Wizard: My skills can be upgraded indefinitely.

Before the giant gate, the atmosphere of confrontation was frozen solid.

The black dot on Ian's fingertip spun silently, and murderous intent surged in the eyes of Bazar and Silas.

The wizards from other factions watched coldly, like a flock of vultures waiting for their prey to bleed first.

Sudden.

hum!

On the surface of the giant gate, the intricate star runes lit up simultaneously without warning.

Instead of lighting up one by one, it burst forth with a dazzling silvery-white brilliance in an instant, like thousands of stars exploding at the same time.

The light engulfed everyone's vision, burning their eyes with a stinging pain.

"What's going on?!" Liam's heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively raised his silver staff, instantly unleashing a holy light shield.

But it was completely useless.

The light ignored all defenses and swept across the entire field like a tidal wave.

Ian felt a vast, ancient will, imbued with boundless compassion, like an invisible giant hand gently brushing across the spiritual sea of ​​everyone.

It's not an attack, it's... "calibration".

Click!

Ian could clearly hear the faint golden crystallized light spots in his mental sea seemingly making a slight cracking sound.

Forced to compress and recombine... it eventually solidifies into a more "lower" form.

The crystallization fluctuations that were originally close to level two were forcibly pushed back to the peak level of level one liquefaction by an invisible giant hand.

"My mental power... is being suppressed?!"

Bazar's voice, filled with shock and rage, rang out.

The boiling blood light around him dimmed instantly, the crimson berserk state was forced to end, and his muscles contracted back to normal.

Even the Blood Boiling Blade faded from dark red to light red, its power plummeting.

The ghostly flames beneath Silas's hood flickered violently, and his grey-green robes billowed without wind.

His death energy fluctuations were also suppressed back to the peak of level one.

Not just them.

The elder leading the Silver Ring, Gunnar of the Undying Heart, the sea elder of the Tide Society...

All the level two wizards present changed their expressions drastically.

"This is... the rule suppression of a fourth-level wizard..."

The old man with the Silver Ring gritted his teeth, his withered fingers gripping his staff tightly.

"We... have triggered a rule-based restriction left behind by the Protoss!"

This is something that has never happened before.

"Civilization has been extinguished, but embers remain."

A majestic, hollow thought, seemingly emanating from a distant time and space, resounded directly in everyone's minds.

There was no emotion in the voice, only a calm and sorrowful feeling of a civilization coming to an end.

"To glimpse the spark of fire, one must first bear its weight."

"The Protoss Trials begin."

The words fell.

boom!!!

The giant gate burst open inwards with a deafening roar.

Behind the door was not a palace, nor a passageway, but a swirling, dazzling vortex of stars.

Suddenly, the door opened like a giant, all-consuming maw, unleashing a terrifying suction force.

"No!"

Bazar roared and slashed his sword fiercely at the door frame, trying to resist the suction.

But the blade's edge disappeared into the sea of ​​stars without even causing a ripple.

Dozens of gray-green bone spikes flew out from Silas's sleeve and embedded themselves in the ground, but the spikes quickly melted into ash under the light of the starry sea.

The suction ignored all resistance.

Ian felt like he had been thrown into a tumbler, his vision spinning.

All I could hear were sharp, piercing cries and the terrified screams of the wizards around me.

He gritted his teeth and activated the [Furnace Tempering Technique] at full power, his body shimmering with a jade-like light as he resisted the excruciating pain caused by the tearing of space.

Three seconds later.

The suction suddenly disappeared.

Ian crashed heavily onto a soft, cool, smooth surface.

"Cough cough..."

He propped himself up, a tearing pain shooting through his chest wound.

But he didn't care about that and immediately scanned his surroundings.

"This... doesn't seem to be a physical space."

Above us was an endless, dazzling starry sky, with the Milky Way stretching across the heavens like a ribbon, and billions of stars twinkling so close they seemed within reach.

Beneath their feet was a translucent silver "ground" that reflected the dilapidated scene.

In the distance, dozens of broken platforms of varying sizes floated in the air.

There were ruins of Protoss architecture, broken pillars, and collapsed towers, all emitting a faint, dark blue glow.

"An illusion?"

Ian whispered, immediately focusing his inner vision on his spiritual sea.

really.

Those pale golden crystalline spots were still forcibly compressed back into a liquefied form.

