novelraw Chapter 537: Post-War Accounting
Chapter 537: Post-War Accounting
Chapter 537: Post-War Accounting
The war was over.
Jie Ming stood at the edge of a temporarily constructed giant teleportation array and turned back to look at the land behind him, which had been completely transformed beyond recognition.
The original gray-white wasteland no longer existed.
In its place were countless deep ravines, black rock layers formed from solidified lava, and bizarre crystalline landscapes created by repeated scouring from energy aftershocks.
In the sky, the four “suns” had already disappeared, leaving only a few slowly healing spatial fissures—like permanent scars on this plane’s body.
The war that had lasted for several months had ended just like that.
Both sides had committed over three million troops. Including the cannon fodder constructs and biological weapons, the number of living beings that had died could probably be counted in the tens of billions.
And all of this—the beginning and the end—had hinged on nothing more than…
A single sentence from an eighth-ring wizard.
Jie Ming remained silent, a complex emotion surging in his heart that was difficult to put into words.
He had long witnessed the importance of power on other battlefields.
Without power, one could not take even a single step in this extraordinary world.
But only at this moment, after personally experiencing such a massive war and witnessing countless lives perish simply because of the will of a few at the very top, did he truly gain a new understanding of the words “power.”
Power was indeed important.
Important enough to decide the fate of billions of living beings.
“Time to go. What are you staring at?”
Viola’s voice came from behind.
She was already standing in the center of the teleportation array. Her silver-gray eyes looked at Jie Ming. For once, there was no teasing in her tone—she simply waited quietly.
Jie Ming withdrew his gaze and suddenly felt a bit of self-mockery in his heart.
In truth, he had experienced wars in other civilizations that were even more brutal than this, yet this time he felt an inexplicable sense of emotion.
“Is it because… this was a war among wizards? So I’ve subconsciously stopped regarding beings from other civilizations as intelligent life.” After reaching this conclusion, Jie Ming’s heart felt unexpectedly calm. “So now I’ve become… a wizard civilization supremacist? It seems that without realizing it, I’ve already become a qualified wizard.”
He nodded at Viola and stepped into the teleportation array.
Clark was already waiting inside the array.
His expression remained indifferent, showing no emotional fluctuation, as if the person who had single-handedly become the core of the plane and reversed the entire battle situation had not been him.
The light of the teleportation array slowly brightened.
Jie Ming took one last look at this battlefield—this land that had witnessed countless slaughters, countless sacrifices, and countless partings by life and death.
Then, the light swallowed his vision.
When everything became clear again, they were already standing inside a safe plane belonging to the Noren Workshop.
Behind them, the abandoned plane that had served as the battlefield began to slowly collapse after losing all supporting power.
The more than a dozen plane fragments that had been forcibly spliced together finally returned to their destined fate: falling apart and turning into dust within the endless chaotic void.
No one turned back to look.
Because everyone knew it was nothing more than a used battlefield.
Infernal Sulfur Plane.
The familiar dark-red sky, the familiar scent of sulfur, the familiar hellish volcanoes and rivers of lava.
Jie Ming stood at the top of the laboratory in the plane’s core region, overlooking the territory that belonged to him, and his mind finally relaxed.
“Master.”
A deep voice came from behind.
Jie Ming turned around and saw a massive figure slowly descending from the sky.
It was Molten Mountain, one of the two great leaders of the Black Giant Legion.
But now, only he remained.
“Have the accounting results come out?” Jie Ming asked.
Molten Mountain nodded and handed Jie Ming a recording crystal.
His movements were steadier and carried more weight than before.
Because the current Molten Mountain was no longer at the sixth ring.
After surviving that brutal battle, the Black Giant leader Molten Mountain had finally broken through his racial limit and reached the seventh ring as a biological entity.
Jie Ming accepted the crystal and sent his spiritual power into it. Rows of data surfaced in his mind.
Then, his brows furrowed tightly.
When he had set out, he had taken one million fifth-ring Black Giant warriors and eight hundred sixth-ring Black Giant priests.
There were also over ten thousand ordinary sixth-ring Black Giants serving as the backbone force.
Upon returning…
All the Black Giants combined numbered just over ten thousand.
According to the information in the crystal, every one of the surviving ten thousand-plus Black Giants had reached the level of sixth-ring biological entities—and not at the entry level. Through their frenzied devouring of enemy life on the previous battlefield, these surviving veterans had all reached the level of seasoned sixth-ring biological entities.
Unfortunately, one of the Black Giant leaders, Rock Hammer, had died on the battlefield.
Although they were only cannon fodder creatures, Rock Hammer had been his first creation, and after spending so many years together, it would be false to say there were no feelings involved.
After a moment of silence, he put the crystal away.
“Assign these warriors who survived the battlefield to the various Black Giant tribes and have them teach the new generation of Black Giants the skills of combat and survival on the battlefield,” Jie Ming said.
Molten Mountain bowed slightly and said nothing more.
Jie Ming took a deep breath and examined the Molten Mountain before him—this Black Giant leader who had just advanced to the seventh ring now looked completely different from before.
Molten Mountain followed the conventional path of elemental domination. With his advancement, his body size had grown rapidly.
