“This place likely witnessed a fierce battle,” Jie Ming mused.
Such devastating destruction, capable of severing the earth’s veins and extinguishing an active volcano, was far beyond the power of ordinary creatures.
This must be the aftermath of an intense clash when the wizards of Noren Workshop purged this plane, capturing a high-ranking demon.
The powerful attack had obliterated the volcano’s energy core, silencing it forever.
Gazing at the now-dormant volcano, Jie Ming’s eyes lit up, a surge of excitement rising within him.
A volcano like this, with its severed earth veins, mass loss of life, and residual chaotic energies, was a unique phenomenon. According to the principles of the cultivation world, such conditions would give rise to a special kind of baleful qi!
Baleful qi was a conceptual material in the cultivator system, a sinister and chaotic energy formed from resentment, bloodlust, destructive force, and specific environmental factors.
It wasn’t purely negative energy, but its intense corrosiveness could backfire on the user if not properly refined.
However, if collected and refined correctly, it could serve as an exceptional resource for certain unique cultivation techniques.
The Golden Garden, for instance, was a site Jie Ming had deliberately created to generate and collect Flower God Baleful Qi.This volcano, due to its unique “history,” could also serve as a source for baleful qi.
Jie Ming immediately took out a variety of materials and set up a complex formation around the entire volcano.
He formed hand seals, channeling his true essence to activate the formation.
As the incantation took effect, invisible ripples spread from the formation’s center, seeping into every inch of the volcano’s earth and every corpse within.
Gray mist, invisible to the naked eye, carrying the aura of death, resentment, and chaotic energy, slowly rose from the fractured earth veins deep within the volcano and the remains of demonic beasts.
Drawn by the formation’s power, the mist flowed like rivers to the sea, converging toward the volcano’s center.
Using the Baleful Qi Collection Incantation, Jie Ming condensed it into a thin stream, guiding it into the Baleful Qi Gourd he held.
“Such potent baleful qi!” Jie Ming’s heart raced with joy.
Without pause, he continued collecting the baleful qi drawn by the formation, channeling it into the gourd while simultaneously using the Baleful Qi Refinement Incantation to categorize the qi within.
The process lasted several days, with Jie Ming tirelessly collecting and refining baleful qi in the desolate volcano.
As the baleful and deathly qi were extracted, the air around the volcano grew clearer, the oppressive, eerie atmosphere noticeably diminishing.
Finally, when the concentration of baleful and deathly qi became too low for the incantation to efficiently capture, Jie Ming ceased his efforts.
He caught the slowly descending Baleful Qi Gourd, shaking it gently, feeling the turbulent qi within, a satisfied expression on his face.
The amount collected in this single session rivaled a month’s worth of Flower God Baleful Qi from the Golden Garden.
“As expected, while artificially created environments can yield baleful qi, they pale in comparison to the conceptual volume produced by naturally formed wastelands like this.”
He stored the noticeably heavier Baleful Qi Gourd in his internal space.
After extracting the volcano’s baleful and deathly qi, Jie Ming didn’t stop there.
Conceptually, as long as this unique area remained unchanged, it would continue to generate new baleful qi over time.
Having found a rare “sustainable source of baleful qi,” Jie Ming spent several days meticulously setting up complex formations around the dead volcano.
These formations weren’t for attack or defense but for protection and stability.
He first laid several concealment formations around the volcano’s perimeter, fifth-level arrays purchased from the Magic Web, sufficient to prevent the area’s unique energy fluctuations from being easily detected by creatures of the Infernal Sulfur Plane.
Then, at key points within the volcano, he inscribed dozens of Baleful Qi Gathering Runes and Soul-Drawing Arrays.
These could slowly channel stray negative energies from the environment, attracting newly formed baleful qi to converge in the volcano’s depths, where it would be refined into a purer form.
The formations also stabilized the residual energy of the earth veins, ensuring the volcano’s “dead” state persisted, creating a unique breeding ground for baleful qi exclusive to him.