The rotation speed slowed down considerably, and the total amount of mental energy was locked at the peak of level one.

It was about 50% of his peak.

but……

"Gravity-collapsed sphere".

He raised his right hand, his five fingers loosely clenched.

A black dot of rice appeared silently, and the surrounding space began to distort slightly, the intensity of the gravitational fluctuations...

Exactly the same as before!

"Frostbite Ray".

With a flick of his left index finger, a thin, pale purple beam of light tore through the air and shot toward a floating rock a hundred meters away.

laugh!

The gravel was pierced through, half of it freezing into ice crystals, and the other half melting into coke.

The power remains the same!

"The realm of entropy change..."

A faint purple aura spread slightly around Ian, and the temperature within a five-meter radius began to fluctuate irregularly.

Everything is here.

The rules here seem to only apply to "realms".

However, this did not diminish the actual power of his core methods.

These things he achieved were not simply due to his level of cultivation.

Gravity magic relies on an understanding of the rules of gravity and panel optimization.

Frost Ray is a combination of sorcery and a limit-breaking effect.

The realm of entropy change is even closer to the level of rules.

And what about the others?

Bazar's Blood Boiling Domain, Silas's Death Curse, the Silver Ring's Light Magic...

These level-two techniques, which heavily rely on cultivation level and require immense mental strength to maintain, have now all been reduced to level-one power.

"ha……"

Ian's lips curled into a cold, bloody grin.

He slowly stood up from the ground, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and his black eyes shone frighteningly bright in the starlight.

"The rules here... are helping me."

This is not luck.

It is the "fairness" of the Protoss trials that brings everyone to the same starting point.

But for Ian, this was the best news.

He possesses limit-breaking skills that shouldn't exist in the first level, panel support, a powerful physique almost equivalent to the second level, and the fully awakened Shadow Messenger, Ga Ga.

And his enemies...

They are now just a group of "more powerful first-level wizards".

"Gah gah," Ian called softly.

A black raven leaped out of the shadows and landed on his shoulder.

The little guy seemed completely unaffected by the rules; the dark luster of his feathers only intensified.

The shadows were thin in the illusion, but the dark energy in the environment was unusually active.

"Ian, I feel...so clear."

Gaga's little eyes sparkled, and tiny starlight seemed to shimmer deep within her heterochromatic pupils.

"My shadow perception range has at least doubled, and... I seem to be able to 'predict' something."

"omen?"

"It means... the shadow will 'tremble' in advance before danger approaches."

Gaga tilted her head, trying her best to describe it.

"Like ripples on the surface of water, I can sense the direction from which the ripples are coming."

A harbinger of doom.

A glint of light flashed in Ian's eyes.

This should be the result of Gaga's further fusion of talents after the Mirror Demon Trial.

"Very good." He rubbed Gaga's little head.

"Now, it's time for us to get our revenge."

He looked up, gazing into the depths of the starry sea.

As far as the eye can see, there are at least twenty platforms suspended in different locations at varying distances.

On some platforms, the glow of witchcraft has already appeared.

The battle has begun.

The rule-based suppression disrupted the alliances among all factions, and everyone was randomly teleported to different locations.

This means...

Bazar and Silas are now likely to be alone.

"Start with the weakest."

Ian lightly touched the ground with his toes, and his body shot out like an arrow, heading towards the nearest platform with energy fluctuations.

In the Starry Sea Illusion, there is no gravity; movement is entirely propelled by mental power.

But this was no challenge for Ian, as the essence of gravity magic is manipulating force fields.

He spread his five fingers slightly, adjusted the gravity lines around his body slightly, and his speed suddenly doubled, drawing a straight line in the air.

Ten kilometers away, on a broken platform.

Two liquefied wizards from the Crimson Royal Court stood back to back, their faces ashen white.

Before them, three Shadowbinders were slowly rising from the shadows of the platform.

In the illusion, the "independence" of the shadows is further amplified.

These rules make the creatures more active and more dangerous.

"Captain... Lord Bazar isn't here, what do we do...?"

The young wizard's voice trembled, and the light from the blood-red blade in his hand flickered uncertainly.

"Shut up!" The middle-aged wizard gritted his teeth, and a blood-based shield condensed in front of him.

"Hold on! Wait for the others..."

