327: Chapter 320 The Knight's Technique is Successful, and He Makes an Appearance Under Satellite Lens.

The Magic Academy's competition was being closely watched by The World.

Aside from the tourists who came of their own accord, any country with sufficient power had dispatched top-tier domestic news professionals to the scene for interviews.

Only an hour after the competition ended, videos filmed by individuals and news reporters had already flooded online platforms, spreading from London to the entire globe.

Word had spread among the populace, and the upper echelons had received the news even a step earlier.

Overall, everyone was fairly satisfied.

China relied on the Mountain Gate and didn't care much about the threat from someone like Mr. Gao. Sending the Special Investigation Bureau was partly to do a favor and partly because Mr. Gao was, after all, an unknown transcendent; gathering some data would be beneficial and harmless.

As long as the people from the Special Investigation Bureau were safe and sound, China didn't care which direction things went.

On America's side, Neo breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Although from the video footage sent back from the scene, Mr. Gao seemed no match for Dumbledore—leaving without a word clearly weakened his momentum; if he weren't injured, he certainly wouldn't have acted that way.

But Neo didn't care at all that 'his own transcendent' had lost slightly in the duel.

It was enough that the only path into the transcendent realm had not been cut off.

As for the international clamor that 'Mr. Gao is inferior to Dumbledore, America's future is worrisome,' Neo simply laughed it off.

Ying Country was different from the previous two; it was a case of falling low and then rising high.

At first, the situation seemed unfavorable for their side, and the Queen had truly broken into a cold sweat.

Fortunately, the Headmaster's skills were superb, and he repelled the enemy with ease. The Kingdom's prestige would surely reach a new level, enough to deter any petty troublemakers.

And with Immortal Xu present to hold the line, the aftershocks of the battle didn't harm a single person, and even added a beautiful scenery to London.

They had won big time!

Finally, there was Russia.

In this clash between Mr. Gao and Dumbledore, logically speaking, they had no stakes involved. As spectators, they should have had a mindset of just watching for fun.

The truth was exactly the opposite; Russia was currently the most anxious.

The reason lay entirely with the burly man who arrived midway.

From the few words the burly man revealed, it wasn't hard to understand that he was Tevan's teacher, Russia's transcendent.

When the Russian President heard 'my student has already gone to Seventeen' on the live broadcast, he wished he could immediately take a private jet to London on the other side of the ocean, grab the burly man's sturdy thighs, and never let go.

Tevan had been in Seventeen for over three months, and the President had been separated from him for over three months as well.

It wasn't a long time, only 90-odd days, but the President felt like each day was three autumns.

Every day upon waking, his first words were—has Mr. Tevan returned?

Then he would count the days on his fingers; one day equaled three autumns, so by his count, it had been over 70 years since he last saw Mr. Tevan.

The assistant standing nearby was constantly worried about the President's mental state, and would find time to consult with the Aides about whether to give the President a full physical exam.

However, after talking it over, they felt that the President's seemingly deranged behavior was actually understandable.

The currently known transcendent 'spells' included: first, the Queen regaining her youth; second, China's Special Investigation Bureau Team Leader Luo's physical transformation—not only did she have immense strength and an extended lifespan, but she was also heard to be a prodigious eater, consuming three pots of rice per meal, not counting the side dishes!

Setting aside Team Leader Luo's 'evolution' for a moment, the Queen's 'rejuvenation' was what truly made them envious.

For those who could become leaders, being in their sixties was considered young, while being in their seventies or eighties was the norm.

They were all old.

Despite meticulous maintenance, time spares no one in the end.

Seeing that they didn't have many years left to live, yet witnessing something that could bring back youth, how could they not go crazy?

To be honest, the fact that they hadn't sold their souls for a bottle of potion was considered quite restrained, though Zhang Mu wouldn't want their souls anyway.

Among the significant countries, aside from the Queen, the oldest was the Russian President.

The transcendent he had been bitterly waiting for finally appeared, only to turn around and go to school. He thought he could only look forward to the day of their reunion, but who knew a turn of events would occur—the transcendent's teacher had appeared.

Regrettably, after the great battle between Mr. Gao and Dumbledore, once the dust settled, the President stared wide-eyed at the TV screen for a long time but couldn't find the burly man's figure.

Where is my transcendent?!

The President was shocked and could not endure it. He quickly notified his secretary and ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to propose a visit to Ying Country.

As soon as the affirmative reply came, the President, who had already boarded the plane, soared into the sky the next second.

Through the Dumbledore puppet, Zhang Mu learned about what had happened from the Queen.

Well, I've already put away the burly man puppet; he's made a trip for nothing.

Shaking his head, he controlled the puppet to return to the bedroom to rest, while he himself returned to "The World" to practice Knight Magic.

