Chapter 556: Test

Chapter 556 Test

Jie Ming followed that faint, almost imperceptible connection, “moving” through the pure white sea of light.

There was no distance, no direction.

He simply kept adjusting the information structure within his body, drawing himself ever “closer” to the target.

The white radiance around him began to show subtle changes.

Not in color, but in “texture.”

The once uniform and gentle sea of light gradually revealed a faint, indistinct pulsation.

Like a heartbeat, or perhaps a breath.

Then, Jie Ming saw it.

A native inhabitant.

It floated not far ahead of him, completely different from the image he had seen through the black giant priest’s vision, it possessed an indescribable “reality.”

Its form remained abstract, a mass of condensed light with fine strands of radiance drifting from its edges.

But seeing it with his own eyes now, Jie Ming could clearly perceive its internal structure.

The outer layer was pure energy, temporarily constructed from the four major elements evenly distributed around it.

The core was a highly condensed mass of information.

That information writhed, split, and reassembled like a living thing, constantly issuing commands to the outer energy layer.

The outer energy changed shape according to those commands, contracting at times, expanding at others, as if breathing.

Jie Ming’s expression turned strange.

“This thing…”

He couldn’t help muttering under his breath.

Because this structure was almost identical to his own Light God Transformation.

The essence of Light God Transformation was to construct a body with specific energy while the core consciousness controlled everything.

External energy served as the shell, internal information as the soul, these native inhabitants were practically born as “Light God Transformation” lifeforms. The only difference was that his Light God Transformation required active maintenance, while these natives were naturally like this.

The native inhabitant seemed to have sensed Jie Ming as well.

Its outer light fluctuated violently for a moment, then… it launched an attack directly.

Jie Ming felt the information flow around him suddenly turn violent.

Countless obscure tentacles surged in from all directions, attempting to invade his spiritual sea, read his core information, and make him collapse upon himself just as they had done to the black giant priest.

“Return to Ruins Armor!”

With a thought, an invisible layer of light shield instantly appeared around Jie Ming’s body.

Those countless information tentacles slammed into the Return to Ruins Armor like water crashing against a reef, scattering instantly.

Jie Ming raised an eyebrow.

It blocked it?

He had originally thought that an attack on the information level might not be defendable by the Return to Ruins Armor and had even prepared to activate the Fate Subsystem for a counterattack. He had used the Return to Ruins Armor only because he wanted to test an idea he had in mind.

But those information tentacles had indeed been blocked, and the Return to Ruins Armor itself remained completely unmoved, without even the slightest tremor.

Jie Ming split off a strand of spiritual power to probe deeper. Moments later, a flash of understanding appeared in his eyes.

“Return to Ruins Concept…”

The core of the Return to Ruins Armor was the concept of “Return to Ruins”, a rudimentary form of a law that devoured everything and accommodated everything.

Although those information tentacles were bizarre, they were still fundamentally “existent” things.

As long as something existed, the Return to Ruins could devour it.

In the past, Jie Ming had only used it to swallow energy or other miscellaneous attacks; he had never expected it could even swallow information.

“As expected of one of the top protective techniques in the Spirit Transformation Stage. It seems the saying that Spirit Transformation Stage cultivators spend thousands or even tens of thousands of years perfecting a single spell is not unfounded.”

The corner of Jie Ming’s mouth curled into a faint smile.

Seeing that the information invasion had failed, the native inhabitant’s outer energy suddenly expanded. It began to mobilize the surrounding energy, preparing to attack in a more direct manner. Jie Ming neither dodged nor evaded—perfect, as he also wanted to test something else.

“Let’s try this.”

He raised his right hand, and a piercing dark-golden beam instantly condensed at his fingertip.

Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light.

The beam shot out, streaking straight toward the native inhabitant.

Then Jie Ming witnessed a scene that made his pupils shrink slightly.

The Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light, powerful enough to pierce sixth-level defenses, suddenly came to a halt the instant it touched the native inhabitant’s outer layer.

It was as if the scene had been paused – “frozen.”

Immediately after, the mass of light began to twist, split, and disintegrate…

Like a painting being erased bit by bit with a rubber, it completely dissipated into the air within a few breaths.

The native inhabitant’s outer light did not even fluctuate noticeably.

“This…”

He quickly mobilized the Fate Subsystem’s computing power to trace back the process.

Soon, he saw the truth.

The moment the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light made contact with the native inhabitant, the opponent’s outer energy had analyzed its information structure: the arrangement of fire elements, the frequency of energy output, the underlying logic of the attack.

Then, it simply modified a few key parameters, and the entire structure collapsed on itself.

It was like a key whose teeth had been tampered with, no longer able to open the lock.

A rather familiar combat method. The Return to Ruins Armor had blocked the attack, yet the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light had failed?

Jie Ming’s expression darkened slightly, for he already understood the reason.

“Back when I modified it… the technology wasn’t advanced enough, so I cut too much.”

When he had modified the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light back then, his technical level had been limited. To ensure compatibility with the wizard system, he had indeed removed many complex characteristics of the original spell.

The current Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light possessed immense power, but its information structure was relatively simple.

So simple that it could be instantly analyzed and tampered with by the opponent.

“Alright, this is a good reminder.”

Jie Ming took a deep breath and began the next test.

He closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness deep into his spiritual sea.

He quickly located a basic rune within the Ring of Truth – one of the most elementary fire element runes that any wizard apprentice would know, also the foundation of meditation.

Jie Ming opened his eyes and pointed forward with his hand.

The basic rune glowed faintly.

The surrounding elements instantly rioted.

Massive amounts of fire elements converged madly from all directions. Jie Ming did not use them to construct a spell model; he simply gathered and compressed them, then… pushed them toward the native inhabitant.

In the blink of an eye, a pure elemental torrent took form.

It was overwhelming, impossible to avoid.

The native inhabitant’s outer energy fluctuated violently, clearly attempting to analyze the torrent…

Then it gave up.

Because there was nothing to analyze.

This was not a spell. It had no logic, no structure, it was merely the most primitive accumulation of elements.

It was like being able to untangle a thread twisted into a mess, yet facing the most basic plant fiber and not even knowing where to begin.

The pure white light was submerged by the four-colored elements.

Under the continuous scouring of the elemental torrent, the native inhabitant’s outer energy rapidly disintegrated, exposing the information core within.

Under the unending wash of fire elements, the information core trembled violently, then shattered with a crisp “crack.”

The native inhabitant vanished.

Countless tiny fragments of information slowly drifted through the sea of light.

Seeing this, Jie Ming frowned. The effect of pure elemental impact had been surprisingly good.

However, he reacted quickly. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and formed hand seals with both hands.

“Causal Trace Shadow Technique!”

Pale golden light spread from his palms, enveloping the dissipating information fragments.

The spell activated. The fragments were forcibly frozen in place, then began to trace back their residual marks, their previous structures, and every interaction they had with the surrounding environment.

Countless streams of information flooded into Jie Ming’s mind.

The Fate Subsystem operated at full capacity, piecing the fragments together one by one, analyzing and archiving them.

Moments later, Jie Ming withdrew his hands and let out a long breath.

“The harvest is quite good…”