Chapter 242

After Jie Ming packed up and submitted the 【Self-Stabilizing Field Adjustment Protocol】, he stopped paying attention to it.

Because for the time that followed, he had almost completely immersed his energy into the cultivation of the "Black Giants."

Time, for a focused wizard, is always the cheapest thing.

Ten years later.

That brand-new crystal core, which fused the cores of a Tier 3 Yeti and a Tier 4 Lava Giant, finally ceased its pulsation under the interweaving and tempering of countless energy fields.

When it completely stabilized, the entire crystal core "emitted" a black light, and the light in the entire laboratory seemed to have been swallowed by it!

As the initial energy burst dissipated, a perfect "Tier 4 Black Giant Core," as deep as obsidian yet containing blue and red star swirls within, was successfully cultivated!

Jie Ming reached out, gently stroking the crystal core that radiated a terrifying pressure from a distance.

He could clearly feel the terrifying power fluctuation emanating from this crystal core, one that seemed almost capable of freezing and tearing apart space itself.

A satisfied smile, like an old father looking at his excellent child, appeared on his face.

Next, it was the most critical step.

He only needed to use this powerful and perfect core as the "matrix" to officially "hatch" the first "Black Giant" in the true sense through that massive incubation pool.

Arriving at the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, Jie Ming carefully separated a rice-grain-sized fragment from that black core.

After turning on the Eye of Omnipotence to detect it and confirming that the state of the fragment was completely normal, Jie Ming solemnly dropped it into the incubation pool rolling with specially prepared magma.

Immediately, Jie Ming went to the monitoring instrument nearby and, by reading the data constantly emerging on it, slightly calculated the time required to cultivate one "Black Giant" this time.

Then, his face, which had still been wearing a smile, suddenly turned dark.

The Black Giant cultivated from a Tier 4 "matrix" core indeed had excellent talent!

According to the energy model's deduction, this time it would be possible to cultivate at least one Black Giant with a biological level approaching Tier 3!

And if cultivated well subsequently, after reaching adulthood, this Black Giant's biological level might even reach the peak of Tier 3 living beings.

But, the disadvantage was that the energy consumed to cultivate this Black Giant was truly too terrifying!

The incubation pool's gestation of "Black Giants," a brand-new species that fused two extreme powers, already required dozens of times more energy than gestating ordinary Lava Giants.

Added to the fact that this batch of "Black Giants" about to be gestated was of such a high level—

It resulted in the incubation pool before his eyes becoming insufficient by relying solely on the energy it absorbed from the elemental plane itself.

"Damn it—"

"Calculated by the current energy absorption efficiency of the Tier 2 incubation pool, if there is no external energy supplement and it relies only on the incubation pool's own energy to gestate—the birth time of this Black Giant will be conservatively estimated at over one hundred years!"

"Moreover, because of the limitation of energy supply, only one can be gestated at a time!"

Over a hundred years, just to give birth to one!

What use could a unit that might only count as "elite cannon fodder" on the high-end battlefield of the future have?!

By the time the cannon fodder army is built, the opportunity will have long passed!

Jie Ming irritably scratched his hair, trying hard to think of a solution.

Regarding this energy gap, Jie Ming subconsciously thought of the Tier 7 large elemental pool he had ordered from his mentor, Clark, back then.

According to Clark's statement at the time, by now, that elemental pool should be completed in a few more decades.

Speaking of this... although he had paid the deposit back then by scraping together every penny.

But the remaining balance of the Tier 7 large elemental pool, which was as high as 18 billion military merits, was still completely unaccounted for!

However, according to Mentor Clark's original intention, as his student, he should be able to apply for an internal interest-free loan and pay it back slowly—although with his earning ability at the time, it might take two or three thousand years to pay it off.

Thinking of this, Jie Ming subconsciously opened his personal terminal and checked his balance.

The next second, he almost had his eyeballs pop out in shock!

【Account Balance: 30,121,514,586 Low-level Military Merits】

Thirty billion!

Jie Ming subconsciously rubbed his eyes, even suspecting if he had developed hallucinations from researching too hard.

