Clark slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze had turned unusually stern.
"Nonsense!"
In the thousands of years since Jie Ming had become Clark's disciple, this was the first time he had heard his mentor use such a tone.
"Do you know what your biggest mistake was?"
Jie Ming was silent for a moment. "I underestimated the Law of Fate."
"No." Clark shook his head.
"On the contrary, you overestimated yourself."
Clark looked at him, his gaze sharp enough to pierce the soul.
"The danger of fate has never been about the knowledge itself, but about the user growing increasingly careless and arrogant. The information processed by fate abilities has no natural upper limit. Ask it a question, and it will try to answer."
"And the amount of information required to answer a single question can easily exceed the limit any living being can endure." His tone grew harsher as he spoke.
"I won't go into the related concepts again; you should have known them long ago. But given that you were aware of this, you still dared to directly use the planar origin to scan the entire region—that is the manifestation of your carelessness!"
"That wasn't research; that was suicide!"
Jie Ming lowered his head slightly. "Yes."
Clark continued, "High-rank wizards need courage to explore the unknown."
"But those who truly live long as high-rank wizards possess something else."
"Awe! Without awe, even the best talent only hastens death."
"Learning to balance courage and awe—that is, learning to manage risk—is a lifelong lesson for every wizard!"
Jie Ming remained silent for a long time before finally nodding earnestly.
"Master, I will remember."
Seeing that he did not argue, Clark's expression softened slightly.
Just then, Viola, who was beside them, suddenly frowned.
"Tsk."
She clicked her tongue in annoyance, and the smile on her face gradually faded.
Jie Ming found it odd. "What's wrong?"
Viola pursed her lips. "Nothing. I just laughed at you too happily a moment ago."
Jie Ming: "..."
What kind of reason was that?
Viola rubbed her temples, a bit irritated. "Seeing others unlucky makes me happy."
"After being happy, my pain decreases."
"And with less pain..." She frowned, her expression noticeably worse than before.
"The various enhancements I gain also weaken a bit."
Jie Ming instantly understood.
Viola's current system was built on converting various negative emotions into power.
Happiness itself was a form of weakening.
No wonder she suddenly looked like that.
But the next second, Viola paused, startled.
Then, her displeasure quickly vanished, replaced by a renewed smile.
"Huh?" She blinked. "Interesting."
Jie Ming asked, "What?"
Viola spread her hands. "A moment ago, I was annoyed because my power dropped."
"Then I realized..." She grinned.
"That annoyance was absorbed by me again, and my power rebounded."
She checked herself once more and nodded in satisfaction. "Yep, fully restored."
Jie Ming: "..."
He suddenly understood why his master always said Senior Sister Viola's path was extremely special.
And... he felt that this senior sister of his was getting more and more skilled at pulling herself up by her own bootstraps.
Clark looked at Viola and shook his head helplessly.
Then, as if suddenly remembering something: "Viola."
"Yes?"
"How is your wizard tower coming along?"
Viola's smile froze for a moment. "Still... under construction."
"Still under construction?"
Clark frowned.
"How long have you been putting it off?"
Viola cleared her throat. "Materials are a bit expensive, and I've been expanding my business recently..."
"Enough." Clark cut her off directly.
"Finish it as soon as possible." His expression turned serious.
"Your law deepening is complete. At your pace, your law expansion shouldn't take much time. The biggest remaining limit is your mental strength, which has always been your weak point."
"Without a dedicated planar-grade magic array to continuously nourish you, your mental strength growth will only slow down further."
"If you keep delaying, it will only hinder your advancement."
Viola rarely refuted, merely nodding helplessly: "Understood."
Listening to their conversation, Jie Ming's heart stirred.
Viola's law deepening... was already complete?
Jie Ming had always known that one key threshold for advancing from the sixth level to the seventh was continuously deepening or expanding the core law one had mastered, further growing the Law-Crystallization Domain.
He hadn't expected Viola to have already crossed that hurdle.
From what Master Clark meant, this senior sister also intended to carry out law expansion simultaneously.
Given Viola's talent, it wasn't surprising that she planned to do both.
Now, the only thing restricting her advancement was the intensity of her mental strength.
Jie Ming looked at his senior sister on the light screen and couldn't help but marvel inwardly.
No wonder she could already freely use emotions as part of her law.
Even her own emotions could become a source of power.
Such an ability had already far exceeded the scope of an ordinary sixth-level wizard and was truly that of a seventh-level wizard.
After confirming their recent situations, Clark gave a few more instructions and then actively ended the communication.
The light screen slowly faded, and the laboratory fell silent again.
Jie Ming stood alone at his workstation, staring at the dark-gold Law-Crystallization Domain slowly flowing in the center of the quiet room, unmoving for a long time.
His injuries had long since healed.
His spiritual sea was stable again, and the Law-Crystallization Domain had begun to slowly expand outward once more.
Everything was back on track.
But in his mind, one thing lingered.
A very dangerous thing.
During those years of recuperation, Jie Ming had originally thought his only gain was surviving and receiving a lesson.
But after fully recovering, during his routine introspection of his spiritual sea, he discovered something that still amazed him.
On the Ring of Truth, a new golden thread had appeared.
It was extremely thin and short.
If not for repeated checks, he would have suspected he was seeing things.
It was... the Law of Fate.
Specifically, a golden thread of the Law of Fate.
Although his mastery was pitifully low—by his estimate, at most about 0.1%—
it had still taken form.
This meant Jie Ming had officially stepped through the door of the Law of Fate.
Jie Ming slowly raised his hand, and an extremely subtle ripple of fate quietly emerged at his fingertip.
Compared with the awkward, difficult deductions of the past, his understanding of fate knowledge had suddenly become much clearer.
Many theories he had previously been unable to comprehend now made sense after just a glance.
This improvement was far beyond what normal study could achieve.
Based on the earlier circumstances, Jie Ming quickly guessed the reason.
That head explosion had not been meaningless.
The nearly infinite torrent of information at that time, though it had burst his head and split his spiritual sea, had indeed, in an extremely short time, forcibly allowed his consciousness to process a vast amount of fate information.
Combined with the adaptive evolution of the body refinement method in response to injuries, and the special state of the Dao Integration Realm that constantly integrated knowledge and digested information; the three factors together had actually managed to convert that deadly information into knowledge that partially belonged to him.
Thus, the golden thread of the Law of Fate was born.
Thinking of this, a flicker of fervor passed through Jie Ming's eyes.
If... it happened again?
"Hiss..."