Chapter 400

Inside the core control room of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, Jie Ming was hovering in mid-air.

Thousands of runic light ribbons flowed around him, each one connected to the massive three-dimensional magic array model below—a partial optimization scheme for a certain spell.

His left hand gripped the void, a pale golden liquid condensed from the power of incense slowly deforming, while his right hand swept rapidly across the void, leaving behind strings of complex wizard runes.

Just then, a deep purple crystal embedded in the wall in the corner of the control room vibrated slightly.

That was Sister Wei Ao's dedicated contact rune; only a very small number of people recognized by Jie Ming could directly initiate a transmission request to the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.

Jie Ming raised an eyebrow slightly, his spiritual sense sweeping over the crystal, and after confirming it was the aura of the senior sister herself, he slowly descended to the ground.

He snapped his fingers, and the research robe on his body was instantly replaced by a simple black wizard robe, with fine silver thread runic seals faintly visible on the hem.

"Transmission approved."

As the words fell, the space on the side of the control room began to twist, and a stable portal quickly took shape.

Jie Ming stepped inside, and the next instant, he appeared in the reception room at the other end of the plane.

The layout here was vastly different from the traditional style of the Wizarding World: the walls were made of warm jade, the floor was covered with flame-velvet carpets that could automatically adjust the temperature, and a set of tables and chairs carved from obsidian and lava crystals floated in the center of the room—all produced locally in the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.

The transmission light dissipated, and Wei Ao's figure appeared.

Jie Ming was stunned for a moment.

The senior sister who was always elegant and calm in his impression, with long silver-grey hair like a moonlight waterfall, looked somewhat—disheveled—at this moment.

Her deep purple wizard robe was covered in dust, with several scorched marks on the edges, strands of her smooth long hair were frizzed up, and there was even a faint grey smudge on her face.

More importantly, the aura around her was clearly unstable, and the law fluctuations that a Tier 6 wizard should have become somewhat chaotic.

As soon as Wei Ao appeared, she tilted her head back and collapsed onto the nearest obsidian chair like a zombie that had lost its support, exhaling a long breath.

"Senior sister?" Jie Ming walked to the seat opposite her and sat down, raising his hand to brew two cups of spirit tea. "This is blended from the Purgatory Sulfur Plane's specialty 'Heart-Melting Flower' and 'Frost Moss'; it has a miraculous effect on stabilizing the spirit."

Wei Ao took the teacup and drank it in one gulp, only then recovering her strength.

"Almost got caught in the aftermath of that lunatic's experiment—" she muttered, then looked at Jie Ming. "Your environment here is quite nice, much better than that ghost place, Star Fall."

"Wizard Star Fall?" Jie Ming immediately grasped the key point. "You just came back from her place?"

"Otherwise?" Wei Ao rubbed her temples. "That guy found her path to advancing to Tier 7 using the 'Fantasy Elements' she got from you. After completing the preliminary verification, she kicked me, her temporary assistant, out, saying she wanted to go into seclusion to perform core construction."

"So senior sister came this time to—" Jie Ming asked tentatively.

"Procure." Wei Ao sat up straight, and although her appearance was disheveled, those silver-grey eyes had already regained their usual sharpness. "Mass procurement. Star Fall asked me to pass this on."

She flicked a transparent diamond-shaped crystal, which landed on the tabletop.

Jie Ming's spiritual sense swept over it, and his pupils contracted sharply.

Stored in the crystal was a string of military merit account information, as well as a number that was enough to make him feel surprised: 100

Billion low-tier military merits.

"This—" Jie Ming rarely showed an awkward expression. "Senior sister, I'm afraid I can't gather this amount in a short time. I've been using Fantasy Elements to transform the plane recently, and the consumption is quite high."

He pointed outside the window; through the reception room's observation window, one could see the iconic dark red sky of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane and the lava river flowing slowly in the distance.

Even with the continuous transformation of the Incense Divine Dao and billions of Black Giants as believers producing incense power, and then generating spiritual energy through the Element-Spiritual Energy Conversion System—the total amount accumulated over so many years could not reach this level.

Moreover, Jie Ming also needed to maintain the plane's own operation and his own research consumption.

Wei Ao waved her hand, signaling him not to be nervous.

"Star Fall certainly knows. Her original words were: 'Take as much as you have first, and just send a batch over every once in a while later.' Anyway—" She paused, the corners of her mouth curling into a subtle arc. "According to her calculations, even if she has found the path, it will still take a few thousand years before she truly advances to Tier 7. There is enough time for you to produce it slowly."

Jie Ming breathed a sigh of relief, but then frowned again.

A continuous supply for thousands of years?

A demand of this magnitude could never be ordinary experimental consumption—

The conversation between the two before leaving Wizard Star Fall's plane flashed through his mind, and a possibility surfaced in his heart.

"She wants so much—" Jie Ming spoke slowly, his tone tinged with probing. "Could it be that she intends to—"

"Animate the entire plane?"

The smile on Wei Ao's face stiffened for a moment.

Although it was only for a fraction of a second, Jie Ming keenly captured that trace of unnaturalness.

"You really can't be fooled." Wei Ao sighed, not denying it. "That's right, this is her project. Using the Fantasy Elements you provided as the core medium, combined with her own spiritual laws and the living plane data I provided, she is attempting to fully animate the 'Shattered Star Plane' she controls."

Jie Ming couldn't help but gasp.

