Chapter 167: The Cornerstone

Kaya Mountain, like a blazing sun, illuminated the entire Sea of Illusion and Reality. The Abyss, the Underworld, and the Hells were all suppressed beneath its divine power. The sub-planes and Demi-Planes of the gods surrounded and clung to it. Countless naturally forming, dissolving, or remnant sub-planes, Demi-Planes, and dimensional spaces circled it.

Like the Milky Way of Ace’s past life, countless planes and spaces formed a spiral planar system around Kaya Mountain.

At the edge of one of the spiral arms, the Spirit of the Book, unintentionally carrying the mental network formed by the souls of the Wizard Apprentices, crossed from the Inner Plane of the world to the layer between illusion and reality. A small bubble instantly swelled here. Simultaneously, a trace of the Great Source’s aura, incredibly thin, brushed against the small bubble, transforming it into a dimensional space.

The Spirit of the Book unconsciously led the souls of the apprentices into this dimensional space. Its concealment ability instantly unfolded and was absorbed and strengthened by the newly born dimensional space during its momentary connection with the Great Source. The entire dimensional space vanished from the Sea of Illusion and Reality, hidden from sight.

The embryonic form of the Wizards’ Collective Subconscious Sea should have been born in the Outer Plane invisible and unknowable to mortals only when the Wizard collective was larger, stronger, and met with specific fortune and opportunity to connect with the Great Source of the world.

Because Ace attempted to use the mental network to witness the oath, inadvertently using the Spirit of the Book—a quasi-rule creature capable of surviving in the Sea of Illusion and Reality—as the signal source for the mental network, the collective stumbled into the Sea of Illusion and Reality by accident, connecting with the Great Source prematurely and being born early.

The prematurely born embryonic Wizards’ Collective Subconscious Sea was exceptionally weak, insignificant even among the sequence of dimensional spaces.

Thanks to the Spirit of the Book’s rule-based concealment ability being absorbed and strengthened by the embryonic Subconscious Sea during the moment of connection with the Great Source, its existence was successfully hidden.

Daina felt as if she were floating naked in a warm ocean. This sea area was not vast but very profound. Floating in the entire ocean were light points of various sizes and colors—some strong, some weak, some warm, some cold—all different.

Daina “looked” at herself and found she was also a point of light, only relatively larger.

Why can a point of light “see”? Daina wondered.

She swam in the ocean, venturing into the shallows, and found many dim, lightless stones. She gently touched one of them.

The world spun. She seemed to see a boy crying. In a trance, the boy grew up, becoming a strong and resilient man.

His appearance is somewhat familiar. I seem to have seen him somewhere, Daina the light point thought.

He braved the wind and snow from the Northern March to reach the Royal City, living there for six years. He took the Unified Literacy Exam three times, finally passing it with difficulty. At that moment, he roared at the sky, weeping with joy.

Missing his hometown, he braved the wind and snow to return to the Northern March Fortress, accepting a freelance low-level public office from the legion, hunting Monsters in the Monster Wilderness.

Daina watched him as years passed. Due to insufficient strength, he didn’t kill enough Monsters to meet the merit requirement of ten kills.

His family’s disappointment, his neighbors’ ridicule—at over 30 years old, all the pressure fell on him. Just then, he obtained the miraculous Grimoire, forged a covenant with the Torch-Bearer, and gained the power to defeat ordinary Monsters.

He successfully killed 10 Monsters and handed them over to the legion. Citizenship was within reach. His family’s joy, his neighbors’ envy—everything was so wonderful.

One night, Divine Descendants from the legion broke into his home and seized his family. He did not hesitate, decisively laying down his weapon, hoping only that his family would survive.

However, he fell in a pool of blood. In his dying moments, he watched the Divine Descendants kill his family members one by one.

Daina was silent for a long time. She returned from the hallucination to the warm ocean, looking at the hundreds of dim stones on the beach, daring not to touch another one.

A dazzling brilliance appeared in the center of the ocean. Daina the light point felt intense light and heat, and a sense of familiarity.

She swam toward the brilliance with all her might. Countless light points also spontaneously approached the brilliance. Getting closer, she saw a gigantic torch standing in the center of the ocean, emitting a flickering, dazzling light.

Only, there seems to be a rather plump flame within it, refusing to flicker. How strange, Daina the light point thought.

The Wizard Apprentices, transformed into light points, felt the warmth and dazzling light of the gigantic torch and couldn’t help but want to get close and follow it.

This was because the mental strength of the Wizard Apprentices was too low.

Of the 90-plus Wizard Apprentices, over 60 were merely Lesser Wizard Apprentices who had not completed the initial magification, possessed no Inherent Mana, and had less than 10 units of mental power.

Most of the rest were Mid-level Wizard Apprentices who had just completed the initial magification. Not a single one had reached the minimum threshold for an Advanced Apprentice: 1 Mental Power Unit.

Ace, as an existence comparable to the peak of a Pseudo-Hero, had a mental power infinitely close to the minimum value for the Hero level: 10 Mental Power Units.

However, this final leap was a transformation of life level, too difficult to take. His meditation had completely stagnated at this point.

Even if the mental strength of all the Wizard Apprentices was added together, it would not be enough to rival Ace’s mental strength. At this moment, possessing rich experience as a collective life and a powerful mental power degree, Ace, with the aid of the hub function of the quasi-rule creature Spirit of the Book, became the master of the embryonic Wizards’ Collective Subconscious Sea.

The golden Covenant Scale descended, spanning between the Wizard Apprentices and Ace. The collective mental imprint network, which was the catalyzed, temporarily formed embryonic Wizards’ Collective Subconscious Sea, bore witness!

“Let the Scale and the Subconscious Sea bear witness. All Wizards have jointly recognized these five cornerstone principles: Keep Secrets, Stand Guard Together, Equivalent Exchange, Respect Knowledge, Seek True Knowledge.”

With Ace’s solemn declaration, the golden Covenant Scale vanished from reality and appeared within the illusory and real deep Collective Subconscious Sea of the mental network.

Above the Subconscious Sea, the golden Covenant Scale was magnified, flashing with dazzling golden light.

What was originally just a rudimentary Covenant Ritual developed by Ace suddenly underwent a qualitative change at this moment. The Scale entered the embryonic Wizards’ Collective Subconscious Sea within the layer of illusion and reality, seemingly touching a certain rule of the Outer Plane.

A trace of the invisible rule power of Justice and Witnessing projected over, enveloping the Scale. Bathed in this sliver of power, the golden Covenant Scale lost its golden glow, transforming into a massive, ancient, and simple scale.

On the ancient, mottled scale, a stack of somewhat worn parchment scrolls, imbued with mysterious witnessing power, emerged.

Torch Ace’s cowlick swayed. The Spirit of the Book trembled almost frantically, scanning and recording. It floated directly out of Torch Ace’s head, its chubby body a ball of fleshy flame, drifting down to the base of the scale.

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