Secret Eagle nodded, pressing a groove on the side of the metal chest with her right hand. The lid popped open silently, leaving a narrow crack.
She then took a fist-sized, dark blue-green crystal disc from the chest. The surface of the disc was carved with three layers of nested runic circuits, each layer rotating slowly at a different speed.
She pressed the crystal disc onto the console in the center of the teleportation array.
The moment the crystal disc clicked into the groove, the outermost runic circuit spun rapidly, causing the middle and core layers to light up in sequence.
The dark silver array patterns along the edge of the teleportation array lit up layer by layer, from the outer ring to the inner ring. Dark blue-green light spread, interwove, and stacked along the patterns, condensing into a constantly shifting web of light across the array's foundation.
Secret Eagle's fingers slid rapidly across the surface of the crystal disc.
Every time her fingertip pressed down, it left an extremely thin, dark blue-green trail of light on the disc.
The trails of light lingered on the surface for a split second before being absorbed into the runic circuits.
With her movements, the energy frequency inside the teleportation array began to adjust.
The vibration frequency of the air itself was changing, trembling slightly.
The tremor was incredibly subtle—so subtle that without the perception of an Official Wizard, it would be impossible to detect.
The frequency of the tremor shifted continuously, rising from low to high and slowing from fast to slow, as if an invisible hand were plucking the strings of space.
Visible ripples of energy began to appear in the air, spreading outward from the center of the teleportation array. With every ring that expanded, the web of light on the foundation grew a fraction brighter.
About ten minutes later.
Secret Eagle's finger swept across the surface of the crystal disc one last time, and the three layers of runic circuits froze in place simultaneously.
In that instant, the space within the teleportation array was forcibly torn open by something.
“Let's go.”
The moment the words left Secret Eagle's mouth, the light of the teleportation array swallowed everything.
The surrounding scenery stretched into countless blurry, colorful threads in their field of vision. The flagstones, towers, morning light, and sky all twisted, spun, and compressed into an infinitely small point of light.
Then, the point of light exploded.
About half an hour later.
A point of light lit up at the end of the passage.
The point of light expanded at an extreme speed, growing from the size of a grain of rice to the size of a fist, then to the size of a human, before finally swallowing their entire field of vision.
The sensation of stepping on solid ground returned.
Ethan opened his eyes.
And then, he froze.
The teleportation array was built on the top platform of a tall tower.
The platform was paved with massive, individual slabs of a translucent stone of unknown material. Pale gold light patterns flowed within them, drifting slowly like the breathing of a living creature.
There were no railings at the edge of the platform. Instead, towering stone pillars were arranged in a circle. Each pillar was over ten meters in diameter, their surfaces carved with dense runic patterns.
The runes were not static; they drifted slowly along the pillars like living things, sending out a faint ripple of energy with every movement.
The tops of the stone pillars were not connected to anything, yet a visible, translucent energy membrane flowed between them.
The membrane was pale gold, and complex runic arrays constantly surfaced on its face. Once formed, an array would only last a few seconds before collapsing on its own, only for a new one to condense in its place, repeating in an endless, ceaseless cycle.
Beyond the platform lay Jingyuan Academy.
Ethan stood at the edge of the platform, his gaze sweeping across the scene before him.
His first reaction was complete speechlessness.
He had seen Jade Shadow's War Fortress in Amons World.
He had seen the Lunser Palace in the deep sea.
He had personally wiped the Red-Scaled Sea Snake tribe from the Wizard World.
Those had been grand spectacles.
But Jingyuan Academy was different.
It was not merely large.
It was a fundamentally different existence, redefined from the very bedrock of space itself.
Directly in front of the platform, a tall tower pierced straight into the sky.
The height of the tower was impossible to estimate with the naked eye, as its peak was already submerged in a sort of halo above the clouds.
The halo was pale silver, with countless tiny runes faintly flowing within it.
There were no traces of masonry on the tower's surface. The entire structure looked as if it had grown from the ground as a single, massive crystal, completely translucent and dark silver.
Within the tower, countless layers of space could be seen overlapping, nesting, and intersecting.
Each layer of space was an independent functional area. Some layers were libraries, with dense bookshelves stacked from floor to ceiling; some were laboratories, with experiment tables crowded with running alchemy apparatuses; and some were training grounds, where two figures clashed at speeds too fast for the naked eye to track.
All of these layers existed simultaneously within the exact same vertical segment of the tower.
They overlapped without interfering with one another. The scenery of each layer was clearly visible, yet never blurred with the layers adjacent to it.
Spatial folding.
This was true, top-tier spatial magic that perfectly folded multiple layers of space within the same physical coordinates.
Ethan pulled his gaze away from the tall tower and looked further into the distance.
Around the tower, countless buildings were distributed in completely illogical geometric structures.
A domed building hovered in midair without any physical support underneath, held aloft solely by three rotating rings of runic light.
A corridor made of pure light stretched between two buildings. There was no floor, only the band of light itself. A few wizards in dark robes were walking across it, their footsteps kicking up ripples of pale gold light whenever they trod upon the beam.
Yet, even this was not what shocked Ethan the most.
What truly made his scalp tingle was the sky.
The sky of Jingyuan Academy was not a sky.
It was a dome of pure energy that blanketed his entire field of vision.
The dome was translucent, with billions of energy bands of various colors flowing within it.
The bands of light interwove, coiled, split, and recombined inside the dome, forming a three-dimensional pattern so complex it made one's brain ache.
The pattern rotated slowly, and with every rotation, it sent a visible ripple of energy through the air.
The ripples cascaded down from the dome and swept across the entire academy. Each sweep sent a wave of goosebumps rising across Ethan's skin.
A Seven Rings Wizard Academy.
An academy personally constructed by a Seventh-Tier True Spirit Wizard.
Ethan took a deep breath, suppressing the tumultuous emotions churning in his chest.
Convict stood beside him, his mustache twitching. “Dumbfounded, kid?”
Ethan did not deny it.
He nodded, his eyes still fixed on the energy dome covering the sky. “A little, yes.”
“No matter how many times I come here, I still feel like this place doesn't look man-made.”
The tattoos on Secret Eagle's cheekbones shimmered in the energy glow. “Cut the chatter. You'll have plenty of time to marvel later.”
Just then, a crisp tapping sound echoed from between the stone pillars at the edge of the platform.
Clack, clack, clack.
A figure stepped out from behind the nearest stone pillar.
It was a humanoid construct made entirely of translucent crystal.
Its torso, limbs, and head were all composed of the same pale blue crystal material. There were no mechanical structures at its joints; instead, swirling rings of light maintained the connections.
There were no facial features on its head. Instead, where its face should have been, a fist-sized, dark blue crystal core was embedded, with countless fine specks of light slowly rotating inside.
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