Chapter 400: Transaction and Information

In the core control chamber of the Infernal Sulfur plane, Jie Ming hovered in midair.

Thousands of rune light ribbons flowed around his body, each band connected to the massive three-dimensional spell formation model below—the partial optimization scheme for a certain spell.

In his left hand, he held a clump of pale golden fluid condensed from Incense Power, which slowly deformed under his will. His right hand swiftly traced through the void, leaving behind strings of intricate wizard rune imprints.

At that moment, a deep purple crystal embedded in the wall in the corner of the control chamber vibrated faintly.

It was Viola’s dedicated communication rune. Only the very few people Jie Ming had personally approved could directly request teleportation to the Infernal Sulfur plane.

Jie Ming’s brows lifted slightly. His divine sense swept over the crystal and confirmed it was indeed his senior sister’s aura before he slowly descended to the ground.

With a snap of his fingers, the research robe on his body was instantly replaced by a simple black wizard robe, its hem subtly embroidered with fine silver rune threads.

“Authorize teleportation.”

As the words fell, space on one side of the control chamber began to distort, and a stable portal quickly took shape.

Jie Ming stepped through. In the next instant, he appeared in the reception room at the other end of the plane.

The decor here was completely different from traditional wizard world aesthetics: the walls were made of warm, lustrous jade, the floor covered in flame-velvet carpet that automatically adjusted temperature, and in the center of the room floated a set of furniture carved from obsidian and lava crystal—all native products of the Infernal Sulfur plane.

As the teleportation light faded, Viola’s figure emerged.

Jie Ming froze for a moment.

In his memory, his senior sister had always been elegant and composed, her silver-gray hair flowing like a moonlight cascade. But at this moment, she looked… somewhat disheveled.

Her deep purple wizard robe was covered in dust, its edges scorched black in several places. Strands of her normally smooth long hair stuck out wildly, and there was even a faint streak of ash across her face.

More importantly, the aura around her was clearly unstable—the law fluctuations that should have belonged to a sixth-ring wizard were chaotic and erratic.

The moment Viola appeared, she collapsed backward onto the nearest obsidian chair like a puppet with cut strings, letting out a long breath.

“Senior sister?” Jie Ming walked over and sat opposite her, raising a hand to brew two cups of spiritual tea. “This is blended from the Infernal Sulfur plane’s specialty ‘Meltheart Flower’ and ‘Frost Moss.’ Excellent for stabilizing the mind.”

Viola took the cup and drained it in one gulp, finally regaining some composure.

“I almost got swept up in the aftermath of that lunatic’s experiment…” she muttered, then looked at Jie Ming. “Your place is actually quite nice. A lot better than that hellhole Starfall.”

“Wizard Starfall?” Jie Ming immediately caught the key point. “You just came back from her place?”

“What else?” Viola rubbed her temples. “After getting that ‘Phantasmal Element’ from you, that woman found her own path to seventh ring. Once she finished the preliminary verification, she kicked me—her ‘temporary assistant’—out, saying she was going into seclusion to construct the core.”

“So senior sister came this time to…” Jie Ming probed cautiously.

“Procurement.” Viola straightened her posture. Though her appearance was a mess, the sharp gleam had already returned to her silver-gray eyes. “Massive procurement. Starfall asked me to pass this to you.”

She flicked out a transparent diamond-shaped crystal, which landed on the table.

Jie Ming swept it with his divine sense, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Stored inside the crystal was a string of military merit account information—and a number shocking enough to make even him pause: 10 billion low-level military merits.

“This…” For once, Jie Ming looked genuinely awkward. “Senior sister, this amount… I’m afraid I can’t gather it in the short term. I’ve been using Phantasmal Element to reform the plane lately. Consumption has been quite heavy.”

He gestured toward the window. Through the observation pane of the reception room, one could see the signature dark-red sky of the Infernal Sulfur plane and, in the distance, the slowly flowing rivers of lava.

Even with the continuous conversion of Incense Fire Divine Dao, billions of black giants serving as believers producing Incense Power, and the Elemental-Spiritual Qi conversion system generating Spiritual Qi… the total accumulation over all these years still fell far short of this scale.

Moreover, Jie Ming still needed to maintain the plane’s own operation and cover his personal research consumption.

Viola waved her hand, signaling him not to worry.

“Starfall knows, of course. Her exact words were: ‘Take as much as you can give now, and send batches over every so often afterward.’ Anyway…” She paused, the corner of her mouth curving into a subtle arc. “According to her estimation, even after finding the path, it will still take several thousand years to truly advance to seventh ring. Plenty of time for you to produce it slowly.”

Jie Ming breathed a sigh of relief, but soon frowned again.

Thousands of years of continuous supply?

A demand of this magnitude could never be for ordinary experimental consumption…

A conversation from before he left Wizard Starfall’s plane flashed through his mind, and a possibility rose in his heart.

“She wants so much…” Jie Ming spoke slowly, tone probing. “She isn’t planning to… fully vivify the entire plane, is she?”

Viola’s smile froze for a fraction of a second.

Though it was only a few tenths of a second, Jie Ming keenly caught that hint of unnaturalness.

“Really can’t hide anything from you.” Viola sighed, not denying it. “Yes, that’s her ‘project.’ Using the Phantasmal Element you provided as the core medium, combined with her own laws of spirituality and the living plane data I supplied, she’s attempting to completely vivify the ‘Shattered Star Plane’ under her control.”

