After five years of refinement, especially after Leylin had fed the Chip a vast amount of soul data acquired through trades and missions, its analysis of the soul had reached an entirely new level.
Though it still could not quantify soul force into hard data, it was no longer far from that goal, and could already make all manner of startling inferences and cross-referencing.
The alteration of his externally released soul fluctuations was merely one manifestation of this progress.
"Mm! The concentration of fire elements is highest here. If I modify the spell templates from the Wizard World, I might be able to achieve an astonishing boost in power!"
Leylin stroked his chin, gazing at the elemental spectrum chart, a storm of light flickering through his eyes.
At the same time, the aura emanating from his body began to shift subtly. A faint layer of dark luminescence shimmered into being, then quickly enshrouded him from head to toe. The space around him seemed to warp for an instant, as though nothing had happened at all.
Yet Leylin let out a long breath of relief, feeling as though his entire being had suddenly fallen into perfect harmony with his surroundings.
"At last, I've shaken off that sensation of being watched… the World Will…" He exhaled slowly, his voice heavy with a relief that was hard to put into words. "Fortunately, the guardian will of this world is a distributed consciousness like Gaia, not a sentient being in its own right. Otherwise, it would never have been so easy to deceive…"
After crossing into an alien world, how to deal with the world's hostility would remain a serious problem.
The fluctuations of a Morning Star Wizard were as conspicuous as a torch blazing in the darkness—they were bound to attract a world's attention, and in an alien world the trouble would only be worse.
If the world's consciousness were truly provoked into rage, it would be like having the grim reaper as a constant companion—calamity after calamity, misfortune without end. Even a Morning Star could be tormented to death, let alone accomplishing anything like a rescue.
But now, with the change in his aura, Leylin was indistinguishable from a native of this world, his presence utterly unremarkable.
"Like this, I've finally made a full descent into this world. The question is where Gilbert and the others are…"
Leylin furrowed his brow. A vast, terrifying wave of soul force erupted from him, sweeping across the surrounding area in a scan.
Although soul force was formless and intangible, once a power of Morning Star magnitude surged forth, it still caused the entire space to seem to freeze—even the molten lava ceased its roaring.
Fire-red! Fire-red!
As his soul force spread outward, countless rivers of magma came into Leylin's view. The landscape resembled the vicinity of a volcanic crater—utterly devoid of living creatures, with scarcely a trace of life energy to be found.
He said "scarcely" because Leylin did, in fact, detect a single type of plant.
It resembled a small black-iron tree, its roots driven deep into the ground and even plunging into the molten rock itself. The entire plant radiated a lustrous, ink-dark sheen, and even the searing temperature of the lava could not cause it to wither in the slightest.
"There's at least some sign of life, otherwise I'd have started to think only elemental beings could survive in this world…"
Leylin nodded to himself, then suddenly shifted his expression, his gaze snapping toward a specific direction.
Over there, he had keenly detected a fluctuation of life—and a large one at that.
"Locals?" Leylin smiled faintly. His entire body sank into the void and hurtled toward the detected target at tremendous speed.
Before long, he arrived at his destination—and beheld the scene of a fierce battle.
One side of the battlefield was a group of humanoid creatures, standing two or three meters tall. Their skin emitted a sleek black sheen, and even searing lava that splashed onto them caused little reaction, showing their high heat tolerance. Each had a small, solitary horn atop its head.
This group of horned ones numbered around a dozen, wielding dark-black spears and similar weapons as they besieged a colossal monster.
The monster was entirely red, its exterior a layer of thick, rocky armor from which rivulets of lava flowed downward like small streams.
It stretched over a dozen meters long, its entire form resembling a giant worm. Its lower half was submerged in the molten rock, as if it were a creature evolved to live exclusively within the magma.
Whap! With a sudden, sweeping strike, it flung several of the horned ones away. From its maw, it ejected a torrent of golden liquid that radiated an unimaginable heat. Where it splashed onto the ground, it immediately erupted into fierce flames. Even the heat-resistant horned ones suffered greatly; anyone splashed by the golden fluid suffered severe burns.
"Kkngsg fkamg lweo……"
Several of the lead horned ones shouted urgently, using a very strange language that seemed to produce sound not through vocal cords, but directly from their lower abdomen—somewhat like the ventriloquism of Leylin's previous world.
"As expected, I can't understand them..." Leylin was momentarily speechless. Fortunately, this issue of language was no longer an obstacle for him. While he could use his Chip to secretly monitor these people and eventually compile a complete linguistic database, Leylin had a better method.
Swoosh! A wisp of shadowy soul force shot swiftly into the skull of a heavily injured horned one lying on the ground.
"Mm..." The horned being convulsed violently, managing only muffled groans. Its companions, thinking it was crying out in pain from its wounds, paid no heed.
Meanwhile, in front of Leylin's eyes, images began to flicker and fast-forward like a film.