Chapter 201: Settling Harvest and Camp Tasks

Leaving Viola's side, Jie Ming went straight back to his laboratory.

Click.

With the sound of the door locking, the defensive array inside the laboratory was activated simultaneously, and the whole world instantly became quiet.

Jie Ming's mind moved, and those two space expansion bags that had been filled to the brim and almost reached the carrying limit in the Frost-Dark Realm were solemnly taken out by him and placed in the center of the empty laboratory.

Clatter!!

Accompanied by the guidance of his spiritual power, the bags of the space expansion bags tilted, as if opening the floodgates.

The next moment, countless items exuding chilling cold poured out like a mountain collapse and tsunami from the bag openings!

First to emerge were the Snow Monster cores.

Tens of thousands of ice crystal cores, each exuding pure ice elemental energy.

They piled up together, refracting a brilliant and cold light under the bright lights of the laboratory, like a small mountain made of diamonds, causing the temperature of the entire laboratory to drop by several degrees suddenly.

Immediately after, there were various rare materials looted from the Frost-Dark Realm.

There were "Ice Essence" like solidified moonlight, "Frozen Earth Hearts" exuding earth vein power, and some unknown ice-attribute metals and minerals dismantled from the Snow Monster city buildings.

These materials piled up like mountains, almost covering half of the laboratory floor.

Finally, there were those scattered energy crystals and some sundries.

Jie Ming stood in front of this "ice mountain" made of wealth, with satisfied light flickering in his eyes.

He didn't use his hands to count them one by one, but activated the "Detection Eye," connected to his Magic Net terminal, and opened the "Asset Assessment" function of the military merit exchange system.

A formless light screen projected from the terminal and slowly swept over the materials piled on the ground.

Lines of data refreshed, jumped, categorized, and estimated prices on the light screen at high speed.

【Detected 'Tier 1 Snow Monster Core', Quantity: 98,452, estimated military merit exchangeable...】

【Detected 'Tier 2 Snow Monster Core', Quantity: 7, estimated military merit exchangeable...】

【Detected 'Ice Essence', Weight: approx. 6.7 tons, Quality: Excellent, estimated military merit exchangeable...】

【Detected...】

The data stream rolled down like a waterfall, and finally, at the top of the light screen, it converged into a number that satisfied Jie Ming.

"Total assessed value: 534,700 military merits."

This was just the value of those materials and energy crystals that could be quantified!

Immediately after, Jie Ming called up his battle record in this operation—that glorious battle achievement of clearing an entire Snow Monster city.

Although the vast majority were just Tier 1 Snow Monsters, the terrifying quantity was enough to make up for the lack of quality.

After the system's automatic judgment and merit calculation, a huge sum was directly credited to his account.

"Mission merits: 138,900 military merits."

If these materials could be sold, the two items combined, his harvest this time totaled over 670,000 military merits!

This didn't count those true "big items" that couldn't be simply measured by military merits.

For example, the "Tier 4 Lava Giant corpse" that was quietly lying in the deepest part of his space expansion bag, still exuding terrifying pressure, and the massive amount of "Yin Evil Energy" with quality reaching the mysterious black level collected in those two gourds!

"Phew—" Jie Ming let out a long sigh of relief.

This trip to the Frost-Dark Realm was indeed as he had expected—no, it could even be said to be beyond imagination!

Relying on the information gap, the return was so rich that it was unimaginable to ordinary wizards.

This harvest directly pulled him back from the previous "poverty line" and allowed him to have the capital to squander again.

In the Wizard World, assets were an important standard for measuring a wizard's foundation.

After all, wizards who were not strong were not necessarily poor, but wizards who could be strong were definitely very rich.

An ordinary wizard apprentice usually had all his assets between dozens to thousands of points.

A qualified Tier 1 official wizard whose total assets could reach tens of thousands of points could already be considered to have a small family fortune.

A Tier 2 wizard whose asset scale was usually at the level of hundreds of thousands of points, and by the time they reached Tier 3 wizard, they could generally possess a huge asset of millions of points.

And the value difference between military merit points and the "School Points" commonly used by the Noland Workshop was roughly one to ten.

In other words, the value of the things Jie Ming could directly sell and exchange for military merits this time was equivalent to 6.7 million School Points!

This was almost equivalent to the entire lifetime accumulation of a Tier 3 wizard who had been famous for a long time!

However, after the initial excitement, Jie Ming looked at the war loot piled up like a mountain in front of him and compared it with the "refined gold" and "Red Dust magic elixirs" he once relied on to make his fortune, and couldn't help but let out a complex sigh.

