**Chapter 84: New Mission**
Jie Ming’s days seemed to have returned to a tranquil rhythm.
Until one day, he received a mission notice from his mentor, Clark.
“Not another strategic reserve task, is it?!” Jie Ming eyed Clark warily.
The last mission had drained him thoroughly, even leaving some psychological scars.
“If it’s that kind of job again, I’m not doing it. I’m way too busy now…”
“Relax, the situation in the Shadow Plane is progressing smoothly, and there’s no wartime demand right now,” Clark said, lifting his head from a pile of messy papers and rubbing his temples.
“It’s almost time for the annual distribution of aptitude enhancement potions. This time, you’ll be tasked with dispersing them over a designated area. The Academy will provide the dispersal equipment and route. It’s a simple task and won’t take much of your time.”
Jie Ming found this odd. Clark was right—distributing aptitude enhancement potions wasn’t a difficult job.
These so-called aptitude enhancement potions were a standard method wizards used to modify planes.As wizards expanded and developed the endless planes, their need for fresh talent grew ever greater.
War losses, the occupation of conquered planes, the transformation of new knowledge, and breakthroughs in research all demanded a constant supply of capable individuals.
Given the low natural probability of humans with wizard aptitude, the wizard civilization had developed an efficient “population optimization” mechanism.
At some point, wizards began regularly dispersing aptitude enhancement potions across the planes they ruled.
These diluted potions were spread across entire planes like rainfall, gradually raising the average aptitude level of the human population.
This transformation was subtle, not seeking immediate results.
Moreover, individuals with higher aptitudes were more likely to produce offspring with even greater potential. Over time, with enough persistence, an entire plane’s population could achieve universal transcendent aptitude, capable of practicing meditation techniques.
The planes under Noren Workshop were divided into two categories.
The core planes, numbered 1 through 10, were ancient and had undergone transformation for so long that not only did everyone possess transcendent aptitude, but their average aptitude level was exceptionally high.
The other category consisted of newly developed planes, numbered from 10 to over 130, including Noren Plane 13, where Jie Ming resided.
Noren Plane 13 had only been undergoing aptitude transformation for a little over 200 years, far less than the core planes. As a result, the average aptitude growth was not yet significant, and the proportion of people capable of transcendence remained low.
For this reason, wizards maintained a medieval standard of living and technology on this plane, concealing the existence of transcendent powers to ensure social stability.
Only when the proportion of people capable of practicing meditation techniques reached a certain threshold would wizards gradually reveal the existence of transcendent powers, guiding ordinary people to access them.
As the proportion of transcendents increased further, the plane’s technological and productive standards would be elevated to meet the growing needs and psychological demands of transcendents.
On core planes, where everyone possessed at least a first-level aptitude, the technological level could rival the futuristic worlds described in science fiction.
At that stage, even the most ordinary individuals could wield transcendent powers, and devices powered by such forces could be distributed without hesitation, achieving a technological leap.
Beyond the orthodox human wizard planes, the wizard civilization also included numerous vassal races.
Though their strength varied, these vassal races typically had an astonishingly high proportion of transcendents, often reaching 100%.
During their conquests of various planes, the wizard civilization acquired knowledge that could elevate ordinary people to transcendence, and the civilization itself developed technologies to achieve this.
Yet, despite these conveniences, the wizard civilization remained strict about creating transcendents.
Over time, this knowledge was either phased out or absorbed into the wizard system.
The primary reason for this choice was simple: the wizard civilization was too powerful!
While knowledge that allowed ordinary people to gain transcendent powers was effective, it often produced only weak transcendents, offering poor cost-efficiency.
For the current wizard civilization, weak transcendents who couldn’t advance knowledge were meaningless and only increased management costs.
For example, an ordinary alchemical wizard, once proficient in human refinement and artificial soul techniques, could mass-produce transcendent armies with sufficient resources.
A sixth-level alchemical wizard like Clark could even mass-produce fourth-level wizard-grade transcendents on an assembly line, with elite units reaching the sixth level.
For such beings, knowledge that allowed ordinary people to become transcendents held no value.
Thus, unless the number of aptitude-bearers in the civilization became too large to conceal, wizards would not open the path to transcendence for those without aptitude.
After years of development, wizards concluded that only high-level wizards held true significance in their civilization.
Wizard academies, at their core, were merely cradles for nurturing higher-level wizards, and wizard apprentices were expendable in the process of selecting those elites.
Even on a “newly” developed plane like Noren 13, where aptitude-bearers were scarce, Noren Academy still only accepted apprentices with third-level aptitude or higher, with no intention of lowering the threshold.
After all, wizard aptitude was tied to innate mental strength and soul intensity. High-aptitude individuals weren’t guaranteed to be intelligent, but intelligent individuals never had low aptitude.
To wizards, cultivating those with subpar aptitude was simply too inefficient. Their only purpose was to produce more aptitude-bearing offspring.
This was the wizard civilization—rational to the point of cold cruelty.
As a beneficiary of this system, Jie Ming had no objections.
Though it seemed to block the paths of most people, even by his moral standards, wizards treated their non-aptitude-bearing kin quite well.