Chapter 574: Harvest

The light of the teleportation array gradually dissipated.

Jie Ming opened his eyes; before him was a familiar scene.

The eternally grey-red sky of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, the thick smoke erupting from the volcano in the distance, and the smell of sulfur permeating the air.

"I'm back."

He took a deep breath, the corners of his mouth lifting involuntarily.

More than a decade.

Although for a wizard's lifespan, a decade or so was nothing, the harvest from this trip was worth hundreds of years of normal gains. Jie Ming walked out of the teleportation array, and a Black Giant priest immediately came up to greet him.

"My lord, you've returned."

Jie Ming nodded and asked while walking out: "How has the situation been these years?"

The Black Giant priest followed behind him and reported quickly: "The Incense Divine Path is running steadily, and the number of believers has increased by about three percent. The 7th-tier large elemental pool output is stable, with no abnormalities. The automated factory is running normally, and we have stocked enough materials according to your requirements..."

Jie Ming listened to the report, his heart settling.

The Purgatory Sulfur Plane was his foundation; as long as nothing went wrong here, he had a retreat for everything outside.

He spent three days processing all the backlogged affairs.

The operating data of the Incense Divine Path, maintenance records of the elemental pool, production reports of the automated factory...

One by one, he reviewed and signed off on everything.

Three days later, Jie Ming finally had time to sit down and properly take stock of this harvest.

He sat in the center of the laboratory, with rows of pale blue crystals laid out in front of him.

Entropy Brains.

Large and small, a total of 523 pieces.

Jie Ming looked at these crystals and couldn't help but smile.

This time, he had obtained quite a lot of military merits in the Information Plane, but he hadn't taken any of them with him when he left, instead exchanging them all for Entropy Brains. Even the batch of high-tier military merits Martin had promised was converted into Entropy Brains by him.

Facts proved that Jie Ming's choice was correct.

As the Information Plane was conquered, more and more wizards left the Information Plane and returned.

News about Entropy Brains spread more and more widely, and the price of Entropy Brains soared all the way.

By the time he left, an Entropy Brain, depending on its size, had been hyped up to between 200,000 and 500,000 high-tier military merits.

"More than 500 pieces..."

Jie Ming muttered to himself, a satisfied light flashing in his eyes.

According to the current market price, these Entropy Brains were worth at least 100 million high-tier military merits.

However, whether continuing to hold Entropy Brains waiting for appreciation or using them to improve oneself, their value was better than simple high-tier military merits. But for Jie Ming, Entropy Brains were just the most insignificant part of this harvest.

He closed his eyes, organizing the vast knowledge he had obtained in the Information Plane.

The most important knowledge was the enlightenment in the data space at the time, which was a sudden realization when pressured by the Supreme Consensus Algorithm on the verge of life and death. Over the past decade or so, he had repeatedly experienced the operation of the entropy-reduction cycle by helping others break silence.

These accumulations finally converged into one point...

That was his understanding of "mobilizing external power" in the cultivation system, which had reached a brand-new level.

Jie Ming opened his eyes and raised a finger to point forward.

No incantation, no hand seals, the surrounding elements instantly rioted.

Massive amounts of fire, wind, water, and earth elements surged from all directions, condensing into a dazzling energy ball at his fingertip. The power of that energy ball was comparable to a 5th-tier wizard spell.

And the spiritual power Jie Ming consumed was negligible.

"My level of mobilizing external power now, if converted to the level of the cultivation side, I'm afraid it has already reached the Void Refinement Stage..." he muttered.

In the cultivation system, after Soul Transformation comes Void Refinement.

And now, after being tempered by the Information Plane, his pure control over the power of heaven and earth had reached the standard of a Void Refinement cultivator. What did this mean?

It meant he could manufacture 4th-tier Rune Wizard Tools!

Rune Wizard Tools were an important early invention of Jie Ming, combining cultivation talisman technology with the wizard rune system, capable of using weak spiritual power as a key to draw elemental energy from the environment to release wizard spells.

But due to technical limitations, he had only been able to manufacture Rune Wizard Tools below 3rd-tier before.