Jie Ming couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath.

He truly hadn’t expected that this Wizard Starfall would actually put into practice an idea that had sounded like pure fantasy at the time.

To grant a plane that originally possessed only basic material circulation and energy flow with a complete embryonic self-consciousness… that was tantamount to artificially creating a living plane!

If she succeeded, not only would Starfall step into seventh ring, she could directly claim a high position among seventh-rings.

If she failed…

“What about safety measures?” Jie Ming asked gravely. “Once a full vivification experiment loses control—plane consciousness rampage, law collapse cascade, energy tide backlash… even just the vivified plane going out of control would cause extremely serious consequences.”

Viola spread her hands in a completely unrefined gesture.

“That’s what I’ll be handling next.” Her tone was terrifyingly calm. “I’m planning to procure three sets of ‘Plane Destruction Devices,’ commission ‘Phase Isolation Barriers’ from the Void Architecture Academy, and purchase a batch of ‘Law Stabilization Anchors’ from the Anti-Entropy Alliance… If the experiment fails, I need to be able to activate the destruction protocol in a very short time and completely erase the Shattered Star Plane—along with any deformed consciousness that might have been born—from the material level.”

Jie Ming was silent for a moment before finally shaking his head in admiration.

“Truly… bold.”

Even for a seventh-ring wizard, a fully controlled plane was an extremely precious asset.

For a sixth-ring wizard, a plane was practically their entire fortune.

For Starfall to dare use her core plane for an experiment that gambled everything, this level of resolve truly befitted her name “Starfall.”

“So, how much can you provide for the first batch?” Viola returned to the main topic.

Jie Ming closed his eyes and focused. His divine sense connected to the core of the plane control formation.

A full panoramic view of the Incense Fire Divine Dao network unfolded in his consciousness: energy veins covering the entire Infernal Sulfur plane, continuously converting massive amounts of seventh-ring-grade elemental power into Spiritual Qi through the three hundred and sixty “Elemental-Spiritual Qi Conversion Towers” spread across the plane, then storing it in the natural spiritual veins deep within the earth veins.

“From current reserves, I can spare half.” Jie Ming opened his eyes. “But I’ll need some time to perform high-purity compression and encapsulation—using sixth-ring miniature elemental pools as containers to minimize transport loss to the greatest extent.”

“Acceptable.” Viola nodded. “Container costs will be deducted separately from the account.”

Jie Ming was not polite. He directly accessed the formation permissions.

The entire Infernal Sulfur plane trembled faintly.

Deep within the earth veins, vast amounts of pale cyan Spiritual Qi were drawn out, converging toward the central control tower through the Incense Fire Divine Dao network.

Jie Ming manipulated the plane control formation, gathering this staggering power.

The Spiritual Qi visibly condensed from gas to liquid, then from liquid compressed into viscous gel, and finally transformed into thousands of fingernail-sized cyan crystals.

The process lasted a full six hours.

When the last Spiritual Qi crystal dropped into the prepared sixth-ring miniature elemental pool, the entire pool surface was already covered in a layer of cyan radiance.

The runes, previously dimmed from energy depletion, reignited—shining even more brilliantly than at their peak.

“Here.” Jie Ming pushed the sealed miniature elemental pool toward Viola. “Roughly equivalent to the total energy of five hundred standard fifth-ring miniature pools, all stored in crystal form. Before use, you’ll need to release it with the decompression array I’ve included; direct extraction will cause an energy rampage.”

Viola accepted the elemental pool, sensing the surging energy fluctuations within, and nodded in satisfaction.

She flicked out a silver rune crystal. “For future deliveries, just teleport directly to this coordinate. Starfall has set up an automatic receiving array—as long as the energy signature matches, the goods will be sent straight into the Shattered Star Plane’s reserve vault.”

The transaction complete, Viola stood up to leave.

But just as the teleportation light began to rise, she seemed to suddenly remember something and turned back to look at Jie Ming.

“By the way, your mandatory rest period… it should be approaching the final deadline, right?”

Jie Ming was momentarily stunned, then nodded. “About three years left.”

“Any news on the next support plane?”

“Uh…” Jie Ming rarely showed an awkward expression. “I’ve been immersed in iterating my own witchcraft and knowledge for the past few decades. I haven’t checked the military department’s mission notifications yet.”

Viola shook her head. An “as expected” expression appeared on her refined face.

“You… sometimes you really should step out of the laboratory and get some fresh air.” She said helplessly. “Check it soon. Prepare in advance. This should be your last short mandatory rest period. Once you advance to fifth-ring wizard, your rest periods will be forcibly extended.”

With those words, the teleportation light engulfed her figure.

The reception room returned to silence.

Jie Ming stood in place, pondering for a moment before raising a hand to summon the Netherweb Terminal.

A semi-transparent light screen unfolded in the air. In the upper right corner, the glaring red text “Unread Messages: 127” stood out starkly.

Most were automatic notifications from the military system, revenue reports from technical patents, and various collaboration invitations.

He directly filtered to the “Military Department Directives” category.

Three messages marked with urgent symbols popped up.

The first, sent two hundred years ago, notified him that his rest period was more than halfway through and he could apply for combat duty in advance.

Completely useless to him.

The second, sent fifty years ago, inquired whether he had any intention of participating in a certain “high-risk plane pioneering plan” (expired).

The third…

Transmission time: seven days ago.