My health recovery is incredibly fast.

Once a sub-plane is opened, it can continue to exist as long as the passage between that plane and the natural world remains.

The design concept of establishing two sets of sub-dimensional channels, one open and one hidden, is to use the hidden sub-dimensional channel as a trump card.

Therefore, there's no need for Xia Zuo to explain the term "trump card" further; Beatrice naturally understands.

With the location of the sub-plane passage settled, Xia Zuo and Beatrice discussed the affairs of the resident mages.

Shazo will become the chief resident mage of Sprill. He will have five full-fledged mages under his command.

Xia Zuo's public identity is that of a high-ranking mage dispatched by the outer temple to the Western Continent to observe the awakening of bloodline power on the Western Continent.

If nothing unexpected happens, this will be his physical identity in the days to come.

After listening carefully to Beatrice's introduction, Xia Zuo found that the job was just as he had imagined. His physical body did not need to undertake patrol duties; it was purely a nominal position.

What the temple really wanted him to do was to build the tower as soon as possible, condense an elemental body, and test whether the spiritual carving knife plan was feasible.

Speaking of elemental bodies... Xia Zuo remembered something.

"Teacher, you already possess an inner body, right?" Xia Zuo asked, recalling the past. "Then why not condense an elemental body and advance to become an Eternal Mage?"

Beatrice's expression shifted slightly, as if she were somewhat saddened. "Shazo, did Selena explain the [Spirit Splitting Technique] to you in detail?"

“No.” Xia Zuo shook his head. “She only said that the Spirit Splitting Technique is a method of slowly cutting up spirits. To obtain enough spirit fragments, it would take at least several hundred years.”

“Well, in fact, the exact time required can be calculated when each person first cultivates the Spirit Division Technique.” Beatrice sighed, “...I need 1300 years.”

"Such a long time..." Xia Zuo instantly understood why the other party stopped at the Hall of Mage level.

Since the Spirit Splitting Technique is a spell that cuts apart a spirit, it needs to be performed in a meditative state.

Cutting off 1300 years also means meditating for 1300 years.

By the time Beatrice's cutting is complete... the Temple may have already successfully counterattacked the Star Demons' lair.

Xia Zuo suddenly realized that the significance of the spiritual carving knife might be beyond his imagination.

"Teacher, how many temple mages are there in the temple?"

Beatrice hesitated for a few seconds, "Hmm... as far as I know, there are probably around 150 people still working."

Xia Zuo said, "Still working? You mean, there are still some of the temple mages who are in a meditative state cutting spiritual bodies?"

“Yes. There are about 300 monks in this part of the temple,” Beatrice replied.

Xia Zuo gasped, "Hiss... If that's the case... if the Spirit Carving Knife really works, the Temple will have at least 300 Eternal Mages appearing in a short time."

“That’s right.” Beatrice paused for a second, then comforted her.

"Having you use the spiritual carving knife to accelerate the cutting of the spirit body is just an experiment by the Temple. Similar experiments have been conducted many times over the years. The vast majority of experiments ended in failure. Although a few cases were successful, they could not be replicated. So don't feel too much pressure. Success is naturally a good thing, but failure does not mean that you have let the Temple down."

Xia Zuo nodded. "Thank you, teacher. I think I know how to deal with the experiment results now."

He asked curiously, "You just mentioned successful cases. Why can't they be replicated?"

“This is related to the principle of spirit separation.” Beatrice used illusion magic to create a model of a spirit and a physical body on the dining table, with a spiritual thread connecting the two.

"Before the advent of the spiritual carving knife, the experiments conducted by the temple all used different versions of the spirit-splitting technique. They separated the spirit in different ways, but the principle was the same."

Beatrice manipulated the spirit model to pick up the spirit thread and used the fine spirit thread to cut the spirit model.

"The temple discovered this a long time ago. Spirit threads are one of the few things that can harm spirits."

