In the deep and dark depths of Underworld, Ian did not waste even a second.
He stood in front of the Black Bone Throne that symbolized supreme power, with dazzling arcane brilliance flowing through his fingertips. Hundreds of complex defense and concealment barriers were deeply imprinted on every inch of the throne room.. Then, he flashed across the space and arrived at the sixth floor of Underworld. Here, the Shikigami army he had just surrendered had efficiently completed the mission of eradication, capturing all the mutated monsters with dual characteristics of angels and Demons.
"Surrender, or destroy." Ian unceremoniously urged the Soul Magic plundered from Lucius. His tyrannical will was like a heavy hammer smashing into these mutated Demons's Sea of Consciousness, completely brainwashing and controlling them.. After ensuring that all six layers of Underworld were covered with a dragnet-like barrier, he tore apart the space and left this dark and dark demonic realm.
The first thing Ian did after returning to the world was to set his sights on the aloof "Elysium".
With the successful recovery of "Diamond Grimoire", the magic book in his hand has become perfect. The complete version of the original book gives him deeper control over the universe "World Will". He thought he could easily tear apart Elysium's defensive barrier with this. However, when his spirit Divine Power tentatively touched the boundary wall, a suffocating repulsive force that far exceeded before suddenly rebounded!
'Something's wrong.' Ian frowned and steadied himself in Void, 'Why do I feel that... that so-called "god"'s control over Cosmic Will is still suppressing me?'
Countless deduction plans flashed through his mind at the speed of light. Combined with his previous in-depth analysis and research on Cosmic Will, a spine-chilling idea suddenly jumped into his mind.
'If my guess is true, then this final battle against Elysium will definitely be a tough battle - especially when my base camp "Floating City" cannot provide cross-border support, the risk factor will increase exponentially.'
With a bit of solemnity, Ian quickly finalized the preliminary backup strategy in his heart, and then waved his hand to open a portal to the Clover Kingdom's underground top-secret laboratory.
As soon as he stepped into the laboratory, he immediately issued an order to the young Mad Scholar Sally: use all resources to cultivate a perfect new body for the soul of Wizard King Julius. Then, he passed through the layers of authority gates and came to the No. 8 clone responsible for repairing "World Gate (World Gate)".
"How is the progress of the project?" Ian asked in a deep voice.
"Everything went well, but... it was extremely slow." Clone No. 8 answered without looking up while manipulating the complex matrix on the holographic projection.
"How long will it take for a complete restoration?"
"The most optimistic estimate is three to five years." No. 8 gave a disappointing deadline.
"In other words, in the next War of the Gods, World Gate will not be of any use." Ian rubbed his eyebrows.
"Is it necessary to be so pessimistic? With your current combat power, do you still need that thing?" No. 8 raised his eyebrows.
"I just intercepted some new intelligence, and various signs indicate that the threat level of the 'god' in Elysium far exceeds our initial risk assessment model." Ian's tone revealed a rare seriousness.
No. 8 paused for a moment and frowned. "In this case, I can temporarily put aside the repair of World Gate and allocate all computing power to repair those 'Seventh-Tier Planet-Destroyer Cannon' to provide heavy fire support for the decisive battle."
"That's it. Also, what about the other project I handed over before?"
"Follow me."
No. 8 led Ian into a heavily guarded deep room Chamber of Secrets. The temperature inside Chamber of Secrets was extremely low. Several huge glass culture chambers were erected in the center. They were filled with a faint blue cryogenic dormant liquid, and several human figures were being frozen in them.
Ian walked to the first training cabin and raised his hand to wipe away the frost on the glass. What came into view was a face that was both familiar and unfamiliar: that was Asta, but this Asta had a ferocious scar on his right eye, and his whole person exuded an inexorable silence and madness..Ian walked through several other cabins in turn and found that the ones inside were all different versions of "Asta"!
"Where are their backgrounds and resumes?" Ian asked indifferently.
"No. 1 Asta, comes from a parallel timeline where the 'Spade Kingdom rescue operation' completely failed. All the people involved in the rescue were wiped out and died tragically in the hands of Demons. The extreme despair and madness made him overdraw his life, in exchange for the power to kill Dark Triad." No. 8 flipped through the data pad in his hand and reported the report without emotion.. In the original timeline, Yami, the leader of Dark Knights, and Vangeance, the leader of Golden Dawn, were captured to open the door of Underworld. Clover and Heart Kingdom once formed a joint rescue team.. But in the world of No. 1, this is a complete Carnage.
"No. 2 Asta, witnessed the brutal slaughter of all the villagers of Sister Lily and Hage Village."
