Translator: AnubisTL
After the meeting concluded, Jieming returned to his laboratory in the Golden Garden and quickly put the external turmoil regarding the Elite Combat Unit behind him.
The Star Ring Federation's strategic shift sounded grandiose, but for Jieming personally, the changes to his daily life were minimal.
It simply meant that instead of occasionally having to "report for duty" at the academy, he could now enjoy mentor-level extended leave benefits without holding an official position.
The terminal he used to accept war missions was upgraded from the general-purpose model used at junction points to a Federation-issued magic net terminal with higher permissions and more integrated functions.
According to Dean Avery Knight, elite members like them would no longer need to travel to junction points to register and be screened for planar wars.
They could now apply directly through the magic net terminal and wait for the system to assign them a mission.
Once they received the mission summons and teleportation coordinates, they could depart immediately using the dedicated teleportation formations established by the academy or the Federation, saving both time and effort.
Aside from that, there were virtually no other changes for Jieming.
Stripping away these trivial administrative procedures, Jieming threw himself back into his life of undisturbed research.
Turning a blind eye to the ever-changing winds of the outside world, he devoted his primary energy to analyzing the core knowledge of the five newly acquired Divine Power Faith Networks.
Time flew by. The self-circulating timer in the laboratory silently ticked away fifty years.
Now, Jieming stood before a specially reinforced observation tank, his brow furrowed, a hint of frustration in his eyes.
Inside the tank, a seemingly ordinary mass of white mist swirled slowly, just like any foggy morning he had ever seen.
This was the mysterious mist he had gone to great lengths to collect from the Void Domain Plane all those years ago.
Over the past fifty years, he had employed nearly every non-destructive analysis method he could conceive: elemental spectrum scanning, energy field resonance detection, high-dimensional structural mapping, and even several Appraisal Secret Techniques from the [Great Dao Library Pavilion]... The results were all the same.
The data showed it was merely a common condensation of water vapor, its physical properties and energy reactions perfectly conforming to the basic laws of nature.
"I still... can't understand it..." Jieming couldn't help but run his hand through his hair, messing up the once-neat strands.
This "lack of understanding" stemmed not only from a deficiency of knowledge but also from a gap in dimensions.
Just as a two-dimensional being could never grasp the concept of height, Jieming's current knowledge base was an insurmountable chasm away from the mysteries hidden within the white mist.
He knew that something was happening, but not how or why. He couldn't even begin to fathom that something.
He let out a long, ragged breath, forcing down the frustration that stemmed from his stalled research.
Turning away from the demoralizing analysis chamber, he stepped into the adjacent biological containment zone.
Inside the massive ecological simulation pod, several mutant snake-spiders—their forms hideous, their jointed legs shimmering with unstable spatial ripples—scuttled about restlessly.
Their existence confirmed Jieming's initial hypothesis: mutant snake-spiders were indeed the result of a normal snake-spider brood-chief mutating under the influence of some unknown factor.
Not every brood-chief could successfully mutate, but through years of accumulation and Jieming's own deliberate collection and "catalysis," he had amassed a considerable number of specimens.
Yet, the problem remained.
Spatial abilities, which tapped into higher-tier elemental essences, were one of the most profound and inscrutable domains on the path of a wizard.
For any wizard below the Third Tier, whose mental power and perception of the world's laws had not yet undergone a qualitative transformation, attempting to directly and deeply study such power was nothing short of a fool's errand.
At his current level, Jieming couldn't even get close to the mutant snake-spiders without relying on heavy protection and spatial stabilizers. The spatial ripples naturally emanating from them were enough to tear apart his insufficiently protected body.
"Sigh..." He let out another helpless sigh.
Both of his research directions had hit a bottleneck, and the feeling was far from pleasant.
Feeling somewhat disheartened, he returned to the lounge and threw himself into the soft recliner.
With a casual gesture, Jieming activated the large screen embedded in the wall.