"The core of the Spirit Splitting Technique is to use the caster's own spiritual threads to cut the spirit body. This is extremely dangerous. If one is not careful, the spiritual threads will break, the spirit body will dissipate, and the physical body will lose its life. In order to prevent such accidents, the Spirit Splitting Technique combines the spirit body and totem magic, and has developed many cutting methods."

The illusion model changed, and various spirit spells and totem spells appeared on it, demonstrating different versions of spirit splitting spells to Xia Zuo.

Some people process the spirit thread into a simple rope saw, using different parts of the spirit thread in rotation to cut the spirit; others use a spiral-loop structure to cut the spirit in a ring-cutting manner... In short, they are just trying to kill themselves in various ways, jumping back and forth on the danger of the spirit thread breaking...

Beatrice said with a hint of helplessness:

"Many temple mages die at the very step of severing their spirit bodies. They were more radical than me, using a riskier version of the spirit-splitting technique that was faster, but no one knows whether the spirit threads will break or the severing will be successful. Within the temple, there are countless temple mages who have perished in a meditative state."

Looking at the bizarre and suicidal schemes on the illusion model, Xia Zuo sincerely said, "They are warriors... at least I can't be as brave as them. If I didn't have a spiritual carving knife, I would choose the most conservative option."

Beatrice nodded silently.

The room fell silent for a brief moment before Xia Zuo broke the stillness and changed the subject, asking:

"Teacher, I want to find the members of Audrey's Circus. Do you have any ideas?"

“The Audrey Circus…” Beatrice paused for a moment, “the same group that saved you in Rosac Province, right?”

“Yes. I want to go see them first, and then focus on building the tower and condensing my elemental body,” Xia Zuo added. “Now that I have an elemental body, I don’t have to worry about elemental dissipation anymore.”

“I remember now, when you left the Starry Night Kingdom a few years ago, you left a gift for each of them. It was Dim who delivered it.”

Beatrice snapped her fingers and said, "I remember Tim said that after they received the assets you transferred, they bought household registrations and properties. It should be easy to find them. I'll have Tim run the errands. I estimate we'll have results in two or three days at most."

"Thank you, teacher. I'm sorry to have troubled you." Xia Zuo bowed in gratitude.

Chapter 7 Meeting

With the bright moon high in the sky, Xia Zuo and Beatrice chatted until late into the night, then got up to say goodbye and went to their guest room in the castle to meet with Anru.

Xia Zuo came to the Starry Night Kingdom to serve as the resident mage, while Anru came to serve as a professor at the academy.

She'll go to the dean's office tomorrow to complete her onboarding procedures, and then she can start getting familiar with the teaching work at the university.

In the current Starry Night Academy, the seven alchemy disciplines are further subdivided into one or two sub-disciplines.

Anjou is about to become the professor of Elemental Servant Studies.

Elemental Servant Studies is a sub-discipline under the Elemental Concreteness discipline, specializing in training professional elemental servant alchemists. Its applications include engineering construction and manor management. The goal of this discipline is to replace manual labor with a large number of elemental servants to handle the most dangerous and laborious tasks.

Constructing a sub-plane passage requires a significant amount of manpower and financial resources.

The study of elemental servants has just caught the wave of popularity.

One can imagine how many students would want to switch majors and become Anru'er's students when the project to build the sub-dimensional portal was announced to the university...

She'll definitely be swamped with work by then.

...

The second day after arriving at Starry Night Academy.

Anru received Beatrice's note early in the morning and immediately went to report to the head of the hospital.

Xia Zuo wandered around the castle for a while and found the stone gate to the poison alchemy area.

The place remained the same, with a straight corridor leading deep inside. After passing through the sterilization room was the warehouse of basic toxins, and further in were the alchemy room and classrooms.

When Xia Zuo arrived, a female lecturer was demonstrating the use of the alchemy table to seven students.

Kulov lay calmly on the soft sofa, holding a book and meditating.

