Chapter 865 – The Weight of Great Fortune

The Starsea Ark slowly approached the stretch of void where the energy fluctuations had not yet fully subsided, all detection instruments whirring to life as they meticulously scanned the area.

Just as the Ark’s sensors detected a chunk of flesh emanating high-energy fluctuations, a sudden change occurred!

A nearby piece of seemingly ordinary grayish-black rock, roughly the size of a fist, abruptly exploded apart.

A streak of grayish-white light, refined to the absolute extreme and nearly indistinguishable from the void’s background, shot out like a coiled viper striking from ambush. Its target: the Starsea Ark, mere inches away.

That cultivator had been unbelievably cunning, hiding his nascent soul inside this utterly unremarkable piece of grayish-black rock, enduring the earlier energy storm and bombardment through sheer force of will.

“Attack!”

Mo Lan’s heart lurched violently, but her reaction was lightning-fast. Her finger slammed down hard on the attack button.

Several beams of Sixth Rank Magic brilliance instantly blasted toward the streak of light, managing to slow it briefly and dim its glow somewhat. But the distance was simply too close. The cultivator’s nascent soul moved at speeds that defied reason, and in barely the blink of an eye, it had already reached the Starsea Ark’s boundary membrane.

“Hummm——!”

The Starsea Ark’s boundary membrane instantly erupted with blinding radiance. Reinforced by Star Steel and originating from a Rank Ten world’s foundation, the mirror space’s boundary membrane, together with the layers upon layers of defensive runes that surfaced like a roiling tide, had already pushed its protective capabilities to the absolute limit.

Yet at that very moment, the grayish-white nascent soul also erupted with a light of desperate resolve, and rammed into it headlong!

“Ssshhk——!”

A sharp, tooth-aching screech rang out, as if space itself were being torn apart. The incomparably sturdy boundary membrane had actually been pierced—a tiny pinhole punched through by that concentrated, origin-burning suicidal impact.

“No! He’s gotten inside!” Zhizhi’s voice carried unprecedented panic, and everyone’s hearts leapt into their throats.

The instant the cultivator’s nascent soul invaded the mirror space, it vanished from the control light screen entirely.

Mo Lan immediately extended her psychic power into the space core. At this moment, she was the mirror space’s world will—no existence within the space could escape her perception.

The result made her blood run cold. The cultivator’s nascent soul was hurtling toward the main control room at inconceivable speed, heading straight for them!

Almost the very instant Mo Lan locked onto its position, that streak of grayish-white light had already phased through the control room’s walls and appeared before Mo Lan. Carrying an aura of cold, pure hatred, giving no one any time to react, it viciously burrowed into the space between her brows!

Time in the control room seemed to freeze.

Clack’s finger bones hung rigid in midair. Sentai’s roots halted in place. Zhizhi wore an expression of sheer terror: “Master!”

Mo Lan’s body trembled slightly, and her eyes instantly lost focus, as though her soul had been ripped away.

Yet the very next second after Zhizhi’s cry, clarity returned to her gaze. She even blinked, and a strange expression—a mixture of sudden realization and subtle bemusement—crossed her face.

“So… that’s what ‘great fortune’ meant?”

“Master! Are you alright?!” Zhizhi anxiously leapt in front of her. Clack’s soul fire trembled faintly. Sentai’s roots reached over urgently, gently touching her arm. Worry and concern practically overflowed from all of them.

They had all felt the terrifying pressure of that grayish-white streak firsthand. For something so dreadful to bore directly into their master’s body—if not for the magical familiar contract’s connection remaining rock-solid and unchanged, and the fact that they themselves felt no discomfort whatsoever, they would have believed their master had been body-seized and taken over in an instant!

“I’m fine.” Mo Lan looked at the companions gathered anxiously around her and felt warmth flood her heart. She reached out and ruffled Zhizhi’s fluffy little head, patted Clack on the shoulder blade, then patted Sentai’s root. “Not only am I fine—I actually gained quite a lot from this!”

Just now, the cultivator’s nascent soul had forced its way into her mental sea, intending to devour all her psychic power and seize her body.

The moment it entered, however, it plunged headlong into her vast, boundless ocean of psychic power.

His nascent soul had appeared formidable from the outside, but within her mental sea, it was as insignificant as a pebble tossed into the ocean—unable to stir even the faintest ripple. Not only had it failed to affect her in the slightest, the nascent soul had been assimilated in reverse by her psychic power, leaving behind only a mass of sealed memories in her mental sea, waiting to be examined.

If she hadn’t slowed it down earlier, even these remnants wouldn’t have survived—they would have been entirely dissolved into nourishment for her psychic power.

Even so, that single impact had increased her total psychic power by at least the equivalent of one trillion Mana—that is, one trillion Mana’s worth of psychic power.

The earlier attack had consumed approximately 1.5 trillion Mana, but what was spent had been disposable Mana, while what she gained was permanent psychic power!

That trade was an absolute steal.

Mo Lan weighed the pros and cons in her mind.

On one hand, she was eager to sort through the enormous cache of memories she had just acquired, which surely contained critical intelligence about that colossal plane.

On the other hand, she worried the enemy might dispatch another powerful figure. Next time, there wouldn’t be the lucky accident of a dark-gold energy pillar suddenly collapsing and injuring them first, and her disposable Mana reserves had been more than half depleted—not enough to sustain another such extravagant card bombardment.

Erring on the side of caution, she cast the Fortune-Telling Spell once more, divining the risk of continuing to remain in this stretch of void.

The hexagram manifested—great fortune, once again!

Mo Lan felt a surge of delight. It seemed there were still other treasures here waiting for her.

She hesitated no further and immediately gave the order: “Clack! Activate the Ark’s stealth mode. Station us right here and hold this stretch of void firmly. We wait for the boundary membrane to repair itself!”

The mass of memories she had just absorbed was simply too enormous and chaotic. To fully organize, digest, and extract valuable information from it would require at least several days.

After making the arrangements, she lay down on the nearby sofa, closed her eyes, and devoted herself entirely to sorting through the cultivator’s memories.

When she saw the moment this cultivator first stepped into the Dao Ancestor realm, she didn’t think much of it. But when she saw that the total amount of immortal energy he commanded was equivalent to one trillion Mana’s worth of power, Mo Lan suddenly felt a wave of retroactive terror.

One trillion Mana—in Valen, that was the level of someone who had just entered Ninth Rank.

Her current total Mana and Magic level were both only at the Sixth Rank—a mere two billion Mana!

If she had known the gap was this enormous beforehand, even with a divination result of “great fortune,” she could never have waited so calmly for him to appear and confronted him head-on.

Even though she had tens of trillions in disposable Mana reserves, the highest grade she could craft were Sixth Rank Magic Cards. No matter how many Sixth Rank spells she threw, she wouldn’t dare assume they could easily kill a Ninth Rank enemy.

Even though her psychic power level already exceeded Ninth Rank, without corresponding Ninth Rank mage Magic, she had no way to wield Ninth Rank destructive power.

Combining this person’s memories with her recollection of the battle just fought, it had truly been perilous at every turn—every single step had been taken on a knife’s edge. Had any single element gone wrong, the one who died would have been her.