【Do you wish to consume 131,072 Life Energy to unlock the 18th passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 131,072. Current Energy: 343,153.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: Steel Will.】
【Steel Will: Grants immunity to all mental negative effects. Reduces soul-based damage taken by 70%.】
Ethan stared at the text on the interface, his brow arching slightly.
Immunity to mental negative effects.
He knew all too well how valuable this was in the Wizard world.
Cognitive pollution, mental shocks, soul curses, fear auras—countless Wizards and apprentices had perished from these intangible, invisible threats.
The basic curriculum even included a dedicated course on the dangers of cognitive pollution. The case studies alone were enough to make one's skin crawl.
There were stories of apprentices who flipped through a book they shouldn't have and went mad the next day, muttering incomprehensible gibberish while their bodies sprouted things that shouldn't exist.
Others had merely grazed the radiation field of an Official Wizard, causing their mental sea to collapse instantly, turning them into little more than walking husks.
Now, none of that mattered to him.
Mental negative effects: completely immune.
Soul-based damage: reduced by seventy percent.
His survivability had just taken another massive leap forward.
It was an incredible feeling.
The World War was about to begin, and there was no telling what horrors he might encounter on the battlefield.
"Let's unlock one more."
【Do you wish to consume 262,144 Life Energy to unlock the 19th passive?】
"Confirm."
Energy deducted: 262,144. Current Energy: 81,009.
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: Immortal Resilience.】
【Immortal Resilience: If a single instance of damage exceeds 33% of your current vitality, the excess damage is invalidated.】
Ethan stared at the interface, a slow grin spreading across his face.
A hard cap on damage.
No matter what the attack was, a single hit could only take away a maximum of one-third of his vitality.
With his current physique, any attack capable of smashing through that one-third cap would have to be at the level of an Official Wizard at the very least.
Combine that with his passive that restored 5% of his maximum health every second, plus the Eternal passive that restored mana when damaged and health when mana was consumed...
"How can I even die now?"
He stood up and stretched his limbs.
The time remaining until the War Fortress descended was drawing to a close.
It was time to make the final preparations.
Ethan raised both hands. Emerald-green light poured from his palms, sinking into the ground beneath his feet.
Days passed one by one.
The underground space was silent, save for the occasional faint rustle of the Green Vine Guards as they shifted.
After an unknown amount of time...
Rumble!
The entire space vibrated.
The dome, the walls, the floor—everything shuddered simultaneously, as if seized and violently shaken by an invisible giant hand.
Ethan's eyes snapped open.
On the dome, the vines woven into a dense net pulled taut under the tremors.
The emerald light on the surface of the vines flickered erratically, and the runic patterns pulsed unevenly.
Ethan raised his hands.
Beams of emerald light shot from his palms, merging into the dome above.
The strained vines stabilized rapidly once the light was injected.
Severed roots regrew at a speed visible to the naked eye, the runic patterns on their surface relit, and the intensity of the tremors began to subside.
The walls were similarly bathed in green light. The vine root systems delved deeper, secreting massive amounts of resin that solidified the loose soil into a single, unbreakable mass.
The ripples on the floor gradually smoothed out.
Under the green light, the entire underground space fell silent once more.
Ethan withdrew his hands and rose from his vine bed.
"It seems the time has come."
As he spoke, the five Wizard Towers lit up simultaneously.
Emerald light bled from the runic patterns on the towers' surfaces, converging toward their peaks.
The energy cores at the top of the towers suddenly erupted with blinding light. Five beams of radiance shot from the cores, intersecting at the center of the dome.
The foundations of the teleportation arrays flared to life.
Inside the rings of light, space began to warp.
The five rings stabilized in unison.
In the next instant, a group of figures stepped out from the light.
They were twenty Humans dressed in uniform, dark gray robes.
They were lean and muscular, their expressions vacant. Each wore a dull silver metal band on their right wrist, its surface swirling with runic patterns.
After stepping out of the teleportation array, these slaves each produced a palm-sized crystal display from their robes.
Faint blue light shimmered on the displays as invisible detection waves radiated in all directions.
One of the slaves walked to the edge of the plaza, bent down to pick up a small fragment of vine from the ground, and inserted it into a slot on the side of his crystal display. The light on the device flickered several times before he looked up and nodded to his companions.
The twenty slaves simultaneously stowed their crystal displays and turned back toward the teleportation arrays.
The rings of light pulsed, and the slaves vanished.
Three seconds later.
The five rings of light expanded simultaneously.
Their diameters grew from three meters to ten, then from ten to thirty.
The light within the rings became so brilliant it was impossible to look at directly.
Then, the Wizards began to appear.
The first to emerge from the light were the Official Wizards.
They wore a variety of robes, differing in color and style, and the academy badges pinned to their chests were just as diverse.
Some wore dark red robes, some wore deep blue cloaks, and some wore robes woven entirely from living vines with leaves that crawled slowly along the hems.
Each individual radiated the unique energy fluctuations characteristic of an Official Wizard.
Though invisible and intangible, those fluctuations caused the very air around them to vibrate slightly.
Immediately following them, waves of slaves poured out of the rings.
They wore the same dark gray robes, their bodies lean and their faces expressionless, with dull silver bands around their right wrists.
Upon exiting the teleportation arrays, the slaves fanned out quickly, forming neat ranks at the edge of the plaza with mechanical precision.
Next came the contract beasts.
Massive silhouettes squeezed through the light, their limbs hitting the ground with heavy thuds.
Then came enslaved beasts, mechanical servants, and various forms of summoned creatures and constructs, pouring out of the teleportation arrays in a continuous stream.
The flow of people was like a flood bursting through a dam, surging out from the five rings of light and spreading across the expanse.
Fortunately, the underground space was large enough.
During this time, Ethan had been using his vines and root systems to excavate outward, forcibly expanding the original ten-kilometer radius several times over.
Although there were no buildings or facilities—the ground was merely packed, leveled earth and the lighting came solely from the glowing vines and moss on the dome and walls—it was more than enough to accommodate eight or nine million people.
A balding Wizard who had just stepped out of a teleportation array came to a halt, his gaze sweeping across the dome.
He froze suddenly.
A tall, thin Wizard beside him was about to move forward, but seeing the other man standing still, he followed his gaze and looked up.
He froze as well.
Wizard Jade Blood strode out of the teleportation array, her dark red hair whipping behind her.
Just as she found her footing, she saw the two Wizards in front of her standing rooted to the spot like wooden stakes, their necks craned upward.
"What are you looking—"
Before she could finish, she saw it too.
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