The silver-white teleportation light pillar slowly dissipated.
Jie Ming opened his eyes again, but stood still for a moment, slightly stunned.
The scene before him was completely unlike any junction he had passed through before.
Junctions within the Federation's territory, though blending architectural styles from many civilizations, still maintained the unique sense of order of the Star Ring Federation. Typically, every junction had wide, straight streets, buildings with distinct functions, patrol squads stationed in the teleportation plaza, and public defensive arrays everywhere.
But here, it was like a different world.
At the edge of the teleportation plaza, not even a full circle of paving stones had been laid, breaking off abruptly into a pothole-ridden gravel road. On both sides of the street, buildings stood like fortresses ready for battle.
Thick walls were covered in layers of defensive arrays, hundreds of runes slowly rotating, interweaving into visible energy barriers. Many corners still bore black scorch marks, clearly from direct bombardment by high-energy sorcery or alchemical weapons.
All doors and windows had been deliberately reduced to barely enough for entry and exit.
The window frames were fitted not with glass, but with a semi-transparent protective force field, faintly glowing with a blue light.
In short, the shops along this street didn’t look like stores; they looked more like bunkers ready for war.
Pedestrians on the street walked briskly, no one lingered, and no one was willing to stand outside to talk.
A faint, indefinable oppression hung in the air.
As Jie Ming surveyed his surroundings, he could clearly sense several mental forces sweeping toward him from different directions.
Barely concealed hostility poured down nakedly.
This was a probe.
Some mental fluctuations even carried crude suggestions, attempting to force out his real strength through primitive mental pressure.
“Oh? The rules here are so dog-eat-dog? I like it!”
With that, Jie Ming’s lips curled slightly, and he “lightly” released his mental force.
Boom!
A soul power as vast as the sea suddenly expanded.
In an instant, the entire teleportation plaza was enveloped.
Those malicious mental probes crashed against an invisible wall and were forcibly rebounded.
From several nearby buildings came simultaneous muffled groans.
But Jie Ming’s counterattack was extremely effective. All prying quickly withdrew, and no one dared to probe further.
Acting as if nothing had happened, Jie Ming strode deeper into the street.
At the same time, his expanded mental force was not retracted but continued to spread outward.
Under normal circumstances at a junction, Jie Ming would never be so rude. But since the people here had started it, he wouldn’t be polite either.
The outline of the entire city district quickly formed in his mental sea.
Compared to the highly commercialized junctions he had seen, this area felt more like a “city.”
Through his mental force, Jie Ming even saw a “slum” in the distance.
Wedged between several large fortress-like buildings, countless low shacks were stacked, haphazardly pieced together from scrap metal sheets, broken beams, and damaged armor.
Some so-called houses were just triangular shelters propped up by a few steel plates.
Narrow alleys allowed only one person to pass sideways, with murky sewage flowing along the ground, the air filled with a mix of rot and mildew.
To be honest, when he saw this, Jie Ming was a bit taken aback. He couldn’t remember when he last saw such a place.
Living there were various alien races—multi-legged creatures with thick carapaces, translucent gelatinous-skinned humanoids. No humans.
Jie Ming casually extended his mental force into a few shacks. After a moment, several fragments of mental communication were quickly parsed.
He soon understood the reason.
To put it simply, in this junction, humans were the superior race!
In fact, they were the rulers above all other races.
A mere second-level human warrior-type transcendent was enough to boss around third- or fourth-level alien races.
The more a race’s appearance resembled the humans of Wizard Civilization, the higher their status.
After “listening” to a human within a mansion dozens of kilometers away boast about his appearance, Jie Ming withdrew his mental force with a strange expression.
Quickly leaving the street that had grown too silent due to his released mental force, Jie Ming soon arrived at another area.
By the roadside, a lizardman was carrying goods. It instinctively looked up.
It was a fourth-level creature, covered in thick scales, with arms strong enough to tear through warship armor barehanded.
Yet the moment its eyes met Jie Ming’s, its vertical pupils contracted into a line.
The lizardman’s scales bristled, and its body reflexively pressed against the wall.
Its head drooped, tail clamped tightly between its legs, even its breath held.
Its kin behind it scrambled to the wall, not daring to lift their heads.
Jie Ming walked past them calmly, the hem of his robe swaying in the breeze.
Ahead on the street, the crowd parted like a tide.
Several alien merchants, spotting the wizard’s emblem on his chest, abandoned their stalls and fled into the alleys. One alien woman nursing a child clutched the baby to her chest and rolled away like a ball. They acted as if disaster would strike the moment they slowed.
Jie Ming silently observed all this.
Clearly, they feared not him, but his robe.