He really didn't expect that this Wizard Star Fall would actually put the idea, which sounded like a fantasy at the time, into practice.

Giving a plane that originally only had basic material circulation and energy flow a complete prototype of self-consciousness—this was equivalent to artificially creating a living plane!

If successful, Star Fall would not only be able to step into Tier 7 through this, but could also stand firmly in a high position among Tier 7s.

If it failed—

"What about safety measures?" Jie Ming asked in a deep voice. "Once the full animation experiment gets out of control, plane consciousness going berserk,"

"Law collapse chain reaction, energy tide backlash—even if it's just the loss of control of the animated plane, it will cause quite serious consequences."

Wei Ao spread her hands without any image.

"This is what I'm going to do next." Her tone was terrifyingly calm. "I'm preparing to purchase three sets of 'Plane Destruction Devices,' order 'Phase Isolation Barriers' from the Void Architecture Institute, and then find the Anti-Entropy Alliance to buy a batch of 'Law Stability Anchors'—if the experiment fails, I have to initiate the destruction procedure in a short time to completely erase the Shattered Star Plane, along with the deformed consciousness that might be born, from the reality level."

Jie Ming was silent for a moment, and finally could only shake his head and sigh.

"Truly—courageous."

Even for a Tier 7 wizard, a fully controlled plane is an extremely precious asset.

And for a Tier 6 wizard, a plane can almost be considered their entire net worth.

Star Fall dared to use her core plane to conduct this kind of experiment that bet everything; this decisiveness was indeed worthy of her name, "Star Fall."

"So, how much can you provide for the first batch?" Wei Ao returned to the main topic.

Jie Ming closed his eyes and focused, his spiritual sense connecting to the core of the plane manipulation array.

A panoramic view of the Incense Divine Dao network unfolded in his consciousness: the energy veins covering the entire Purgatory Sulfur Plane, through the 360 "Elemental Spiritual Energy Conversion Towers" spread across the plane, the massive amount of elements provided by the Tier 7 large elemental pool were being continuously converted into spiritual energy and stored in the natural spiritual veins deep in the earth's crust.

"Existing stock, half can be spared." Jie Ming opened his eyes. "But I need some time for high-purity compression and packaging—using Tier 6 small elemental pools as containers can minimize transportation loss."

"Can do." Wei Ao nodded. "Container costs are calculated separately, deducted from the account."

Jie Ming didn't stand on ceremony either, directly accessing the array permissions.

The entire Purgatory Sulfur Plane trembled slightly.

Deep in the earth's veins, a massive amount of pale cyan spiritual energy was extracted and gathered to the control tower at the plane's core through the Incense Divine Dao network.

Jie Ming manipulated the plane control array to gather this exaggerated power.

The spiritual energy condensed from a gaseous state to a liquid state at a speed visible to the naked eye, then compressed from a liquid state into a viscous gel, and finally turned into thousands of cyan crystals the size of fingernails.

This process lasted for a full six hours.

When the last spiritual energy crystal fell into the prepared Tier 6 small elemental pool, the entire surface of the pool was already covered with a layer of cyan halo.

The runes that had dimmed due to energy depletion lit up again, even more dazzling than in their prime.

"Here." Jie Ming pushed the sealed small elemental pool to Wei Ao. "It is roughly equivalent to the total energy of 500 standard small Tier 5 elemental pools, all stored in crystal form. Before use, it needs to be released using the decompression array I included as a gift; otherwise, direct extraction will trigger energy runaway."

Wei Ao took the elemental pool, feeling the surging energy fluctuations within, and nodded with satisfaction.

She flicked a silver rune crystal: "For future deliveries, transmit directly to these coordinates. Star Fall has set up an automatic receiving array; as long as the energy signature matches, the cargo will be sent directly to the Shattered Star Plane's reserve warehouse."

The transaction was completed, and Wei Ao got up to leave.

But just as the transmission light lit up, she seemed to suddenly remember something and turned to look at Jie Ming.

"By the way, your mandatory rest period—should be reaching its deadline soon, right?"

Jie Ming was stunned, then nodded: "About three years left."

"Any news on the next support plane?"

"Uh—" Jie Ming rarely showed an awkward expression. "I've been immersed in the iteration of my own wizardry and knowledge for the past few decades, and haven't checked the mission notification sent by the military department yet."

Wei Ao shook her head, an "as expected" expression appearing on her exquisite face.

"You—sometimes you really should come out of the laboratory to get some air." She said helplessly. "Check it quickly and make preparations in advance. This should be your last short mandatory rest period; later, when you advance to a Tier 5 wizard, your rest period will be forcibly extended."

As the words fell, the transmission light swallowed her figure.

The reception room returned to quiet.

Jie Ming stood where he was, pondered for a moment, then raised his hand to summon the Magic Network Terminal.

A translucent light screen unfolded in the air, and the bright red "Unread messages: 127" in the upper right corner was particularly glaring.

Most of them were automatic notifications from the military system, earnings reports for technical patents, and some cooperation invitations.

He directly filtered for the "Military Directive" category.

Three messages marked with emergency symbols popped up.

The first one was sent two hundred years ago, notifying him that his rest period was half over and he could apply for combat in advance.

It was useless to him at all.

The second one was fifty years ago, asking if he had any intention of participating in a certain "High-Risk Plane Expansion Plan" (expired).

The third one—

Sending time: seven days ago.

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