Chapter 152: Departure and Weakness Compensation

Jie Ming smiled faintly, then showed a hint of frustration.

“Honestly, I’m not sure how to price this. Do you have any suggestions, Mentor?”

A glint flashed in Clark’s eyes. “Mortal Dust Potion, right? What’s its production rate?”

Jie Ming calmly revealed his hand. “The potion’s production is limited by raw materials. With my current setup, I can produce at most two vials of this grade per month.”

Two vials a month…

Clark felt a slight pang of regret. Such low output, while allowing a higher price per unit, restricted the potion’s market.

Fortunately, its remarkable effects justified a steep price.

After careful thought, Clark quoted a figure that would bankrupt an average fifth-rank wizard.

Yet, for a sixth-rank wizard like Clark, the price, though high, was… entirely reasonable!

It could even be called a bargain!

If it only purified the soul and mental strength proportionally, the price would still be substantial but not this exorbitant.

After all, treasures abound in the multiverse.

Even items that could elevate a sixth-rank wizard’s soul to seventh-rank quality weren’t rare, and major wizard factions had channels to produce such resources consistently.

Mere emotional experiences, to wizards, were trivial amusements.

But combining the two created a “luxury item.”

Enhancing strength while “enjoying” the experience, coupled with low output, meant this potion’s initial target shouldn’t be “ordinary” sixth-rank wizards.

“If you trust me, I can handle its sales,” Clark offered.

Jie Ming wouldn’t refuse such an opportunity. He immediately handed over three vials. “No problem, thank you, Mentor. These are all the potions I’ve refined recently.”

Clark accepted the three vials without hesitation and transferred a massive sum of points to Jie Ming via the magic network terminal.

Jie Ming’s heart raced as he saw his account balance surge by several digits.

“I’ve paid for all three vials, including the one I tested, but I can’t pay for one of them,” Clark added.

“This vial will go to my mentor to demonstrate your payment capacity and persuade him to craft the seventh-rank large-scale elemental pool.”

“Thank you, Mentor…” Jie Ming felt a surge of gratitude.

His mentor was truly dedicated to his cause.

Clark waved it off, saying little more.

After parting with Clark, Jie Ming returned to the Golden Garden.

Gazing at the enormous points balance on his terminal, he began planning his next steps.

Even with the Mortal Dust Potion as a high-value product, producing two vials monthly, it would still take eight or nine years to amass enough points for a seventh-rank elemental pool.

This was still a long time, but compared to the decades of tedious refined gold production he’d previously estimated, earning points this way was far easier.

Moreover, Jie Ming had another idea—if he could visit other planes to gather more Mortal Dust Qi, he could accelerate the process.

While Elosia’s Mortal Dust Qi was abundant, it had a limit.

As wizards conquered and transformed Elosia, its output would dwindle.

Yet, in the multiverse, planes teeming with intelligent life like Elosia were plentiful.

For the next few months, Jie Ming immersed himself in research, focusing on divine faith networks, spending most of his time in the Golden Garden.

Apart from sending two vials monthly to his mentor, he occasionally visited the Infernal Sulfur Plane during research breaks to check the construction team’s progress.

After months of intense study, he lost track of time.

One day, he received a message from Amy and Victor.

Their projections appeared on his magic network terminal, faces alight with excitement and tension.

“Jie Ming! You’re holed up in your lab again!” Amy’s voice was noticeably steadier.

“What’s going on? For both of you to contact me at once,” Jie Ming asked, puzzled.

“We’re fully prepared,” Victor said, his tone heavy. “After nearly a year, we’ve decided to join the next planar war.”

A year!

Jie Ming’s heart stirred.

He hadn’t realized how much time had passed in his research fervor.

“You’re rushing into another planar war so soon?” Jie Ming frowned.

The workshop allowed six months to five years of rest after a planar war, adjustable at will. But to Jie Ming, even five years seemed too short to fully study a plane’s gains.

Amy and Victor had rested for only a year.

Amy sighed, her eyes tinged with envy. “You’ve got it easy, Jie Ming. Unlike us, hitting research bottlenecks and needing the battlefield for breakthroughs. Is this what it’s like to be a genius? I’m almost jealous.”

“It’s not like that…” Jie Ming muttered, unsure.

Victor nodded. “She’s right. You’re still in a rapid growth phase. How can we not envy that?”

Their words were sincere.

The wizard’s path wasn’t smooth.

When research stalled, unable to advance through meditation or experiments, many wizards turned to battlefields for life-or-death tempering or new resources.

In a way, the ability to keep researching reflected a wizard’s aptitude.

