Chapter 150

Disconnecting the communication with Mentor Lei Ke, Jie Ming sat in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the table.

The matter of the Tier 7 elemental pool could not be settled for the time being, but this did not mean he had to stagnate.

"The problem of the elemental pool can be thought about slowly," Jie Ming pondered, "but the development of the Purgatory Sulfur plane cannot be delayed."

He opened the Magic Network terminal again and entered the internal employment platform of Plane Nuolun workshop.

Since large-scale equipment required time, the preliminary manpower preparation could be started immediately.

He needed a sufficiently efficient construction and exploration team to survey the mineral vein distribution in more detail, establish a preliminary base, install some necessary protective facilities, and prepare for future large-scale development and transformation.

Through the channels of Plane Nuolun workshop, Jie Ming found a logistics team composed of dozens of low-tier wizards.

Most of these were low-tier wizards who had just finished their military service not long ago and lacked resources for promotion, or those who had been injured on the battlefield and needed to recuperate.

Because the number of planes needing transformation was extremely large, professional teams like this were generally experienced and numerous.

More importantly, with the workshop acting as a middleman to help sign contracts, the credibility of these people was also very high.

Jie Ming had a brief contact with the person in charge of this construction squad.

Both sides formulated a detailed plan, including how to conduct basic geological exploration, install various permanent magic arrays, and collect mineral samples for analysis during the construction process, among other things.

Because it was only preliminary basic construction work, Jie Ming hadn't taken it to heart, but reality gave him a blow to the head.

Even if it was just constructing a small part of the plane, he encountered the point problem again.

This low-tier wizard team was indeed professional enough, equipped with all kinds of necessary protective gear, basic alchemy equipment, short-distance transportation tools, and the supplies needed to maintain their survival on the Purgatory Sulfur plane.

But undoubtedly, the cost of these things also had to be counted on Jie Ming.

And constructing a plane, even if it was only a small part of the plane, required a considerable amount of materials.

Although the Purgatory Sulfur plane contained a large amount of metal materials that could replace some ordinary building materials and fuel.

But those wizard-specific materials that had undergone special processing, as well as the components of various precision magic arrays, all needed to be purchased from the workshop, and the quantity was extremely exaggerated.

Even if the Purgatory Sulfur plane could be self-sufficient for a part, the remaining purchase quota was still not to be underestimated.

What's more, the cost of hiring these wizards was not low either.

Although they were low-tier wizards, their time and labor were clearly priced in the workshop.

The high labor costs plus the material costs required for constructing permanent magic arrays and various basic buildings meant the total points required were quite substantial.

Jie Ming checked his remaining points and awkwardly discovered that, after so many years of consumption, the remaining points could only pay for the initial deposit.

"It seems that these points are the biggest obstacle in front of a wizard," Jie Ming sighed helplessly.

He was now like a rich man sitting on a mountain of gold, only to find that he didn't have enough cash on hand to hire a mining team.

"Money really flows like water; in the blink of an eye, I'm a pauper again," Jie Ming muttered softly.

However, Jie Ming didn't care about this; in fact, he even felt very happy.

The strength of a wizard is always built on massive resources, and every one of these resources requires points to exchange.

The stronger the strength, the stronger the money-making ability, but at the same time, the stronger the money-spending ability.

During his time as a wizard apprentice, Jie Ming's money-spending ability was still average, but once he reached the wizard level, his money-spending ability became increasingly exaggerated.

All the points spent would eventually be converted into his own strength; the more he spent, the stronger his strength would be.

Without the slightest hesitation, Jie Ming directly used his remaining points as a deposit to hire the engineering squad composed of dozens of wizards and planned a preliminary development scheme for the Purgatory Sulfur plane for them.

This included establishing a temporary base in a relatively stable area, deploying high-temperature protective magic arrays, and starting basic mining of some exposed low-grade metal ores.

Looking at the empty point balance, Jie Ming began to ponder ways to make money.

After so many years of accumulation, Jie Ming actually had quite a few technologies that could make money, but there were really not many that could make big money.

"Whether a thing can make money depends on two aspects: one is the demand, and the other is the ratio of its own value to cost."

For example, refined gold, which Jie Ming had relied on for a living before this, because its properties were extremely specialized, although it was rated as a Tier 5 material,

it had the erosion resistance of a Tier 6 material.

Therefore, the sales of refined gold had always been good.

After all, being able to purchase a material with Tier 6 properties at the price of a Tier 5 material, no matter how specialized its own attributes were, was the priority choice for the vast majority of Tier 5 wizards.

Even after the Shadow plane was conquered later, many wizards still had a soft spot for this material.

And the cost was extremely low, so it had supported Jie Ming until now.

If an ordinary wizard had this technology patent, even eating until Tier 5 wizard would be no problem.

But for Jie Ming now, the speed of making money from refined gold was still too slow!

