Chapter 613

A few months later.

The constant temperature purification system in the laboratory was at full load, but it still couldn't drain the heat continuously emitted from inside the laboratory. Countless discarded plan drawings were scattered on the ground, the rune array on the wall was slightly hot from running for too long, emitting a buzzing low hum. Jie Ming and Wei Aola stood in front of the laboratory table, both of their eyes as red as rabbits, their faces covered in an unhealthy grey-blue layer. Finally, Jie Ming completed the last surgery.

His fingers moved away from the surface of the Nest, and his whole person felt as if he had been emptied, sitting down on the chair behind him, the chair emitting an unbearable creaking sound.

Wei Aola next to him was even more exaggerated, lying directly on the ground, limbs spread out like a sun-dried salted fish.

"Finally... finished..." Her voice floated up from the floor, weak and powerless.

Jie Ming leaned on the back of the chair, looking up at the ceiling, not even having the strength to speak.

It could only be said that when two capable and picky wizards get together, the inspiration that erupts is endless.

Wei Aola's initial modified version was already quite good; if executed strictly according to that plan, the modification of the Nest would have been completed in at most five or six days.

But the problem was... neither of them was the type of person who "executes according to the plan."

When the surgery reached the third day, Jie Ming suddenly thought of a better way to arrange the information nodes.

After Wei Aola saw it, she felt it could be even more radical. So the plan was changed, the surgery was paused, and it was readjusted.

Two weeks later, Wei Aola proposed a new energy circuit structure that could increase information conversion efficiency by ten percent.

Jie Ming studied it for three days and added two optimizations on this basis.

So the plan was changed again.

Repeatedly, several times in total.

Every overthrow meant that the surgery of the previous few days was done in vain, and every restart made their faces turn greener.

In the end, Jie Ming couldn't remember which version this was.

He only knew that if there was another time, he might throw the Nest and Wei Aola into the furnace together.

After resting for a while, relying on the body-refining technique to forcibly adapt to this terrifying fatigue, Jie Ming struggled to climb up from the chair.

He walked to the laboratory table, his eyes shining, and a pale golden light lit up between his brows.

The Eye of Omnipotence and the Fate System were activated together, and his spiritual power turned into countless fine threads, probing into every corner of the Nest.

The scan lasted for a full quarter of an hour, his brows going from tightly furrowed to relaxed, from relaxed to calm, and finally turning into a long sigh.

"It looks like there's no problem... there shouldn't be any problem on your side either." His voice carried a kind of uncertainty of surviving a disaster. Wei Aola climbed up from the ground, patted the dust off her body, and walked to the other side of the laboratory table.

She took out the lens, checked it carefully, and then nodded, her tone rarely serious: "Very good, completely in line with the design." The two looked at each other and let out a long breath at the same time.

If there was really any problem with this thing, the two of them would probably have strangled each other before the modification surgery even started.

"Test it?" Jie Ming asked.

"Test it." Wei Aola nodded.

Jie Ming grabbed the gelatinous creature on the laboratory table that had shrunk to the size of a basketball, pushed open the laboratory door, and flew out directly. Wei Aola followed closely behind.

The two galloped under the grey-red sky of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, passing through the crater, crossing the residential area of the Black Giants, and finally landing on the edge of a vast desert.

This was once part of a plane in a parallel world, and after merging, it became a no-man's-land in the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.

Yellow sand filled the sky, and not a blade of grass grew, which was just right for testing.

Jie Ming threw the Nest down casually.

The basketball-sized mass of gel landed on the sand, first staying still for a few seconds, as if adapting to the new environment.

Then it received Jie Ming's command and began to frantically devour the surrounding matter.

Sand grains, gravel, elemental energy drifting in the air...

Everything that could be utilized was sucked into its body.

A faint blue light appeared on its surface, which was a sign that the information conversion nodes were running at full capacity.

Jie Ming and Wei Aola didn't pay attention to it after throwing the Nest down, but hovered back into mid-air.

Jie Ming's Eye of Omnipotence was activated throughout, recording every trace of the Nest's changes.

After countless rounds of modifications, the Nest had been modified beyond recognition.

All those flashy attack methods were canceled!

Time manipulation, energy barrages, acid spray, none of them were left.

The consensus reached by Jie Ming and Wei Aola was: the Nest does not need attack capability.

