Jie Ming didn’t act rashly.
The power of his Alchemy Technique silently activated beneath his feet, and the scorching ground parted noiselessly, with gravel and charred earth flowing aside like water.
In the blink of an eye, a narrow tunnel just wide enough for his body was carved out.
With a flicker, he slipped inside, using Alchemy Technique to seal the entrance, completely concealing himself.
During his infiltration, Jie Ming gently twisted his left wrist, activating a Level 4 defensive rune artifact that emitted a faint glow.
After a brief delay, a nearly transparent elemental shield enveloped his body.
This shield wasn’t merely for defense; its surface runes also suppressed his aura and energy fluctuations, allowing him to perfectly conceal his presence in the searing underground space.
Based on the intelligence gleaned from the soul search of the Level 2 Lava Giant, Jie Ming had a clear understanding of the rough troop distribution in this Lava Giant stronghold.
The inner circle housed over a dozen Level 2 Lava Giants, guarding the core of the stronghold.
The outer perimeter was teeming with thousands of Level 1 Lava Giants, either patrolling or hauling rocks, busily maintaining the outpost.“Over a dozen Level 2s, thousands of Level 1s, and the strongest leader at the peak of Level 2… With the Lava Giants’ combat strength, even I’d take some damage in a direct confrontation,” Jie Ming mused in the confines of his tunnel.
“But since I’ve got the upper hand and am fully prepared, there’s no issue.”
However, this wasn’t his primary goal.
His main objective here was to collect Mortal Dust Qi.
With this in mind, Jie Ming didn’t rush. He hunkered down in his carved-out tunnel, adjusting his breathing to meditate and absorb the surrounding fire elemental energy while calmly planning his next steps.
His thoughts naturally drifted to the Lava Giants he’d soon capture for soul searching—and what it would feel like to create a potion from their Mortal Dust Qi.
The unique trait of the Mortal Dust Potion was its ability to let the user experience the life and emotions of the qi’s source.
In the past, the Mortal Dust Qi Jie Ming used mostly came from ordinary humans or humanoid beings in the Elosia Plane.
These groups shared similar physical structures and societal frameworks, so the experiences varied little, mostly differing in emotional nuances.
But now, with the Lava Giants—elemental beings of rock and molten lava—the unknown variables of the experience multiplied exponentially.
“Could it produce a ‘foreign flavor’ Mortal Dust Potion?” Jie Ming chuckled to himself.
He imagined vividly experiencing the primal, fiery emotions of a Lava Giant or sensing their affinity for lava and repulsion toward ice and snow.
“If that’s the case, these potions might unexpectedly enhance mental training.”
He wasn’t worried about the potion’s potent effects causing issues within the wizard civilization’s trade networks.
Jie Ming had chosen the Mortal Dust Potion as his primary product after careful consideration.
Not only was its effect easy to market, but more importantly, its nature easily led other wizards to associate it with faith-based power.
In Jie Ming’s view, so-called faith power resembled the “incense power” of the cultivation world—a potent mental energy formed from the collective thoughts of countless mortals.
The Mortal Dust Qi he collected, in the eyes of other wizards, likely seemed like an “impurity” of faith power. While faith power was pure and directed, Mortal Dust Qi was chaotic and disordered, yet undeniably, their effects shared significant similarities.
Coincidentally, after arriving at the Elosia Plane, one of Jie Ming’s main research focuses had been the study of “divine faith networks.”
He had delved into the nature and classification of faith power.
Thus, when he introduced the Mortal Dust Potion, many wizards saw it as a byproduct of his divine faith network research or a related phenomenon.
Wizards were clever, adept at piecing together clues and constructing logical explanations in their minds.
Jie Ming capitalized on this.
He didn’t need to craft a flawless cover story or explain the potion’s raw materials.
As long as he didn’t directly expose the Mortal Dust Qi, other wizards would rationalize the potion based on his displayed knowledge and research focus, attributing it to an incidental outcome of his deeper studies.
Because of this, Jie Ming had no concerns about potions made from Lava Giant Mortal Dust Qi being flagged as suspicious by Mentor Clark or other high-level wizards.