After reaching the seventh ring, his height exceeded ten thousand meters—dozens of times larger than before.
His proportions were abnormally robust. Every muscle bulged like a mountain, and the black liquid-metal layer on his skin had become even thicker, gleaming with a deep luster.
Simply standing there, he gave off an exaggerated sense of oppression—the natural pressure belonging to a seventh-ring biological entity.
“How does it feel?” Jie Ming asked.
Molten Mountain looked down at his own hands, remained silent for a moment, then slowly spoke:
“Very strong.”
He paused, as if organizing his words:
“But I’m still not used to it. The power increased too quickly, and it’s a bit difficult to control.”
Jie Ming nodded.
“Take it slow,” Jie Ming said. “For now, focus on stabilizing your realm and don’t rush into battle. Once I have time, I’ll thoroughly study your current physical condition.”
He paused, a thoughtful light flashing in his eyes:
“If I can fully understand your breakthrough path, I might be able to further improve the Black Giant species and raise the entire race’s upper limit.”
Molten Mountain nodded slightly to show he understood.
Jie Ming looked at him once more and secretly sighed in his heart.
Studying Molten Mountain sounded easy, but it would be difficult to do.
Although his current physical body and spiritual power strength had both reached sixth-ring standards, his accumulation of knowledge was still far from sufficient.
After Molten Mountain advanced to the seventh ring, every tissue structure, every energy circuit, and every law imprint in his body had already surpassed Jie Ming’s current level of knowledge.
To study it, he would first need to learn.
“You should go rest first,” Jie Ming waved his hand. “I’ll call you if there’s anything.”
Molten Mountain bowed once more. His massive figure slowly rose and flew toward the volcanic cluster deep within the plane.
Jie Ming watched him leave, then turned and walked back into the laboratory.
Once inside the lab, he performed another comprehensive self-examination.
The results were satisfying.
His physical body strength, after undergoing疯狂 evolution through body-forging methods during battle, had completely surpassed the scope of ordinary fifth-ring wizards and firmly reached sixth-ring standards.
Whether in strength, speed, or recovery ability, he was now comparable to ordinary sixth-ring wizards.
His spiritual power strength had also surged dramatically after soul reconstruction and now stood firmly at the threshold of the sixth ring.
Although there was still a slight gap from a true sixth-ring wizard, it was already enough to support him in casting various high-difficulty spells.
Under the combined pull of body and spirit, Jie Ming’s spiritual energy cultivation was also growing at a shocking speed.
At the current rate, it would probably take less than a year for it to catch up and match the level of his body and spiritual power.
In the following days, Jie Ming shut himself inside the laboratory.
He had too many things to do.
First was the improvement of Light God Transformation.
In this battle, Light God Transformation had displayed astonishing power, allowing him to suppress a sixth-ring Imaginary wizard head-on while still at the fifth ring.
But it had also exposed a fatal flaw: the activation was too slow.
That one second of preparation time was enough to kill him ten times over on a battlefield where situations changed in an instant.
If Augusta had not arrived in time and fought desperately to buy him that one second, he would not have had the chance to complete Light God Transformation and could only have resisted Imaginary’s pursuit in his normal state.
“It must be compressed,” Jie Ming wrote in his experiment log. “Ideally, it should be instant release.”
He began to reorganize every step of Light God Transformation, looking for areas that could be optimized.
The informational conversion of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror could not be shortened.
That was an inherent characteristic of the treasure. It could only be adapted to, not changed.
“Unless… I advance this treasure to the third revolution.”
Jie Ming stroked his chin in thought, then rejected the idea.
Although the first two revolutions of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror had been completed relatively easily in the earlier stages, the difficulty of re-refining a treasure increased sharply the further one progressed, and the consumption of various resources became extremely exaggerated.
To advance the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror to the third revolution would require resources unique to the immortal cultivation world. He was currently powerless to obtain them and could only look for alternatives later.
As for the rest…
The charging of Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light could be compressed through pre-charging.
The stable maintenance of Return to Ruins Armor could be further simplified.
The information manipulation of the Causal Trace Shadow Technique could be accelerated through pre-programming.
The energy resonance of the Great Void Step could be synchronized with the informational process.
Jie Ming thought while mentally simulating various solutions.
Besides Light God Transformation, he also needed to review the problems exposed in his entire combat system during this war.
Idea after idea was recorded in the experiment log.
But soon, he helplessly stopped.
“No good…”
Jie Ming leaned back in his chair with a helpless expression. “My current level of knowledge is too poor. I can’t come up with any good solutions at all!”
There were quite a few problems that needed to be addressed, but relying on his existing knowledge reserves, he simply could not think of any truly effective methods.
Jie Ming stood in the center of the laboratory, looking at the mountains of classics and research materials piled around him, and fell into deep thought.
After a long time, he let out a long breath.
He stood up, deleted all the various ideas he had previously recorded on the light screen one by one, and instead wrote two large words:
Study.
“For a very long time to come…” he muttered to himself, “I will have to devote myself to absorbing knowledge.”
At the very least, he needed to reach the level of an ordinary fifth-ring wizard.
At the very least, he needed enough knowledge reserves to study the changes in Molten Mountain’s body.