"Exploring the Astral Plane is like sailing in the Age of Exploration — the lucky few who discover a new continent and return with gold are just that, a fortunate minority. The rest are nothing but bones buried beneath the ocean…"
Leilin sighed.
He left the confinement chamber and walked to the Astral Gate. A grey feather materialized in his hand.
The feather looked utterly ordinary, without the slightest anomaly, as if it were nothing more than a common bird's wing feather.
But Leilin knew full well how extraordinary it was.
This feather was a gift from the owl that dwelled in the crack between illusion and reality.
"The Dream World is, in fact, another plane of existence. I wonder if I can use the Astral Gate to connect to it!"
Before this day, Leilin had already used the Chip to scan the feather multiple times and had conducted numerous experiments, but none had yielded any results.
By all tests, it was simply an ordinary feather.
Now, with no other options left, Leilin had finally decided to use it in his Astral Plane experiments, hoping to establish a link with the Dream World.
Among the infinite expanse of the Astral Plane, the two most powerful worlds currently known were the
Of course, both of these worlds had declined since the Ancient War, but they were now steadily regaining their former glory.
As for the Dream World — that was the most enigmatic of all worlds!
Even constants and common sense simply did not exist in that place. In short, it was a world that overturned everything, a world with no rules whatsoever.
Even the ancient Wizard World had suffered a terrible blow when faced with the Dream World's incursion.
Of course, it was precisely the Dream World's inherent uncertainty that caused its invasion to fizzle out.
"That place is filled with all sorts of bizarre phenomena, but that's exactly what gives me my chance!" Leilin's eyes shone with a glint of light.
Other planes still had to abide by objective laws. An individual's growth required vast amounts of time and energy reserves.
But in the Dream World, anything was possible! If he wanted to obtain the greatest power in the shortest time, he had to take that gamble.
Of course, he had to be prepared to lose everything.
"Chip!" Leilin issued a silent command.
Upon entering this place, Leilin's spiritual power had already taken control of every instrument and energy source in the laboratory, delegating them to the Chip for unified management.
Although Leilin had set up a formation spirit here as well, it was nothing more than a decoy. How could those rudimentary programs compare to his Chip?
[Ding! Energy source preparation underway! Circuit inspection normal! Power loss rate 0.0017%! Initiating Astral Gate communication!]
The Chip responded promptly. Accompanied by its mechanical notification sounds, every instrument in the laboratory lit up in orderly sequence, their myriad lights and sounds weaving together into a wondrous symphony.
Under the Chip's auxiliary control, Leilin felt a fluid, effortless mastery over everything in the laboratory.
[Astral Gate activated!]
At the center of the laboratory, the stone gate radiating a faint starlight suddenly roared to life. The entire doorway was enveloped layer by layer in blue phosphorescent light, which ultimately coalesced into a ball of blue flame.
Countless mysterious connections formed within the flame. The void collapsed, and faint silhouettes of innumerable unknown spaces emerged.
These phantom images of other worlds resembled stars, forming a luminous river entirely filled with blue celestial bodies, surging grandly into the nameless darkness beyond.
"No matter how many times I see this sight, I can only marvel…" The fierce glow in Leilin's eyes blazed brighter, and he began murmuring under his breath.
After advancing to the Radiant Moon Wizard, the Astral Gate had taken on a new appearance in Leilin's eyes, and his exploration of the Astral Plane had grown far more profound.
An ancient and weathered aura continuously emanated from the Astral Gate.
Leilin's expression turned solemn. He closed his eyes and focused his senses.
Tiny motes of blue starlight floated and bobbed around his body. As time passed, the light around him gathered ever more densely, even taking on a flame-like radiance.
Inside the質 point, his True Spirit crescent suddenly blazed with a clear, bright light.
Leilin's soul seemed to have drawn something from the Astral Plane, becoming purer and more radiant. The soul power that had surged from absorbing the Fire Phoenix egg was also washed and purified, finally stabilizing completely.
"The mysteries of the Astral Plane, and this resonance between the soul and the Astral Plane…"
Leilin opened his eyes, which held a peculiar gleam: "Pursuing the coordination and synchronization of one's own soul frequency with the entire world, ultimately achieving a state of fusion. And going even further, pursuing the synchronization of one's own soul with the entire Astral Plane — no matter what philosophy or system, in the end they all seem to converge at a similar point…"
Through this experience, his True Spirit had grown a fraction more solid, which was certainly good news.
