Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all my brothers and sisters. Normal updates will resume starting from the National Day holiday. The cultivation method of the mages was created by the Winged God Race. Its purpose was simple and direct: they desired a cohort of servants with decent strength, but did not want these servants to become more powerful than themselves and thus difficult to control. This necessity gave rise to the creation of Dou Qi cultivation and magic cultivation.

This was essentially a castration of traditional cultivation methods.

However, countless ages have passed since the Winged People established their rule over the humans of the Light Domain. These two rudimentary cultivation methods have gradually formed complete systems and legacies among the human population in the Light Domain. Generation after generation of powerful individuals and chosen prodigies among humans continuously innovated upon them, forging something exceptionally unique.

Compared to Dou Qi, magic is significantly harder to master upon entry. This is because the prerequisite for practicing magic is possessing an inherently powerful Divine Soul. Otherwise, grasping it during the initial enlightenment of one's spiritual power becomes exceedingly difficult.

Unlike the human cultivators of the Nine Provinces, who primarily focus on cultivating their own bodies, using True Qi and True Essence as the foundation for casting spells, the humans of the Light Domain, lacking the ability to cultivate True Essence, must rely on their Divine Sense to perceive the Laws of Heaven and Earth to resonate with them and thus manifest magical effects. This requirement instantly bars an incalculable number of those with lower comprehension from ever entering the ranks of the mages.

This fundamental aspect creates a stark contrast with the methods employed by the human cultivators of the Nine Provinces when casting spells. Nevertheless, every limitation brings a corresponding benefit. The various restrictions inherent in the Light Domain system have forced its human mages to develop complete frameworks and profound experience in comprehending and controlling the Laws of Heaven and Earth.

For instance, for a novice mage to cast even a small, minor Fireball spell, they must use their spiritual power, coupled with verbal communication, to excite the Laws of Heaven and Earth. Consequently, the casting of magic gradually begins to resemble the True Incantations employed by Lei Dong.

In fact, when the Winged People first conceived the magic cultivation system, they integrated simplified structures derived from some of their Great Prophecy Arts into spellcasting. However, combined with countless generations of self-research and development by the humans of the Light Domain, the magic system has evolved into something profoundly original—a development even the Winged People could not have foreseen. Arrogant and self-satisfied, the Winged People have always disdained the "castrated versions" of cultivation practiced by humans, never deigning to lower themselves to study or learn from them.

Yet, after careful investigation, Lei Dong discovered that the magical system possessed a singular ingenuity that offered considerable reference value for his own cultivation.

Although Lei Dong could not wield the Great Prophecy Art, he had mastered the Demon Emperor's True Incantation, which operated on the same underlying principles. This technique utilizes immense Divine Sense to mimic the Will of the Cosmic Origin, thereby imposing known—or even unknown—Laws of Heaven and Earth through sheer decree. It is, in essence, a form of cheating.

To put it in simpler terms, it is akin to impersonating an emperor and using the highest authority to command powerful ministers to carry out private affairs.

This is the basic principle behind casting spells like the True Incantations. Of course, the reality is vastly more complex than this analogy. For example, to invoke a more powerful effect from a more potent Law of Heaven and Earth requires a stronger will, consuming a near-astronomical amount of Divine Sense. Furthermore, the more powerful the manifestation of the Law, the greater the backlash inflicted upon the dominant will.

However, the human mages of the Light Domain, through their long evolutionary process, began to tread a different path. Driven by reverence for the cosmos and constrained by their own strength, mages rarely employed deceptive means to compel the Laws of Heaven and Earth. Their chosen method was to first comprehend and internalize certain fundamental Laws, such as the Five Elements or basic derivative Laws. They focused intensely on one or two Laws, constantly deepening their comprehension, communication, and affinity with them, while continuously adjusting their own state to better harmonize with that specific Law.

When constructing and casting spells using the Laws of Heaven and Earth, they use their Divine Sense, molded into will, to communicate with the Laws, requesting the spell effect through Law Affinity.

As is widely known, Lei Dong's greatest specialization lies in Divine Sense. Although his cultivation remains only at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, the intensity of his Divine Sense has already reached the level of a normal early-stage Soul Transformation cultivator. If he could emulate these mages, communicating purely with Divine Sense to trigger corresponding levels of spells, his overall combat strength would leap a major tier.

Although the Netherworld Immortal Slaying Finger is potent, its consumption is enormous. At his current cultivation level, not accounting for True Essence recovery, he could only manage four or five strikes. In high-intensity confrontations at the Soul Transformation level, merely four or five strikes are insufficient, often forcing Lei Dong to rely on feints to conceal his lack of True Essence.

The True Incantation technique suffers from a similar dilemma. Commanding a stronger Law to yield a greater effect demands a far greater expenditure of Divine Sense. Against a Soul Transformation expert, using a True Incantation spell akin to Time Stasis could deplete the majority of Lei Dong's Divine Sense in mere breaths.