Only those with exceptional talent and endless inspiration could remain immersed in knowledge, enjoying pure progress.

“We’re already among the first-rank wizards with longer breaks. Combat wizards leave even earlier… Remember Augusta?” Amy suddenly mentioned a name. “Rumor has it, after the shortest six-month break, she rushed to a new battlefield, too restless to stay at the academy.”

Jie Ming nodded. Augusta had left a strong impression.

“I recall her talent was high…”

“Only in meditation,” Amy teased. “On the wizard’s path, her talent’s low. Combat suits her, though.”

They chatted briefly, but not for long.

Such matters were routine for wizards.

“Take care,” Jie Ming said to them.

“Don’t worry, we won’t die easily!” Amy patted her chest.

“When your plane’s built, invite us to visit,” Victor added with a smile.

After parting, their projections faded, and Jie Ming sank into thought.

Amy and Victor’s words sparked another realization.

He had been engrossed in research, advancing swiftly on the path of knowledge.

But a wizard’s strength wasn’t built on research alone.

After some thought, Jie Ming decided to add combat enhancement to his research plans.

“Boosting combat strength…” he murmured, his gaze settling on the rune artifact in the lab’s center.

Sitting in a high-backed chair, his fingers tapped the desk as thoughts surged, reviewing his combat system comprehensively.

Typically, a wizard’s combat strength hinged on the quantity and quality of spell models in their mental sea.

Each self-constructed spell model granted a new innate ability.

The most direct way to boost combat power was to learn, analyze, and construct new, stronger spell models.

More offensive spells meant richer tactics and better adaptability.

However, Jie Ming’s situation was unique.

With his special rune artifact, simply adding offensive spell models felt redundant.

Or rather, the benefits weren’t as high as other areas.

His mental sea already housed three auxiliary spell models, and with the rune artifact’s versatility, he lacked no means against enemies.

Instead of chasing quantity, he’d focus on more groundbreaking fields.

His gaze fell on a metal disc on the table.

It was his recently upgraded elemental storage rune artifact.

“With the rune artifact’s nature, enemies I can’t defeat after exhausting stored elemental power fall into two categories: those too fast to hit, or those immune to attack from the start.”

He ignored the possibility of enemies far stronger, as survival, not combat, would be the priority then.

The first type could be countered with speed-enhancing rune artifacts, while the second likely involved scenarios like anti-magic fields.

“Hm?”

This sparked a realization—his elemental storage rune artifact created an anti-magic effect during recharging.

“So… to address weaknesses, I need to boost my combat ability in anti-magic scenarios. That means strengthening my physique as a last resort,” Jie Ming’s eyes lit with clarity.

This wasn’t a mainstream wizard path, but for him, it was a vital supplement.

There were misconceptions about wizards’ physical strength.

Many mortal tales depicted wizards as “fragile mages” hiding behind spells, and some wizards neglected physical training.

But in truth, wizards weren’t as frail as imagined.

Through meditation and absorbing elemental energy to strengthen mental power, their bodies were subtly tempered, becoming far hardier than mortals with higher resistance.

The wizarding world also had spells to enhance physical strength, less flashy than elemental attacks but effective in specific situations.

Wizards could even undergo body modification surgeries for greater resilience.

With their deep understanding of life, wizards used Alchemy Technique, bloodline spells, bio-modification, or rune inscriptions for physical enhancements.

Some, pursuing extreme power, transformed themselves beyond recognition, becoming half-beast monstrosities.

This granted immense physical strength, capable of defeating beings a rank higher purely with their bodies.

Yet, most wizards didn’t prioritize physical strength, and many potions traded physical harm for mental power.

This stemmed from wizards’ core strength: precise use of elemental energy, leveraging knowledge to amplify raw power tenfold or hundredfold.

Physical strength was linear—its output was limited to the body’s capacity, with little “amplification.”

However, physical enhancement had another advantage: it faced few bottlenecks.

Mental and soul growth was constrained by talent, insight, and resources, each step harder at higher ranks.

Physical enhancement, while capped, could progress steadily with sufficient resources and methods, reaching astonishing levels.

It was a “hard work compensates for lack of talent” path—lower ceiling than elemental power but stable and controllable.

As a supplementary method, the wizarding world had many ways to boost physical strength.

Wizards studied other planes’ supernatural powers, developing unique physical enhancement techniques and cultivation methods.

These often blended other planes’ body-refining methods, bloodline curses, or divine remnants, forming distinct wizard body-refining systems.

With this in mind, Jie Ming didn’t hesitate, opening his magic network terminal to search Noren Workshop’s vast knowledge base for relevant techniques.