paranoianovel Chapter 740: Anomaly and Old Friend
Chapter 740: Anomaly and Old Friend
**Chapter 740: Anomaly and Old Friend**
The two sixth-ring wizards exchanged a glance, each seeing the same alarm reflected in the other’s eyes.
They had been standing closest to Jie Ming on the square, shaking his hand and exchanging pleasantries, so their perception had been the clearest.
Up close, the power fluctuations suppressed within Jie Ming’s body were simply beyond imagination.
During their conversation, they had not detected any deliberate release of pressure from him.
On the contrary, the other party’s aura was restrained so perfectly that not a single drop leaked out.
It was precisely because it was too clean that wizards of their level felt their scalps go numb.
“Terrifying,” one of them finally spoke, his spiritual force fluctuations noticeably more hurried than usual. “I can’t understand how a fifth-ring wizard can give off this kind of feeling. His power fluctuations are pressed down extremely deep. If I hadn’t come into close contact just now, I wouldn’t have sensed anything at all. But once I did… I even felt fear.”
“His… strength is abnormally exaggerated,” the other added, a bitter smile in his voice. “If I faced an enemy like this on the battlefield, I might already be dead.”
“Patriarch, I suddenly feel that inviting him here this time was somewhat wasteful.” “I feel the same.”
“You’re right…”
Listening to the two sixth-ring wizards, Patriarch Colmar couldn’t help but sigh, regret showing in his eyes.
“Too wasteful…”
Jie Ming followed the Colmar family wizard guiding him ahead through the long corridor, his face still wearing the impeccable, proper smile from the square earlier.
The moment the wizard turned to push open the next door, Jie Ming quickly raised his hand and gently pinched the bridge of his nose.
…These people are a bit too enthusiastic, aren’t they?!
The three sixth-ring wizards on the square earlier… The patriarch was understandable; as the head of a family, he naturally had to be smooth and sophisticated in dealing with others. But those two sixth-ring wizards standing behind him had come forward with full smiles the moment they saw him. The strength of their handshakes, the curve of their smiles, the timing of their compliments—everything seemed copied from the same social etiquette textbook.
Jie Ming had indeed shown no sign of stage fright throughout, responding appropriately, smiling standardly, and speaking polite pleasantries without a single flaw.
But he truly wasn’t used to such overly warm welcomes.
On the battlefield, he often received goodwill from other wizards, of course.
That kind of goodwill was genuine—straightforward words, decisive and clean, never dragging things out.
The “enthusiasm” before him, however, was wrapped in a layer of etiquette, always making him feel like the other party would cut to the chase in the next second and bring up conditions.
More concerning to Jie Ming than this, however, was another matter.
“Those three sixth-ring wizards… are so weak.”
As Jie Ming followed the guiding wizard through the long corridor hung with tapestries, he replayed the perception data from the square in his mind. The patriarch’s aura was relatively stable, but his law solidification domain appeared far too weak in Jie Ming’s senses—far below the average level of sixth-ring wizards he had encountered before.
The other two were even less worth mentioning.
Their law fluctuations were loose, like a half-knitted sweater that had been set aside, lacking interlocking patterns between the stitches. The efficiency of their energy circulation was even inferior to David’s.
It could be said that even a wizard like David—who had forcibly broken through to sixth-ring not long ago due to insufficient aptitude using resources—felt stronger in his perception than these veteran sixth-rings.
A judgment gradually formed in Jie Ming’s mind, one that made him sigh.
These three wizards were probably like David—those who had exhausted their talent and forcibly broken through to sixth-ring using resources.
Because of their insufficient talent, they could not delve deeper into further realms, and their strength had been permanently fixed the moment they broke through. “No… it might even be worse,” Jie Ming corrected his own thought.
At the moment of breakthrough, there was at least expectation for the future and that surge of momentum.
But as time passed, every attempt at research ended in failure, every new theoretical tome they opened left them unable to understand it, and every century that went by brought no progress at all…
This endless, horizonless predicament would continuously wear down their minds.
In the end, they no longer persisted even in the most basic research, instead turning to seek enjoyment and those satisfactions that required no talent. That was how such an absurd situation had arisen.
Their strength might even be inferior to a newly advanced sixth-ring wizard like David.
“Makes sense,” Jie Ming shook his head inwardly.
“In endless research with no visible end, even talented wizards have many who give up, let alone those with insufficient aptitude like them. Those who can truly persist in their studies are, after all, a minority.”
At least David had not given up yet. He was still working for his family and moving forward in his own way.
These veteran sixth-rings, however, had been standing in place for who knows how many years.
He let out a silent sigh and pressed that trace of regret back into the depths of his spiritual sea.
The double-leaf carved door ahead was slowly pushed open by the guiding wizard, revealing an open-air banquet venue that unfolded before Jie Ming’s eyes.