However, as he indulged in these thoughts, he suddenly noticed something bizarre.
He hadn’t collected a trace of Mortal Dust Qi from the Lava Giants!
Jie Ming’s consciousness immediately plunged into his dantian, meticulously inspecting the rune seal used to collect Mortal Dust Qi.
The seal was still slowly gathering faint traces of Mortal Dust Qi.
But to his dismay, after thorough examination, he realized these traces all came from wizards—not the thousands of Lava Giants before him!
“What’s going on? Is the rune seal malfunctioning?” Jie Ming frowned, confusion flickering in his eyes.
He reexamined the surrounding Lava Giants—their roars, their labor, their interactions—all indicated they possessed intelligence and emotions, which should generate Mortal Dust Qi!
He recalled the battlefield, where wizards’ emotional fluctuations during fights over spoils produced faint but precious Mortal Dust Qi.
These Lava Giants, both in number and context, should absolutely produce Mortal Dust Qi detectable by his seal!
“Because they’re a different species… no!” Jie Ming dismissed the thought halfway through.
The nature of conceptual materials meant they could be collected as long as basic conditions were met.
Undoubtedly, the conditions for Mortal Dust Qi had nothing to do with race. Even the Great Dao Book Pavilion’s records noted that demon clans could produce collectible Mortal Dust Qi.
“Could it be that, for the Lava Giants’ biological system, this underground stronghold doesn’t qualify as a true ‘society’?” Jie Ming pondered.
It was a possibility, as all other conditions seemed to align.
But he wasn’t certain.
The only way forward was to investigate a larger Lava Giant stronghold!
If he couldn’t collect Mortal Dust Qi there either, he’d need to reassess the situation entirely.
As for finding a larger Lava Giant gathering…
“Based on their ecological data, that leader definitely knows the coordinates of a larger stronghold,” Jie Ming thought.
With that, he stopped hiding.
He deliberately released his energy fluctuations and, with a swift movement, emerged from his underground cover.
His appearance instantly shattered the cavern’s calm.
“Intruder detected!” a patrolling Lava Giant roared deafeningly.
Jie Ming gave them no chance to react, immediately entering slaughter mode.
With a thought, the six enhanced and modified Autonomous Floating Cannons behind him sprang into action, fanning out in a circular formation.
Simultaneously, hundreds of small, gleaming crystal-like rune artifacts materialized around him.
These pre-prepared rune artifacts formed a slightly smaller Great Radiance combat array around his body!
“Kill!”
With a cold shout, Jie Ming unleashed his attack.
The Great Radiance array, composed of hundreds of small rune artifacts, erupted with a barrage of energy missiles, scattering like celestial blossoms to engulf the nearby Level 1 Lava Giants.
At the same time, the six Autonomous Floating Cannons, guided by the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror, unleashed precise energy beams targeting the Level 2 Lava Giants attempting to organize a counterattack.
The Lava Giants charged with roars, their bodies toughened in the high-heat environment, their surfaces flowing with viscous lava, nearly liquefied.
Their affinity for fire elements peaked, their molten projectiles hotter, their earth spikes harder.
With his Level 4 shield still active, Jie Ming had no intention of defending, pouring all his energy into the offensive rune artifacts behind him.
Eager to verify the issue, he had no patience for capturing live specimens. The rune lights flickered relentlessly, their terrifying destructive power obliterating the first wave of gathered Lava Giants.
“High-Frequency Sonic Suppression!”
Seizing the moment, Jie Ming deployed a high-frequency sonic witchcraft.
Though the Lava Giants were in an enhanced state, the sonic waves still disrupted their internal crystal structures, briefly immobilizing them.
“Tch! Too busy with research—I didn’t have time to swap most rune artifacts for targeted destructive witchcraft!” Jie Ming grimaced, feeling the effects of his artifacts.
The Great Radiance was undeniably powerful, but its destructive force was overly saturated.
Once activated, it obliterated everything, leaving no spoils.
Crafting new rune artifacts wasn’t as simple as tweaking core patterns; each required significant effort.
“Forget it, now’s not the time to dwell on this.”
Jie Ming focused, directing the Great Radiance array toward the second wave of barely assembled Lava Giants.