In terms of hard targets, there was Jie Ming's Li Huo Extinction Divine Light and the Black Giant Legion, so the positioning of the Nest after getting rid of its Nest identity was cannon fodder, a shield, and an "immortal cockroach" on the battlefield.

It doesn't need to kill the enemy, it just needs to live... or rather, it just needs to keep "coming back."

So they invested all resources in two directions: immortality and information conversion capability.

The current Nest will convert all surrounding energy and matter into information, and then reorganize this information into its own structure, thereby achieving self-proliferation.

This process sounds complicated, but in essence, it is exactly the same as the way information creatures resurrect: informatizing themselves, transmitting to nodes, and then re-materializing.

It's just that the Nest doesn't need nodes; it is the node itself.

More importantly, with proliferation, the number of information processing nodes within the Nest will also increase.

This means its computing power will grow with the growth of its body size, and its information processing capability will also improve, and the improvement of information processing capability will accelerate its devouring and conversion speed.

This forms a positive cycle: the bigger, the faster; the faster, the bigger.

When the computing power is strong to a certain extent, even external attacks will be absorbed and converted into its own body.

Energy attacks hit it, are parsed, reorganized, and absorbed by information nodes; physical attacks hit it, are buffered, wrapped, and devoured by the gel-like body.

In other words, unless the Nest is destroyed from the beginning, it will become harder and harder to kill.

Of course, this growth is not infinite.

Limited by the individual creature and technology, the growth rate of information nodes cannot keep up with the growth rate of volume.

When the body size of the Nest grows to a certain critical point, it can only absorb surrounding matter and energy to maintain its current body size, but cannot continue to expand. But Jie Ming thought of another countermeasure: he installed an array connected to the Fate System in the core area of the Nest.

When the Nest's body size is large enough and its intelligence is raised, it can actively mobilize the computing power of the Fate System to amplify its own information processing capability.

Combined, although the normal limit body size has not changed much, the limit body size of the Nest in combat state far exceeds the initial expectation.

According to the design model of Jie Ming and Wei Aola, the Nest in combat state can even devour energy and matter equivalent to an entire medium-sized plane.

And if the Nest can really devour an entire medium-sized plane, its computing power and body size will reach a terrifying level.

At that time, the combat capability of this thing can even confront an ordinary level-seven wizard head-on.

In the desert, the Nest is expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye.

From basketball size to water vat size, from water vat size to house size, from house size to hill size.

Yellow sand is frantically devoured, elements drifting in the air are sucked dry, and a vacuum zone even appears in the area around the Nest.

The blue light on its surface is getting brighter and brighter, like a blue sun falling on the ground.

Jie Ming estimated that from throwing it down to now, it was only one minute.

The body size of the Nest has exceeded one kilometer, and the growth rate is still accelerating.

Its aura is also climbing steadily and rapidly, from the initial unranked, to level one, level two, level three.

"That's about it." Jie Ming raised his hand, a strand of spiritual power probed into the core of the Nest, and issued a command to stop.

The devouring action of the Nest stopped abruptly.

The blue light on the surface slowly dimmed, the expansion speed dropped sharply, and finally stagnated at a diameter of about 1.5 kilometers.

It lay quietly in the desert, like a blue lake.

Jie Ming landed on the surface of the Nest, squatted down, and pressed his palm on the gel-like skin.

Spiritual power probed in, checking its internal state.

"Information nodes are running normally, energy circuits are stable, Fate System connection is smooth. Combat power assessment... should be level-three wizard level, and it is still growing slowly."

"Not bad." Jie Ming stood up and patted the non-existent dust on his hands.

Wei Aola landed beside him, checked it again, and nodded with satisfaction: "Better than expected."

Jie Ming raised his hand, the portal of the cave heaven in his body opened, and a powerful suction force pulled the Nest up from the desert and collected it into the depths of the cave heaven.

There is enough space and resources for it to continue to grow, and by the next time it is needed, it should have grown to a higher level. The two flew back to the laboratory, neither of them speaking on the way.

After all, the two of them were really too tired.

Several months of continuous work, repeated plan overthrows, countless fine operations, even if they were wizards, their spirit and physical strength had reached their limits.

Jie Ming pushed open the laboratory door and walked straight toward the two lounge chairs in the corner.

That was what Wei Aola moved in a few months ago, saying it was "in case of need."

