Chapter 171: Logistics Department Work (Part 2)

Gao Jie Ming only had to recall for a moment to tally the number of logistics wizards on this expedition: over two hundred and seventy.

Compared to the total number of wizards, which exceeded thirty thousand, the proportion of logistics wizards was less than 1%!

"The number of logistics personnel... is actually this low?!" Gao Jie Ming couldn't help but exclaim, then realized something, his expression turning somewhat grim. "Doesn't that mean..."

Sister Wei Ao nodded in agreement, finishing his sentence for him: "There is plenty of work waiting for you later, so cherish the current 'ease' while you can! I advise you to apply for a few more vials of stamina potion..."

Watching Sister Wei Ao walk away gracefully, the corner of Gao Jie Ming's mouth twitched uncontrollably: "Is this... actually considered 'ease'?!!"

If he remembered correctly... he hadn't closed his eyes for the past few days, had he?

If this counted as "ease," what would "busy" even look like?!

Wait!

If that's the case...

I clearly came here for an expedition, so why have I unknowingly become a beast of burden again?!

Is being a beast of burden the final destination for logistics wizards?!!

Setting aside the shaken Gao Jie Ming, as time passed, the logistics wizards discovered more and more things.

It could be said that in just a few days, they had already identified over a hundred types of rare resources!

This fully confirmed the intelligence released by Master Aierwen—this plane was indeed a massive treasure trove!

Even some energy crystals that could be used as universal energy in the Wizarding World—such as pure elemental crystal cores and mana crystals—were practically everywhere in this Flame-Frost Plane!

Almost every deep lava vein or bottom of a cold spring contained a large cluster of unmined primitive crystals, with astonishing energy density that made every wizard who mined them light up with excitement.

However, besides researching these precious and unique resources, the most important task for logistics wizards at this stage was to analyze intelligence on local creatures and elements.

This was to provide support for the frontline combat wizards and to provide a basis for high-tier wizards to formulate long-term strategic layouts.

Because manpower was truly insufficient, even a wizard like Gao Jie Ming, who was at a lower stage and specialized in alchemy and rune studies, was still assigned a task that seemed simple but was actually important—analyzing the biological intelligence of Lava Giants.

He needed to conduct detailed dissection, analysis, and research on captured Lava Giants.

He had to understand their weaknesses, physiological structure, elemental affinity, and even their social habits.

"Send it in," Gao Jie Ming said through the internal communication rune.

Soon, an escort team composed of alchemy dolls and some low-tier wizards transported a Lava Giant, which had been restrained by a magic array and was already in a coma, into the temporary laboratory where Gao Jie Ming was located.

Even in its comatose state, this Lava Giant radiated a suffocating heatwave.

It stood seven or eight meters tall, with broad shoulders like two small hills.

Its body structure was composed of twisted, solidified crimson rock, covered in irregular edges and cracks, as if it were a demon that had walked straight out of a volcano.

Tiny streams of lava constantly surged slowly on its body surface, winding like blood vessels through the cracks in its rock skin, emitting a faint smell of sulfur and scorched matter.

Its limbs were as thick as giant pillars, with only three fingers and toes each, but the tips were thick and featured black nails, like incredibly sharp iron shovels.

Its eyes were pure energy bodies, like two embers still burning; even though they were closed, they emitted a faint red light.

Faint steam escaped from its nose and mouth, proving that its internal temperature remained high.

Despite being captured and suppressed, every breath it took made the surrounding air hot and dry.

Gao Jie Ming put on specially made rune gloves, and the light of his "All-Purpose Eye" suddenly flared in his eyes.

He was going to dig out all the hidden secrets from the body of this Lava Giant.

As he activated the "All-Purpose Eye," his eyes no longer focused on the visible material surface.

The world underwent a earth-shattering change in his field of vision.

The soft flame light of the Blazing Grass, the energy fluctuations inside the Ice-Burst Crystal, and the microscopic movements of every tissue in the Lava Giant's body before him were all revealed in minute detail.

"Start analysis," Gao Jie Ming opened the recorder beside him and whispered to himself.

While activating the All-Purpose Eye, Gao Jie Ming also activated alchemy; his spiritual power, like a tide, accompanied the insight of the "All-Purpose Eye" and began to permeate the Lava Giant's body in every possible way.

