serving as the battlefield “come alive” on its own!

Once this colossal entity pieced together from more than a dozen planes gained its own soul and will and became a true “living plane,” what level of combat power would that represent?

Although all living planes were theoretically only sixth-ring beings, the sheer difference in scale was enough to produce a qualitative change in “quantity,” sufficient to influence the battlefield of eighth-ring wizards.

But then another question surfaced in his mind.

“Mentor,” he spoke up. “Even if we gather enough matter and energy with the transmutation array… can the Awakening Technique really work on this plane?”

He pointed upward.

There lay the surface—the battlefield crudely spliced together from more than a dozen abandoned planes:

“This plane itself is composed of more than a dozen abandoned planes combined. When they were joined, the method was quite crude. Some connection points between planes are still filled with spatial turbulence to this day, lacking even the most basic spatial stability.”

Viola also reacted and continued:

“Exactly. If given a few hundred million more years, these planes might slowly fuse into a true whole. But right now…” She shook her head. “The ‘connection’ between them is far too weak.”

Jie Ming nodded.

He had studied the Awakening Technique and understood its core principles deeply.

The most important factor was that the target needed to possess an “integrated whole” as its foundation.

Whether it was Starfall’s living plane back then or any theoretically “awakened” existence, it had to have a relatively complete “self” with tight internal connections.

Yet the battlefield before them—crudely spliced from more than a dozen abandoned planes, with spatial turbulence rampant at the connection points—was practically the antithesis of an “integrated whole.”

“Under these circumstances,” Jie Ming frowned, “even if we gather the matter and energy needed for a soul, they won’t be able to converge and produce true spirituality, right?”

Viola thought of another issue:

“And… is there enough time? Even if we activate the Awakening Technique now, how long will it take to nurture a complete living plane soul? By the time it awakens, the war will probably already be over.”

She looked at Clark, her eyes full of doubt.

Clark listened quietly to their rapid-fire questions, his face remaining calm and unruffled throughout.

Only after they finished did he give a gentle nod:

“You’ve both considered things very thoroughly.”

“These… are indeed problems.”

He turned around and looked once more at the super-giant array radiating soft white light. His voice was as calm as if he were discussing the weather:

“But there is no need to worry. These, I will solve.”

Jie Ming and Viola were both stunned.

“You… will solve them?”

Jie Ming couldn’t help but ask further: “But Mentor, these problems cannot be solved by ordinary means…”

Clark raised his hand and waved it lightly, cutting him off.

He did not turn around, simply standing with his back to the two of them, his tone still calm:

“When the time comes, part of the control authority over the transmutation array will be assigned to me. I will personally preside over the transmutation array and reconstruct the matter of this plane.”

He paused:

“As for the Awakening Technique array… the two of you will activate it when the time comes.”

Jie Ming and Viola exchanged a glance.

They had many questions, many uncertainties, and many things they wanted to ask.

But looking at Clark’s back, calm and composed, as if everything was under his control, those words reached their lips yet could not be spoken.

After several seconds of silence, the two of them nodded firmly at the same time:

“Understood.”

Clark did not respond.

He simply stood there quietly, his back to the two of them, his gaze resting on the giant array that covered over a thousand kilometers.

The soft white light reflected on the side of his face, making those ancient, rippleless gray eyes appear especially profound.