The moment Xia Zuo stepped into the alchemy room, the female lecturer stopped. She paused for a moment, then said in surprise, "Xia... Senior Xia Zuo?"

The students in class all turned to look at the mage at the door. His mage robe was made of milky white silk and decorated with complex and mysterious magical patterns, which made him look very unusual.

Facing the gazes of his junior classmates, Xia Zuo, feigning inexperience, touched his nose, smiled warmly, nodded to the students, and said to the female lecturer, "Long time no see, Yulanda. I've come to visit my teacher."

Kurov awoke from his deep meditation, glanced up and down at Shazo, and nodded with approval in his eyes.

He stood up and said to the female lecturer, "Let's continue the lesson, Yolanda."

"Yes, Professor."

Kulov turned to Shazo, “Come with me, let’s go to the classroom to talk.”

The two went to the small classroom next to the alchemy room.

Kulov used silver sand to push aside the desk, clearing a space in the center of the classroom, and then placed a sofa chair woven with magic.

After Xia Zuo sat down, he looked at the other person's appearance. Black hair strands were emerging from the roots of the gray hair, and the wrinkles on the face had lessened.

"Teacher, you look much younger."

“Oh, the Temple sent me some life essence a few days ago, and I’ve felt much better since then.” Kurov rummaged through his alchemy pouch for tea and snacks, completely oblivious to the strange look that flashed across Shazo’s face…

Xia Zuo brought up the character template, clicked on the [Essence of Life] entry, and the interface showed that an Essence of Life he had personally crafted was located 2 meters in front of him…

Clearly... the life essence that Kurov obtained was created by Shazo.

Considering the days when the Temple brought Kurov the essence of life, the one in Kurov's hand must have been made when Shazo signed a long-term supply contract with the Temple.

It seems that Kulov is unaware of the source of the life essence.

Xia Zuo didn't bring it up himself.

He and Kulov talked about their experiences as reserve members of the action team, their experiences in the marine working group, and then about Master Adanavados. Finally, they naturally turned the conversation to the academic research on poison alchemy.

The two chatted until get out of class ended at noon.

Knowing that Kulov had a habit of writing memos with his assistant after class, Shazo left on his own initiative.

Before leaving, he didn't forget to give his younger schoolmates a friendly smile.

For the rest of the time, Xia Zuo waited for Dim's message while meditating in his room. Whenever Beatrice was free, he would go to the top floor of the tower to discuss the details of building the sub-plane passage with her.

On the fourth day after arriving at the university, at noon, Dim knocked on the door of the guest room and placed a stack of papers in Xia Zuo's hand.

“The whereabouts of the Audrey Circus members are all here.” Tim took out a carrot and ate it. “They’ve all moved on with their lives. I don’t really recommend you show yourself. Hmm… you know what I mean.”

“I know, Dim.” Shazo nodded. “Thanks. I plan to go and check on them today. I’ll try to avoid meeting them face-to-face.”

Dim took out a pendant. "By the way, the place for your test flight tower is ready too. Just follow the pendant's directions to find it."

"Okay, thank you for your trouble." Xia Zuo took the pendant and saw Dim off.

He looked through the intelligence that Dim had brought, then cast Lesser Invisibility on himself and used Wind Walk to leave the academy.

Lesser Invisibility is a spell from the Illusion school that can easily conceal the light of spells and one's appearance. Xia Zuo obtained the spellbook of this spell from the metal box given to him by Krestor and learned it along the way.

Dim's intelligence indicates:

Audrey, the head of the Audrey Circus, lives in Rosac and currently runs a martial arts school that teaches throwing techniques.

Poppy the Strongman used to live in Sera, a city in the province of Spree, where he served as a squad leader in the city's defense forces. Now retired, he has moved to Spree with his wife and children to enjoy a happy middle-aged life.

The clown siblings each started their own families, running a tavern and a dance hall in Rosac City, respectively.

Snake charmer Snake married and had children in another city in the province of Spreeer.