First was the external tissue; while the surface appeared to be hard rock blocks, through the microscopic perspective of the "All-Purpose Eye," Gao Jie Ming was shocked to find that they were not simple mineral deposits, but an alternative, highly active skin and body tissue!

These "rock skins" were composed of an extremely dense and elastic mineral crystal; even under microscope-level vision, one could see tiny energy veins flickering inside them.

When these crystal structures suffered external impact, they would partially disintegrate and then rapidly draw energy from within to refill, forming a self-repair capability that could be called terrifying.

Even more astonishing was that even the lava that appeared to flow on the body surface was a form of their skin!

It was not a simple external secretion, but the external manifestation of the living plasma blood inside the Lava Giant's body.

These plasma liquids were rich in fire elements, responsible not only for transporting energy throughout the body but also for exchanging heat with the external environment to maintain the stable burning of its core furnace.

In a normal state, this layer of living lava thinly covered the "rock skin," giving the Lava Giant its signature crimson luster and terrifying high temperature.

After recording this intelligence via dictation for the recorder, Gao Jie Ming turned his gaze to the Lava Giant's overall physical fitness.

"It's fortunate that I'm also proficient in rune studies, otherwise I really wouldn't be able to calculate this thing."

Muttering to himself, Gao Jie Ming performed calculations based on the energy fluctuations within the Lava Giant's body and the operating efficiency of its energy system.

He discovered that even though this living specimen appeared to be just an ordinary adult soldier, the "All-Purpose Eye's" assessment of its energy density, power matrix, and internal elemental circulation state showed that it possessed a physique far surpassing ordinary creatures.

It was no exaggeration to say that even the most ordinary Lava Giant, as long as it was an adult, could easily reach the Tier 1 level in physical fitness and energy level.

And if it were an elite individual similar to those that fought the wizard cannon fodder earlier, each one could even reach the Tier 2 level.

He continued to deepen his exploration of the Lava Giant's interior, searching for the secrets of its sensory and physiological systems.

The Lava Giant's visual system was completely different from that of humans.

Their eyes were not composed of lenses and retinas, but were two "Lava Cores" emitting scarlet light.

Through the insight of the "All-Purpose Eye," Gao Jie Ming discovered that they were organs extremely sensitive to elemental energy and heat fluctuations.

They could directly "see" the trajectories of heat currents in the air, the frequency of lava pulsations, and even perceive the weak energy radiation of elemental magic arrays in the distance.

With extremely low demand for visible light, their vision was built on pure fire element perception; even in the dark, as long as there was heat or fire elements present, they could see as clearly as in broad daylight.

Their auditory system was even more peculiar.

Gao Jie Ming did not find obvious ear flaps, but he felt that there was a series of tiny resonance chambers and mineral crystals inside the Lava Giant's head.

These crystals could capture vibrations; they were not sensitive to high-frequency sounds, but had astonishing discrimination for low-frequency infrasound and underground vibrations.

Lava Giants could easily perceive the movement of armies in the distance, the activity level of magma inside volcanoes, and even impending anomalies deep in the crust through this method.

This was a type of earthquake perception or vibration perception capability highly adapted to the volcanic environment.

What surprised Gao Jie Ming even more was that as a creature with obvious elemental characteristics, the Lava Giant actually possessed a complete digestive system!

Under the analysis of his alchemy and "All-Purpose Eye," a complex and efficient digestive tract was revealed inside the Lava Giant's body.

It was not the intestine of a traditional creature, but was condensed from multiple layers of lava, capable of directly digesting and decomposing minerals.

This Lava Giant did not rely entirely on elemental energy for survival; it could even eat creatures with flesh and blood—Gao Jie Ming found the remains of incompletely digested biological remains in the esophagus inside its head.

This undoubtedly overturned his traditional understanding of elemental creatures.

This type of digestive system meant that they could obtain energy from a wider range of sources, supplementing the deficiency of pure elemental energy.

He also noticed that despite appearing to be moving lava and rock, this creature needed to breathe.

Even in the state of being restrained by magic and falling into a coma, regular heatwaves and weak air currents moved in and out of several tiny cracks on its head and torso, indicating that breathing was also a necessary survival condition for them.

