I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality Chapter 878: Shoring Up the Weak Points

“Capacity to reproduce… speaking of which, how are things with the Dragonman race?” Something had occurred to Jie Ming, and he asked after it.

“The overall number of the Dragonman race has already passed fifteen thousand. Compared with before, the total population has risen by fifty percent,” the Black Giant priest answered.

“Fifteen thousand. That is not so few, then.”

Jie Ming stroked his chin, thinking it over.

The figure did not sound extravagant at first hearing, but taking into account where these Dragonmen had started from, and the astonishing potential for growth they had after bloodline optimisation, less than a thousand years more of cultivation would yield a quite considerable high-level fighting force.

“Very good. Continue cultivating and breeding them, and go on observing the long-term stability of the bloodline runes.”

After a moment’s thought, Jie Ming looked at the Black Giant priest. “You may tell the Dragonmen that if their numbers can exceed a hundred thousand, they will receive first-level treatment.”

First-level treatment meant treatment on the same level as the Black Giant race.

The Dragonmen’s ability to propagate really was too poor. If they could reach a population of a hundred thousand, they ought by then to have accumulated over a hundred eighth-level fighters, and first-level treatment would be no more than their due.

“Yes!”

The Black Giant priest withdrew respectfully.

Then another researcher reported on his own work. “My Lord, progress has been made on the Black Giants’ advancement path as well. There has been no breakthrough on the eighth-level path for the moment, but the seventh-level advancement path is now essentially clear.”

A new light screen unfolded before Jie Ming, densely packed with data on the Black Giants’ physical structure, their energy cycles and the like.

“Across multiple rounds of testing we have confirmed several key nodes. If they are cultivated according to the current plan, the efficiency with which Black Giants advance to the seventh level is projected to improve several times over.”

Jie Ming looked at the sheets upon sheets of parameters on the light screen, and a trace of satisfaction surfaced in his eyes.

The Black Giants were the steadiest backbone of the fighting strength under his command. In sheer numbers of top-level combatants the Black Giant race might not yet match the Dragonmen at this stage, but the speed at which their high-level fighting strength took shape was without question the most extravagant of any.

And every individual Black Giant’s combat power was nothing to scoff at either; one against one, they would not even come off worse than a Dragonman.

At this stage he already had legions of sixth-level Black Giants on the order of ten million, yet there were still only four seventh-level Black Giants.

If the efficiency of the Black Giants’ advancement to the seventh level could be raised appreciably, it would mean the high-level fighting strength of his cannon-fodder legions could explode upward in short order.

“Well done. Keep pushing it forward.” Jie Ming nodded, satisfied.

“Understood!” Several of the researchers bowed at once.

At this point, though, Jie Ming also thought of the group of mushroom-men he had kept bound deep inside the laboratory all this while.

“Mm… at my present level of biochemical knowledge, researching the essence of the mushroom-men through to the bottom is still rather difficult. It seems that when I go back I shall have to concentrate my remedial study on that area.”

…

…

Only after touring the second laboratory and confirming that all was going smoothly on every front did Jie Ming return to the main laboratory.

Settling back into his chair, Jie Ming began to reflect on the problems of his own that this trip had brought to light.

Recalling the fight with the spatial fold beast, Jie Ming knew perfectly well that his overall combat ability was indeed nothing to complain of, but that his defensive capability still fell well short.

Because of the Body Forging Method’s adaptive evolution, his real standard for defensive power was “if a single blow does not kill me, I can go on running wild.”

That did not mean raising his defensive power was unimportant, however.

Take the recent fight with the spatial fold beast: if the Return to Ruins Armor’s defensive power had been a little stronger, enough to take at least one attack head-on, Jie Ming would have fought with far more composure.

But after that battle, Jie Ming understood clearly that his defensive end had plainly fallen behind.

Beyond that, the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light, which like the Return to Ruins Armor belonged to the reworked system of magic, had fallen somewhat behind as well.

He had in fact already put both spells through a second reworking with the knowledge he had mastered, but set against the Terminus Ray and the Echo Shell, an obvious gap remained.

“The problem does not lie in my wizard technique.”

Jie Ming leaned back against his chair, fingers tapping steadily at the desktop.

The magic of the immortal cultivation system had one very fine advantage: so long as one’s comprehension of the Great Dao corresponding to a piece of magic ran deep enough, the power of that magic could go on rising without end.

Its upper limit was not constrained by the structure of the magic itself, but determined by the caster’s understanding of the Great Dao.

In theory, even a minor piece of magic from the Qi Refining stage could be taken up and used as an immortal art, provided the comprehension of the Great Dao behind it ran deep enough.

In other words, what truly limited the power of the Return to Ruins Armor and the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light at this stage was not their magical structure, but Jie Ming’s own comprehension of the Great Dao.

The Return to Ruins Armor, for instance, possessed such powerful protective ability precisely because of the Return to Ruins Concept within it.

But since attaining Dao Integration, apart from a few instinctive gains that came from the peculiar nature of the Dao Integration Realm itself, Jie Ming had hardly studied the Return to Ruins Concept in earnest at all.

It was much the same with the Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light; Jie Ming’s understanding of the thing remained at a comparatively shallow level.

Drawing an analogy with the wizard system, his command of these two pieces of magic amounted to no more than the standard of the fifth level.

“It seems it is time for that remedial work.”

For Jie Ming, as it happened, this was a fine thing that killed two birds with one stone.

Raising his comprehension of the Great Dao meant, in itself, strengthening the golden law threads within his spiritual sea.

Jie Ming opened his magical network terminal and glanced at the military merit he had left.

As it happened, the auxiliary materials the array eye’s refining required had now all been bought, leaving a considerable surplus of military merit.

And when it came to the best method in the wizard world for raising one’s comprehension of the Great Dao, that was naturally…

“Let us start with a batch of Plane Origin!”

Jie Ming could not help rubbing his hands together. Relying on Plane Origin alone, a law’s mastery count could be raised to a little over ten points at the very most.

For someone looking to advance to seventh-level wizard that was indeed of little use, but for Jie Ming at this stage it was quite enough.

After all, the mastery counts of a good many of his laws were pitifully low; some had no more than a point or two.

Of course, Jie Ming was about the only one who could afford to burn money at this game. Plane Origin was outrageously expensive to begin with: every single base by which a law’s mastery count rose was equivalent to a hundred percent increase in law mastery, while a single strand of Faint-Life Origin brought an improvement of only 0.1 percent.

What was more, the knowledge held inside many Plane Origins overlapped.

To raise a law’s mastery count by Plane Origin alone, going by what Plane Origin cost, every single base gained would consume upwards of ten billion low-level military merit.

And on top of that, it was not merely one law Jie Ming meant to raise.

Adding it all up, bringing every one of his present laws to the limit Plane Origin could reach would cost low-level military merit counted in the trillions.

That price…

“Now that really is cheap!” Jie Ming beamed all over his face.

There was no help for it: the steady cash flow from his two technologies, the Blood Sacrifice Method and the life stability field, meant that Jie Ming was simply never short of low-level military merit.

So long as it raised his own strength, it was money worth spending!

“Buy, buy, buy!”

Jie Ming opened his magical network terminal and set about a frenzy of purchasing.

While waiting for the goods to arrive, a trace of anticipation showed on Jie Ming’s face.

“Come on, then. Let me see my limit!”