Translator: AnubisTL
Deep within the Golden Garden of the Elosia Plane, outside Jieming's underground laboratory, the air was filled with the faint, refreshing scent of plants.
Jieming was engaged in conversation with a young wizard sent by Noren Academy. The apprentice, still somewhat green in appearance, radiated the aura of a third-tier wizard apprentice.
"Lord Jieming, please confirm once more. Do you intend to sell all your territory on the Elosia Prime Plane to Noren Academy, except for this area—the Golden Garden core region, less than ten li in diameter?"
The young third-tier wizard apprentice had already learned the details of his mission from the mission briefing before arriving.
But when he heard this decision spoken directly by Jieming, a second-tier wizard who looked even younger than himself, he couldn't help but feel deeply astonished.
He repeatedly sought confirmation from Jieming.
Only after receiving Jieming's affirmative response did he reluctantly begin processing the complex land ownership transfer procedures on the holographic screen, his heart filled with a mixture of bewilderment and awe.
Jieming stood calmly to the side, watching the third-tier wizard apprentice move with what seemed to him like agonizing slowness. He couldn't help but quietly ponder to himself.
It seems the advantages gained from maximizing the activation of both soul and body are even greater than I imagined.
To Jieming's heightened senses, every movement of the wizard apprentice appeared to be unfolding in slow motion.
The apprentice's raised hand, the gliding of his fingertips across the luminous screen, even the frequency of his blinks seemed sluggish and dull.
It wasn't that the apprentice was actually moving slowly, but rather that Jieming's own perception of time had accelerated to an extraordinary degree.
This "speed" wasn't just about explosive bursts of combat prowess; it encompassed every aspect of his being—his dynamic vision, neural reflexes, cognitive processing efficiency, and more.
During his earlier self-tests, Jieming had discovered that what felt like one second to him was roughly equivalent to one-fifth of a second in the outside world's normal flow of time.
This meant that for wizard apprentices and first-tier wizards, whose subjective experience of time aligned with the standard rate, what they perceived as a single second stretched into a seemingly endless five seconds for Jieming!
According to the data, a second-tier wizard's biological lifespan was only three to four times longer than that of a first-tier wizard.
However, when considering a second-tier wizard's subjective perception of time, the world they experienced and perceived could be considered fifteen to twenty times longer than a first-tier wizard's "subjective lifespan"!
This represented a fundamental chasm in life level.
Jieming patiently waited through what felt like an hour-long few minutes. Finally, the wizard apprentice before him slowly completed all the formalities.
The apprentice slowly raised his head and said respectfully, "Lord Jieming, the redistribution of your territory has been completed. All points from the territory sale have been transferred to your personal account."
"Thank you for your hard work," Jieming replied politely.
After bidding farewell, Jieming transformed into a streak of light and hurried back to his underground laboratory.
He immediately opened the magic net terminal and stared at the account balance, which had once again swelled to millions of points. Yet, he couldn't help but sigh deeply.
Indeed, Jieming was selling his territory because he was broke.
Although he had amassed a fortune through military merits and various spoils during his time on the Flamefrost Plane, and even had a secret, invaluable source of income—the Mortal Dust Qi—after deducting the massive debts he owed to Mentor Clark and the Tower of Annihilation, as well as the expenses for his advancement to second-tier wizard and subsequent purchases of essential resources, he was left with very few points he could freely spend.
His next plan—to fundamentally and completely transform the lava giant race—required a sea of high-tier biochemical modification knowledge related to the very essence of life.
While Jieming had previously dabbled in similar knowledge, it was clear that the two were on entirely different levels.
Moreover, since discovering that his body tempering method could continuously enhance his learning capacity and innate talent under extreme academic pressure, Jieming had grown somewhat disdainful of basic, low-difficulty knowledge.
What he craved were the truly core, challenging insights that could touch the very heart of things.
To purchase even moderately core knowledge from the Noren Academy's database—even those of lower tiers or those deemed "useless" due to their extreme difficulty or narrow applications—required a substantial investment.
Immediately after his advancement to second-tier wizard, Jieming had tirelessly begun refining adamantine, hoping to earn more points by selling this high-value raw material.
However, as his sales volume increased, the problem he had initially feared finally materialized: the material markets of the wizard factions surrounding the Noren Workshop gradually became saturated.