The book of Knight Magic the King had found for him was of superior quality, and the cultivation speed far exceeded ordinary versions.

When Zhang Mu first mastered it using the panel, he specifically researched whether it was like the Meditation Method—did he have to register with the Church after reaching a certain realm?

He was now the number one wanted criminal of the Church, and indeed the entire continent.

A 'criminal' looking for the 'police' to get a certification? Wouldn't that be walking straight into a trap?

Fortunately, the result of his research was that they were completely identical.

Knight Magic had also been sublimated, breaking through its original limits to allow for unlimited upgrades.

In recent days, aside from necessary work, he had poured all his time into Knight Magic.

The harvest from his hard work was very bountiful.

Under the dual acceleration of potions and the panel, his Knight Magic realm progressed by leaps and bounds. His panel level reached the peak of Elementary Knight, while his physical standard reached that of an Intermediate Knight in common terms.

The reason he could achieve such speed, besides the aforementioned factors, was also because he hadn't learned any Knight Techniques.

A knight's actual combat power depended partly on level, but the most important part was Knight Techniques.

Someone who only had the realm but hadn't mastered powerful Knight Techniques or trained in skilled and exquisite sword techniques was no different from a child with a handgun.

They had combat power, but not much.

It might seem like Zhang Mu was practicing Knight Magic in vain, but that wasn't the case.

What he lacked most urgently right now was a physique capable of traversing the universe; combat power could be set aside for the moment.

Therefore, discarding Knight Techniques to purely pursue the enhancement of level and physique was the appropriate choice.

Zhang Mu was currently sitting cross-legged in the void of "The World," the mana belonging to Knight Magic circulating through his meridians, constantly growing stronger.

When it reached the limit of what his meridians could contain, the mana began to shrink and condense, transforming from a gaseous state to a liquid state.

The moment the transformation succeeded, the 'Elementary Knight' on the panel smoothly became 'Intermediate Knight,' and his physical strength simultaneously rose to that of a High-level Knight.

Slowly opening his eyes, Zhang Mu clenched his fist, which was filled with explosive power. He felt that even if he were given a piece of rebar, he could easily crush it into powder.

"Impressive." Smacking his lips, he opened a light gate and arrived outside the London Palace.

Back when he was creating puppets, he had tried flying into space.

Regrettably, even though mana was significantly enhanced on the Blue Planet, it was still very strained.

He flew to a position just about to pass through the atmosphere. Overcoming the thin oxygen was easy, but the various radiations filling the universe made alarm bells ring in his mind.

It felt as if he dared to leave the protection of the atmosphere, he would die on the spot.

At that time, Zhang Mu hesitated whether to try opening a Magic Shield, but after much deliberation, he gave up.

His life was more important.

Today, with another breakthrough in his Knight Magic level, he decided to try again.

It was almost dawn now, and the second round of the competition would start in about three hours. Mr. Gao had already shown his face, and the 'big scene' had been displayed; all that remained was the task of hosting the competition.

He could just control the puppet to handle that.

Having cleared his mind of tasks, Zhang Mu didn't waste any time and flew straight toward the sky.

He quickly passed through the clouds, no longer hiding his figure, revealing himself as "Immortal Xu."

Flying to the position he had reached last time, he closed his eyes to sense the surroundings.

His skin didn't send any stinging warnings, and there was no sense of crisis in his heart. Good.

To be safe, Zhang Mu raised a Magic Shield and then moved his body through the atmosphere.

The atmosphere isn't a thin layer like a sheet of paper; it has thickness, becoming increasingly dense from the outside in.

Zhang Mu felt the resistance around him becoming heavier. Fortunately, a Magister's mana was enough to break through. He continuously increased his output, and his speed didn't slow down much.

After flying for about a minute or so, he felt his body suddenly become light.

He was out.

Turning around, he admired the azure planet that nurtured life from a bird's-eye view.

It was too beautiful; Zhang Mu's eyes were filled with awe.

He had seen satellite photos of the Blue Planet more than once, and more than one photo, each incredibly clear, but in the end, they couldn't compare to seeing it with his own eyes.

Like a child, he spread both arms to measure the size of the Blue Planet, but even with his arms stretched to their limit, it wasn't enough to contain it; his entire field of vision was filled with azure.

For the first time, Zhang Mu felt so vividly how tiny he was.

After a long time, he broke free from the suffocating sense of pressure and turned to look the other way.

Viewing the silver-white planet from a "close distance," the craters on its surface stripped away some of its beauty, but it remained spectacular.

The only thing that wasn't beautiful was the large number of satellites passing between him and the moon, which dampened Zhang Mu's spirits a bit.