"Sure enough, for wizards, even war is ultimately just occasional windfall. The most profitable and stable thing will always be the monopolistic benefits produced by the knowledge in one's brain."

He knew clearly in his heart that this harvest seemed terrifying, but in essence, it was a one-time thing.

He couldn't encounter such a "good thing" where high-tier combat power collectively withdrew and let him take whatever he wanted every time.

This kind of opportunity was hard to come by.

But the monetization of knowledge was completely different.

Just like the "refined gold" refining technology he showed when he was an apprentice.

Because its attributes were too biased, its comprehensive evaluation in the wizard material rating could only be set as a "Tier 5 material."

But this meant that Jie Ming had already mastered an exclusive technology comparable to the core products of a Tier 5 wizard while he was still an apprentice!

Even if it was just "raw material," its technical barriers and value were far beyond what low-tier wizards could imagine.

Therefore, Jie Ming's money-making speed when he was an apprentice was actually close to the efficiency of a Tier 5 wizard monetizing their core knowledge!

This was the fundamental reason why he was able to accumulate a terrifying wealth that made countless official wizards feel ashamed when he was an apprentice.

"One-time looting can never compare to sustainable monopoly."

This harvest, which could be called exaggerated, instead strengthened Jie Ming's determination to focus on researching knowledge.

These 600,000-plus military merits obtained this time seemed huge, but for his future cultivation and research, it was just a drop in the bucket.

These military merits might be consumed by a single large-scale experiment.

The true wealth was still those things that could not be valued.

"Unfortunately, the huge benefits obtained at once make many wizards unable to see this point clearly. I'll chat with Amy and Victor next time I see them; I hope they don't go to learn combat-type wizardry."

Having figured this out, Jie Ming's mindset completely calmed down.

He began to work, sorting all the materials on the ground into categories.

Those that were useful to him were stored separately, while those that were of no use to him and only suitable for exchanging military merits were packed together, ready to be processed all at once.

II

The news spread quickly.

Not long after Jie Ming returned, all the wizards in the camp had confirmed that the expeditionary force commander-in-chief, Master Augustine, would personally "pilot" the Ship plane back to the intersection point to call for troops.

This meant that for a long time to come, the camp would lose its highest combat power, and communication with the high-level main plane would also be greatly affected.

To prevent any problems during this period, the entire camp began a new round of construction and reinforcement.

Temporary defensive works were transformed into permanent buildings, energy hubs were reinforced to prevent potential surprise attacks, and more high-level defensive array nodes were built and activated...

Everything was proceeding in an orderly manner to prevent any accidental problems during Augustine's absence.

Against this background, Jie Ming did not rush to venture deep into enemy territory again.

He had a large sum of military merits in his account, enough to support his experimental consumption for the next few years, so he wasn't in a hurry now.

He took the initiative to apply to the camp command for a task of building defensive array nodes inside the camp.

This task had moderate intensity, allowing him to obtain stable merits while also allowing him to continue researching in his laboratory during the construction period.

Of course, besides no longer lacking military merits, there was another more important reason that made Jie Ming temporarily change his strategy—he was pleasantly surprised to find that he seemed not to need to go out specifically to look for "Qi of Red Dust" anymore!

After all, recently, besides news related to Augustine's troop movements, information about the recent abnormalities in the Flame-Frost Plane—the strange scene of the high-tier combat power of the two major indigenous races withdrawing synchronously—had also been known by wizards and spread rapidly within the camp.

These two pieces of intelligence combined were like a heavy bomb thrown into the seemingly calm wizard camp, triggering countless speculations, unease, and worries about the future war situation.

It could only be said that even rational wizards could not avoid talking about the current situation.

Moreover, this situation was closely related to their safety, so the attention was naturally higher, followed by the growth of the production of Red Dust Qi.

Although it was still far from being comparable to a normal living being society, its production efficiency had reached a considerable level.

"Is this anxiety? Is it fear? Or is it the spiritual consumption brought by speculation about the unknown?" Jie Ming silently analyzed the sources of these "Qi of Red Dust" in the laboratory.

However, the changes in the production of Red Dust Qi also let him know that in such an environment, beneath the seemingly calm appearance of the wizards, were hearts like volcanoes that could erupt at any time.

According to this collection efficiency, combined with the 30,000 reinforcements that were about to arrive—Jie Ming calculated silently—he really might be able to collect a sufficient amount of Red Dust Qi relying on the time served in the Flame-Frost Plane.

Therefore, the best strategy now was to consolidate himself in the camp and wait for the changes in the situation. ===== CHAPTER 202 =====