Now, although his knowledge level was still quite a distance from a normal 5th-tier wizard, his ability to mobilize the power of heaven and earth had reached the Void Refinement level, and this bottleneck was finally broken.

Jie Ming's heart moved, and he took out a semi-finished Rune Wizard Tool from his cave-heaven.

It was a metal disc the size of a palm, with the surface engraved with dense runes.

Jie Ming focused slightly, and spiritual power slowly poured in.

The metal disc lit up.

Those runes lit up one after another, and the surrounding elements began to converge toward it.

In just a few seconds, the metal disc completed charging and quietly hovered in the air, ready to release an attack at any time.

This was a 4th-tier Rune Wizard Tool, considered a product Jie Ming had experimentally made to verify his level.

The power of the released wizard spell surpassed conventional 5th-tier wizard spells; although it couldn't compare to 6th-tier wizard spells, it had the advantage of being able to be released continuously.

Jie Ming withdrew his spiritual power, the smile on his mouth deepening.

But this was not the biggest harvest.

He stood up and took a deep breath.

Then, his body began to change.

Grey-white flames surged from within his body, instantly swallowing his entire being.

His form twisted, dissipated, and reorganized, finally turning into a burning grey-white flame humanoid.

Light God Transformation; Extinction Form.

The temperature of the laboratory didn't change too drastically, but the metal floor under Jie Ming's feet began to "disappear" the moment he stood there. Jie Ming looked down and quickly canceled the form.

The grey-white flames dissipated, and he turned back into a human.

A clear footprint-shaped depression was left on the ground, the edges smooth as a mirror, as if a piece had been wiped away out of thin air. "Phew..."

Jie Ming gasped for air, cold sweat seeping from his forehead.

This move was still too strenuous for him to use.

But the key was, he had learned it... the Fire of Ashes!

Although it was only a negligible fragment.

But that was still the core law of the 8th-tier wizard "Heart of Ashes" Martin, the result of the other party's tens of thousands of years of research.

Under normal circumstances, let alone learning it, one wouldn't even have the qualification to take a look.

Even if one spent tens of billions of high-tier military merits, one couldn't buy this level of knowledge.

But because of the special experience in the Information Plane, Jie Ming had obtained the data model of Martin controlling the Fire of Ashes, personally experienced the feeling of being pressured by entropy reduction, and repeatedly came into contact with the entropy-reduction cycle in the decade or so that followed.

He finally managed to chew through this knowledge.

Although he could only rigidly apply this power in the "Extinction Form" now, and was still far from Martin's realm of lifting heavy as if it were light, this was already outrageous.

One must know, this was the core knowledge of an 8th-tier wizard.

Jie Ming sat back in his chair and began to calmly analyze the practical value of this move.

First, the spellcasting pre-swing was too long.

Because it was filled with a large amount of advanced knowledge far beyond his current level, even with the assistance of the Fate System, he needed at least ten seconds of preparation time to activate the Extinction Form.

Ten seconds.

In a real battle, ten seconds was enough for the enemy to kill him thousands of times.

Second, the duration was too short.

With his current spiritual power and Fate System load, he could maintain it for at most three to five seconds.

Exceeding this time, he would collapse before the enemy even made a move.

So from a practical perspective, this move couldn't be used in most situations.

But...

What if he could find an opportunity to use it?

Jie Ming narrowed his eyes, and a figure appeared in his mind.

The "Illusion" wizard.

That was an opponent he had encountered in the wizard war before, an absolute elite 6th-tier wizard.

Back then, he had spent a great deal of effort, and finally relied on the Light God Transformation to barely defeat the opponent.

If he had mastered the Extinction Form back then...

Jie Ming simulated that scene in his mind.

That "Illusion" wizard, if they hadn't run away immediately the moment he unfolded the Extinction Form, would have been instantly killed by him.

This was the value of the Extinction Form.

An absolute ultimate trump card.

Once it could be used, it was enough to change the course of the battle.

Jie Ming took a deep breath, suppressing the excitement in his heart, and began to plan his next steps. ===== CHAPTER 575 =====