He counted again carefully from the single digits, finally confirming that he hadn't misread it!

Only ten years!

The 【Self-Stabilizing Field Adjustment Protocol】 technology had earned him a full thirty billion low-level military merits?!

Are you kidding me?!

You have to know, the Tier 7 large elemental pool that Jie Ming ordered back then had a total quoted price of only twenty billion low-level military merits!

And back then, in order to pay the mere one-tenth deposit of two billion, Jie Ming was forced to run to the plane battlefield and fight a life-and-death battle with a living plane!

After returning, he had refined over five hundred bottles of "Red Dust Magic Potion" without sleep or rest, only then barely scraping together the initial deposit!

As a result—such an "auxiliary technology" that Jie Ming thought was inconspicuous had actually prepared the entire remaining balance for him to purchase that Tier 7 large elemental pool in one go without him noticing?!

This sudden wealth shocked Jie Ming for a moment.

It wasn't until he repeatedly confirmed that the cold numbers on the terminal were correct that Jie Ming calmed himself down from this huge surprise as quickly as possible.

After his mood calmed down, he quickly figured out the key to it.

The reason why the 【Self-Stabilizing Field Adjustment Protocol】 was able to earn such a terrifying amount of wealth in just ten years was mainly because, in the initial stage, after major wizard forces received the official recommendation from that "artificial intelligence" Felix, they would all, out of caution, buy a copy as a sample regardless of whether they could use it, to conduct internal experiments and testing.

With the endorsement of "official certification," sales naturally exploded.

Later on, there shouldn't be such an exaggerated speed of earning money.

He clicked on the light screen, looked at the detailed income for each year over these ten years, and quickly confirmed his thoughts.

The first year's income accounted for almost ninety percent of the total income.

He speculated that in the future, when this technology was completely rolled out, the revenue of the 【Self-Stabilizing Field Adjustment Protocol】 should stabilize at around one hundred million low-level military merits per year.

After all, only low-level logistics wizards needed the 【Self-Stabilizing Field Adjustment Protocol】, and the number of logistics wizards already accounted for a minority among wizards as a whole.

Added to the fact that the main schools using this thing were Alchemy, Magic Potion, and Rune Studies within the logistics department, this point further reduced the number of wizards suitable for purchasing the 【Self-Stabilizing Field Adjustment Protocol】.

And not all low-level wizards studying these schools would purchase this technology, so this speculative data should be considered relatively reasonable.

However, this income was already very high!

Let alone low-level wizards like Jie Ming who were still struggling at the bottom, even many high-tier wizards above Tier 6 would probably be extremely jealous if they knew this number!

"Phew—."

Regardless, this unexpected income had at least completely relieved his predicament of tight savings.

Thinking of this, Jie Ming contacted Mentor Clark almost without hesitation.

After the communication was connected, Clark's eternally indifferent face quickly appeared on the light screen.

Jie Ming suppressed the excitement in his heart and tried his best to inform him of the reason for his contact in a calm tone: "Mentor, this is the entire remaining balance for the Tier 7 large elemental pool I ordered."

Having said that, Jie Ming skillfully operated on the terminal, transferring a huge sum of 18 billion military merits to Clark.

Mentor Clark on the other side of the light screen was rarely silent for a moment after receiving this huge sum.

Subsequently, his deep eyes looked Jie Ming up and down, and he asked the first sentence that almost made Jie Ming choke: "Did you—sell yourself?"

Jie Ming had black lines all over his face upon hearing this and quickly explained the legal source of these assets.

Only then did he ask expectantly: "Mentor, when will that Tier 7 large elemental pool be built?"

Clark listened quietly to Jie Ming's explanation, and a trace of gratification that even he himself hadn't noticed couldn't help but well up in the depths of his indifferent eyes.

But immediately, he quickly returned to that calm, almost indifferent appearance.

After hearing Jie Ming's question, Clark shook his head: "I have been researching that living plane in the Flame Frost Plane during this period, so I really haven't paid much attention to the construction progress of that Tier 7 large elemental pool."