But when Leilin looked at the Astral Gate, the delight on his face turned into a bitter smile. The blue flame atop the gate had shrunk by nearly half, and even some of the surrounding Astral Stones had completely lost their radiance, crumbling into piles of debris.
"Chip! How long was I lost in thought?" Leilin was startled and immediately asked the Chip.
[Ding! Subject's standing time: 2 hours, 34 minutes, 12 seconds!]the Chip answered dutifully.
"So much time has already passed…" Leili shook his head, somewhat dazed. "No wonder the Astral Stones' reserve energy has been more than half depleted…"
Now he understood why those Morning Star Wizards didn't use the Astral Gate to temper their souls. There was only one reason — it was far too extravagant!
For this experiment, Leilin had prepared a large quantity of Astral Stones, and yet after merely losing himself in sensing the Astral Plane's aura for a brief while, this was the result.
If he had remained entranced a while longer, the Astral Stones would likely have been completely consumed. The value of these stones was something many Morning Star Wizards would need a decade or even several decades to earn.
When the cost far outweighed the benefit, it was no surprise that this method was swept into the dustbin.
"This extravagant cultivation method would make even a Dawn Sun Wizard wince — it would be more than they could afford…"
Leilin shook his head and took out the grey feather.
The soft wing feather drifted on the air currents, floating to midair and slowly drifting toward the blue flame of the Astral Gate.
"The Dream World — what kind of world is it, really?
Using the feather as a coordinate and casting it into the Astral Gate was truly a last resort. Moreover, regardless of whether the attempt succeeded or failed, this feather would vanish completely, which was why Leilin had hesitated.
Poof! The moment the grey feather's edge touched the blue flame, a strange transformation was triggered.
Blue flame instantly crawled across the feather's surface, and after a faint sound, the flame flashed — the owl's feather crumbled into a puff of ash and was drawn into the blue flame.
Boom! As if gasoline had been thrown in, the entire mass of blue flame surged upward several meters high, and its color even began shifting toward a brilliant orange.
The stone Astral Gate began to tremble, as though it had connected to some enormously vast existence.
"Did it work? Chip!" Leilin called out in a low voice.
[Astral Gate data recorded. Commencing coordinate search…]the Chip's emotionless voice sounded, and the flame grew even larger still.
Innumerable phantom worlds flickered into view and were quickly swept past, flashing before the Astral Gate like a revolving lantern.
Connected to the Astral Gate through his spiritual power, Leilin seemed to glimpse an incredibly bizarre world.
Around that world's exterior, countless illusions formed a long, winding river of stars, while the world itself resembled a twisted hourglass, brimming with eerie asymmetry.
"That's the Dream World?" Leilin murmured.
But this vision did not last long. A piercing alarm blared: [Warning! Warning! Astral Gate fluctuations unstable! Recommend immediate termination of search protocol!]
"You've got to be kidding me? I've only just glimpsed the Dream World's edge — I haven't even had time to calculate the coordinates…"
Leilin's eyes were fixed intently on the Astral Gate's image, his lips moving rapidly: "Almost there! Just a little more!"
Crack! Crack! Fracture lines spread across the Astral Gate, yet the scene beyond grew ever clearer. Leilin ignored the anomaly entirely, even stepping a few paces closer.
Rumble!
But at that very moment, the fractures on the gate suddenly expanded outward, forming a massive shockwave that engulfed Leilin.
The phantom of the Dream World vanished. Amid the explosion, Leilin's furious roar rang out: "No! Damn it! Just give me one more minute! Even half a minute, and I could have obtained the Dream World's coordinates for certain!"
[Main laboratory explosion detected. Initiating Emergency Protocol Three. Stabilizing spatial field. Deploying second-tier rune operations!]
The Chip's composed voice sounded.
Following its instructions, teams of mechanical constructs advanced, working in concert with the magical arrays to clear the laboratory's wreckage.
Neutralizing fluid with a pungent disinfectant smell sprayed down from the laboratory ceiling, drenching everything in its path.
In barely more than a dozen minutes, the entire laboratory had been cleared and cleaned once more, with the otherworld's radiation contamination successfully isolated.
At the epicenter of the blast, Leilin stood expressionless, a layer of black luminescent membrane shimmering around his body — completely unscathed by the explosion.