This breathing was not for simple oxygen exchange, but more like a heat pump and elemental conversion to ensure the stability of the core furnace and to expel impurities produced by metabolism.

Undoubtedly, Lava Giants were extremely proficient in fire-attribute attacks.

Their body surface could transform into scorching lava and flames at any time, and a casual strike could ignite everything around them.

They were naturally immune to the effects of fire, high temperatures, and most heat-based toxins.

Their core furnace could convert all flame energy into their own power, which made any fire-type magic act like a supplement to them.

And through deeper research, Gao Jie Ming discovered an astonishing characteristic of the Lava Giant race.

If a Lava Giant remained in an environment with excessively high temperatures for a long time, such as in the core of an active volcano, or was enveloped by powerful fire-type magic for a long time, its entire individual would undergo a qualitative change, becoming a lava state similar to a semi-liquid.

In this state, its "rock skin" would become softer and more fluid, the body would lose its fixed shape, and physical strikes would be almost ineffective against them, because attacks would directly penetrate or be absorbed by the lava.

Moreover, even if a part of the body was destroyed, it could regenerate by drawing lava from the surrounding environment, or even through astonishing natural recovery capabilities!

This indicates that their body tissues themselves can exchange and switch freely between "solid rock" and "liquid lava" states.

Furthermore, by drawing external lava, they could also significantly enhance their own strength and regeneration speed in a short period.

This was a terrifying self-adaptive capability, making them almost invincible in a flame environment.

Not only that.

Gao Jie Ming switched the focus of the "All-Purpose Eye" to the Lava Giant's internal heat stabilization mechanism, and he was surprised to find that these creatures were actually not afraid of low temperatures in the short term!

If a Lava Giant suddenly encountered an attack of extreme low temperature, such as the frost breath of a Snow Monster from the Frost-Dark Realm, or a wizard's ice-type magic, its seemingly hard rock skin on the surface could rapidly cool, forming a structure with loose pores.

This process was like physical "thermal expansion and contraction"; the living lava inside would temporarily shrink toward the core, while the exterior would rapidly form a porous, hard insulating layer to keep the scorching core furnace inside its body warm.

This mechanism allowed them to temporarily resist freezing damage, so small-scale low-temperature attacks were not nearly as effective as imagined.

But this resistance was not without cost.

Once the whole body was in extreme low temperature, in this "low-temperature stiffening" state, although the Lava Giant would not be destroyed immediately, its life energy circulation would become sluggish.

This causes their powerful recovery ability to drop significantly, and their movement speed also becomes sluggish, as if they have entered some kind of dormant or stiff state.

This discovery made Gao Jie Ming's eyes flare with brilliance:

"Record, possible efficient killing methods inferred from research..."

He rapidly drafted a preliminary tactical analysis on the Magic Net terminal:

"Low-temperature strikes can be used first!" Gao Jie Ming recorded in the report. "Use ice-type magic or other low-temperature attacks to forcibly compel the Lava Giant's surface skin to enter an insulating, 'stiffened' state. In this state, their regeneration capability is greatly weakened. Then, the Lava Giant can be killed more efficiently through physical attacks!"

Ordinary flame attacks were almost ineffective against them, and pure physical attacks were difficult to take effect while they were in a liquid or regenerative state.

But combining low temperature and physical strikes could perfectly circumvent their two major defensive advantages.

"Additionally, magic that can cause suffocation will unexpectedly have an effect, although it cannot cause an effective kill, it can slow down the Lava Giant's actions in the short term."

However, Gao Jie Ming also knew that the effective principle of most magic that could cause suffocation was to cut off the biological body's respiratory tract, which would likely not be effective against a physiological structure like the Lava Giant's.

However, the types of magic invented by wizards were as vast as the sea, and if one looked carefully, one could also find the needed magic.

"Additionally, high-frequency sound waves can also cause effective strikes..."

He immediately uploaded the analysis report to the Magic Net and sent it to the senior commanders of the war zone.

"Sure enough, all creatures have their weaknesses."

Rubbing his somewhat tired forehead, Gao Jie Ming's mouth curled up slightly, and he closed the "All-Purpose Eye."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 172 =====