Conversely, if a True Incantation is used to activate a lower-level spell, the resulting power is less effective than casting it using his own True Essence. Thus, while True Incantations offer endless utility, they possess severe limitations and drawbacks, the foremost being their immense drain on Divine Sense.

Magic, however, resolves many of these deficiencies. It allows for the casting of powerful and esoteric spells while mitigating the extreme consumption of Divine Sense or True Essence. Furthermore, the concept of a large group of mages combining their Divine Sense into a single unified stream deeply fascinated Lei Dong.

While cultivators in the Nine Provinces possess the concept of formations, these are mostly material arrays rather than personnel formations. Even in personnel formations, there is currently no concept of merging the Divine Sense of multiple individuals to communicate with the Laws of Heaven and Earth and cast grand-scale spells.

Of course, Lei Dong’s interest does not equate to an immediate decision to cultivate the Divine Sense spell system himself. Rather, he intends to borrow the advantages inherent in Divine Sense magic and integrate them into his existing power structure.

All matters concerning his subordinates are proceeding in an orderly fashion.

During this period, Lei Dong immersed himself in the joy of research. For him, currently attempting to study the profound and inscrutable Law of Time would be reaching too far. Mastering and comprehending the Law of Space is the most immediately practical pursuit for Lei Dong at this juncture.

To his surprise, the Archmage’s understanding and mastery of the Law of Space were not significantly lower than his own, which gave Lei Dong a slight pause. Upon careful inquiry, he learned that this Archmage was a specialist in the Law of Space, a practitioner who had long dedicated himself to this tradition, frequently engaging in flights of fancy—quietly exploiting fissures in ancient teleportation arrays for spiritual journeys.

The concentration site of fire elementals in the Purgatory Domain was one such "plane" gradually discovered by a group of mages over many years through exploring spatial rifts. Through Divine Sense communication and material inducement, they eventually developed a set of spells for summoning fire elementals.

Moreover, under the influence of these miraculous spells, certain mages had managed to project their consciousness to locations that defied imagination—such as a specific corner of the Abyss Domain or remote stretches of the Nether Ghost Realm.

This discovery filled Lei Dong with surprise mingled with a subtle admiration. Indeed, these mages had strayed onto a crooked path due to their incomplete cultivation methods, but under such constraints, their ability to unleash the great imaginative capacity of humanity was nothing short of miraculous.

Carefully studying the extensive knowledge and comprehension of the Law of Space provided by the Archmage propelled Lei Dong’s own understanding of spatial laws into a brand-new realm in a very short time. This new insight and understanding could not only be integrated into Lei Dong’s movement techniques and spells, enhancing their power, but also allowed him to learn some of the God-level spells provided by the Archmage.

God-level spells are those powerful incantations that Archmages cannot cast alone but must mobilize massive amounts of Divine Sense to manifest—such as the spell used previously to communicate with the Purgatory Domain and summon the Flame Demon King against Lei Dong's army.

Spells of this magnitude are theorized to be castable only by those who reach the rank of God of Magic. However, due to fundamental errors in their cultivation methods, not a single God of Magic level expert has ever appeared among the humans of the Light Domain.

The sheer variety and creativity in the application of the Law of Space by these mages far exceeded Lei Dong's expectations. For example, the Spatial Cage, a technique that even an Archmage could only barely execute, was highly innovative: it entrapped the target within an independent, inescapable subspace until the target naturally aged to death.

Another technique, the Meteor Summon, involved capturing a meteorite from the endless void using Divine Sense, teleporting it back, and smashing it down upon the enemy ranks.

There was also Space Warp, which could distort space to a certain degree, allowing the caster to hide within it, achieving an effect similar to stealth. Most critically, even a Divine Sense sweep would struggle to locate anyone concealed within this warped space.

All manner of bizarre and ingenious spatial spells unfolded before Lei Dong, deepening his comprehension and perception of the Law of Space. Lei Dong’s own Divine Sense was also exceptionally powerful; although lacking refinement, with dedicated practice using the methods the mages employed to hone spiritual sensitivity, he believed casting some spatial God-level spells independently would present no major obstacles.

Naturally, even as Lei Dong admired the wondrous elements within the mage system, those mages were deeply shaken by the power of Lei Dong and the advanced nature of his cultivation methods. They also coveted the resources and the philosophy of equality that Lei Dong inadvertently revealed. Ultimately, the two parties struck a decisive agreement.

The Archmage, leading his Mage Corps, joined Lei Dong’s ranks.

Thus, Lei Dong acquired another Mage Corps under his banner. Although this corps was currently quite small, they would inevitably grow stronger as they began cultivating the orthodox methods. Those who could reach their current level while practicing flawed techniques were clearly no weaklings; moreover, none of them could possess poor innate talent. Besides, powerful Divine Sense itself is highly beneficial to cultivation.

…… (To be continued)