In principle, these formations gradually gathered related conceptual energies based on the local terrain and conditions.
The drawback was that they relied entirely on spiritual energy to function and couldn’t be left unattended.
Fortunately, Jie Ming didn’t need to guard it constantly.
He calculated that the true essence required to sustain these Baleful Qi Gathering Arrays was minimal.
By fully charging them, they could operate for one or two months.
Since he already planned to return monthly to collect baleful qi, it wasn’t too troublesome.
With all the formations and arrays in place, the dead volcano was enveloped in faintly shimmering rune chains.
From a distance, it remained a dark, silent peak, but in Jie Ming’s perception, it had become an efficient conceptual material conversion factory.
…
After completing the volcano’s setup, Jie Ming was about to search for other potential baleful qi sites when his communication artifact buzzed.
Glancing at the unfamiliar contact, he paused, momentarily confused.
Then he remembered—it was the leader of the construction team he’d hired.
Answering the call, he learned that the engineering project he’d commissioned was complete, awaiting his inspection.
“I’ll be right there!”
Hanging up, Jie Ming turned and sped toward the site where he’d hired the wizard team for preliminary construction.
Upon arriving, he was stunned by the sight before him.
In just over a year, the low-tier wizard construction team had transformed the area beyond recognition.
What was once a rugged landscape of active volcanoes and jagged ridges had been leveled into a vast plain, though it lacked many structures.
At first glance, the area was dominated by a massive, perfectly smooth metal surface.
This metallic ground, forged from refined special alloys, gleamed with an obsidian-like sheen under the sulfurous, smoky sky.
Its surface was polished to a mirror-like finish, reflecting the dark red clouds above, a stark contrast to the jagged, scorched terrain of the rest of the Infernal Sulfur Plane.
The metal expanse was vast enough to house a large city.
Looking at it, Jie Ming recalled the black surfaces he’d often seen at Noren Academy—a common technique for plane modification.
But he knew this was more than just a smooth surface.
Approaching the center, he knelt and touched the ground.
Activating his Alchemy Technique and Analysis Technique, he sensed faint, orderly energy fluctuations emanating from below.
His spiritual sense probed deeper, revealing a complex, web-like structure within the metal ground.
Beneath its surface, numerous permanent arrays were embedded, not exposed but intricately woven into the metal layers like blood vessels, connected by countless energy conduits and rune pathways, forming a vast, precise energy network.
As a preliminary project, most of these arrays weren’t particularly powerful.
Beyond basic protective functions, they served primarily as “amplifiers” and a “foundational framework.”
Jie Ming moved to the center of the foundation, closing his eyes to feel the pulse of the array network beneath his feet.
These embedded arrays could amplify the effects of any future arrays he placed in the reserved spaces, extending their influence across the entire plane.
They acted like giant subterranean amplifiers.
Whether he built elemental pools, alchemical workshops, or plane-wide defensive arrays in the future, embedding their core arrays into this network would exponentially enhance their range and power, potentially affecting the entire Infernal Sulfur Plane!
This was the foundation Jie Ming had laid for his future plane modifications and grand array constructions.
During his inspection, he noticed reserved interfaces and energy nodes.
According to the construction team’s leader, this preliminary setup could support even higher-level functions, such as arrays to enhance communication with the plane’s origin.
Such arrays allowed wizards to deeply sense and influence the plane’s origin, efficiently drawing its power or even making preliminary modifications to its rules.
However, these arrays required immense spiritual power, achievable only by a sixth-level wizard, to safely control and utilize.
“I’m not a sixth-level wizard yet, so I can’t use them now. No rush to build them,” Jie Ming thought.
Constructing such arrays demanded vast resources, and if he couldn’t fully control them, it risked energy backlash or even rejection by the plane’s origin.
When discussing with the construction team, he’d excluded these complex arrays beyond his current needs, prioritizing resources for the most practical and foundational components.
He looked at the results with satisfaction.
Though only a preliminary project, it was already taking shape.