Chapter 230

Within the Aeloxia main plane, in a burgeoning new city rebuilt upon ruins and full of vitality.

A boy named Chuck was having a heated argument with his companions.

"Wizards are real! My grandfather's father saw one with his own eyes!" Chuck's face flushed red as he shouted in defense to the few children around him who were taller than him.

"Give it a rest, Chuck!" one child curled his lip in disdain. "Your behavior is really too childish! Wizards? That kind of existence is just something adults made up to scare disobedient children!"

Another person chimed in, "That's right! If there were really wizards who could fly and breathe fire, would we still need the city guards to protect us?"

But Chuck was exceptionally firm in his belief that his grandfather wouldn't lie to him.

Back in that distant—supposedly over a hundred years ago, in the chaotic Dark Ages, when his grandfather's father was still a young soldier, he must have seen those wizards who descended from the sky like gods with his own eyes!

Arguments among children often lack logic and rationality.

In the end, it inevitably ended with mutual pushing and increasingly intense quarreling, even coming to blows.

"Stop! You little brats!"

Fortunately, a patrolling city guard squad soon discovered the dispute here.

They first stood by with arms crossed, watching the show with interest, and after they had seen enough, one of the city guards who appeared to be the captain walked up with a straight face and stopped the chaotic scuffle with a majestic voice.

Because the other side had strength in numbers, after losing the fight, Chuck returned home with a bruised and swollen face, drawing a wave of heartache and complaints from his mother.

However, strangely, Chuck, who had lost the fight, did not have the slightest look of dejection on his face.

Even in the depths of his eyes, there was a hidden trace of indescribable smugness.

At dinner, looking at the sky outside the window that was gradually being dyed orange-red, approaching dusk, he quickly finished his last bite of rice, greeted his parents, and prepared to go out.

"Come back early!"

Amidst the concerned instructions from his parents behind him, he left his warm home, carrying a piece of hard black bread he had secretly taken from the kitchen.

Soon, relying on his familiarity with the terrain, he deliberately avoided the city guards still patrolling the streets and arrived at an abandoned area near the suburbs on the edge of the city.

In a dark and damp alley piled with debris, Chuck finally saw the person he had agreed to meet—a figure huddled in the darkest part of the alley, draped in a tattered black robe, with a hunched body.

The person's face was completely hidden in the shadow cast by the hood, making it impossible to see clearly.

Paired with their hunched, almost deformed body and the faint, eerie aura emanating from them, like that of a rotting corpse, it was easy for anyone to tell that this guy was definitely no good.

But Chuck's expression turned joyful at this moment. He stepped forward quickly and greeted the other person with full anticipation: "Wizard my lord! I'm here!"

He still clearly remembered that a few days ago, he had inadvertently seen this eerie figure nearby, and the peculiar ability the person had used to casually conjure a ball of black flame out of thin air to drive away a stray dog.

That scene made him incomparably certain that the person in front of him was definitely a "wizard" from the legends!

A child's powerful curiosity, strong enough to overwhelm everything else, made him instinctively ignore the unsettling, weird temperament that this "wizard" brought with them.

Especially after discovering that this "wizard" seemed easy to talk to, Chuck clung to them like he had found a treasure. Finally, after his pestering over the past few days, the "wizard" promised him that as long as he brought food, they would teach him some real "wizardry" today!

Watching the "wizard's" withered hand reach out from the shadows to take the black bread he had brought.

Chuck began to uncontrollably fantasize about what kind of wizardry they would teach him.

Would it be breathing fire?

Or flying?

He had even started imagining how he would teach those little partners who didn't believe him a lesson after he learned wizardry.

His idea was really not wrong in the wizard system, but the underlying logic of the "immortal cultivation" system's "bottleneck" was really not something that could definitely be broken through by "forcing one's way through."

This is because the underlying logic of the "immortal cultivation" system's realms is completely different from the "wizard" system.

In the earliest times of the immortal cultivation world, in that ancient era that could be called the beginning of heaven and earth, the so-called "immortal cultivation" actually only had "Qi Refining"—or rather, the more ancient "Refining Qi"—this one realm.

But wanting to attain the Great Dao and longevity just by cultivating a mouthful of the purest and cleanest "innate Qi" was simply too talent-dependent.

The difficulty was so high that many people couldn't even do the most basic entry.

So, later cultivators gradually subdivided the entire cultivation process in constant evolution and exploration, creating "Qi Induction," "Foundation Establishment," "Golden Core," "Nascent Soul," etc.

Finally, they divided into the many clear realms that exist now.

So theoretically speaking, every major realm of the "immortal cultivation" system can actually be cultivated infinitely.

Every realm is essentially a concept of cultivation, and one can continuously refine one's own energy and enhance one's own strength.

Until one can attain the Great Dao and longevity with the current realm!

This is completely different from the wizard's situation where if one reaches perfection at a certain level, no matter how one cultivates, the upper limit of power cannot be improved without advancing.

