Pleased with the results, Jie Ming’s thoughts turned back to the issue of physical enhancement.
The Flame Lord could no longer provide sufficient challenge, and while the Infernal Sulfur Plane housed other powerful beings, finding suitable training opponents across its vast expanse was highly inefficient.
He needed a more effective, controlled training environment.
“If the external world can’t provide it, why not create one internally?”
With a spark of inspiration, Jie Ming immediately consulted the leader of the wizard construction team.
They were thrilled to accept the additional business.
Jie Ming paid a hefty sum of points that excited the low-tier wizards, commissioning them to build a fully functional gravity training chamber deep within the underground laboratory of the Golden Garden.
Days later, a massive circular chamber forged from special alloys stood prominently in the deepest part of his underground lab.
The chamber’s interior was spacious, its walls etched with intricate rune circuits.
Jie Ming eagerly stepped inside to test it.“Activate, tenfold gravity!” he commanded the chamber’s control system.
A low hum filled the chamber, and an invisible weight descended instantly.
Jie Ming felt his body sink, as if bearing a massive burden.
He moved his limbs, feeling his muscles tremble under the pressure, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
“Good. Increase to one thousandfold gravity!” he ordered.
The gravity surged again, making breathing difficult. His bones creaked, and his knees nearly buckled.
Gritting his teeth, he tensed his muscles, relying on the formidable physique honed by the Body Forging Method to withstand the force.
Sweat soaked his clothes, dripping to the floor.
“Excellent. One thousandfold gravity produces such great results. The maximum tens of thousands-fold gravity field… it’ll suffice until I reach the Nascent Soul stage,” Jie Ming marveled.
This extreme gravity not only tempered his muscles and bones but also forced him to refine his control over physical strength.
Beyond the gravity field, the chamber was equipped with precise multi-element attack arrays.
After a brief workout, Jie Ming ended the gravity test and turned to the elemental attack arrays.
These arrays didn’t unleash destructive attacks but could release elemental energy streams of varying intensities and attributes, or simulate attack patterns of elemental creatures, based on Jie Ming’s settings.
“Activate, fire element simulation!”
Instantly, the chamber’s air grew scorching.
Visible streams of fire element burst from the runes on the walls, like whips of flame, gently but persistently lashing at Jie Ming’s body.
He felt each thread of fire energy penetrate, stimulating his body’s innate resistance to fire.
“Water element corrosion, lightning paralysis, wind blade slicing, earth element impact…” Jie Ming cycled through the elemental modes.
Each attack was like a precise chisel, microscopically “carving” his body, allowing it to gradually adapt to various elemental assaults and enhance resistance through the Body Forging Method’s properties.
He could precisely adjust the training intensity and elemental types to achieve his long-term goal of resistance to all forms of damage.
From then on, Jie Ming’s life became more structured and fulfilling.
For the next period, he immersed himself in a rhythm of research and self-improvement.
Each day, he trained intensely in the gravity chamber, pushing his body’s potential.
Then he returned to the lab, diving into various studies.
Occasionally, he visited the dead volcano, activating the arrays to collect newborn baleful qi.
Under the arrays’ protection, the volcano became a stable baleful qi production base.
When research left him exhausted, he would pilot a flight rune artifact, scouring other regions of the Infernal Sulfur Plane for new baleful qi sources or unique species and minerals.
One day, after collecting baleful qi at the dead volcano, Jie Ming checked his inventory.
To his delight, months of consistent collection had amassed a substantial amount of baleful qi from the volcano.
Combined with the Flower Baleful Qi gathered from the Golden Garden, his stockpile was now considerable.
Rubbing his chin, Jie Ming knew it was time for a new round of crafting.
Back in the lab, he pored over the vast archives of the Great Dao Book Pavilion, selecting a crafting method for a protective treasure that best suited his current needs.
This treasure, called the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier, was a unique protective technique in the cultivator system.
According to the Pavilion’s records, it was semi-permanent.
Once crafted, it wasn’t a physical object but an intangible protective barrier that constantly enveloped the user’s body.
The treasure had a single function: resisting curses and divination.
