Chapter 862 – Returning to Course

Sentai had always been in charge of record-keeping, and quickly retrieved the relevant detection data, displaying it clearly on the light screen.

Mo Lan scrutinized the data curves carefully and soon discovered a clear pattern: the farther from the giant plane, the weaker the world consciousness fluctuations attached to the dark gold light pillars became. Moreover, each time a light pillar penetrated through a world, the consciousness fluctuations upon it would undergo a distinct step-like attenuation, with the magnitude of decrease far exceeding the natural decay that occurred with increasing distance through the void.

“Just as I thought!” Mo Lan murmured to herself.

This pattern perfectly explained why entering the tier-eight world closest to the giant plane was “great misfortune,” why entering the tier-eight world connected to the originally discovered plane was “minor misfortune,” and why entering the originally discovered plane had been judged by the Clairvoyance Spell as the safest point of entry.

The dark gold light pillar connecting to that original plane was not only the farthest discovered plane from the giant plane, but more importantly, there was a tier-eight world separating it from the source. This layer of “isolation” greatly weakened the intensity of the world consciousness.

The Starsea Ark resumed its journey, leaping toward that original plane.

Sure enough, as they continued to distance themselves from the giant plane, the detectors clearly showed that the world consciousness fluctuations within the dark gold light pillars were steadily weakening, just as predicted.

When the Ark finally came to a halt once more, hovering outside the originally discovered plane, Mo Lan carefully observed the terminus of the dark gold light pillar where it made contact with this world.

Here, the world consciousness fluctuations from the giant plane were barely perceptible, already as faint as those of a dying world.

World consciousness of this intensity—even if it were this world’s own world consciousness—would pose no real threat to her, let alone a mere foreign world consciousness.

The control and influence a foreign world consciousness could exert over a world could never exceed that world’s own world consciousness.

At this moment, the faint residual fluctuations at the tip of this light pillar segment could no longer evoke the intense unease and threat she had felt before.

To be safe, she cast the Fortune-Telling Spell one final time for confirmation.

“Great fortune!”

Joy immediately surged through Mo Lan’s heart.

It seemed that choosing this world as their point of entry was not only free of danger but might even yield great rewards.

This time, she did not hesitate for a moment.

“Clack, find a region of the boundary membrane far from the dark gold light pillar. Prepare to submerge.”

She chose to avoid the sensitive point where the light pillar directly connected, entering instead through a relatively “healthy” section of the world barrier to minimize the possibility of being detected by the giant world’s world consciousness.

Clack executed immediately, maneuvering the Starsea Ark like a ghostly shadow as it glided silently toward the far side of the plane.

The cloaked Starsea Ark, like a stone cast into still water, merged soundlessly into that silent boundary membrane, found a safe spot within it, and came to a temporary rest.

Inside the main control room, all detection data refreshed like a cascading waterfall, and preliminary scan results of the plane’s interior rapidly appeared on the main light screen.

This planar world consisted of one complete major plane and three incomplete half-planes.

Detection showed that the three half-planes had virtually no magical energy fluctuations. All magical energy was being channeled through stable spatial corridors toward the complete major plane.

This situation was not uncommon in planar-type worlds.

The Cangyuan World from which the Witch Academy’s half-plane originated was exactly like this—the world was internally stratified, connected by ascension corridors, and once living beings reached a certain level of strength, they could proceed to the upper plane.

What surprised her was that the intelligent beings within this plane had not only avoided extinction—their current population was extraordinarily large.

Not only did many ordinary humans live in the three half-planes, but the complete major plane contained a vast number of human spellcasters with magical fluctuations, as well as some beast-form intelligent creatures.

The population of intelligent beings was perfectly healthy—there was no way it should have caused the world consciousness to fall into dormancy.

“Wait… this structure…”

Mo Lan stared at the planar structure displayed on the light screen as a startling association flashed through her mind.

The pattern of this major plane connecting to and drawing magical energy from its subordinate half-planes looked, at first glance, exactly like a miniature replica of the giant plane using dark gold light pillars to connect to and drain the essence of other worlds!

“No! That’s not right!” She immediately rejected this simple analogy.

The boundary membrane was the true border of a world.

Within a boundary membrane, no matter how many planes it contained, they all shared the same set of world rules, belonged to the same world consciousness, and subordinate planes would not spontaneously generate independent world consciousnesses or independent boundary membranes.

But what about the worlds connected by the giant plane’s dark gold light pillars? They each possessed their own independent boundary membranes! Even after being pierced by the dark gold light pillars, they had not been fully assimilated. They were separated from the giant plane by the endless void. It was simply that their world consciousnesses had fallen dormant for unknown reasons, and the giant world’s world consciousness within the dark gold light pillars had seized a degree of dominance.

Mo Lan tucked this doubt away in the back of her mind. Just as she had done on White Crystal Star, she sat upon her flying carpet, concealed her presence, and flew toward the complete major plane where magical energy existed.

The energy intensity of the boundary membrane could not be faked—this world was at most tier-two Peak, not quite reaching tier three.

This meant that the spellcasters here, even the strongest among them, would not exceed the level of an Intermediate spellcaster in Valen.

She was not worried that her flying carpet, which had been reinforced countless times, would have its concealment penetrated by local spellcasters.

As the flying carpet descended in altitude, approaching a cloud-shrouded mountain range, Mo Lan encountered a human spellcaster flying through the sky atop a gleaming flying sword.

This greatly piqued her interest.

Sensing the energy fluctuations around his body, he was merely at the level of a low-tier spellcaster, yet he could achieve stable flight by means of a single artifact! Apart from witches, who were naturally gifted at riding broomsticks, this was the first time she had ever seen a being with such meager magical ability soaring through the sky.

Her curiosity ignited, Mo Lan struck silently. An invisible psychic illusion instantly enveloped the human spellcaster.

He thought he was still flying forward, but in reality he had already come to a stop. In the moment of his oblivious trance, Mo Lan probed his memories without him knowing a thing.

This person’s memories were far longer than she had expected—he had lived at least two hundred years. Mo Lan didn’t have time to examine them closely, so she first imprinted all of them in their entirety.

She then released the illusion, letting him shake his head in confusion before he continued on his way atop his flying sword.

Upon the flying carpet, Mo Lan closed her eyes and focused, rapidly browsing through the memories she had just imprinted into her mental sea.

It took only a few minutes to review over two hundred years of memories from beginning to end. When Mo Lan opened her eyes again, this world held not a trace of unfamiliarity for her.