Translator: AnubisTL
Viola had arrived in a whirlwind and departed just as swiftly, as if her visit had truly been for nothing more than a farewell and the introduction of Anker.
Jieming was long accustomed to this. When Mentor Clark had "entrusted" him to Viola all those years ago, the process had been just as brief, almost cursory. Among wizards—especially those who walked their own solitary paths—communication was often direct and focused on the core, with little room for superfluous pleasantries.
After seeing them off, Jieming's consciousness sank once more into the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, his entire being devoted to the final construction of the Incense Divine Path.
Time flew by in the midst of focused research and practice.
Another forty-odd winters and summers passed.
On this day, Jieming carefully inscribed the final composite rune array, which carried the core rule, onto a critical node of the planar energy network.
As the last stroke of the rune lit up, resonating perfectly with the vast network and merging into a single whole, he let out a long sigh of relief.
Suppressing his inner excitement, he quickly returned to the laboratory located at the core of the planar formation.
He activated the monitoring formation, and a comprehensive scan of the data instantly appeared.
On the surface of the plane, the scene remained the eternal, scorching Purgatory.
The sea of magma churned, and the black giant settlements migrated, showing no visible changes to the naked eye.
Yet, on the precision energy-perception instruments before Jieming's eyes, the energy flow lines representing the Incense Divine Path System lit up in a steady, orderly fashion, beginning to circulate as if infused with life!
Beyond this, on a more mystical level, Jieming could clearly sense the changes in the plane, relying on his Nascent Soul cultivator's unique perception of spiritual opportunity.
He clearly "saw" a brand-new circulation system, completely distinct from elemental energy, quietly spreading and permeating the entire Purgatory Sulfur Plane like a delicate neural network.
The Incense Divine Path was complete!
The very instant he confirmed the Divine Path's construction was finished, it felt as if some invisible barrier had been shattered.
In Jieming's mind, the countless fragments of knowledge he had drawn from the Great Dao Library Pavilion over the past millennium—concerning the essence of spiritual energy, the evolution of runes, the pivots of formations, and the condensation of faith—began to collide and combine at an unprecedented speed, like stars drawn together, fusing into a coherent whole!
With this sudden reorganization of knowledge, many previously obscure and difficult points now became crystal clear.
A natural, self-evident enlightenment surged in his heart.
By the time he emerged from that profound state of knowledge integration, a brief introspection revealed that the fluctuations of his mental power had clearly ascended to a new level.
His mental power had become more condensed and vast, and his interaction with the surrounding world's energy had grown sharper and more profound.
A third-tier wizard!
He had successfully advanced!
Moreover, Jieming could clearly sense that he was no ordinary third-tier wizard.
Independently designing and successfully constructing an Incense Divine Path System that covered an entire plane—even if it was only a preliminary framework—had pushed his understanding and application of the "Spiritual Qi" law to an astonishing depth.
He roughly estimated that his mastery of the Spiritual Qi Law had already exceeded 5%!
This meant that, in terms of law comprehension, he had even surpassed many fourth-tier wizards.
However, limited by the total mental power and qualitative level of a third-tier wizard, he could only stably wield the power corresponding to nearly 1% law mastery.
But this undoubtedly proved that Jieming's initial choice had been correct. Once he completely finished constructing the entire Incense Divine Path, his mastery of the spiritual energy rules would likely be close to 100%, even if it didn't quite reach it.
Amidst his joy, Jieming's gaze swept over the energy consumption monitoring array connected to the seventh-tier large elemental pool. The readings on it made him gasp in shock.
"No wonder... the texts in the Great Dao Library Pavilion emphasized that constructing the Incense Divine Path requires at least a star-level energy source for support..."
This energy consumption is simply too outrageous!
In all the past years, maintaining ten hatcheries running at full power, incubating nearly six hundred million Black Giants, conducting various alchemy experiments, and supporting his internal space and automated factories... all these combined had consumed less than one ten-thousandth of the seventh-tier large elemental pool's total output power.
And now, just to preliminarily construct the Incense Divine Path and maintain its basic operation, its energy consumption had directly soared to one-tenth of the elemental pool's total power!
Based on the blueprints, Jieming calculated that once the Incense Divine Path was fully completed and all functional modules were online and running stably, its energy consumption would likely occupy more than eight-tenths of the seventh-tier large elemental pool's output power!
"Fortunately... fortunately I gritted my teeth and chose the seventh-tier elemental pool back then..." Jieming felt a wave of lingering fear and relief.
If he had chosen the sixth-tier one to save military merits, he probably wouldn't even be able to start it up right now, and his entire grand plan would have been aborted due to insufficient energy.
This step of "extravagance" had been crucial.
Now, the main framework of the Incense Divine Path had been established and was running stably.
The next phase of work would be to add various specific functional modules to it.
For example, collecting and automatically refining Incense Power, perfecting the cross-spatial energy transmission protocol, and refining the guidance and feedback for the "social" attributes of the Black Giant Tribe.
These fell under the category of "fine-tuning" and could be taken slowly, without the need to race against time as before.
Calculating the time, there were only a dozen or so years left until his next mandatory military service.
Jieming felt it was time to temporarily shift his focus from planar construction to preparing for the upcoming planar battlefield.
He carefully sensed his own state.
Advancing to a third-tier wizard had not brought about a qualitative change akin to the kind of bone-marrow-cleansing transformation experienced during each major realm breakthrough in the cultivation system.
On the wizard's path, apart from the first two tiers being critical leaps in life form and mental power, subsequent advancements were more like a natural expansion and refinement of mental power after knowledge had accumulated to a certain level.
Unless one leaped across multiple tiers at once, the immediate boost in combat power would not be instantaneous. Instead, it was more of an increase in potential and the liberation of one's power ceiling.
"So, what should my main focus be for the next decade or so?" Jieming began to plan.
Knowledge was a wizard's true combat power.
Since his mastery of the Spiritual Qi Law far exceeded his current level, the knowledge of an ordinary third-tier wizard posed little challenge. The key was how to translate his comprehension of the law into actual combat strength.
He quickly clarified his thoughts: "The first priority is to research and create third-tier rune-imbued magical artifacts."
This was the most effective way to directly boost his immediate combat power. With his current understanding of the Spiritual Qi Law and elements, he was fully capable of designing third-tier rune-imbued magical artifacts with greater power and more bizarre functions, ensuring he had sufficient self-preservation and game-changing abilities on the battlefield.
"Next... perhaps I can start attempting to delve into spatial knowledge." This thought had been lingering in his mind for a long time.
Whether it was the spatial abilities of the mutant snake-spider, the further development of his internal space, or even the more advanced applications he might encounter in the future, spatial knowledge was crucial.
Although the difficulty was extremely high, Jieming had already been qualified to preliminarily observe and influence spatial power ever since he advanced to the Nascent Soul Realm. However, he had been procrastinating due to a lack of free time. Now, perhaps he could begin some basic exploration and experimentation.
With his goals clearly defined, Jieming wasted no more time.
His consciousness sank into the laboratory's database, and he began retrieving materials on elemental architecture, energy compression technology, and introductory spatial theory. After all, a decade or so was not a generous amount of time for research; he had to use it efficiently.
(End of the Chapter)
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