Before he could finish speaking...

laugh!

A thin, pale purple beam of light descended from the sky and pierced precisely between the young wizard's eyebrows.

Ice and fire energy exploded inside his skull, causing it to burst open like a watermelon, splattering red and white fluid all over the middle-aged wizard's face.

"Who?!" The middle-aged wizard looked up in horror.

Ian's figure swooped down from the sea of ​​stars, his right hand outstretched, aiming at him.

"goodbye."

A black speck of rice shot out and exploded in the middle-aged wizard's chest.

hum!

A gravitational singularity with a diameter of three meters was formed instantaneously.

Pull him inward, compress him, and crush him!

Two seconds later, the singularity vanished.

A small clump of dark red dust, mixed with broken bone fragments, appeared in the center of the platform.

The three Shadowbinders seemed to sense an even more dangerous presence.

Its body trembled, then slowly sank into the shadows and disappeared.

Ian landed, didn't even glance at the two piles of wreckage, and quickly began looting the spoils.

Two dimensional bags, several bottles of intermediate potions, and some magic stones.

"Poor," he commented, then turned to leave.

But at that moment...

To the left, on a platform about ten kilometers away, a blinding gray-green light suddenly burst forth!

The light carried a strong aura of death, like a rotting star exploding.

Even from this distance, Ian could feel a slight stinging sensation in his mental sea.

"Silas..."

Ian narrowed his eyes.

The other party seemed to be fighting something and was forced to use a means of self-defense.

"Chance."

Without further hesitation, he activated his gravitational field to its fullest extent and shot his body toward that direction like a meteor.

The starry sea left a pale silver trail behind him, like a comet moving in reverse.

now.

On a platform five kilometers away.

The ghostly flames beneath Silas's hood flickered violently, his withered right hand pressing tightly against his left shoulder.

There was a deep wound there, exposing the bone, which was not caused by a sharp weapon.

Instead, it was torn apart by some kind of "shadow fangs".

The edges of the wound gleamed with a dark blue sheen, as if it had been tainted by the rules of the Protoss.

"Damn it... Shadow Mutant..."

Sylas gritted his teeth, his left hand quickly forming a hand seal, and gray-green runes condensed in front of him, forming a constantly writhing "Wall of the Dead".

Before him, three strangely shaped shadow mutants were slowly approaching.

They are no longer simple aggregates of shadows, but have vaguely taken on the outlines of "living things".

The head has three slits, like a mouth.

Six twisted tentacles extend from its body, ending in sharp, shadowy spikes.

What's even more troublesome is that their auras... are all at the peak of level one!

"Even these damned things have become stronger after the rules were suppressed..."

Silas cursed inwardly.

In his prime, a single death ripple from him could shatter these things.

But now that his mental strength has been suppressed back to level one, the power of his death magic has been greatly reduced, and he has to use his shield sparingly.

"We must leave as soon as possible and find others..."

His thoughts were still unsettled.

A pale purple beam of light, like a javelin thrown by the Grim Reaper, tore through a five-kilometer stretch of starry sea and arrived in an instant!

Silas' pupils contracted sharply.

Almost the instant the beam appeared, his instincts, honed over years of combat, triggered a frantic warning.

Danger! Extreme danger!

"Wall of the Dead - Triple Layers!"

With a sudden thrust of his withered left hand, three gray-green walls instantly overlapped, and the runes shone brightly.

laugh! ! !

The beam of light hit the wall.

The first wall froze instantly and shattered.

The second wall melted and vaporized.

The third wall trembled violently, and cracks of intertwined ice and fire appeared on its surface.

But... we held on.

"This power... that little beast!"

Silas's eyes blazed with ghostly fire as he abruptly turned to look in the direction from which the beam of light had come.

Deep in the sea of ​​stars.

Ian's figure was approaching at a terrifying speed.

A faint purple aura emanated from his body, and the tip of his right index finger still retained the lingering energy from the launch.

The two were a kilometer apart.

But for Ian now, that distance... is practically nonexistent.

"Silas."

Ian's voice came through mental vibrations, cold and calm, carrying undisguised killing intent.

"It's time to settle the accounts."

He raised his right hand, his five fingers spread.

Above the palm, three black dots, resembling grains of rice, silently appeared, arranged in a triangular pattern.

"This is the first interest payment."

"Pay now."