Chapter 399: New Direction

The solution —— it was really this simple.

Gao Jie Ming stood in the center of the laboratory, gazing at the dozens of design schematics and data panels spread across the workbench, his face wearing an expression of sudden insight mixed with self-derision.

These schematics meticulously recorded every complex solution he had devised over the past decade to solve the "energy dispersion" problem — multilayer energy focusing arrays, dynamic collapse fields, phase superposition interference models —

Each consumed immense effort, each attempting to forcibly constrain the overloaded energy through increasingly intricate and complex "control structures."

But now, under the overclocked mental state granted by the divine power of incense worship, he clearly saw the other side of the problem — or rather, he had been utterly trapped in a cognitive bias.

"I've always thought — how to use the immortal cultivation system's ability to manipulate external spiritual energy to enhance witchcraft."

This line of thinking wasn't wrong; it was indeed the most intuitive path to merging the two power systems.

In simple terms, it meant leveraging the innate advantage of cultivators in mobilizing environmental energy to "overcharge" the witchcraft model, which originally relied on "leveraging multipliers," thereby generating destructive power far exceeding its design specifications.

But this was like forcibly installing an engine capable of 500 km/h into a sports car designed for a top speed of only 200 km/h.

The engine's power was indeed greater, but the suspension, brakes, tires, aerodynamic structure —

All of them couldn't withstand it.

Although Gao Jie Ming had strengthened other aspects using his own knowledge, when the power input became overwhelmingly excessive, the result was either loss of control and a crash, or most of the power wasted through meaningless friction, heat, and structural degradation.

The "load limit" of the witchcraft model depended on Gao Jie Ming's reserve of relevant knowledge, the precision of his spiritual control, and the structural stability of the witchcraft model itself.

When the energy input from the cultivation system exceeded this limit, the situation seen in previous test fields occurred:

The power appeared grand, but was in fact scattered and inefficient, with massive energy wasted.

Theoretically, there were only two ways to solve this problem: either enhance the overall performance of the witchcraft model so it could match greater power, or — change the approach.

"We could completely reverse our thinking — use the witch's method of leveraging elemental multipliers to enhance the cultivator's spells."

Gao Jie Ming's eyes flickered with light.

These two paths seemed similar, but were fundamentally different.

The core of the first path was "strengthening the existing structure"; the core of the second was "reconstructing the output mode."

The technical difficulty of the first method was relatively low: simply identify the rune modules in the cultivation system that corresponded to "absorbing external spiritual energy" according to the basic energy laws of the witch world, then add corresponding "energy intake ports" and "overload reinforcement structures" to the existing witchcraft model.

This was essentially an "expansion" and "optimization" of existing technology — a "simple" operation even a witch apprentice could achieve through brute-force enumeration.

But the technical complexity of the second method was vastly higher.

First, the spells, which originally relied entirely on spiritual energy and followed the energy flow principles of the cultivation world, needed to be thoroughly "localized."

Their core energy logic had to be analyzed, then rebuilt using the witch world's rune system and elemental manipulation theory into a new spell model with identical function but powered by "elemental forces."

Next, Gao Jie Ming had to tailor-customize "enhancement designs" for each modified spell model, applying his own witch knowledge and techniques for "leveraging elemental multipliers" — such as specific rune combinations, resonant arrays, and law-interference methods.

This involved deep optimization of the spell's energy pathways, extreme improvement of elemental conversion efficiency, and precise adjustment of the output structure.

In short, it was equivalent to creating a bespoke "witch-enhanced version" of each cultivator spell requiring enhancement — fully integrated with witchcraft reinforcement technology.

Aside from the energy operation principles already revealed, this was essentially no different from creating an entirely new witchcraft spell — difficulty skyrocketed.

But after careful evaluation, Gao Jie Ming found that, with his current technical level, this path, though arduous, was

feasible.

More importantly, this path fundamentally avoided the fatal problem of "control failing to keep pace with energy input."

Because the entire enhancement process was "endogenous": the spell model itself possessed the capability to efficiently utilize vast amounts of power, eliminating the need for Gao Jie Ming to perform ultra-precise overload control at the moment of casting.

He merely needed to activate it normally, and the rest — energy flow, multiplier enhancement, power focusing — would be handled automatically by the model itself.

"Huh —"

Gao Jie Ming exhaled slowly, rapidly recording the flood of inspirations flooding his mind onto the nearby "Magic Web Terminal."

This terminal connected to the central database within his dantian, capable of directly converting his mental constructs —

rune sequences, energy formulas, and other complex structures — into storable, retrievable data models.

As the final spark of inspiration was recorded, he gazed at the dense array of new designs on the terminal, deeply satisfied with the effect of the incense divine power.

This "mental overclocking" state was nothing short of a divine tool for breaking through research bottlenecks and gaining critical insights.

Yet, when he casually glanced at the time display in the corner of the terminal, his brow furrowed.

"Already passed — a full day?"

From the moment he began using the incense divine power, through the burst of inspiration and final recording, it had felt like only a few hours.

But the terminal clearly showed that twenty-four standard hours had elapsed in reality.

He immediately retrieved the laboratory's endpoint control system logs.

The logs showed that after the incense divine power was injected, his brainwave activity intensity surged over eight hundred times within an extremely short period and remained at this peak level for twenty-two hours before beginning a slow decline.

Throughout the entire process, his metabolic rate and energy consumption also rose synchronously to hundreds of times normal levels.

"No wonder —" Gao Jie Ming rubbed his throbbing temples, "my mind was too active, inspirations flowing endlessly, completely immersed — I didn't even notice time passing."

This revealed a significant flaw in the incense divine power's "Divine Thought Resonance" state: it drastically distorted the user's subjective perception of time.

In that state of uncontrolled thought surging, the user's awareness of external conditions became abnormally dulled.

"And —" Gao Jie Ming continued reviewing the logs and analyzing the "inspirations" he had just recorded, "there's another, more hidden issue."

He re-examined the design schemes born during the overclocked state.

Initially, he had been immensely satisfied, but now, with calm, normal-speed thinking, he quickly spotted numerous logical gaps and insufficient consideration of boundary conditions.

"An overactive mind constantly floods the brain with ideas, accelerating thought — but also subconsciously ignoring minor details," Gao Jie Ming analyzed as he corrected a rune arrangement error in an energy focusing array.

"And often, precisely these small issues determine the feasibility and stability of the entire design."

He recalled the records in the "Great Dao Library" regarding the use of incense divine power to aid cultivation, which explicitly stated: "Divine Thought Resonance grants flashes of insight, but thoughts surge like tides, easily producing oversights. Thus, it may serve only as a guide, never as absolute truth."

Now he fully understood the meaning of that passage.

"It can only be used as a tool to generate inspiration — not as a method to accelerate thinking during combat or research — but even this single function is already immensely powerful," Gao Jie Ming shook his head, yet his expression held no disappointment.

Breaking through the long-standing cognitive bias and discovering a completely new research direction was already a tremendous gain.

The flaws in these designs would naturally need to be corrected and refined step by step through subsequent experiments.

He stood up and walked toward another section of the laboratory.

Now that he had a new approach, what remained was to test it through practice.

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