Crafted primarily from chaotic astral and mortal dust qi, once formed, these energies wove together like interlocking chains, creating an indestructible protective net around the user.
The Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier’s mechanism for resisting curses and divination was simple.
Any curse or divination targeting the user required a connection to them.
With the barrier’s intangible, conceptual nature surrounding the user, such techniques had to breach the astral and mortal dust qi first.
But in doing so, the barrier’s energies would flow back along the connection, corroding the caster!
It was like surrounding oneself with a moat of filth.
Of course, this protection came at a cost.
In resisting and counterattacking, the barrier’s astral and mortal dust qi would gradually deplete.
If overexhausted, the treasure would collapse.
Its advantage lay in its ability to be replenished with more baleful and mortal dust qi, allowing semi-permanent protection.
After half a month of preparation, Jie Ming began crafting the protective treasure.
He first placed the collected baleful qi into a custom furnace for preliminary refinement and fusion, transforming it into the astral qi needed for the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier.
This process demanded precise control of spiritual power; a single misstep could cause the chaotic baleful qi to backlash.
Fortunately, Jie Ming, flush with resources, encased himself in thick refined gold armor.
Occasional leaks during crafting had little effect thanks to the armor.
Next, he extracted the most chaotic portion of mortal dust qi from his internal space, merging it with the refined astral qi.
At this stage, the protective treasure was nearly eighty percent complete, requiring only a few restrictive runes to finalize.
As it was more like a consumable talisman than a true magical treasure, the crafting difficulty was low.
This sparked new ideas in Jie Ming.
Per the Great Dao Book Pavilion’s method, the finished treasure relied on external spiritual energy to sustain the astral and mortal dust qi’s operation.
But the wizard world lacked spiritual energy, only having elemental forces. Jie Ming wanted to see if he could substitute the energy source.
Drawing on his previous success adapting the Body Forging Method and studying flight rune artifacts, he quickly identified the runes governing energy supply in the restrictions.
Replacing them with runes to absorb external elements wasn’t enough; the absorbed elemental energy had to be converted into a form the astral and mortal dust qi could “recognize” and “use.”
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Jie Ming knew this was the critical moment.
He relied on his recent insights—not quite research, but a bold idea.
Carefully, he extended his spiritual power, guiding the absorbed elemental energy to flow in a specific pattern.
Then, with utmost caution, he wove the purified astral and mortal dust qi through the restrictions like threads, intertwining them.
The elemental energy surged like living water, resonating strangely with the astral and mortal dust qi.
Initially, the two distinct energy systems repelled each other, causing faint tremors.
Sweat beaded on Jie Ming’s forehead as he adjusted the runes’ frequency and altered the energy infusion pattern.
At a certain moment, the repulsion vanished.
The sharpness of the astral qi and the flexibility of the mortal dust qi fused perfectly, driven by the wizard’s elemental energy.
More precisely, elemental energy converted into spiritual energy!
The unique pattern was none other than Jie Ming mimicking the flow of his own Qi Refinement Method.
The treasure’s defining trait was its symbiosis with the user, requiring significant similarities between them.
With astral and mortal dust qi and the restrictions, it could simulate a human-like environment to some extent.
With a “human body,” it could naturally emulate a cultivation method’s operation!
The restrictions glowed brilliantly, then dimmed, slowly dissolving into fine streams of energy that merged into the core astral and mortal dust qi.
When the light and fluctuations subsided, Jie Ming held nothing tangible.
The Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier, upon completion, became an intangible protective shield, enveloping him like a second skin.
He could feel its perfect harmony with his soul, as if it were part of him.
Closing his eyes, he sensed the treasure existing in a liminal state between reality and intangibility, occupying no space and invisible to the eye.
Its greatest feature was its ability to absorb external energy to sustain itself, allowing the user to maintain it indefinitely without fear of energy depletion.
For Jie Ming, the most significant achievement was validating his idea during the crafting process!
Simply put, by simulating a human environment and mimicking a cultivation method’s flow, he could convert external elemental energy into spiritual energy, even without understanding the method’s inner logic or technical principles—just by copying the pattern!
This meant, from now on, he could unlock a host of new possibilities!