More precisely… the Wizard Civilization it represented.
It was only here that Jie Ming truly grasped how fearsome the reputation of Wizard Civilization was in the Endless Chaotic Void.
After all, Wizard Civilization had waged war in the Endless Chaotic Void for so long, countless civilizations falling at the feet of wizards.
Thus, beyond the Wizard territory, “human” was no longer just a racial name.
It was more like a calamity, a fear etched into the bloodline, passed down through generations.
Some races that had long contact with wizards had even engraved this fear into their genetic information, turning it into an almost instinctive stress response.
Jie Ming let out a soft breath, then turned the corner.
Leaving the area frequented by mercenaries and high-level transcendents, he entered a district closer to ordinary residents.
Here, there was finally a bit of liveliness.
The road was now compacted dirt, and the buildings were no longer covered in expensive defensive arrays but built of ordinary brick and steel. Small stalls selling fruits, vegetables, spices, and handicrafts lined the street.
Most of the residents here were ordinary alien races, or those with only first- or second-level transcendent power.
Yet their reactions were even more exaggerated than those in the core area.
At the street corner, an old woman picking vegetables looked up.
The moment she saw Jie Ming, her body froze, and the basket in her hands slipped silently, green leaves scattering on the ground.
The next instant, she didn’t even bother to pick up the basket; she turned and dashed into her house with a speed that belied her age.
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
Almost simultaneously, the entire street erupted like a pot boiling over.
All the alien races scattered as if they had received an early warning.
In just a few breaths, the once bustling street was completely empty.
Only a few wooden doors still swinging gently, and goods scattered everywhere, no one daring to pick them up.
Standing in the middle of the street, Jie Ming found himself both amused and exasperated:
“Seriously… what did the wizards here do? This reaction is too much!”
Wherever he went, the entire street cleared instantly. It was less like a “street-clearing tyrant” and more like a moving natural disaster.
Under this complex mood, he pushed open the door of a restaurant.
A doorbell chimed softly.
The restaurant was small, its wooden tables and chairs polished smooth by time.
The air was filled with a warm aroma of spices, oil, and roasted meat.
Behind the counter stood a sturdy middle-aged alien.
Its skin was covered in fine, short fur, with two round ears flopping softly on its head.
But the moment it looked up and saw Jie Ming, its ears shot straight up, and it froze completely.
Its round eyes were full of one emotion: Am I going to die here today?
Jie Ming couldn’t be bothered to explain. He casually chose a seat by the window, picked up the menu, and ordered a few recommended specialties.
The owner nearly trembled as he wrote down the order, then fled into the kitchen as if escaping.
When he came out with the dishes, his hands were still shaking, the soup bowls clinking on the tray.
Jie Ming picked up a piece of roasted meat coated in dark red sauce.
It was tender, with a sweet-and-sour kick and rich spices. Quite tasty.
He nodded slightly.
Seeing this, the owner visibly relaxed.
The relief on his face was as if he had just survived a catastrophe.
Jie Ming didn’t disturb his relief.
Instead, he opened his Magic Net terminal, and a semi-transparent map slowly appeared above the table.
From the map, the area he was about to cross was called the Dispute Star Domain.
It was a long, triangular gap at the junction of three major powers.
There were over three thousand small wizard organizations, more than a hundred thousand alien settlements, an unknown number of wandering wizards.
And three Reflection Dimension Infiltration Nodes classified as high-risk zones.
He tapped on the safety rating. The terminal immediately displayed a blood-red warning:
【Dangerous Area.】 【Recommended that wizards below Level 6 do not travel alone.】 【Recommended to team up or hire guards.】
He scrolled further.
Over the past century, missing wizards of Level 6 and above: twenty-three cases.
“Oh?”
Seeing this data, Jie Ming’s eyelids twitched.
According to the information, almost no Level 6 wizards who came to the Dispute Star Domain were civilian-type wizards.
That meant all those missing were elite combat wizards capable of fighting on the front lines.
This… wasn’t this a higher death rate than in a planar war!
Then Jie Ming zoomed in on the map to plan a route.
After some selection, his eyes settled on a deep red area.
Shattered Bone Corridor.
There had been no major incidents in the past century, mainly because people deliberately avoided it.
The reason was that deep in the corridor lay a millennium-old Reflection Dimension Infiltration Node.
For other wizards, that was the most dangerous part of the route.
But Jie Ming smiled lightly: “Seems like this path suits me pretty well.”
Thanks to the adaptability evolved from his body-tempering method, he now feared the Reflection Dimension the least.
What he really needed to watch out for were the roaming armed bands.
But those enemies… could be bypassed or killed.
And the Reflection Dimension Node would become a natural barrier for him.