"Full-body iron armor, using a soul beast as a mount, possessing powerfully terrifying charging force!"
A White Wizard murmured.
"This should be the legacy of the ancient Steel Knights!" Beside him, another White Wizard let out an exclamation of admiration.
"In the ancient era, the resources available to Wizards were incredibly abundant — even high-grade Meditation Methods weren't anything particularly precious; even a Formal Wizard could get their hands on one! Countless Wizards set aside their differences between sects and schools, learning and advancing together, even forming alliances to conquer one world after another! Now that was the golden age of Wizards!"
He repeated this, his eyes brimming with fanatic reverence.
"But the ancient Wizards ultimately suffered a devastating blow from causes unknown. Historians speculate that they discovered an extraordinarily powerful foreign world, and our Wizard World's invasion was met with a fierce counterattack…"
"To prevent the enemy from bringing the flames of war into our world, the ancient Wizards had no choice but to painfully seal the passage to that world, and to seal off the passages to other worlds as well… Even so, the already-wounded ancient Wizards lost a vast number of their legacies, and gradually fell into decline…"
The White Wizard leader sighed with emotion, slowly recounting a past that sounded like an ancient epic.
"Moreover, many of those ancient legacies, even if obtained by Wizards, would ultimately have the hope of further advancement completely severed due to a lack of certain essential resources from foreign worlds!"
"That's why today's orthodox Wizards still advance through continuous meditation — this path is the clearest, with abundant experience from predecessors to draw upon. As for those Wizards with ancient legacies, their situation is truly miserable. If they're lucky enough to find resources that happen to suit them, they can continue advancing, but the majority end up stuck around the First Rank for their entire lives…"
The leader continued.
"The ancient Steel Knights — it's said they originated from a neighboring world, the world of Iron Lava, as a special advanced class. After the ancient Wizards conquered that world, they introduced our body modification techniques to refine the original class, which resulted in the special advancement class known as the Steel Knights… Without extraordinary luck, their strength will remain permanently stalled at this level, so there's no need for you to envy them…"
"Then what do we do next? Do we keep speeding up?"
A Wizard with crimson cross-shaped reflections in his eyes asked.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
While constantly on the move, these Second Rank Wizards continued communicating through consciousness.
Under the effect of solidified Spiritual Power, their minds operated several times faster than those of ordinary First Rank Wizards — often a single wave of Spiritual Power would contain a massive amount of pictorial and textual information.
"No! We slow down!"
The White Wizard leader's eyes flashed coldly, and his speed immediately dropped slightly.
"Let those Steel Knights of the Iron Crown charge ahead!"
"A distillation of the Wisdom Ancient Tree, plus that treasure — that's enough to make them fight tooth and nail for it! And we follow behind!"
The White Wizard leader said coldly.
This was, in fact, an open ploy. Those Steel Knights knew perfectly well that the White Wizards might be following behind to reap the spoils, but under the temptation of the supreme treasure, they chose to continue the chase regardless.
As for the White Wizards' contract? Even if they did hand over the treasure once secured, it would still cost the White Wizards a heavy price!
The Steel Knights had every confidence in their own strength, believing they could completely finish the fight before the White Wizards even arrived!
Up ahead, the Black Wizards who had been fleeing — Arista and his two companions — had also come to a sudden halt.
Before them, a figure had materialized seemingly out of thin air, blocking their path forward.
The man had a thoroughly unremarkable face, the kind that would be lost in any crowd, yet he radiated unmistakable energy fluctuations unique to a second-tier Wizard, making all three of them change color involuntarily.
"Hand over the Wisdom Tree essence and the treasure in your hands!"
The middle-aged man spoke with sweeping arrogance, and after delivering his demand, he pulled a waterskin from his waist and took a hearty swig, wearing an expression of complete nonchalance.
"You..." The two Black Wizards behind Arista were seething with fury. So what if this middle-aged man was a second-tier Wizard? On their side, they had three Wizards who had reached the second tier!
"Awoooo!!!" Arista's response was even simpler and more direct. He snarled continuously at Leylin, his half-beastified face twisted with towering rage, and lunged straight at him.
Pfft! Pfft! As he charged, he opened his wolf's maw and launched two massive orbs of wind-element energy particles straight at Leylin like cannonballs.
At the same time, the werewolf seemed to dissolve into a gust of wind, his entire body concealed within a violent cyclone of air as he hurtled toward Leylin at terrifying speed, his razor-sharp wolf claws dripping with cold malice and a bloody sheen.
"Second-tier beastification!" Leylin watched the approaching werewolf Arista, his eyes flickering with intermittent flashes of blue light.
His right hand swept through the air, and a cloud of crimson powder instantly dispersed outward.
"Scorching Touch!"
Two beams of searing thermal energy instantly pierced through the wind-element energy orbs and shot toward the werewolf's position!
"Awoooo!" Arista roared wildly, constantly shifting his trajectory as he advanced.
But the two beams of Scorching Touch seemed to possess a guidance system of their own, curving through the air in an eerie arc to position themselves directly in the werewolf's path — after relentless practice in the Chip's simulated environments, Leylin's mastery of Scorching Touch was now on par with masters who had devoted over a decade to perfecting the technique, and he had even developed several unique tricks of his own.
"Ugh!!!" The werewolf desperately tried to protect his vital areas, but his right arm was struck dead-on by one of the crimson beams.
Arista howled in agony as a fur-covered arm, still bristling with razor claws, went spinning through the air.