Looking at it now, this might be the most visionary move of her visit this time.

The two slumped into a lounge chair each, letting out a long breath at the same time.

"Next time there's this kind of work," Wei Aola's voice floated over from the side, weak and powerless, "you find someone else."

Jie Ming closed his eyes, the corners of his mouth slightly raised: "Didn't you just say 'better than expected'?"

"That's praising the Nest, not praising you."

"Oh."

"And you haven't given me the reward yet."

"Hasn't the Entropy Brain already been given to you?"

"That was the previous price, do you think that one can make up for my hard work during this period?"

Jie Ming was silent for a while, took out a thumb-sized Entropy Brain from his spatial equipment, and threw it in Wei Aola's direction.

"I don't have many left either, use it sparingly."

Wei Aola caught the Entropy Brain, held it up to her eyes to look, the corners of her mouth curling into a satisfied smile, and didn't speak again.

The laboratory quieted down, only the rune array on the wall still emitting a low buzzing sound.

After resting for a long time, Jie Ming finally recovered his strength, looked up at Wei Aola beside him: "My work here is done, where do you plan to go to play next?"

Wei Aola tilted her head and thought: "I don't know. Do you have any recommendations?"

Jie Ming stared at the ceiling with his eyes wide open. After a long time, he shook his head.

"There's really nothing fun for you to do here. How about..." he paused, "I have the Black Giant priests take you around? The Purgatory Sulfur Plane is much bigger than before, and the scenery in some places is quite good."

Wei Aola rolled her eyes: "You've already said that once, forget it, who wants to see the scenery."

She stood up and patted the dust off her body: "Forget it, I'll go find fun myself. You continue to be busy with yours."

"Alright, goodbye."

Wei Aola waved her hand and pushed the door out.

Her footsteps gradually faded away, and the laboratory quieted down again.

A few decades later.

The secret chamber door opened, and Jie Ming walked out from inside, his body covered in a thin layer of dust.

He stood at the door, facing the grey-red sky light of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, and let out a long, turbid breath.

Behind him, that thousand-meter-tall dark golden Dharma Body was slowly dissipating, being collected back into his body.

Feeling the connection with the Dharma Body, Jie Ming nodded with satisfaction.

At this stage, he could be considered to have achieved great success in the Void Refinement Stage.

The Dharma Body had solidified to the point of being close to a physical entity, and could affect the outside world even without using spiritual power.

That is the benefit of the Void Refinement Stage.

As long as there are enough resources, the cultivation speed can be abnormally exaggerated.

The incense divine power provided by billions of believers, the spiritual energy converted from the energy of the level-seven large elemental pool, various rare materials purchased on the magic net... Jie Ming relied on these things to forcibly pile up from the initial entry into Void Refinement to great success in Void Refinement in just a few decades.

But even so, his speed was still not outstanding.

According to the records of the Great Dao Book Pavilion, in the Cultivation World, there is an elixir called "Body-Condensing Elixir," which can complete the cultivation of the Void Refinement Stage within one day after taking it, but he was already very content to finish the road that others take hundreds or even thousands of years to walk in a few decades.

Next, only the last step remained: merging the true body with the Dharma Body, letting the Dharma Body become the true body.

At that time, his current physical body would disappear completely, replaced by that thousand-meter-tall dark golden Dharma Body.

Of course, he could still transform back into the appearance of a normal person during daily life, but his "essence" had already changed.

Once this step is completed, the Void Refinement Stage is considered perfect, and he can break through to the Dao Integration Stage at any time.

He hadn't done anything for these decades, just kept cultivating, because the state of the Void Refinement Stage was too dangerous.

Although after the improvement of countless generations of cultivators, the current Void Refinement Stage would no longer reduce combat power during the cultivation process, that special state of "dispersed essence, Qi, and spirit" still existed.

Distracting thoughts are easy to breed, inner demons are easy to invade, and the state of mind is easy to have problems.

For this reason, Jie Ming chose the safest method: in one go, directly rush to perfection.

At the perfect realm, the transformation of the cultivator's life form is equivalent to having been completed, the Dharma Body and the true body are merged into one, the three treasures of essence, Qi, and spirit are returned to one, and that dangerous state will be automatically lifted.

At that time, he could be at ease.

(Something came up today, so just this chapter)