In the training chamber, time itself seemed stretched and distorted. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Two identical figures crisscrossed at high speed within the confined space, clashing violently.

The dull, explosive thuds of fists striking flesh resounded like a dense war drum. The sharp whistles of leg shadows slicing through the air echoed like ghostly howls.

Every attack from both sides targeted the opponent’s most vulnerable joints and energy circulation nodes. Every defense used the smallest possible movement and the most precise redirection of force to parry or neutralize.

Jie Ming’s right arm bent backward at an eerie angle, deflecting a phantom’s knife-hand strike aimed straight at his temple. At the same instant, his left knee shot forward like a venomous dragon toward the opponent’s abdomen.

The phantom seemed to have anticipated it. Its waist bent backward like drifting willow floss, evading the knee strike while its leg whipped upward in a scorpion-tail hook toward Jie Ming’s chin.

Bang!

Jie Ming leaned back sharply, narrowly avoiding it. The edge of the kick grazed his skin, leaving a stinging, burning pain.

Without pause, he used the momentum of his backward lean to plant one hand on the ground. Both legs spun like windmills in a continuous barrage of kicks, sealing off the phantom’s lower body.

The phantom leaped into the air. Its palms sliced downward like blades, the palm wind sharp and tangible as steel edges.

Both possessed identical memories, techniques, and combat instincts. Their mastery over every inch of muscle and every flow of energy was exactly the same.

They predicted each other’s predictions, countered each other’s counters. Every move felt like a contest against the self in the mirror—utterly perilous.

Sweat and flecks of blood sprayed amid the ferocious motion. Their training garments had long since been torn to rags. Exposed skin was covered in dark purple bruises and countless fine cuts.

Both sets of eyes remained terrifyingly calm, like emotionless killing machines squeezing every last drop of potential from their limits.

At first, Jie Ming fought with extreme difficulty.

The time phantom perfectly replicated all his current abilities. It felt like trying to move a mountain of the same weight and solidity as himself.

But gradually, changes began to emerge.

In one head-on clash of fists, Jie Ming sensed the vibration transmitted through his arm bone was slightly lighter than what the phantom endured.

When he took a heavy kick, the churning sensation in his organs was noticeably weaker than expected.

Under the extreme pressure of being attacked by a “self” that knew every pattern of his strikes perfectly, the adaptive evolutionary trait of his body-forging method began to activate with unprecedented efficiency.

Pain became nourishment. Injury turned into stepping stones for progress.

Muscle fibers reorganized and strengthened at the microscopic level. Bone density quietly increased. Neural reaction speed broke through limits again and again under life-or-death stimulation. Even the circulation pathways of the body-forging method were forced into more efficient micro-adjustments amid this extreme confrontation.

Slowly, Jie Ming began to grasp tiny flaws, previously undetectable, stemming from his own ingrained habits.

His attack rhythm shifted slowly but firmly, incorporating more flashes of inspiration that transcended his established patterns.

His defense grew more rounded. Some attacks he could now endure head-on at far less cost, thanks to the subtle new toughness his muscles and bones had just evolved.

The balance of the fight began tilting toward the original body—at a speed invisible to the eye, yet undeniably real.

“Hah!”

Finally, in a hair-raising close-quarters grapple, Jie Ming seized a momentary lag in the phantom’s energy flow caused by consecutive high-intensity directional changes.

His left arm clamped down like an iron vise on the phantom’s blocking arm. His right fist gathered the sudden explosive power of his entire body. Faint golden runes flashed briefly across the surface of his fist.

With speed and force surpassing any previous strike, he smashed it squarely into the center of the phantom’s chest!

Crack!

A clear sound of fracturing bone rang out.

The phantom’s body stiffened violently. The icy gleam in its eyes rapidly dimmed, its gaze turning vacant.

The elements composing its form began to leak uncontrollably. Its figure grew hazy and transparent.

Jie Ming did not pause. A brutal elbow strike followed, smashing into the phantom’s throat. Then he spun, delivering a vicious whip kick that slammed into the side of its neck.

Puff…

Amid spraying blood, the time phantom shattered like broken colored glass, dissolving completely into a hazy cloud of light particles that slowly faded into the training chamber’s energy filtration system.

“Huff… huff…”

Jie Ming dropped to one knee, gasping heavily. Sweat streamed down his forehead and temples like small rivers, dripping onto the equally sweat-soaked floor.

Every inch of his body ached. Multiple bones were fractured. His internal organs had suffered considerable shock damage.

Yet his eyes shone with astonishing brightness—filled with the exhilaration of total release and the satisfaction of breakthrough.

Struggling to his feet, he dragged his exhausted body and slowly walked out of the training chamber.