"No. 3 Asta, fate played a cruel joke on him. He and Yuno became mortal enemies. In an epic life-and-death battle, he was forced to kill his best friend and old enemy with his own hands. That kind of mental trauma completely destroyed his life."
"The experience of No. 4 Asta is the most ironic. In that world, Sister Lily actually agreed to his proposal. However, the good times did not last long. Due to his lack of strength, Lily eventually died tragically in his arms."
"As for No. 5 Asta, I personally think his script is the most 'wonderful'. He accepted Noelle's confession, and the two officially became partners. However, Mimosa was corrupted by Demons, and finally disembowelled Noelle with his own hands in front of Asta."
Clone No. 8 methodically introduced the tragic life of each Asta. The only thing they have in common is that they all experienced extreme pain and torture that ordinary people can't imagine in the quagmire of fate.
"Very perfect material." Ian looked at Blink with a cold light of reason. "After experiencing such extreme despair, the 'willpower' of these variant Asta must have been tempered to a terrifying level. Get ready to start the extraction experiment."
Morris's "Reconstruction Magic" can not only change the physical structure of matter and magic power, but with the increase of Devil Power, even invisible abstract concepts such as "dreams", "knowledge" and "will" can be forcibly interfered with and tampered with. Ian's plan is very simple and crude: use Reconstruction Magic to forcibly drain the willpower of these parallel universes Asta and use it for your own use!
Of course, as a rigorous Arcanist, Ian knows that taking shortcuts is often accompanied by unpredictable hidden dangers. Therefore, he will never go under the knife on himself immediately.
He first created a high-standard clone as a guinea pig After using Reconstruction Magic to infuse the willpower of Asta into the clone body, Ian used all detection methods - from the soul structure, blood genes, magic circulation, to sperm Divine Power, memory storage area and even the deepest subconscious, and conducted a carpet investigation for several days to ensure that no rejection reaction or genetic collapse was caused.. Subsequently, he used the rune array to solidify this transfer of will into a "permanent modification", ensuring that even if it encounters the impact of Anti-Magic, it will never retreat or collapse.
After confirming 100% safety, Ian finally introduced this huge and pure willpower into his own body.
Buzz--!
An invisible soul storm set off inside Chamber of Secrets. Ian slowly opened his eyes, and the deep starlight in his pupils continued to flow.
"Is this the limit that my soul can carry at present? The willpower scale... seven." Ian Feeling the majestic energy Divine Power in his body, he shook his head slightly, with a trace of regret flashing in his eyes. He is still one step away from Eighth Scale who can cast "Conceptual Magic" in his original Harry Potter Universe regardless of the rules.
However, Seventh Scale's willpower still brought about earth-shaking changes for him.
Ian raised his right hand, and a tiny flame burned quietly at his fingertips.
"This sense of micro-manipulation of magic power... is simply wonderful. Not only that, the world in my eyes has completely changed." Ian murmured softly.
He raised his head, his sight penetrated the thick rock formations and space barriers without any hindrance, and directly locked the dimensional coordinates of Underworld and Elysium. In his field of vision, the originally invisible and qualityless magic elements in the air turned into dancing blue light birds.
Not only that, when he looked back into his body, his body seemed to have turned into a fully transparent three-dimensional projection. He could clearly see his surging Magic Core, complicated Soul Circuit, surging blood, and even the nanomachines lurking in the cells waiting for help.! In the past, he had to rely on sophisticated alchemical instruments or complex detection spells to do this, but now, this has become his natural instinct as natural as breathing.
Even when he concentrated his will further, he could clearly see every atom that made up his body!
"It seems that my 'Cosmic Perception' talent, catalyzed by this huge will, has completed the true sense of dimensionality evolution." Ian calmed down with satisfaction, and the vision in his eyes gradually faded away, returning to normal.
At this moment, the voice of clone No. 8 interrupted his contemplation, "Original body, an unexpected anomaly was discovered in the data just collected."
"Something went wrong?" Ian looked slightly sideways.
"Not entirely. The latest data shows that what prevents you from breaking through Eighth Scale is not just the upper limit of your own soul carrying capacity." No. 8 pointed to the rapidly jumping value on the screen, "More importantly, 'Asta The willpower of the individual Z' has become resistant to you, and Reconstruction Magic can no longer extract more value from him. If you want to continue to improve, you must go to the heavens and the world to find other targets with top-level willpower to harvest."
"This is not a difficult problem." Ian smiled nonchalantly, "The most indispensable thing in the world is those monsters with superior willpower, such as who holds a shield and shouts, 'I can fight all day long.' Steve·Rogers, or that purple sweet potato essence Thanos. Let's not talk about it for now, what is the current condition of those experimental products Asta?"
