Chapter 878 – The Verdant Depths Realm

Mo Lan’s spirits lifted immediately. She set down the pen and paper in her hands, straightened her robes, and replied, “Got it. I’m coming right now.”

She flashed over to the main control room. On the light screen, there was a planar world whose boundary membrane had been pierced by a dark-gold pillar of light. The world’s rank had just crossed the fourth level — cultivators would likely have to ascend after advancing to Nascent Soul.

Mo Lan immediately cast the Fortune-Telling Spell to divine the situation: “Auspicious?”

It wasn’t supremely auspicious, but it was still quite good.

This foretold that the operation would most likely go smoothly. The process might not be as divinely assisted and effortless as it had been in the Celestial Profound Realm, but the final outcome should be favorable, with risks well under control.

“It seems this world hasn’t been heavily fortified by the Immortal Realm yet,” Mo Lan quickly analyzed.

As long as no Dao Ancestor was lying in wait, she would have enough time to sever the ascension channel and contact the world consciousness.

To communicate with this world’s consciousness without alerting the Immortal Realm’s world consciousness, the ascension channel had to be severed first.

“Clack, maintain stealth and close to effective attack range quickly,” Mo Lan ordered calmly.

The Starsea Ark slid silently through the void until that thick dark-gold pillar of light was fully within the ark’s optimal firing range.

“Lock on target — the junction point between the ascension channel and the boundary membrane.”

Mo Lan’s fingertips swept rapidly across the control light screen, pulling up the attack sequence that had long been prepared.

This time, she skipped even the probing strikes and directly loaded hundreds of {Seventh Rank Spatial Blade} cards before launching the attack.

In the next moment, it was as if a silvery-white storm had erupted in the void!

Hundreds of {Seventh Rank Spatial Blade} cards were activated simultaneously, transforming into dazzling silver streaks that tore through space. Like a swarm of ravenous silver wasps, they descended with a heart-stopping shriek, cascading in an overwhelming deluge toward the base where the dark-gold pillar connected to the boundary membrane!

The instant Mo Lan struck, it was a merciless saturating bombardment. She needed to ensure the ascension channel was completely severed at the very first opportunity.

She didn’t expect to block any descending Dao Ancestors halfway — she only needed to delay their arrival as long as possible.

She still needed to communicate with this world’s consciousness and negotiate a partnership.

The dazzling silver light collided violently with the massive dark-gold pillar, and the resulting energy turbulence instantly swept through the surrounding void!

The dark-gold pillar shuddered violently, the cracks across its surface growing wider and wider, until finally, with a thunderous boom, it shattered apart completely.

The Immortal Realm’s ascension channel was finally severed.

Mo Lan seized the moment and had Clack pilot the Starsea Ark to slip quietly through this world’s boundary membrane.

She opened the door of her Witch’s home, descended into the world on her flying carpet, chose a barren valley to land in, then held her breath and focused her mind. She cast Star Language, sending out ripples of psychokinesis filled with goodwill, searching for and reaching out to this world’s consciousness.

A faint, exhausted awareness tinged with unmistakable gratitude — like a frightened small animal — cautiously brushed against her psychokinesis.

“Outsider… it… it was you who severed… that… that blood-sucking ascension channel…”

“…Thank you… truly… thank you… I… my name is Verdant Depths…”

“…I have been… tormented for so long… so very long… my source power drains ceaselessly… my consciousness has… has fallen into slumber… I am unbearably weak…” Its thoughts came in fragments, filled with pained tremors, making every effort to paint its own miserable plight.

“…I… I have only this… to… to express my… deepest gratitude to you…”

Accompanying this thought, a jade slip radiating a soft glow slowly coalesced, appearing before Mo Lan.

It was a Realm-friend invitation.

The Verdant Depths Realm’s consciousness continued recounting its suffering under the Immortal Realm’s long oppression, the ceaseless draining of its source power. Its words were earnest, its gratitude seemingly overflowing.

And yet, Mo Lan’s perception detected a note of dissonance.

Given the degree of “weakness” the Verdant Depths consciousness was projecting to her, it seemed far worse off than the Celestial Profound Realm’s world consciousness had been. But Mo Lan could sense that its source power hadn’t actually been damaged to that extent. Its foundation was likely somewhat sturdier than the Celestial Profound Realm’s had been back then, and the Immortal Realm’s plundering had gone on for a shorter period.

It had piled on the grateful words by the basketful and put on quite a show of playing the victim, but when it came to tangible compensation… there was only this single Realm-friend invitation. Not half a Source Mana crystal to be seen.

By universal convention, rescued worlds were supposed to offer large quantities of Source Mana crystals and world invitation tokens as payment. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many Sixth Rank and above Explorers who made it their mission to rescue endangered and zero-rank worlds.

A Realm-friend invitation made for a fine reward when posting tasks at the Well of the Sky, but for a high-rank Explorer who had rescued a world, it was far too flimsy — even borderline dismissive.

It wasn’t exactly stingy to the bone, but it certainly couldn’t be called sincere.

Mo Lan assumed Verdant Depths was simply a bit miserly, though this didn’t affect her plans for the partnership ahead. For her, the source power compensation from rescuing a world was far less important than the steady, long-flowing stream of Mana revenue that would come from successfully promoting the Card Magic system.

The Immortal Realm’s ascension channel had been severed. Dao Ancestors from the Immortal Realm might already be on their way. The most urgent priority was to secure the partnership and prepare for whatever crisis might follow.

So she suppressed that sense of dissonance and continued communicating through Star Language in a calm, measured tone. Drawing on her successful experience in the Celestial Profound Realm, she laid out the current situation and future prospects clearly for Verdant Depths:

“Verdant Depths, your predicament is not yet fully resolved. Even though I’ve severed the ascension channel before us, as long as the path of immortal cultivation remains the dominant practice in this world, the Immortal Realm can keep sending Dao Ancestor cultivators to rebuild the channel and continue draining your source power.”

A wave of pain and agreement rippled from the Verdant Depths consciousness.

“…Yes… yes… you are right… I… I too know this is drinking poison to quench thirst… but I… I have no other choice…”

Mo Lan seized the moment to present her solution: “I have an entirely new path of cultivation that can help you break free from this predicament for good.

The ‘Magic’ system does not rely on spiritual roots, nor does it require you to grant source power as a foundation. Instead, it develops the innate psychic power of humans to harness the elemental energy that permeates heaven and earth for spellcasting.

If you cooperate — stop granting spiritual roots to living beings and help guide them toward the path of Magic —

then even if the Immortal Realm forces the ascension channel open again, they won’t be able to find qualified ‘ascenders,’ nor will they be able to plunder your source power any longer.

Furthermore, if any Dao Ancestor realm cultivators from the Immortal Realm come while I’m still in the Verdant Depths Realm, I will stop them from rebuilding the ascension channel. All I need is for you to help keep their physical bodies firmly blocked outside the boundary membrane.

Once we succeed, I will extract the source power from their cave heavens, and we split it fifty-fifty!”