novelraw Chapter 455: Big Purchase
Chapter 455: Big Purchase
“Offense with ‘Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light,’ defense with ‘Return to Ruins Armor,’ reconnaissance with ‘Causal Trace Shadow Technique,’ mobility and concealment with ‘Great Void Step’…”
Jie Ming simulated within his consciousness: “With this, the basic framework of a spell-based combat system is now in place.”
“If this entire set can be fully constructed, judging from the destructive power of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light alone, it should be enough for me to face a sixth-ring wizard head-on. Combined with my spatial-technique combat system, I should be able to handle the vast majority of battlefield environments…”
The next step was to disassemble these three immortal cultivation spells one by one, just as he had done with Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.
Then reconstruct them using wizard runes and models, and design corresponding drive and encapsulation solutions…
This step was neither particularly difficult nor particularly simple.
After all, every one of these spells had been meticulously researched and constructed by Spirit Transformation cultivators, yet none of them were easy to learn.
Still, when it came to difficulty, the efficiency of raising combat power was always far quicker than the near-endless accumulation of knowledge.
“Let me see… which spell should I start with?”
After selecting the three spells as transformation targets, Jie Ming did not delay in the slightest. He immediately began the first step—mass purchasing of plane origin essences. There was no other way; this was mainly to better analyze Return to Ruins Armor.
According to the records in the Great Dao Book Pavilion, the reason this defensive spell possessed the miraculous effects of absorption, decomposition, and storage of energy attacks was not due to some complex energy structure or rune arrangement at its core. Rather, it was because the spell had fused the artistic conception of “Return to Ruins.”
In the ancient legends of the immortal cultivation world, Return to Ruins was the final destination of all things.
The ultimate resting place of all energy, matter, and even time and information.
An absolute “concept” that only accepted entry and never permitted exit, devouring everything.
By combining this conception of “finality” and “devouring” with specific mental methods and incantations, and imprinting it into the defensive spell, Return to Ruins Armor gained its theoretically unlimited potential to swallow energy attacks.
However, “artistic conception” was something profoundly mysterious.
It was neither a concrete law nor a measurable energy parameter. It was more like a “vague cognition” and “mental reflection” of some cosmic truth or ultimate phenomenon.
One could say that so-called “artistic conception” was actually one of the prerequisites for conceptual technology in the immortal cultivation world.
Return to Ruins Armor could in fact be considered a fusion of conceptual technology and spellcraft.
With Jie Ming’s current level of knowledge, while he was still unable to comprehend conceptual technology itself, rote memorization and direct application posed no problem.
But his most critical issue was his insufficient personal insight into the Return to Ruins conception. After all, he was still a spirited and ambitious genius wizard. Unless he encountered some specific experience, truly grasping such a conception would indeed be forcing the issue.
Fortunately, Jie Ming had “money” power.
The wizard world was vast and profound. It too had conducted deep research into concepts such as “termination,” “devouring,” “nihility,” “abyss,” and possessed corresponding law manifestations.
Although the systems differed and the expressions varied, certain intrinsic qualities could mutually corroborate one another.
“Rather than vainly trying to comprehend the elusive artistic conception of ‘Return to Ruins’ from thin air, it would be better to start with the already-existing, materialized knowledge of similar concepts in the wizard world.”
Because he did not wish to waste time, Jie Ming made a pragmatic choice.
Through his terminal, he placed massive orders with the Star Ring Federation’s official resource vault and several reputable large-scale cross-plane merchant associations.
The procurement targets were plane origin essences containing laws related to “devouring,” “absorption,” “annihilation,” “abyss,” “endless void,” “entropy terminal,” and similar concepts.
Strands of plane origin essence, each sealed within special force fields and displaying different colors and characteristics, arrived continuously at the Infernal Sulfur Plane like the most precious gems.
Some were pitch-black as ink, seemingly capable of absorbing all light; some were dull and turbid gray, exuding the aura of universal decay; others were deep, profound dark purple, with vortices slowly turning within…
Jie Ming’s method of studying the Return to Ruins conception was both simple and extravagant—he directly “consumed” these plane origin essences.
Through specific rituals and mental resonance, he guided out the “knowledge information flow” regarding the corresponding laws or concepts contained within each strand of plane origin essence.
This method was extremely efficient. After all, once one had enough knowledge, related concepts naturally emerged.
But the cost was also staggeringly high.
Each strand of plane origin essence was worth a fortune, and Jie Ming consumed several strands every day.
More critically, this “force-feeding” style of knowledge acquisition carried inherent flaws.
He merely “knew” the content of that knowledge, like memorizing a highly complex and profound textbook.
Information about the manifestation forms of those laws, rune configurations, interaction formulas with other laws, historical application cases… all of it was indeed imprinted into his memory bank.
But he had not truly “understood” the deep logic behind the knowledge, the thought processes of its creators, or the true essence of its operation.
He knew the what, but not the why.
Lacking the long years of personal study, verification, trial and error, and insight, this knowledge remained more like a “database” stored in his consciousness than “wisdom” integrated into his soul.
Moreover, in order to transform the spells and manufacture the various rare materials needed to craft new wizard implements, his daily expenditures flowed like water.
Even with the steady income brought by the “Self-Stabilizing Domain Regulation Protocol” and “Liquid Adamantine,” it gradually began to feel insufficient.
Fortunately, heaven never seals all paths.
As news of Wizard Starfall receiving a “Level-One Cultivation Protocol” gradually spread through the upper circles of wizard society,
although many details had been obscured, some wizards still noticed key points. The related “Phantasmal Elements” once again entered the field of vision of many powerful wizards.
While most could not gain the groundbreaking inspiration that Starfall had, they still hoped to find new possibilities or supplements for their own paths through studying this peculiar energy.
Thus, requests and orders to purchase “Phantasmal Elements” from Jie Ming quietly increased, and both the status of the buyers and the generosity of their offers far exceeded anything from before.
Jie Ming accepted all comers without refusal.
With the Incense Fire Divine Dao running stably in the Infernal Sulfur Plane, and the elemental Spiritual Qi conversion system—after several rounds of optimization—operating faster and faster, it now produced considerable quantities of high-purity Spiritual Qi every day.
This Spiritual Qi was refined, encapsulated into standard units, and safely traded through terminal network channels.
It brought Jie Ming wave after wave of extremely substantial, almost continuous income.
It was precisely thanks to this new stream of “side income” that Jie Ming could continue to sustain his research, extravagant as a gold-devouring beast, immersing himself daily in the knowledge impacts of various plane origin essences related to “termination” and “devouring.”