Cultivating in the Wizard World

Chapter 679: Chapter 578: Harvest

The glow of the Teleportation Array gradually faded away.

Jeming opened his eyes and saw a familiar scene before him.

The eternally gray-red sky of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, the thick smoke erupting from distant volcanic craters, and the pervasive scent of sulfur in the air.

"I’m back."

He took a deep breath, and a smile unconsciously crept onto his lips.

It had been over a decade.

Although a decade is nothing for a wizard’s lifespan, the gains from this trip were equivalent to hundreds of years of usual returns.

As Jeming walked out of the Teleportation Array, a Black Giant Priest immediately approached him.

"My lord, you have returned."

Jeming nodded and walked forward, asking, "How have things been these years?"

The Black Giant Priest followed behind him, quickly reporting, "The Incense Fire Divine Dao is operating smoothly, with a roughly three percent increase in the number of followers. The Seventh Level Large Elemental Pool is stable, with no abnormalities. The automated factory is running normally, and has stocked enough materials as per your orders..."

Listening to the report, Jeming felt assured.

The Purgatory Sulfur Plane was his foundation, and as long as everything was stable here, there would be a fallback for everything else outside.

He spent three days dealing with all the backlog of matters.

The operational data for the Incense Fire Divine Dao, maintenance records for the Elemental Pool, production reports from the automated factory...

Item by item, he reviewed and signed off on everything.

After three days, Jeming finally had time to sit down and take stock of his gains from this trip.

He sat in the center of his laboratory, with rows of light blue crystals arrayed before him.

Entropy Brain.

A total of five hundred and twenty-three pieces, in various sizes.

Jeming looked at these crystals and couldn’t help but smile.

During his time in the Information Plane, he had gained considerable Military Merits, but upon leaving, he didn’t take any of them with him; instead, he exchanged all of it for Entropy Brains.

Even the High Level Military Merits promised by Martin were completely converted into Entropy Brains by him.

As it turned out, Jeming’s choice was correct.

As the Information Plane was conquered, more and more wizards returned from it.

Messages related to Entropy Brains spread increasingly widely, and the price of Entropy Brains skyrocketed.

By the time he left, a single Entropy Brain had been speculated to be worth between two hundred thousand and five hundred thousand High Level Military Merits, depending on its size.

"More than five hundred pieces..."

Jeming murmured, his eyes flashing with satisfaction.

At current market value, these Entropy Brains were worth at least over a billion High Level Military Merits.

However, whether to continue holding onto them to wait for appreciation or using them to enhance himself, their value surpassed that of mere High Level Military Merits.

But for Jeming, the Entropy Brains were just the most trivial part of his gains this time.

He closed his eyes, organizing the vast amounts of knowledge he had acquired in the Information Plane.

The most significant knowledge was the enlightenment gained at the edge of life and death, under the oppression of the highest consensus algorithm in the Data Space.

Over the past decade, he had repeatedly understood the operation of the entropy reduction cycle by helping others lift the silence again and again.

These accumulated experiences finally converged to...

...his understanding of the "mobilization of external forces" within the Cultivation Immortality System, reaching a whole new level.

Jeming opened his eyes and raised a finger forward.

Without chanting spells or sealing, the surrounding elements instantly went into chaos.

Vast amounts of Fire Element, Wind Element, Water Element, and Earth Element surged from all directions, condensing into a dazzling Energy Ball at his fingertips.

The power of that Energy Ball was enough to rival Fifth Level Sorcery.

And the amount of Spiritual Power Jeming consumed was negligible.

"If I were to convert my current capability of mobilizing external forces into the Cultivation Immortality System, I fear I would have reached the Void Refinement Realm..."

He murmured.

In the Cultivation Immortality System, after Divinity Transformation comes Void Refinement.

But now, through the tempering in the Information Plane, his pure mastery over the Power of Heaven and Earth had reached the standard of a Void Refinement Cultivator.

What did this signify?

It meant he could now manufacture Tier Four Talisman Witchcraft!

The Talisman Witchcraft was an important early invention of Jeming, integrating the Cultivation Immortality Talisman technology with the Wizard Rune system, allowing magical energy to be drawn from the environment using only a trace of Spiritual Power to cast Witchcraft.