Outside, a black giant priest who had been waiting silently offered a warm towel.

Jie Ming took it, roughly wiping the sweat and blood from his face and neck before heading straight to the adjacent dedicated bathing chamber.

Icy water cascaded over his burning skin, washing away fatigue and grime.

Then he stepped into the enormous prepared bathtub nearby, already filled with steaming medicinal liquid that filled the air with rich fragrance.

The warm medicinal fluid enveloped his entire body. Pure medicinal power seeped through his pores, rapidly repairing damage, nourishing overtaxed cells, and resonating with his body-forging method to consolidate the fresh breakthroughs.

A black giant priest entered with various portable scanning instruments and began a detailed full-body scan and data collection on Jie Ming in the tub.

A light screen lit up beside the bathtub. Rows of data scrolled and refreshed:

【Basic Physical Strength Increase (Compared to Previous Scan): +287%】

【Average Bone Density/Toughness Increase: +255%】

【Muscle Fiber Energy Conversion Efficiency Increase: +198%】

【Neural Conduction Peak Speed Increase: +176%】

【Peak Cellular Regeneration Rate Increase: +331%】

【Estimated Physical Impact Resistance (Converted): Reaches average standard sixth-ring wizard physical defense level】

【Passive Energy Corrosion Resistance: Significantly improved】

【Life Magnetic Field Strength: Leaped upward, approaching sixth-ring lifeform threshold】

……

Leaning against the tub wall, Jie Ming looked at the jaw-dropping figures and nodded in satisfaction.

“As expected—for cultivators, constantly surpassing the self is the fastest path forward. And for body cultivators especially so,” he thought silently.

Just one month of high-intensity time-phantom sparring, combined with top-grade medicinal baths, had brought progress that surpassed many years of previous routine cultivation.

His current physical strength had solidly reached the average baseline of an ordinary sixth-ring wizard.

This meant that with his flesh body alone, he could withstand direct bombardment from many fifth-ring spells. His resistance to physical damage had reached a terrifying level.

It was no exaggeration to say that the current Jie Ming could stand directly in a solar energy flare without issue—or even bathe inside a star.

But with that came the familiar problem—the three treasures of essence, qi, and spirit had once again fallen out of harmony.

His body, the “vessel,” had once more surged far ahead, while his mental power and spiritual power—the “fuel” and “control system”—needed time to catch up.

For the foreseeable future, until his mental and spiritual power naturally grew to match this level, it would be unwise to continue this kind of extreme physical-strength-pushing training. Otherwise, various issues could arise.

“In the short term, advancing to sixth-ring wizard is unlikely—my law mastery is still far short. Advancing to Void Refinement Realm is equally fraught with difficulty. Without clear bottleneck guidance, the time required will probably be similar to reaching sixth-ring,” Jie Ming calculated his future path. “But… that’s actually fine. It means I can use this method to accumulate an almost unlimited total quantity and quality of the three treasures—essence, qi, and spirit.”

Though his realm was stuck, his foundational strength could keep rising. And since a wizard’s power stemmed from knowledge, as long as Jie Ming continued to improve himself, his combat power would not stagnate.

At that moment, another black giant priest silently entered the bathing chamber, holding terminal displaying an incoming communication request.

Jie Ming glanced over. The caller was: Bill Ling Black.

This old classmate had now become a stable partner and downstream sales channel for his “liquid gold” business.

After years of frequent contact and business dealings, their relationship had grown close once again.

Jie Ming connected the call directly. Black’s smiling face appeared on the light screen.

“Hey, Jie Ming! Hope I’m not interrupting your ‘cultivation’?” Black’s tone was as familiar as ever.

“Just finished. What is it, Black—liquid gold sold out again?” Jie Ming leaned lazily against the edge of the tub.

With the three major powers’ war drums growing louder, Black’s liquid gold business had indeed become increasingly prosperous.

This consumable that effectively resisted illusions and stabilized the mind had become hard currency in wartime preparations—no amount was ever too much.

And with Jie Ming’s recent research consuming massive resources, he was naturally happy to see it thrive.

Black nodded. “Yeah, inventory’s about to hit bottom again. I’ll need you to prepare another batch. But mainly I wanted to ask—besides liquid gold, do you have any other good stuff on hand? Maybe new witch tools targeted at illusions or other common battlefield threats?”

“Defensive types, detection types, even single-use heavy-attack items—anything! Right now, as long as it’s war-related, prices are skyrocketing. No worry about selling!”

Jie Ming shook his head. Ripples spread gently across the water with his movement. “Nothing for now. I’m fully focused on war preparations myself—time’s all going into raising my strength and modifying existing methods. No spare capacity to develop new mass-producible witch tools. For the moment, only liquid gold can be supplied steadily.”

