novelraw Chapter 622: Evolution and Advancement
Chapter 622: Evolution and Advancement
Chapter 622: Evolution and Advancement
Jie Ming withdrew his thoughts and took out an Entropy Brain from his bosom.
The fist-sized blue crystal had light particles flowing slowly inside, like a patch of frozen starry sky.
He first recalled the fate-type knowledge and Fate Subsystem knowledge he had studied over the past few decades, confirming that he had completely memorized everything. Then, under his control, his spiritual power probed into the Entropy Brain.
Blue light particles surged into his spiritual sea.
The knowledge he had just memorized but still did not fully understand was rapidly organized and archived under the power of the Entropy Brain.
Jie Ming closed his eyes, feeling those pieces of knowledge become orderly in his mind, like a tangled mess being smoothed out strand by strand.
Then, he sensed another change.
Something deep within his soul was being stirred.
Jie Ming immediately recognized that this was not the effect of the Entropy Brain. The Entropy Brain could only organize knowledge; it could not transform the soul. It was the Body Forging Art.
After more than a thousand years of cultivation, his Body Forging Art had reached an extremely terrifying level, and its self-adaptive evolution ability had become exceptionally strong. Every time Jie Ming had used an Entropy Brain in the past, the Body Forging Art had secretly recorded and attempted to imitate the sensation.
Decades ago, he had begun to feel that the Body Forging Art had already “memorized” that feeling.
Afterward, every time he used an Entropy Brain, the duration of that sensation of knowledge being organized and archived grew longer and longer.
Jie Ming was very clear that this meant his soul was evolving.
And today, his soul had finally undergone a critical change. A new trait was taking root and sprouting within his soul.
He could clearly feel that, at every moment, his soul was in a state similar to using an Entropy Brain.
Although it was not the complete effect and not as powerful as directly using an Entropy Brain, it operated almost without pause, constantly organizing.
Any newly learned knowledge or information that had not yet been digested would be automatically organized and archived the instant it entered his mind.
And as long as he continued to benefit from this state, over time this ability would keep evolving and growing stronger.
One day, the automatic organizing ability of Jie Ming’s soul would surpass the effect of using an Entropy Brain.
Opening his eyes, the corners of Jie Ming’s mouth curved upward slightly.
He looked down at his now-empty palm and began taking stock of his assets.
From now on, he would no longer need Entropy Brains and could trade them away for resources.
After so many years of use, he still had quite a few Entropy Brains left.
They varied in size and quality.
Jie Ming did a quick calculation. At current market prices, all the remaining Entropy Brains in his possession were worth approximately twenty-five billion high-level military merits.
Adding the fifty billion he had left after paying off the one-hundred-billion debt for the “Substitute Death Doll,” he now held assets equivalent to roughly three hundred billion high-level military merits.
Three hundred billion.
Leaning against the doorframe of the secluded chamber and gazing at the distant gray-red sky, Jie Ming could not help but smile.
This number even exceeded the liquid assets held by many veteran seventh-rank wizards.
After all, seventh-rank wizards earned a lot, but they also spent a lot.
Research required money, experiments required money, maintaining one’s own forces required money, and nurturing subordinates required money.
Not many seventh-rank wizards could save up three hundred billion high-level military merits.
And he was still only a fifth-rank wizard.
Of course, his situation was rather special.
The plane had essentially been a free reward. The black giant legion did not require him to pay salaries. The Incense Fire Divine Dao sustained itself and even provided returns in the opposite direction. No normal wizard who had advanced through regular means could possibly accumulate such wealth at his current rank.
However, Jie Ming was not in a hurry to spend the money.
Dao Integration was imminent, and there would be many more places where money would be needed later.
Jie Ming sank his consciousness into the Great Dao Book Pavilion. The ancient bookshelves lined up neatly before him.
His gaze swept across the familiar ancient texts and finally landed on the final volume of the 《Ultra True Body Sutra》.
There was a detailed list of pills—the auxiliary materials required to cultivate this technique from Void Refinement great completion to perfection.
Although the technique stated that these pills were not mandatory, without them the process of fusing the true body and dharma body would be extremely long and painful.
He read through the list item by item, his brows furrowing tighter and tighter.
“Heavenly Radiance Clear Water… none. Spirit Soothing Mist… none. Flowing Cloud Frost… none.” Jie Ming sighed and closed the ancient text.
Materials from the cultivation world were basically impossible to find in the wizard world.
But he had long grown accustomed to this.
If the original could not be found, find a substitute.
If a substitute could not be found, refine it himself.
If he could not refine it, use wizard methods to achieve the same effect.
Hadn’t he been doing exactly that all these years?
Because of this, Jie Ming’s current level of potionology was now no worse than his alchemy.
“Let’s take them one by one…”
Jie Ming exited the Great Dao Book Pavilion and turned toward the laboratory.
Inside the specially enlarged and reinforced secluded chamber, the air was thick with the strong scent of potions.
Jie Ming sat cross-legged on the stone platform in the center of the chamber. Dozens of empty crystal bottles were scattered around him.
These bottles had originally contained the potions he had spent ten months carefully formulating.
Every bottle had been meticulously improved, fusing the wizard world’s extraction techniques for medicinal properties with the pill formula theories of the cultivation world.
