I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality

**Chapter 699: Divine Armament**

The entire research institute was now completely silent. Tentacle Tree corpses littered the corridors.

One of them had died with its tentacles still plugged into a data port.

“We arrived one step too late,” Alaric said, his voice heavy with regret.

“After locating the institute, we breached the outer shield immediately, but they had already activated the internal self-destruct protocol ahead of time.”

He pointed toward a destroyed control room in the distance. “Although we prevented the space station from fully exploding, the toxin elimination system had already released its payload through the life-support pipes before we arrived. The database, logs, and communication records were all physically destroyed.”

Jie Ming glanced down at a still-smoking circuit board and shook his head with a smile. “It doesn’t matter. The souls are gone, but the information hasn’t disappeared.”

He crouched beside the corpse of a young researcher. The corresponding Tentacle Tree was still quite young—its crown tentacles hadn’t even fully matured. He was likely just a low-level researcher who had joined the institute not long ago.

Jie Ming slowly stood up. His spiritual power enveloped the entire space station.

Then, the golden vertical eye between his brows snapped open.

Buzz…

A pale golden radiance spread out like water, swiftly permeating every corner of the institute.

**Causal Trace Shadow Technique**, activate!!

At the same time, the Fate Subsystem powered up to full capacity.

Causal threads rapidly intertwined in the void, forming a massive network that covered the whole space station.

The residual information imprints left behind by the dead researchers began to surface.

In Jie Ming’s vision, scenes from the space station’s past emerged: researchers arguing in laboratories, others recording data around fragments of armor, and still others constantly debugging some kind of activation program.

These were not memories recorded in souls, but lingering traces of information.

Like footprints in the snow.

Even after the people had left, the traces remained.

Jie Ming’s three eyes swept across all the images simultaneously, breaking down and categorizing the information.

Soon, he spoke again. “They called that armor… the Divine Armament.”

“The Tentacle Tree Civilization was able to leap from an ordinary industrial civilization to a spacefaring one precisely because they discovered the first Divine Armament.”

“Shields, energy weapons, spatial jumps… all their core technologies came from reverse analysis.”

He paused for a moment, his gaze settling on a particular information fragment.

“Furthermore… there is more than one Divine Armament. They have discovered similar armors in different star systems.”

“The prevailing theory within the Tentacle Tree Civilization is that these objects came from some super civilization that once ruled the entire universe.”

Alaric spoke in a low voice, “So the Trifolite Star System was just a decoy. The real core research area has always been hidden deep within the gas giant.”

“Correct,” Jie Ming replied indifferently. He slowly withdrew his spiritual power.

The causal threads gradually dissipated, and the institute fell silent once more.

In truth, Jie Ming was not surprised by this outcome.

From the first time he had encountered the Tentacle Tree fleet, he had already sensed something was off.

This civilization’s technological system had severe discontinuities.

Certain fields had suddenly undergone disproportionate leaps.

Their shields and energy weapons were at an extremely low level, yet they possessed spatial technology… even if that spatial technology was similarly crude.

Overall, their technology far exceeded what their materials science and basic industry should have allowed.

It was as if someone had forcibly crammed puzzle pieces that did not belong to them into their own system.

Even more abnormal was their energy level classification.

The measurement standards for Levels One through Five were impossibly precise.

Both the energy thresholds for each level and the underlying logic were highly consistent with the Wizard civilization’s system.

…Or rather, consistent with civilizations that had reached a considerably high level of understanding of the world’s rules.

However, starting at Level Six, their measurement theory suddenly plummeted off a cliff.

On the surface, their theoretical and technological levels appeared perfectly matched, but this completely contradicted the normal development patterns of civilizations.

In a normal civilization, there would be a gap between theory and practice, but theory should far outpace practice—not exhibit this bizarre synchronized development.

There was only one reasonable explanation.

Their understanding of the first five levels came from a more mature external system.

For anything above Level Six, they could only grope in the dark themselves, resulting in massive deviations.

Now, the answer lay before him.

Jie Ming did not linger. His figure pierced through the ammonia crystal storm belt, transforming into a dark golden streak of light as he descended directly toward the outermost satellite. This area had been designated a “protected zone” by the Tentacle Tree Civilization.

The surface was covered in low-growing purple vegetation. Artificial structures were scarce, consisting only of a few observation stations and large enclosed ecological zones.

The garrison troops here had already surrendered. The Tentacle Tree soldiers knelt fearfully on the open ground.

When Jie Ming landed, every tentacle pressed flat against the earth. Not a single one dared to look up.

Jie Ming ignored them and walked straight into the depths of the protected zone.

There lay an artificial shallow sea.

The abundant ice layers beneath the satellite had been melted, and the water was channeled into low-lying areas to simulate an environment close to the liquid layers of the gas giant. Dozens of translucent creatures floated in the seawater.

They resembled enormous jellyfish, though their body structures were far more complex.

Their umbrella-shaped bodies ranged from two to five meters in diameter. Slender tentacles swayed gently with the currents, and faint bioluminescence flowed across their surfaces.

These creatures lacked complex neural structures and did not even appear to possess intelligence.

Jie Ming stood by the sea and quietly observed them for a while before speaking slowly.

“They should not be this low in intelligence. Evolution does not regress. A species with such complex body structures must once have possessed a nervous system of corresponding sophistication.”

“Unless… someone deliberately shut down their intelligence genes.”

Alaric understood the implication in Jie Ming’s words and added in a low voice, “So these native inhabitants were the true caretakers of the Divine Armament. Indeed, their physiology was originally designed for the internal environment of a gas giant.”

Jie Ming nodded. “These caretakers were probably not the creators of the Divine Armament, but they most likely had usage rights. The activation permissions for the Divine Armament were probably bound to genetic verification.”

“After the Tentacle Trees found they could not activate the armor, they kept these creatures alive.”

“It wasn’t out of mercy, but because they needed their genes. To make control easier, they deliberately caused this species to regress.”

The jellyfish in the shallow sea continued to drift slowly. They showed no reaction whatsoever to the shore.

No fear.

No curiosity.

They were like empty shells whose civilization memory had been severed.

Jie Ming watched silently for a moment, then withdrew his gaze.

“Arrange for more Black Giant priests to come and garrison this place. Organize all the genetic data from the institute, collect samples from every jellyfish, and maintain the protected zone in its current state.”

“From now on, we are taking over.”

“As for the Tentacle Tree garrison personnel… handle them according to standard prisoner protocols.”

Alaric bowed his head and acknowledged the order.

Jie Ming looked up toward the sky.

Beyond the dome, starlight poured down, gilding the edges of his robe’s shoulders with a faint golden trim.

In the distance, the gas giant continued its slow rotation, its ochre storms swirling like enormous vortices across the entire planet.

The Tentacle Tree Civilization had merely stumbled upon a key that did not belong to them.

They had risen by relying on it, yet they had never truly understood it. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

And behind the Divine Armaments scattered across the universe… clearly hid an even more vast and ancient civilization.

Jie Ming narrowed his eyes slightly.

It seemed his subsequent plans would need to be readjusted.