However, due to technical limitations, he had only been able to create Talisman Witchcraft below the Third Level previously.

Now, although his knowledge level was still far from a normal Fifth Level Wizard, his ability to mobilize the Power of Heaven and Earth had reached the Void Refinement level, finally breaking this bottleneck.

With a thought, Jeming retrieved a semi-finished Talisman Witchcraft from his Grotto Heaven.

It was a palm-sized Metal Disc, its surface covered with dense Runes.

Jeming slightly focused, slowly injecting his Spiritual Power.

The Metal Disc lit up.

Those Runes lit up one after another, as surrounding elements began to gather around it.

Within seconds, the Metal Disc finished recharging, quietly floating in the air, ready to release an attack at any moment.

This was a Tier Four Talisman Witchcraft, a product Jeming had created as an experiment to verify his capabilities.

The Witchcraft released surpassed conventional Fifth Level Sorcery in power, and although it couldn’t match Sixth Level Sorcery, it had the advantage of being able to be released continuously.

Jeming withdrew his Spiritual Power, the smile on his lips growing wider.

But this was still not the greatest harvest.

He stood up and took a deep breath.

Then, his body began to change.

A gray-white flame surged from within him, engulfing him entirely in an instant.

His form twisted, dissolved, and restructured, finally transforming into a figure of blazing gray-white flames.

Light Divinity Transformation·Annihilation Form.

The temperature in the laboratory did not change much, but the metal floor beneath Jeming’s feet immediately began to "disappear" as he stood.

Jeming glanced down and quickly dispelled the form.

The gray-white flames dissipated, and he returned to his human form.

A clearly defined footprint-shaped depression was left on the floor, with edges as smooth as a mirror, as if a piece had been wiped away out of thin air.

"Phew..."

Jeming took a breath, sweat beading on his forehead.

This move was still too strenuous for him to execute.

But the key was that he had mastered it... the Ashen Fire!

Although it was just an inconsequential fragment.

Yet it was still Eighth Level Wizard "Heart of Ashes" Martin’s core principle, the result of thousands of years of research.

Under normal circumstances, let alone learning it, even gaining the qualification to glimpse at it was impossible.

Even spending hundreds of billions of High Level Military Merits couldn’t buy this level of knowledge.

But due to his unique experiences in the Information Plane, Jeming obtained the data model of Martin’s control over the Ashen Fire, personally experienced the feeling of being oppressed by entropy reduction, and further engaged with the entropy reduction cycle over the following decade.

He finally managed to painstakingly chew through this knowledge.

Although for now, he could only rigidly utilize this power in the "Annihilation Form," far from Martin’s effortless mastery, it was already extraordinary.

Bear in mind, this was core knowledge belonging to an Eighth Level Wizard.

Jeming sat back in his chair, beginning to calmly assess the practical value of this move.

Firstly, the spell casting prelude was too long.

Since it contained an abundance of high-level knowledge far exceeding his current level, even with the assistance of the Fate System, it took him at least ten seconds to initiate the Annihilation Form.

Ten seconds.

In a real battle, ten seconds is enough for an enemy to kill him thousands of times.

Secondly, the duration was too short.

With his current Spiritual Power and the Fate System’s capacity, he could maintain it for at most three to five seconds.

Beyond that time, he would collapse before even needing the enemy to take action.

Thus, from a practical combat perspective, this move was largely unusable.

But...

What if he found an opportunity to use it?

Jeming squinted, a figure popping into his mind.

The "Illusion" Wizard.

That was the opponent he previously encountered in the Wizard War, an incredibly elite Sixth Level Wizard.

Back then, he struggled immensely, only barely defeating the opponent with Light Divinity Transformation.

If, back then, he had mastered the Annihilation Form...

Jeming mentally simulated that scenario.

The "Illusion" Wizard would have been instantly killed unless they immediately fled as he activated the Annihilation Form.

This was the value of the Annihilation Form.

The absolute ultimate trump card.

Once deployed, it could change the course of the battle.

Jeming took a deep breath, suppressing the excitement in his heart, and began calculating his subsequent plans.