"The origin of their souls has been irreversibly damaged, and they have completely lost the qualification to control 'Anti-Magic'. From now on, they can only spend the rest of their lives as ordinary people without any power." Rushihui reported on the 8th.
"The aftereffects of permanently draining willpower?"
"Obviously."
Ian sighed. In fact, if he had a choice, he did not want to use this slightly cruel harvesting method at first.
His "Plan A" was originally to directly clone a Asta and manipulate the soul of the clone to completely copy the structure of the original. Then, he planned to put the clone into a deep illusion and let it experience countless life and death trials in the false world, so as to cultivate strong willpower like a worm, and finally harvest it.
Unfortunately, this plan failed. Facts have proved that "high willpower" is not some kind of genetic map that can be easily copied. Even the soul-modified clones, after experiencing various inhuman tortures in the illusion, their willpower growth is still appallingly slow and cannot meet the harvest standards. In desperation, No. 8 launched "Plan B" to capture these real parallel universes Asta across dimensions.
"Heal the wounds on their souls." Ian pondered for a moment, and issued the final opinion, "At the same time, send operators to repair their original timeline. Bring those they cherish - nuns Lily, Noelle, and even the villagers of Hage Village, all Resurrection. Make sure that these Asta who have lost their power can live peacefully and happily as ordinary people in their world."
"In addition, we must develop a more humane willpower training system." Ian added.
He knows very well where his own bottom line is, and he knows even better where the bottom line of his wives is. Hermione, Luna, Olivia, and perhaps Pheobe--they can tolerate Ian conducting inhumane human experiments on clones.. However, if they knew that Ian went to persecute innocent people in other parallel dimensions without any bottom line in order to gain power, no matter how much those wives loved him, it would definitely touch their moral red line and cause a fire in the backyard. He would never allow this hidden danger to exist.
After dealing with the issue of willpower, Ian began to inspect the progress of several other core scientific research project teams.
He first checked the report submitted by clone No. 7 responsible for "World-Stealing Project". "Your plan is too big a step, and the risks are uncontrollable. We will hold a meeting to discuss the safety plan after the battle of Elysium is over." Ian decisively rejected it, and then looked to the other side, "No. 2, how is your progress?"
"The deduction of forbidden magic has been completed." Blink, Clone No. 2's eyes were filled with enthusiasm, "I have successfully developed a forbidden magic system that sacrifices the life of the caster and forcibly releases magic with higher power than First Tier!"
"Great job." Ian nodded approvingly.
"But my project is stuck on another research - the underlying logic of 'Causal Empowerment' has never been completely deciphered." No. 2 looked a little annoyed.
"What's going on?"
No. 2 did not explain much, but directly raised his hand and released a special detection spell. In an instant, two numbers appeared on the heads of all the clones: one was a golden number exuding holy light, and the other was a black number as rich as ink.. The golden number represents Positive Karma (good karma), and the black number represents Negative Causality (bad karma). Obviously, due to Ian's past actions, the amount of the golden number is staggeringly huge, but the black number should not be underestimated.
"As you can see, since we have the same origin, all clones share the same huge bill of cause and effect. But that's not the point." Pointing to the numbers, No. 2 said, "The point is, although I have successfully made something as ethereal as cause and effect concrete, I can't find a way to turn it into actual combat effectiveness!"
"No clues were found from those mutated Demons?" Ian asked.
"The reason why Demons can use Negative Causality as an energy source is because their soul structure is extremely special. In other words, unless we perform deep surgery on your soul and transform it into a deformed structure similar to Demons, we will not be able to use this power at all." No. 2 spread his hands helplessly.
Ian shook his head without hesitation. He can transform his body without blinking an eye, but for the core "soul", he has always pursued absolute purity and will never be easily contaminated by alien structures.
"No need to be eager for quick success. I brought you a good thing - the body of Lucius. That guy seems to have found a way to be compatible with and use both positive and negative causal powers at the same time." Ian waved his hand and threw out the loot.
"That perfect Fusion mutant with the characteristics of an angel and Demons?!" No. 2's eyes instantly burst out with light like a hungry wolf.
"That's right, study him carefully and don't let me down." Ian warned. Then, he threw Satan's skeleton to the clone No. 6 who was responsible for teaching Sally, and asked them, master and apprentice, to work on refining the ultimate undead.
Everything is well arranged.
Ian put on the pitch-black arcane robe that symbolized the highest power and took a deep breath. He strode out of the laboratory and headed to the kingdom hall. There, Clover Kingdom all Magic Knights group leaders and the most elite combat forces had been assembled.
There are only the last few days of countdown left before the army launches Elysium and the final attack against the gods!