Then, Jie Ming saw his mentor seemingly contacting someone through other channels.

After a long time, Clark replied to Jie Ming again:

"The main body of the elemental pool has been completed, and the next step is the final injection of origin and the gestation work of debugging. According to this progress, it will be officially delivered in less than ten years."

Jie Ming was somewhat surprised in his heart; he hadn't expected the construction speed of this thing to be so fast.

The reason why the Tier 7 large elemental pool was so expensive was naturally that it was worth the price.

Not to mention anything else, this thing was known as a "man-made small elemental plane."

In fact, it was indeed so.

Because the most basic core manufacturing material of this thing was a plane origin containing "complete fire element rules"!

What is called "complete fire element rules"?

Simply put, it means the amount of law information it contains is theoretically enough to allow a wizard who knows nothing about fire elements to master a whole "fire element rule" from scratch one hundred percent, reaching the amount of the Tier 6 threshold!

That is—a full one thousand strands of origin!

The cost of this raw material alone reached a terrifying ten billion low-level military merits!

What's more, the raw materials needed to build a Tier 7 large elemental pool were not just plane origin.

Clark had said he gave him a cost price back then, and judging from the value of various raw materials, he indeed hadn't lied.

After Clark received the remaining balance through the terminal, he looked at Jie Ming and suddenly asked again: "Your 'mandatory conscription' time should be almost up, right?"

Jie Ming was stunned, and only then did he remember the standard contract he had signed at the "Junction Point" back then.

The saying that low-level wizards of the wizard civilization participating in plane wars is an obligation, while high-tier wizards participating in plane wars is a reward, is not just talk.

Although the mandatory military service belonging to the academy had already ended for him.

But it didn't mean that they, these low-level wizards, could relax and rest easy from then on.

On the contract signed when registering and filing at the "Junction Point" back then, there was indeed a mandatory conscription clause: 【Low-level wizards from Tier 1 to Tier 3 will have a maximum of two hundred years of free rest time after each plane war ends. After this time, they will be mandatorily conscripted to participate in the next plane war.】

However, for most wizards struggling at the bottom, this clause almost had no sense of existence.

After all, the vast majority of low-level wizards neither had the ability nor the financial resources to support themselves in researching in the laboratory continuously for two hundred years.

They usually had already actively rushed to the battlefield again because their points were exhausted or their research had fallen into a bottleneck.

Jie Ming's situation was purely an accident among accidents.

Calculating the time slightly, Jie Ming found that his remaining "rest" time really wasn't much left.

Although he could barely hold on until he received that Tier 7 large elemental pool, he was afraid it would be too late to do too much modification and debugging before he had to be thrown into some unknown battlefield again.

After thanking Mentor Clark for the reminder and watching the other party close the communication, Jie Ming began to seriously calculate his next action plan.

It seems that the deep transformation work of the Tier 7 large elemental pool and the Purgatory Sulfur Plane can only be carried out after returning from the next plane war.

However, if he acted faster, he could actually take the opportunity to properly test the true actual combat power of the "Black Giants" he had just developed in the upcoming next plane war!

Thinking this way, Jie Ming no longer hesitated and opened the Magic Net terminal to start "splurging."

Since that Tier 7 large elemental pool could not be used for the time being, he planned to first purchase a large pile of small elemental pools as temporary energy plug-ins to provide sufficient energy for the incubation pool and catalyze the birth of the Black Giants!

Judging from his "design" of the Black Giant race, as long as there was enough energy, it was entirely possible to forcibly shorten the incubation time of a "Black Giant" from one hundred years to within half a year.

Of course, the disadvantage of doing this was that it would consume massive amounts of energy.

Converted into small elemental pools, it meant consuming a large amount of military merits.

But fortunately, Jie Ming, who had just made a big profit, was quite wealthy and didn't lack this bit!

As long as he acted fast, he could almost scrape together a Black Giant combat squad before participating in the plane war.

(There is only this chapter today, I'm a bit stuck on writing, and I need to organize the plot outline for the next plane.)