"The situation of refined gold itself is here; it cannot be produced using an industrialized production line at all, so the manufacturing of each portion requires extra time and energy from me," Jie Ming thought with his eyes closed.

In fact, it was not just refined gold; other materials and finished products related to the Cultivation World required Jie Ming's effort because spiritual energy had to participate in the manufacturing process.

And with the development level of the wizarding civilization, the production of many raw materials could be completely automated once there was detailed technology.

This could also be considered Jie Ming's only disadvantage.

"So selling new raw materials is meaningless; it is more appropriate to sell finished products with higher 'profit margins'."

As long as the technology is high enough, there is an unimaginable chasm in the profit margin between raw materials and finished products.

Various things manufactured over these years flashed through his mind one by one, and soon Jie Ming selected two targets: "First is the aptitude-enhancing magic potion made with Eastern Purple Qi—"

After thinking for a while, Jie Ming shook his head with regret and gave it up.

The effect of this aptitude-enhancing magic potion was indeed sufficient, and selling it at a high price would indeed have sales, but the disadvantage lay in the limitation of raw materials.

Although there was no cost when extracting Eastern Purple Qi, only one wisp could be extracted per day, which made the benefits that could be obtained from the aptitude-enhancing magic potion quite limited.

"Then the second type—"

Thinking of this, Jie Ming took out a tube of magic potion emitting brilliant colors from his internal space.

This was a magic potion refined from normal Red Dust Qi; if the effect was the same as he estimated, then Jie Ming had found a new source of income.

"Unfortunately, the specific medicinal effect cannot be tested for the time being; I can only wait until next month. Fortunately, the matter of the elemental pool cannot be rushed, and there is still quite a lot of time."

"Sigh—why can't I control my own hands?!" Jie Ming couldn't help but pat his own wrist.

Other things were fine to talk about, but the price of a Tier 7 large-scale elemental pool was even close to the value of the Purgatory Sulfur plane itself.

Mentor Lei Ke's dissuasion at the time was not without reason; simply as an energy source for a wizard tower, a Tier 5 large-scale elemental pool was enough, and Tier 6 was already considered exceeding the standard.

But—that was as a "wizard tower".

What Jie Ming wanted to manufacture was not just a "wizard tower".

If it were just an ordinary plane, Jie Ming wouldn't be so impulsive.

But the Purgatory Sulfur plane itself was a subordinate plane of the Aeluoxia plane cluster, which meant—the Purgatory Sulfur plane also had a natural divine power belief network.

Although incomplete, for the idea that emerged in Jie Ming's mind at the time, being incomplete was actually an advantage.

"Forget it, forget it; if a person has no dreams, what is the difference from a salted fish."

After thinking about it, Jie Ming decided to temporarily put down the research in his hands and first refine refined gold to scrape together the initial funds for the "construction team".

So for the next whole month, Jie Ming completely sealed himself in the underground laboratory of the Golden Garden, burying his head and immersing himself in the work of manufacturing refined gold and earning points.

This was not the research he loved; in Jie Ming's view, this was just a kind of boring and repetitive physical labor.

Unfortunately, with the contract pressing there, Jie Ming felt it was better to be safe.

Every time he finished refining a piece of refined gold, Jie Ming sold it through the workshop's recycling channel, watching the point numbers on the Magic Network terminal jump slowly and steadily.

Time passed quickly in the roar of the furnace fire, and Jie Ming almost forgot the concept of time.

It wasn't until the alarm set on his Magic Network terminal made a crisp sound that he was awakened from this near-mechanized work.

"A month has passed—" Jie Ming put down the refined gold ingot in his hand and rubbed his slightly sore eyebrows.

He stretched and felt the depths of his heart.

The fatigue left over from the last time he was immersed in Red Dust Qi had completely dissipated, replaced by an unprecedented clarity and vitality.

Full of spirit, soul pure.

Jie Ming knew it was time.

It was time to test the effect of the potion refined from Red Dust Qi and Hundred Flower Dew.

This bottle of potion carried his greatest expectations and might become the key to solving his current predicament.

He carefully took out the potion emitting a seven-colored halo from his storage space.

Before this, various toxicology tests regarding this potion had been completed, and the rest was personal experience.

Jie Ming took a deep breath and then drank the potion without hesitation.

The potion entered his mouth, not with the violent impact of the time he directly immersed his soul before.

It carried the unique fragrance and warmth of Hundred Flower Dew, sliding down his throat like sweet spring water, and then quickly permeated into the depths of his soul.

After drinking this potion, he could still clearly feel various complex emotional flows.

Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, love, hate, resentment, life, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, joy, separation, reunion—they still flashed through his spiritual world like slides in an extremely realistic way, letting him personally experience the various lives of all living beings.

But Jie Ming still immediately felt the difference!

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