Translator: AnubisTL
That day, Jieming concluded his daily meditation.
After examining the increasingly complex Ring of Truth within his spiritual sea, he finally withdrew from his meditative state, satisfied.
Rising to his feet, he habitually checked the two crystal cores slowly fusing at the center of the energy field.
Streams of precise data flowed from the instruments, displaying their energy states.
Confirming that the energy fluctuations within the cores remained normal and stable, Jieming nodded in satisfaction.
These energy cores were far from the low-tier, second-tier and first-tier specimens he had previously used for practice.
Before him now were two elemental cores: one resembling a miniature sun, radiating suffocating heat, and the other like the essence of a millennia-old glacier, emitting a soul-freezing chill.
The lava giant core was the complete core of a fourth-tier lava giant Jieming had "found" on the Flamefrost Plane.
The other core, which he had acquired at great expense from the academy's spoils of war warehouse, belonged to a third-tier snow monster.
Jieming swiped his hand across the luminous screen, carefully examining the nearly stagnant progress of their fusion. He finally shook his head in resignation.
"As expected, this can't be rushed..."
The energy intensity of these two cores was simply too immense.
To perfectly fuse such diametrically opposed primordial energies of this magnitude, one couldn't afford to be hasty.
Even with Jieming's increasingly refined modification techniques, current calculations indicated that completely and flawlessly merging these two behemoths into a new whole would still require at least ten years.
After that, the modified Black Giant would need to be cultivated to maturity.
Given the current energy levels of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, this would be an extremely challenging endeavor. Each Black Giant's cultivation would take decades.
Fortunately, Jieming wasn't short on time for now.
Compared to this grand, centuries-long plan progressing steadily, Jieming's immediate troubles were twofold.
First, his immortal cultivation had hit a bottleneck!
After reviewing the implementation status and recording the experimental data, Jieming retreated to the laboratory's meditation chamber. He sat cross-legged, focused his mind, and entered a state of inner observation.
Sinking his consciousness into his body, he clearly observed the golden true essence within his dantian qi sea, now fully liquefied and brimming to the brim.
His cultivation had already reached the perfected state of Foundation Establishment.
Logically, at this level, the next step should be to ascend further, condensing the liquid into a core—to achieve the great golden core path, where "one golden core swallowed, my fate lies in my hands, not heaven's." This progression should have been as natural as water flowing downhill.
Yet the reality was frustratingly different. No matter how diligently he cultivated, delving into the advanced techniques of the qi refining technique, Jieming always felt separated from the Golden Core realm by an invisible, intangible membrane.
He sensed that he lacked a crucial "catalyst" for breaking through to the Golden Core realm.
Initially, Jieming believed that with his wizard's mindset, he could simply "smash through" this barrier—by accumulating far more energy than ordinary cultivators at his level and forcibly breaching the fortified gate to the next realm.
But the actual situation left him feeling helpless.
Despite decades of continuous cultivation, his internal energy continued to steadily grow, its purity and total volume already surpassing that of some early-stage Golden Core cultivators.
Yet he still felt no sign of advancing to the golden core realm.
In recent years, by meticulously studying the vast information within the Great Dao Library Pavilion deep within his consciousness, Jieming had gained a profound understanding of the immortal cultivation system.
He finally realized where the problem lay.
His approach, perfectly valid within the wizarding system, was fundamentally flawed in the cultivation system. Bottlenecks in cultivation weren't simply overcome by brute force.
This was because the underlying logic of cultivation realms differed drastically from that of the wizarding system.
In the earliest days of the immortal cultivation world, during the ancient era when heaven and earth were first formed, cultivation consisted solely of Qi Training—or rather, the even more ancient practice of qi refinement.
However, achieving Dao and immortality through the cultivation of pure primordial qi alone required extraordinary innate talent. The difficulty was so extreme that many couldn't even achieve the most basic entry level.
Therefore, later cultivators, through continuous evolution and exploration, gradually refined the cultivation process, dividing it into distinct stages such as Qi Gathering, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, and so on.
This process ultimately led to the clear-cut realms we know today.
Theoretically, each major realm in the immortal cultivation system could be cultivated indefinitely.
Each realm essentially represents a cultivation philosophy, allowing practitioners to continuously refine their energy and enhance their strength.
Until they achieve enlightenment and immortality within that realm!
This contrasts sharply with the wizard system, where reaching perfection at a certain level caps one's power. Without advancing to the next tier, no amount of further cultivation can break through that ceiling.