He paused, his tone growing slightly more serious. “Black, don’t just focus on making money. When war really breaks out, neither front lines nor rear areas will necessarily be safe.”

“Prepare more for yourself. Stock up on life-saving items. That’s far more practical than earning any amount of war merits. Don’t end up with money you can’t spend because you’re dead.”

On the other side of the light screen, Black’s smile faded slightly, but a strange glint flashed in his eyes.

He lowered his voice a little. “Don’t worry. Lately, I haven’t just been playing middleman…”

He left the sentence hanging, his tone carrying a hint of mysterious pride. “Next time we meet, I might just give you a real shock. Don’t let me surprise you too badly.”

Jie Ming raised an eyebrow. Seeing Black’s confident expression, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Fine, then I’ll look forward to it. I’ll prepare the liquid gold as soon as possible. Same old contact method.”

“Got it! Stay in touch!” Black waved and ended the call.

The bathing chamber returned to silence, broken only by the faint bubbling of the medicinal liquid.

Jie Ming handed the terminal back to the black giant priest and sank his body deeper into the warm medicinal bath, closing his eyes.

Black’s words circled briefly in his mind, but he didn’t dwell on them.

Everyone had their own path and preparations. This old classmate of his had been remarkably shrewd even back in their wizard apprentice days.

After finishing the medicinal bath, repairing bodily damage, and consolidating his body-forging gains, Jie Ming felt refreshed and invigorated. Power brimmed within him; every cell seemed to cheer.

Though Black’s call had been brief, it reminded him of some matters he had temporarily set aside.

Instead of returning to the laboratory to continue spell modification research, he headed straight to the depths of the Infernal Sulfur plane—to the large storage district specially designated for non-combat supplies.

The guards and daily managers here were several exceptionally steady black giant priests skilled in precise operations.

Seeing Jie Ming arrive, they bowed respectfully and silently stepped aside.

Without a word, Jie Ming walked to the central control console and pulled up the inventory lists and physical storage locations for several specific categories of materials.

Data scrolled across the light screen. Then, deep within the storage district, several massive metal doors engraved with different sealing runes slowly rumbled open.

First to meet his eyes were three ultra-large standard warehouses.

Their internal spaces had been expanded. Inside, countless semi-transparent jade urns were neatly stacked in perfect rows. Within each urn, brilliant mists slowly swirled.

Every jade urn exuded a chilling, eerie aura laced with a strange vitality.

Flower God Baleful Qi.

Ever since he had transformed the Infernal Sulfur plane into his foundational territory, Jie Ming had gradually abandoned the Golden Garden and its affiliated laboratory back at Noren No. 147 Academy.

But he had not abandoned the rare and exotic flowers he had carefully cultivated there. Instead, he spent resources to carve out and maintain a far larger, more controllable “ecological breeding farm” in a region of the Infernal Sulfur plane near a seventh-ring large elemental pool.

Though the Infernal Sulfur plane itself was scorching hot and thick with sulfur gas—utterly inhospitable to ordinary plants—for Jie Ming, who possessed a seventh-ring large elemental pool and mature environmental regulation technology, this was no obstacle.

Creating independent ecological zones with suitable temperature, humidity, light, and special elemental concentrations was effortless, requiring only some energy expenditure.

As a result, his garden had not shrunk—it had expanded many times over.

Those delicate demonic plants thrived in superior conditions and under meticulous care, growing ever more luxuriantly. Daily yields of “Hundred Flowers Dew” and “Flower God Baleful Qi” rose steadily.

Hundred Flowers Dew, as a universal harmonizer and catalyst for alchemy and potion-making, had always seen heavy consumption—basically maintaining a produce-consume equilibrium.

Flower God Baleful Qi, however… had far more singular uses and accumulated slowly.

When he rebuilt the garden, Jie Ming had installed automated collection and sealing arrays covering the entire area.

These arrays had worked day after day, year after year, meticulously gathering every trace of this yin-attributed baleful essence without interruption.

Over time, even though he used specially refined, high-capacity baleful-qi storage treasures (the jade urns), three entire large warehouses had been filled to bursting!

Brilliant baleful qi flowed slowly within the urns like something alive, gathering into a silent yet overwhelming sense of oppression.

Besides the Flower God Baleful Qi, two slightly smaller but more heavily sealed pitch-black “Baleful Qi Gourds” stood nearby.

Frost condensed on their surfaces. Faint, mournful wind howls leaked from within.

These contained high-quality “Dead Baleful Qi” that Jie Ming had collected back in the Flame Frost plane—purer in nature than Flower God Baleful Qi.