The problem is, although Jie Ming felt his talent was good, he would absolutely not arrogantly feel that he could directly go against heaven and cultivate to the level of immortality just by relying on the "Foundation Establishment" cultivation method!

What's more troublesome is that he didn't even know what reason was causing him to be unable to advance.

So before finding that key "opportunity," he could only repeat this boring accumulation day after day for now.

As for this second problem...

Jie Ming looked at the personal point account on the terminal that had turned red and rubbed his temples with a headache.

Yes, he was broke again!

"No, I remember I was clearly a rich man, why did I suddenly become a poor ghost after advancing?" Jie Ming scratched his scalp in worry.

Actually, he also knew clearly that this kind of high-intensity cross-species genetic modification and elemental core fusion research had a terrifying consumption speed for points and resources!

In order to buy various rare research materials, as well as those expensive knowledge and data models, even with the continuous income of refined gold, his savings had bottomed out.

Plus the income of Red Dust Magic Potion was all lost in the Tier 7 large elemental pool, which meant Jie Ming's points were seriously in deficit!

"You say a way to make money? What a coincidence, I also want to know recently!"

On the other side of the communication light screen, after Viola finished listening to Jie Ming's complaint about "capital turnover difficulties," she spread her hands at him without caring about her image, her face full of the four big words "unable to help."

Jie Ming shook his head helplessly upon hearing this.

He felt that he was completely muddled, how could he think of discussing this matter with this senior sister who was also about to go bankrupt by being exploited by Mentor Clark.

"Why don't you go to that plane with me?"

"Forget it, I still have a lot of research here that can't leave people..."

Jie Ming sighed and shook his head while packing up the last batch of "Red Dust Magic Potions" he had refined during this time and sending them over through the fixed-point teleportation array.

After doing all this, Jie Ming looked at his completely cleared account and pinched the bridge of his nose in worry.

Just as he was about to close this communication that had no nutrition, what Viola said next made him stop the movement in his hand:

"Actually, I have always felt that it is quite easy for you to make money if you want to."

"Why do you say that?" Jie Ming looked at her with some confusion.

Viola changed to a comfortable posture and leaned on her experimental chair, looking at him with eyes full of "hating iron for not becoming steel":

"I said, you kid is simply too 'protective of food'! You clearly have so many good technologies that even I am jealous of, but you have no idea of selling them at all!"

"Although we wizards are very strict about our core technologies, I have never seen a freak like you who is so stingy that you don't even plan to sell a little bit of edge-scrap technology!"

"After all, technology is iterative! And researching new technology costs a lot of money. In this case, selling those 'old technologies' that are already a bit outdated to yourself is naturally the most suitable and common way to obtain funds!"

"What's more," Viola's voice carried a trace of temptation, "'Knowledge' is the highest-level hard currency in our Wizarding Civilization! If you really have good enough knowledge, let alone things like points or low-level military merits. Even, you can get 'high-level military merits' issued by the 'Star Trail Tribunal' personally until your hands are soft!"

Viola's words were like a lightning bolt instantly cutting through Jie Ming's thinking that had fallen into a deadlock because of "no money"!

His eyes lit up abruptly!

Yes!

Why didn't he think of it?!

He always subconsciously treated all the technologies he researched as his own trump cards and core secrets, and never thought about selling them as "commodities"!

Just like what Viola said, technology is iterative, and simply holding technology in his hands will only make his research costs higher and higher.

"Thank you, Senior Sister! I understand!"

After Jie Ming figured this out, he thanked her excitedly, and then hurriedly closed the communication directly!

Completely ignoring the sentence that Viola was still waving her arms and shouting over there before the light screen went out: "Hey! Then what good technology do you have, sell me a copy first, I can continue to take out a loan to buy it!"

Looking at the closed communication in front of her, Viola was so angry that she bit her fingers: "Ah... this stinky kid, ungrateful!!!"

Unfortunately, Jie Ming couldn't hear her complaints anymore, because at this time Jie Ming was excitedly opening his experimental records, carefully selecting technologies that could be sold.

(End of chapter)

The child's face was a mixture of lingering fear from escaping death and the shock of seeing a "wizardry" duel with his own eyes.

His pupils contracted sharply due to the huge emotional impact, his mouth hung open unconsciously, as if he had even forgotten how to breathe.

That tender face was now filled with the purest, most primitive awe and worship for the unknown world!

Jie Ming looked at him, feeling somewhat surprised in his heart.

"Interesting—" He touched his chin, his expression surprised, "I didn't expect that after only a hundred years, after preliminary bloodline optimization, 'humans' naturally possessing talent close to a Tier 2 wizard apprentice could actually be born."

"Looking at it this way," he calculated silently in his heart, "it's estimated that in a few hundred years, this Nuolun Academy branch on the Aeloxia Plane will be able to start officially recruiting qualified wizard apprentices locally."

Not lingering any longer, Jie Ming and David left without hesitation after analyzing the information in the head.

Watching the two figures turn into meteors and disappear into the horizon, Chuck, who couldn't recover for a long time, left an eternal yearning for the existence of "wizards" in his gaze.