On this day, Jie Ming concluded his routine meditation.
After examining the increasingly intricate Ring of Truth within his mental sea, he exited the meditative state with satisfaction.
Rising, he habitually checked the two crystal cores slowly fusing at the center of the energy field.
Streams of precise data flowed back from the instruments, displaying their energy states.
Confirming that the energy fluctuations within the two cores were normal and stable, Jie Ming nodded with contentment.
These two energy cores were not like the low-grade second- or first-level ones he had used for practice before.
The core before him now—one radiating the suffocating heat of a miniature sun, the other releasing the soul-freezing chill of a millennia-old glacier—was far superior.
The Lava Giant’s core was the complete core of a fourth-level Lava Giant he had “picked up” in the Frostflame Plane.
The other was a third-level Snow Beast core, acquired at great cost from the academy’s trophy vault.
Jie Ming swiped across the screen, meticulously checking their fusion progress, which was so slow it seemed almost stagnant, and shook his head helplessly.“As expected, I can’t rush this…”
The energy intensity of these two cores was simply too high.
To perfectly fuse such opposing origin energies, haste was out of the question.
Even with Jie Ming’s now-refined modification techniques, fully integrating these two behemoths into a new whole would take at least another decade, according to his calculations.
Moreover, cultivating the modified Black Giant afterward would be no small feat.
Given the energy levels available in the Infernal Sulfur Plane, each Black Giant’s cultivation would take years.
Fortunately, time was not an immediate concern for him.
Compared to this steadily progressing, centuries-long grand plan, Jie Ming currently faced two real troubles.
The first was his cultivation progress—he was stuck at a bottleneck!
After checking the experiment’s status and recording the data, Jie Ming entered the quiet room of his laboratory, sat cross-legged, and entered a state of introspection.
His consciousness delved inward, clearly observing the golden true essence in his dantian’s qi sea, now fully liquefied and brimming to the extreme.
His current cultivation had solidly reached the peak of the Foundation Establishment realm.
Logically, at this level, taking the next step—condensing liquid into a pill to achieve the “One Golden Pill swallowed, my fate is mine, not heaven’s”—should have been a natural progression.
Yet, no matter how he cultivated or studied the subsequent techniques in the Qi Refinement Method
, Jie Ming always felt a thin, invisible barrier separating him from the Golden Core realm.It was as if he lacked a critical “spark” to break through.
Initially, Jie Ming thought that with his wizard mindset, he could simply “force it with overwhelming power”—accumulating energy far beyond his peers to smash through the barrier to the next realm.
But reality left him helpless.
Despite decades of steady cultivation, his energy continued to grow, its purity and quantity even surpassing some early Golden Core cultivators.
Yet, he still felt no sign of advancing to the Golden Core stage.
In recent years, by carefully studying the vast information stored in the Great Dao Book Pavilion within his consciousness, Jie Ming gained a deeper understanding of the cultivation system.
He finally realized where the problem lay.
His approach wasn’t wrong in the wizard system, but the cultivation system’s “bottlenecks” couldn’t always be overcome by “brute force”.
In the earliest days of the cultivation world, during the primordial era when heaven and earth were newly formed, cultivation was simply Qi Refinement—or rather, the more ancient Refining Essence into Qi.
But achieving immortality by cultivating a pure and pristine “Innate Qi” was incredibly talent-dependent.
The difficulty was so great that many couldn’t even cross the threshold of entry.
Thus, later cultivators, through continuous evolution and exploration, subdivided the cultivation process, creating stages like Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, and Nascent Soul.
This resulted in the clear hierarchy of realms we know today.
Theoretically, each major realm in the cultivation system could be cultivated indefinitely.
Each realm embodied a cultivation philosophy, allowing one to continuously refine energy and enhance strength.
One could, in theory, cultivate a single realm to achieve immortality!
This was entirely different from the wizard system, where reaching the peak of a level meant hitting a ceiling on power unless one advanced.
The problem was, while Jie Ming believed his talent was decent, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think he could cultivate Foundation Establishment alone to immortality!
Even more troubling, he didn’t even know why he couldn’t advance.
Until he found that critical “spark”, he could only continue his monotonous accumulation day after day.
As for the second problem…
Jie Ming glanced at his personal account on the terminal, now deep in the red, and pressed his temples with a headache.
Yes, he was broke again!
“Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be rich? How did I become a pauper after advancing?” Jie Ming muttered, scratching his head in frustration.
He knew full well that his high-intensity cross-species genetic modification and elemental core fusion research consumed resources and points at a terrifying rate!
Sighing, Jie Ming packaged the last batch of Mortal Dust Potions he’d refined recently and sent them through the designated teleportation array.
Afterward, staring at his completely zeroed-out account, he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.
Just as he was about to end the fruitless call, Viola’s next words stopped him in his tracks: “Actually, I’ve always thought it’d be easy for a guy like you to make money.”
“Why do you say that?” Jie Ming looked at her, puzzled.
Viola leaned back comfortably in her lab chair, giving him a look of “you’re wasting your potential”.
“I’m saying, you’re too stingy! You’ve got so many techniques even I’m jealous of, yet you’ve never considered selling any of them!”
“Sure, wizards guard their core techniques closely, but I’ve never seen a freak like you who won’t even sell a scrap of outdated tech!”
“Technology iterates! Researching new tech costs a fortune. Selling off ‘old tech’ that’s no longer cutting-edge is the most common and practical way to fund it!”
“Besides,” Viola’s voice took on a tempting lilt, “‘knowledge’ is the ultimate currency in our wizarding civilization! If you’ve got something good enough, forget points or low-level merits—you could rake in advanced merits issued by the Star Orbit Tribunal until your hands cramp!”
Her words struck Jie Ming like a bolt of lightning, shattering his mental deadlock over his “poverty”!
His eyes lit up!
She was right!
Why hadn’t he thought of this?!
He’d always instinctively treated all his research as core secrets, never considering them as “products” to sell!
As Viola said, clinging to outdated tech only drove up his research costs.
“Thanks, Senior! I get it now!”
Realizing this, Jie Ming excitedly thanked her and abruptly ended the call!
He completely ignored Viola’s waving arms and her shouting, “Hey! If you’ve got any good tech, sell it to me first! I can take out another loan!” as the screen went dark.
Staring at the now-closed communication, Viola gnashed her teeth in frustration. “Ugh… that ungrateful brat!”
But Jie Ming couldn’t hear her complaints. He was already eagerly opening his experimental records, carefully selecting technologies to sell.