It wasn't that his adamantine had become completely unsellable.
Rather, its sales rate had inevitably plummeted. What had once been a product in high demand now required long waits on the trading platform before finding a buyer.
Thanks to his second-tier cultivation protocol, Jieming could list his refined adamantine on the Star Ring Federation's vast sales network.
But the results were disappointing.
After all, the reason adamantine had caused such a sales frenzy in the Noren Workshop and surrounding factions was because it possessed some characteristics of sixth-tier materials while still being priced as a fifth-tier material.
Within the markets of the three major powers, led by the Noren Workshop, adamantine was considered a high-quality product with excellent value for its price.
However, when placed within the vast expanse of the Star Ring Federation, adamantine's properties were utterly unremarkable.
Lacking both a prestigious reputation and any irreplaceable characteristics, Jieming's adamantine was immediately buried beneath countless rare materials, like grains of sand in the Ganges River, and went completely unnoticed.
Left with no other choice, Jieming decided to sell his territory.
After all, his future base of operations was the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, a realm with purer resources and better suited for his experiments.
This territory on Elosia Prime Plane held little significance for him.
If not for the opportunity to study Elosia Prime Plane's unique Divine Power Faith Network up close, he would have sold even the Golden Garden.
With this massive influx of funds, Jieming wasted no time.
He eagerly purchased a wealth of advanced biochemical modification knowledge from the Noren Academy's online knowledge repository, knowledge he had long coveted.
Many of these knowledge fragments came with negative labels like "excessively high learning difficulty," "stringent application prerequisites," and "mediocre modification results."
It was precisely because of these flaws that their prices fell within Jieming's affordable range.
However, for Jieming in his current state, the "excessively high learning difficulty" was actually a boon.
In the days that followed, Jieming's life settled back into its simple yet fulfilling rhythm.
On one hand, he used the newly cultivated second-tier lava giant core as a "template," continuously breeding more first-tier and second-tier lava giants to serve as research materials for his experiments.
On the other hand, he immersed himself completely in studying the newly acquired, highly complex biochemical knowledge.
Deep within his consciousness, Jieming floated before the magnificent and ancient Great Dao Library Pavilion, his fingertips lightly touching the books before him.
As usual, he had just finished reading a book detailing the origins and characteristics of fire spirit, beings born as gods.
The knowledge of elemental life evolution and innate properties surged through his highly active soul like bolts of lightning, intertwining and illuminating his understanding.
Soon, Jieming withdrew from the depths of his consciousness.
"As expected, attempting to 'beneficially' and 'positively modify' a creature with such a complex life essence as the lava giant using only my current knowledge as a second-tier wizard is still too difficult," Jieming mused inwardly as he opened his eyes. "But if I can combine this with the profound knowledge of life evolution from the immortal cultivation world, it might be possible."
The Great Dao Library Pavilion had granted him mastery over the essence of various powerful elemental creatures, while the Noren Workshop's knowledge provided concrete pathways for modifying life.
This combination had opened up a new world for Jieming, revealing possibilities beyond his previous comprehension.
Having completed his daily study mission, Jieming, inspired by the vast knowledge systems of both worlds, hurried to the core region of his laboratory.
There, on a surgical platform composed of runic chains and energy beams, a newly cultivated first-tier lava giant lay restrained, its abdomen already opened.
The lava giant's crimson rock-like exterior, temporarily immobilized by the sustained energy beams, revealed its pulsating core of molten magma.
Jieming first conducted a thorough examination of the lava giant before him, focusing particularly on its unique digestive system—a complex and highly efficient mechanism unlike that of any other elemental creature.
The lava giant's digestive system was truly remarkable.
Not only could it absorb elemental energy from lava, but it could also directly digest the flesh and blood essence of living organisms.
By doing so, lava giants could accelerate their maturation process, overcome bottlenecks in their development, and significantly increase their advancement speed!
This capability was extremely rare among pure elemental creatures.
Through in-depth research, Jieming discovered that the lava giant's peculiar digestive system possessed exceptional energy absorption, transformation efficiency, and adaptability.
He believed this could serve as a breakthrough point for improving the entire lava giant race, enhancing their potential and combat power!
Currently, the progress of this research was exceedingly promising, even exceeding his initial expectations!
At the current rate, Jieming estimated that he would achieve significant milestones within a short time!
(End of the Chapter)