To an ordinary person, the screen would be a dizzying blur of rapidly flashing black-and-white gibberish.
But to Jieming—with the neural reflexes and information processing capabilities of a peak-stage second-tier wizard and a Golden Core realm cultivator—the "slowly" scrolling data was a vast sea of knowledge he had collected while shuttling between various battlefields during his time in the Triangular Plane Cluster.
Reading and studying this knowledge was his unique way of relaxing.
He called it "leisure" because as his own knowledge base grew more extensive, his learning speed increased.
With his ability to draw parallels across different fields, he could grasp the core principles and structural diagrams of many technical and applied subjects almost instantly. He could even mentally derive several optimized or improved versions of them in a flash.
This effortless mastery, this feeling of solving a simple puzzle, brought a sense of intellectual pleasure and relaxation.
But today, that pleasure seemed to be overshadowed.
Jieming couldn't help but sigh again, his gaze growing complex.
He clearly realized that he had almost reached the "knowledge barrier" for his current level.
This didn't mean there was no more knowledge to learn, but rather that the remaining profound knowledge he had yet to master would become exponentially more difficult to acquire.
Meanwhile, knowledge below his current level had become so simple that he could no longer improve his proficiency in it.
At his current level, every small step forward required an immense amount of effort, and the return on his investment was steadily diminishing.
Forcing himself to dig deeper within the existing framework would only yield diminishing returns.
"It's about time... I prepare for advancement..." Jieming muttered to himself.
However, unlike immortal cultivators who primarily focused their energy on the cultivation stage, wizards mainly expended enormous effort and resources during advancement.
It was no exaggeration to say that every wizard's method of advancement was unique, but every wizard exhausted all their current resources before attempting to advance.
Ordinary wizards would bankrupt themselves or even incur massive debts just to purchase a single Plane Origin. But for a wizard like Jieming, it was a trivial purchase.
Yet, a wizard of Jieming's caliber could never settle for a mediocre advancement scheme.
For instance, Senior Viola had also exhausted her family fortune for her advancement. For a capable wizard, failing to push their limits during advancement would be so unbearable it would keep them awake at night.
His gaze swept across the knowledge stream still "slowly" scrolling on the screen. The technical details that once thrilled him now felt invisibly childish.
He frowned and decided to multitask. Splitting off a portion of his divine sense, he retrieved a metal-covered tome from his internal space—one so thick it resembled a city wall brick. Its title was Seventh-Tier Large Elemental Pool: Principles, Architecture, Maintenance, and High-Tier Application Guide.
While using his mental power to "scroll" through the knowledge on the screen as background noise, he truly immersed himself in the complex, mind-numbing manual.
No matter what his future plans were, he had to ensure that his primary energy source—the seventh-tier large elemental pool he'd purchased at a staggering cost—could perfectly support all his creations and research needs.
Time flowed like water, slipping away silently.
Another decade passed in a blur of focused research and cultivation.
One day, Jieming had just finished his daily practice of tempering his dao heart with Mortal Dust Qi. He slowly calmed the chaotic thoughts swirling around him and exhaled a long breath of turbid air.
At the very moment his spirit returned to clarity, he suddenly paused, his expression freezing.
A profound, indescribable sensation surged from the depths of his soul—not a specific piece of knowledge or a new power, but a "spiritual light" that signaled a natural fruition, like a ripe fruit finally ready to fall.
Without consulting any tomes in the Great Dao Library Pavilion or seeking guidance from others, a clear realization dawned upon him:
The time has come. I can now advance to the Nascent Soul Realm.
There was no wild joy, no agitation—only the calm acceptance of one who had long tilled the earth and finally saw the first signs of harvest.
He rose and walked with steady steps toward the depths of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.
There lay a secret chamber he had prepared long ago, its walls inscribed with multiple layers of protective and energy-gathering runes.
(End of the Chapter)
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