"Since I'm already here..." Composing himself, he figured that coming up once took quite some time and he shouldn't come for nothing. "But if I deactivate the Shadow Technique, the Magic Shield will be hard to explain... well, let's try it."

Zhang Mu stood in the void, took a deep breath, and slowly deactivated the Magic Shield.

The moment the Magic Shield disappeared, his body was completely exposed to the radiation.

Running his Knight Magic to the limit, he found that although his skin had a slight sensation of abnormality, it suffered no substantive damage.

"Sure enough, it's about what I predicted."

When he was planning to fly alongside the Chinese spacecraft, he had pondered what level of aura would allow a physical body to stand in the void.

According to his estimation, an Intermediate Knight would struggle, a High-level Knight would be safe, and a Great Knight could come and go as they pleased.

The facts were indeed so.

Having promoted to High-level Knight, he was already able to move in a vacuum with his physical body.

"Then let's do it." Muttering to himself, Zhang Mu deactivated the Shadow Technique, and nearby satellites immediately captured his figure.

Almost instantly, the high-level officials of various countries were in an uproar.

The first to notice were the staff members responsible for controlling the satellites to perform photography tasks.

Photos flashed across the computer screens, and the staff categorized them and put them into folders as they did every day.

Until a strange "black dot" appeared in one photo.

A staff member grumbled, "Is the camera malfunctioning? It was fine just now," while preparing to report to the technical department. He enlarged the photo, intending to take a closer look to see if the camera was indeed broken.

This look lasted for more than ten minutes.

He kept enlarging and enlarging until a human silhouette was clearly presented.

His mouth opened and closed several times, and finally, he swallowed hard. "Sir, you must come and take a look at this."

"What's wrong?"

"Uh, it really sounds very much like a prank, but... there's a person... standing in space?"

In the usual sense, people define the direction of the gravity source as "down" and the opposite as "up."

It's very simple for us to distinguish a person's posture on the ground: both feet on the ground is standing, and the opposite is an inverted stand.

But there is no up or down in the universe; with a body straight in it, it cannot be defined as "standing" or "inverted."

So the staff member weighed it for a short while before hesitantly saying "standing"?

The officer was bewildered and walked quickly behind him. What kind of nonsense was this? April Fool's Day had already passed several days ago.

When he saw the white-clothed figure in the center of the photo, he wished today were April Fool's Day, because that way, his worldview wouldn't have collapsed.

"There's a person, stand... um... standing in the middle of the universe. My eyes aren't playing tricks on me, right?" the officer confirmed with the staff member.

"The probability of the two of us, two people, having an illusion together is basically zero." The staff member tried to be calm, but he couldn't control his trembling tone.

Determined that he wasn't crazy and that there was nothing wrong with his eyes, the officer finally couldn't hold it in.

"My God! Shit!" He snatched off his officer's cap. "Who is he?!"

"White clothes, the style is like... the ethnic clothing of that Asian region. Oh, look, his hair is very long, silver... Hey, doesn't the Chinese immortal look just like this?"

"Immortal Xu?" Watching Immortal Xu's videos every day, the officer clearly remembered the name.

"It must be him!" The staff member was very certain. "White clothes and silver hair, staying in a vacuum without any protection—there definitely won't be anyone else!"

"Transcendent... they can actually get away from the assistance of life support to... Damn! Something must have gone wrong with this world! Quick! Send the photo to the White House!"

This scene was happening in multiple countries simultaneously.

Their reactions were surprisingly consistent: first suspecting a satellite malfunction, then suspecting their colleagues' mental state, then suspecting their own mental state, and finally accepting the facts and submitting the report to their superiors.

Except for China.

The Director quickly received the photos sent from Kyoto, and the Old Leader's call came through at the same time, almost shouting to confirm with him whether the figure in the photo was Immortal Xu.

When he first went to the Mountain Gate, Zhang Mu had revealed that he could fly into space.

At that time, the Director didn't exactly doubt it in his heart, but he didn't take it too seriously either.

Even later when chatting with Yue Ruo and others about whether Immortal Xu would go to outer space with the spacecraft, it was mostly in jest.

He thought that the "traversing space" Immortal Xu mentioned should involve using some kind of "dharma treasures." After seeing the flying boat used to descend the mountain, he became even more certain of his guess.

But now, as the photo popped up on the giant screen in the operations room, he finally realized that the so-called "traversing the void" was exactly as the words implied!

"Xiao Luo? Xiao Luo?!" Among the crowd in the operations room staring blankly at the screen, the Director was the first to snap out of it and shouted hoarsely.

"Director, Team Leader Luo went to teach the Body Tempering Technique." Someone quickly explained during the gap when his voice lowered.

"Call her and tell her to come back! Quick!"