The final bottle of potion slid down his throat.
The warm liquid traveled down his esophagus, but the moment it touched his stomach it exploded, transforming into countless fine streams of energy that spread along his meridians toward every part of his body.
Jie Ming closed his eyes and felt the direction of this power. Using inner vision with his divine sense, he clearly “saw” that his three treasures of essence, qi, and spirit were undergoing a subtle change.
Under the combined effect of all the potions, they seemed to have been ignited by some invisible force.
As the three treasures slowly burned, they also underwent an irreversible sublimation.
The three powers of essence, qi, and spirit rose from his dantian, sea of consciousness, and every part of his body, transforming into three-colored flames that continuously poured into the dharma body seated deep within his consciousness.
The thousand-meter-tall dark golden dharma body automatically appeared behind Jie Ming.
The massive dharma body stood motionless. Both faces on its head—the front and the back—displayed an unprecedented solemnity.
The refined, daoist-style face had its eyes slightly closed, as if sensing something. The scholar-like, rational and calm face had its golden vertical brow pattern faintly glowing, as if calculating some extremely complex variable.
Circulating the final transformation mantra of the Ultra True Body Sutra, although this was his first time experiencing such a change, Jie Ming appeared exceptionally composed, even skilled.
The reason lay in the Light God Transformation technique he had developed back then.
Using Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light to construct a body, turning the physical form into information and energy, and ultimately forging reality from the void.
The combat-form technique he had spent centuries overcoming had underlying logic that was almost identical to the current advancement process. The only difference was that Light God Transformation was a temporary combat state, while what he was doing now was a permanent metamorphosis.
“Good thing I prepared thoroughly.”
A trace of satisfaction rose in Jie Ming’s heart. This path had been the foundation he had laid in advance precisely for today’s advancement.
The path of cultivation emphasized opportunities.
But some opportunities were actually roads one paved for oneself.
The three-colored flames burned brighter and brighter. The dark golden surface of the dharma body began to show a molten-like luster.
Jie Ming could feel that the dharma body, which had originally existed between illusion and reality, was undergoing an essential change.
It was transforming from “a condensation of energy” into “true flesh and blood.”
During this process, his original body instead began to become illusory.
Jie Ming lowered his head to look at his hands. The tips of his fingers were turning transparent, as if being gradually erased from the level of existence by some force.
He did not panic. He even had the leisure to carefully feel the process.
This was similar to the step of virtualizing the physical body during Light God Transformation, only in the completely opposite direction.
Light God Transformation virtualized the physical entity to enter an energy state.
Advancing to Void Refinement perfection, however, turned the void into reality, allowing the dharma body to become the true body.
As the final wisp of three-colored flame merged into the dharma body, Jie Ming felt a violent wave of dizziness.
His consciousness seemed to be pulled out of his original body, or as if he had undergone some kind of perspective shift.
In one moment he was still viewing the chamber from the human perspective of “Jie Ming.” In the next, he was the thousand-meter-tall dharma body, overlooking the tiny figure below that was gradually dissipating.
The original body turned into specks of starlight and vanished inside the chamber.
And the dharma body, in this moment, became the true body.
Jie Ming slowly opened his eyes. The way he perceived the world had undergone a fundamental change.
The first thing he noticed was naturally the change in vision. It was not merely the difference in height that altered his comparison and understanding of the surrounding environment. The two faces—front and back—were not for show.
The moment he opened his eyes, Jie Ming discovered that his field of vision was actually 360 degrees.
Not only did the fields of view from the two faces expand left and right simultaneously, but he could also clearly see the view above his head. The source of that upper field of view was the “eyes” on the foreheads of both faces—the patterns he had previously thought were merely decorative.
This phenomenon, which originated from the materialization of the Fate Subsystem, had become genuine eyes after turning into the true body.
In addition, his five senses had been amplified countless times, and his perception had become far more… essential.
What he “saw” was no longer images formed by light reflection, but the trajectories of energy flow.
The walls of the chamber no longer appeared as solid matter in his eyes, but as a barrier woven from countless particles of energy and matter. Beyond the barrier, the architectural complex of the Infernal Sulfur Plane looked like a massive energy vortex, with countless light points intersecting within it.
What he “heard” was no longer sound formed by air vibrations, but the vibrations of various waves.
Those sounds were extremely faint, like the murmurs of some ancient language, yet they carried an indescribable rhythm.
What he “smelled” was no longer chemical molecules in the air, but the auras of various energy attributes.
The stone beneath his feet emanated the heavy aura of earth elements. The air was filled with the lightness of wind elements, the restlessness of fire elements, the gentleness of water elements…
“So exaggerated. This is already close to the state of activating the All-Purpose Eye!”
Jie Ming took a deep breath.
More than half of the elemental energy in the chamber was sucked away by this single breath, creating a brief energy vacuum.
He felt these energies circulate and be digested within his body, ultimately becoming part of his own spiritual power.
This was Void Refinement perfection.
It was not merely an increase in power, but a leap in the level of existence.
He moved his fingers. The dark golden knuckles cut through the air, leaving faint spatial ripples.
The thousand-meter-tall body felt somewhat cramped inside this specially enlarged and reinforced chamber. The chamber had originally been expanded specifically for his dharma body form, yet at this moment he still felt the space was not spacious enough.