The problem was, while Jieming acknowledged his decent innate talent, he wasn't arrogant enough to believe he could defy the heavens and cultivate all the way to immortality using only the methods of the foundation establishment realm.
Worse still, he had no idea why he was currently unable to advance.
Until he found that crucial "trigger," he was stuck in this monotonous cycle of daily accumulation.
As for the second problem...
Jieming glanced at his Personal Points Account, now flashing a crimson deficit, and pressed his temples with a headache.
Yes, he was broke again!
"Wait a minute, I thought I was supposed to be a wealthy tycoon. How did I suddenly become a pauper after my advancement?" Jieming scratched his head in frustration.
In truth, he knew all too well that his high-intensity research into trans-species genetic modification and elemental core fusion consumed points and resources at an alarming rate.
Despite the steady income from adamantine, his savings had dwindled to almost nothing after purchasing rare research materials and expensive knowledge and data models.
Moreover, all the profits from the Red Dust Magic Potion had been temporarily reinvested into the seventh-tier large elemental pool, leaving Jieming's points balance severely in the red.
"You want a way to make money? Funny, I've been wondering the same thing lately!"
On the other end of the communication screen, Viola listened to Jieming's complaints about his financial difficulties before throwing her hands up in a gesture of helplessness, her face clearly conveying "I can't help you."
Jieming shook his head in resignation.
He must have lost his mind to think he could consult his senior sister—who was herself on the verge of bankruptcy due to Mentor Clark's exploitation—about this matter.
"Why don't you come with me to that plane?"
"Forget it. I still have a lot of research here that requires my presence..."
Jieming shook his head and sighed, packing up the last batch of Red Dust Magic Potions he had refined recently and sending them through a fixed-point teleportation formation.
After finishing, Jieming stared at his completely empty account, pinching the bridge of his nose in worry.
Just as he was about to end the rather unproductive communication, Viola's next words stopped him:
"Actually, I've always thought it would be quite easy for you to make money if you really wanted to."
"Why do you say that?" Jieming asked, looking at her with confusion.
Viola shifted into a more comfortable position in her laboratory chair, giving him a look of exasperated disappointment.
"Honestly, you're way too possessive of your resources! You have so many incredible technologies that even I'm envious of, yet you never even consider selling them!"
"While we wizards are all fiercely protective of our core technologies, I've never encountered anyone as stingy as you—a complete miser who refuses to sell even the most trivial scraps of technology!"
"After all, technology evolves! Researching new technologies requires massive funding. In such circumstances, bundling and selling outdated 'old technologies' is the most logical and common way to raise capital!"
"Besides," Viola's voice took on a seductive edge, "'knowledge' is the highest form of currency in our wizard civilization! If you possess truly valuable knowledge, you could easily earn far more than mere points or low-level military merits. You could even obtain high-level military merits personally awarded by the Star Orbit Tribunal—enough to make your hands ache from carrying them all!"
Viola's words struck Jieming's mind like a lightning bolt, instantly shattering the mental deadlock caused by his lack of funds!
His eyes lit up!
Of course!
How could I have overlooked this?!
He had always subconsciously treated every technology he developed as his trump card and core secret, never considering selling them as commodities!
Just as Viola had pointed out, technology evolves. Simply hoarding it only drives up research costs.
"Thank you, Senior Sister! I understand now!"
Having grasped this, Jieming excitedly thanked her and abruptly ended the communication.
He completely ignored Viola's frantic waving and shouting before the screen went dark: "Hey! If you've got any good tech, sell me a copy first! I can take out another loan!"
Staring at the now-closed connection, Viola gnawed on her finger in frustration. "Ah... that ungrateful brat! He's so ungrateful!"
But Jieming couldn't hear her complaints. He was already enthusiastically opening his laboratory records, carefully selecting technologies suitable for sale.
(End of the Chapter)
------------------------------------------------------
🧩 What happens next?
Read [WIZARD] on 𝖈𝖎𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖙𝖑.𝖈𝖔𝖒🔥
📖 Free chapters → up to [Ch298] (no sign-up needed!)
🔓 Become a member → unlock up to [Ch382] 🚀
🎁 Read:
[18,400,000+ Words],
[11,300+ Chapters],
across [16 Novels] on 🅲🅸🅽🅳🅴🆁🆃🅻.🅲🅾🅼.
🧧Massive Giveaway!
📆 2 Months of Full Access Reading Across all 16 Novels.📚
💥 Giveaway will be live on August 1st.
🌐 For More Details Visit 𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝕞.
------------------------------------------------------