Jie Ming’s steps paused for a moment.
Spanning his gaze, the banquet venue covered a full tens of thousands of square kilometers.
The ground was paved with polished white cloudstone, its surface smooth as a mirror. At regular intervals stood pillars carved with the Colmar family crest.
Atop the pillars floated fist-sized illumination crystals that emitted soft light even in daytime, adding a dreamlike quality to the entire venue. Flowerbeds, fountains, and gazebos were distributed in a staggered layout, every detail meticulously designed.
At the edges of the venue stood several arrays towers specifically for launching fireworks. The runes on the towers flashed rhythmically, and every few minutes a firework would streak upward with a silver tail, exploding into a brilliant rain of light against the blue sky.
Even farther away were floating arrays controlling the lighting.
Although it was still daytime, those arrays were already in rehearsal mode, with light and shadow weaving slowly changing patterns beneath the clouds. Such luxury was quite rare even by wizard standards.
However, Jie Ming’s gaze only swept once over the decorations before he subconsciously began searching the edges of the venue for traces of defensive arrays. There were climate control arrays, arrays maintaining temperature and gentle breezes, and arrays making flowers bloom out of season.
There was even a dedicated illumination regulation array simulating just the right cloud cover to ensure sunlight was neither too harsh nor too dim. Yet not even the simplest energy barrier array was present.
Not even an entry-level alert ward capable of blocking a stray bullet on the battlefield had been installed.
“If someone attacked, there would truly be no means of counterattack at all.”
Jie Ming complained inwardly, then shook his head with a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, feeling he was being overly reactive.
This was the Colmar family’s core plane, the heartland of wizard civilization, not a frontline plane in the endlessly chaotic void.
Worrying about being attacked here was as unnecessary as wearing full plate armor in one’s own living room.
It seemed that constantly experiencing various wars had indeed made him somewhat unsuited to such an overly peaceful environment.
Just as he was reflecting, his perception suddenly caught an aura deliberately hidden and approaching from behind.
His body moved faster than his mind.
Jie Ming shifted sideways to dodge, and the hand that had been aiming for his shoulder brushed past, striking nothing.
Jie Ming turned around and saw that familiar, unwillingly beautiful face.
Berta Vera Augusta.
The genius young lady of the Augusta family who had entered the academy in the same year as him and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the same elite combat unit. Her black hair was a little longer than it had been a thousand years ago, still tied into a neat high ponytail with that deep blue ribbon.
Her face still wore her usual cold expression, but those black eyes were currently surging with unconcealed unwillingness. Her lips were slightly pursed, and the arm Jie Ming had dodged still hung in midair. Clearly, she had not expected him to detect her concealment.
“Cough… Long time no see.”
After recognizing her, Jie Ming’s expression stiffened slightly before he awkwardly raised his hand in greeting.
“Hmph.”
Augusta withdrew her hand, crossed her arms over her chest, and lifted her chin slightly, looking down at him from a superior angle.
“I wouldn’t dare claim acquaintance with you, sir… After all, you probably lost my communication code long ago, didn’t you?”
Jie Ming opened his mouth, then guiltily looked away.
He was indeed in the wrong on this matter.
Back on the battlefield against the illusory wizards, if Augusta had not risked her life to buy him time, he would not have lasted until the end.
Afterward, she had proactively given him her communication code.
But later he had forgotten about it.
Their communication lists remained completely empty to this day; Jie Ming had never contacted her once.
“I apologize,” Jie Ming said sincerely, lowering his head, his tone frank. “You helped me so much back then, yet I never took the initiative to contact you afterward. This is entirely my fault. As compensation… I would like to invite you to visit my plane as a guest later.”
Augusta stared at him for several seconds.
Those black eyes swept back and forth across his face several times before she gave a cold snort and lowered her crossed arms. The expression on her face shifted from “displeased” back to her usual “blank.”
Although that cold snort still carried traces of unwillingness, her tone had softened considerably.
“I’ve heard about your recent battle records. They are indeed impressive,” she suddenly changed the subject, her voice calm. “But I won’t admit defeat.” She raised her eyes, a sharp light gleaming in her black pupils.
“I will definitely surpass you!”
The moment the words fell, the aura around her surged abruptly.
Something she had been suppressing within her body inadvertently leaked a trace. The surrounding air trembled slightly from the pressure.
Although she withdrew it in an instant, Jie Ming still gleaned plenty of information from that aura.
The level of power contained within it far surpassed that of an ordinary fifth-ring wizard. In Jie Ming’s view, it was even comparable to some ordinary sixth-ring wizards.
Sensing that momentum, Jie Ming felt an inexplicable surge of delight in his heart and nodded sincerely.
“I look forward to it.”