As for Mortal Dust Qi and Incense Divine Power, they needed no further explanation.

Under the daily pious faith and collective activities of billions of black giants in the Infernal Sulfur plane, these energies were continuously produced in vast quantities through the efficient conversion of the Incense Fire Divine Dao.

Within dedicated storage units, pale-golden Incense Divine Power and milky-white Mortal Dust Qi mingled with the collective will of all beings had already accumulated to considerable scale.

They wafted and steamed, radiating a warm, sacred glow.

Jie Ming’s gaze swept slowly across these precious reserves.

He reached out with a gentle pull. A wisp of pure Incense Divine Power and a thread of rich Mortal Dust Qi flew out from the storage unit, coiling and swirling around his fingertips, releasing a calming, refreshing aura.

“Good stuff… but when it’s truly needed, it burns fast,” Jie Ming shook his head and carefully returned the two strands to their place.

Whether used for cultivation, alchemy, artifact refinement, or as “fuel” and “building material” for the Incense Fire Divine Dao, their demand was enormous.

Though the stock appeared plentiful, if used at critical moments, it likely wouldn’t last long.

His attention finally returned to the three massive warehouses piled high with Flower God Baleful Qi.

“When I first built the garden, the main goal was to obtain Flower God Baleful Qi. Hundred Flowers Dew was just a bonus. I never expected that now Hundred Flowers Dew is in short supply, while Flower God Baleful Qi has become the most absurdly overstocked ‘byproduct’…” Jie Ming stroked his chin, eyes thoughtful.

Black’s words had reminded him: with war approaching, aside from offensive capabilities, his own defensive systems also needed constant updating and strengthening.

Especially against unconventional, impossible-to-guard-against attack methods—curses, prophetic locks, soul corruption, illusion deception, and the like.

At that moment, his mind stirred slightly.

The air around his body seemed to ripple with invisible waves. Near-transparent wisps of mist-like aura gathered from nowhere.

A foot in front of him, they coalesced into a constantly shifting, almost intangible hazy barrier of qi.

The barrier had no color, no scent, no fixed shape. Looking closely, faint brilliant threads and milky-white specks flowed endlessly within it, mingled with an extremely pale sheen of liquid metal.

Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier.

This was a special protective treasure Jie Ming had refined very early on—to test his initial “element-to-Spiritual Qi conversion technology” while also applying artifact-refining techniques, using Flower God Baleful Qi and Mortal Dust Qi as main materials.

It was formless and intangible, usually concealed within its master’s aura and energy field.

It had two primary functions:

First, it automatically resisted, weakened, or even rebounded all attempts to attack Jie Ming with intangible means—curses, divination, prophecy, malevolent wishes, and similar ethereal assaults.

Its resistance strength and counterattack power depended entirely on the quality and quantity of Flower God Baleful Qi and Mortal Dust Qi stored within.

Baleful qi eroded malice. Mortal dust disrupted heavenly secrets.

Second, when Jie Ming later developed illusion-resistant witch tools for Black, he had incorporated the relevant new technologies and the properties of liquid gold into an upgrade of the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier.

This added capabilities to resist illusions, mental domination, thought interference, and more—making its protective coverage far more comprehensive.

Yet after its creation, this treasure had fallen into an awkward position.

Most of the enemies Jie Ming faced were straightforward and direct. Very few specialized in such eerie curse-killing or mental assault techniques.

The one time he encountered such in the plane, the overwhelming might of a ninth-rank existence had rendered the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier completely useless.

Thus it had almost never truly displayed its edge, remaining merely a hidden safeguard.

Over time, even Jie Ming himself had somewhat overlooked its existence.

Until now—prompted by Black’s reminder—he summoned this long-dormant treasure once more.

Sensing the energy flowing within the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier, Jie Ming frowned slightly.

“The baleful qi and Mortal Dust Qi stored inside are still decent in quality, but the total quantity… given my current life level and the enemies I may face, the resistance it can provide is starting to fall short,” he assessed.

If he encountered a sixth-ring wizard proficient in curses—or a powerful foe skilled in large-scale mental illusions—the current “foundation” of the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier would likely be breached before long.

He gazed at the ever-shifting hazy qi barrier before him, then at the vast sea of brilliant baleful qi in the warehouse. A sharp gleam gradually lit up in his eyes.

Though he now had the Return to Ruins Armor as his primary defensive measure, the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier still held considerable importance as a non-combat safeguard.

“It’s time… to give you a complete ‘upgrade’,” Jie Ming murmured. His finger gently brushed the edge of the Mysterious Astral Mortal Dust Barrier. The qi barrier quivered faintly, as though responding.