But similar to modifying spells, the foundation of Talisman Imprint Rune Artifacts is a vast amount of knowledge.
Its power is not determined by the material itself, but by the rune arrays inscribed within and the depth of understanding and manipulation of the elements.
In other words, Jie Ming now needed to learn a vast amount of knowledge in order to research or learn new sixth-level wizardry.
To that end, he had to supplement systematic knowledge in alchemy, runes, potions, life modification, energy, and space at the sixth level and above. He had also dabbled in these areas at the fifth level.
The greatest difference between the sixth-level versions and the fifth-level ones was that they were all deeply bound to the Law-Crystallization Domain.
Alchemy was no longer just physical shaping of materials; it was using the Law-Crystallization Domain to infuse materials at an essential level.
Runes were no longer simple elemental guidance; they were inscribing the rules and logic of the Law-Crystallization Domain into physical carriers.
As for knowledge of space, it was directly linked to operations involving the planar origin.
In other words, the Law-Crystallization Domain was not just a convenient coordinating "machine."
Many sixth-level wizards directly used it as a medium for casting spells, or even as a weapon in battle.
Jie Ming opened the Magic Net terminal and began to search for sixth-level textbooks and research materials in these fields on the Star Ring Federation's knowledge trading platform. Many of these materials required high-level military merits to purchase, but on the other hand, since they were only sixth-level knowledge, the required military merits were quite cheap!
"Damn, only a thousand high-level military merits? Is the price wrong?!"
Jie Ming stared at the price on the light screen, unable to suppress his shock.
He then switched the filter to purchase with low-level military merits and found that the same materials and textbooks would cost over a hundred million low-level military merits! "Buy, buy, buy! This is nothing in high-level military merits!"
Jie Ming felt he was about to get carried away.
The list of books on the light screen scrolled down continuously, and he quickly browsed the introduction of each book before adding it to his cart.
Jie Ming remained in this state of frantic learning for over a decade.
Finally, on this day, the Black Giant Priests delivered an important message to Jie Ming—the Creation System had been completed.
On the wasteland, the ring-shaped array spanning thousands of kilometers, at the moment the last energy conduit was connected, opened its eyes for the first time like a giant beast that had been sleeping for a long time.
Jie Ming hovered in the air directly above the center of the array and looked down. He saw that the massive, almost exaggerated structure beneath his feet was lighting up section by section from the outside inward.
Spiritual Material Maturation Zone.
Refinement Amplification Zone.
Energy Conversion Hub.
Data Loading Interface...
Each core sub-module of the Creation System awakened in sequence according to a preset order, pushing the power of the entire Creation System step by step to its peak. The surging golden faith power from the Incense Fire Divine Dao converged from all directions; the nearly inexhaustible high-purity elemental energy from the Grade-7 Large Elemental Pool was also drawn out at the same moment, flowing along densely packed conduit pipes like blood vessels toward the center.
They first converged in the Energy Conversion Hub, then were compressed and restructured layer by layer through the Refinement Amplification Zone.
Finally, they were precisely fed into the Data Loading Interface and, under the control of the Destiny System, flowed straight to their intended destination.
After confirming that the initial startup was fully successful, Jie Ming raised his hand and directly uploaded all the data previously stored in the Refinement Ring into the Creation System through the Destiny System.
That was the complete set of parameters he had accumulated bit by bit over these years.
In addition to the data from the first manually refined star, there were all the details ultimately summarized after dozens of simulation experiments with repeated corrections and optimizations.
"Let's give it a try..."
Jie Ming eagerly executed the control technique.
The next moment, the fourth official subsystem of this Incense Fire Divine Dao was fully activated.
Hum...
The void at the center of the array trembled violently, and a stable spatial rift was forcibly torn open.
On the other end of the rift was exactly an ordinary star selected in the Tentacle Tree Star Sector.
It hung quietly in the void, its surface churning with flames, the blaze like an ocean.
The rune chains of the Creation System extended out, like an invisible giant hand slowly pressing down on the star's pulse, calming it down. Rows of refining runes stretched along the spatial rift, like tens of thousands of fine chains, silently wrapping around the star's outer plasma atmosphere.
Then, the refinement began.
The outermost stellar atmosphere was stripped away first.
The violent plasma flows were reorganized under the guidance of the runes, and the rolling flames on the star's surface were disassembled.
The Spiritual Material Maturation function also played its unique role at this moment, accelerating the speed at which spiritual materials were produced during the refining process without loss.
The originally blazing heat, enough to incinerate everything, began to be split into two purer forms of power.
The red solar true fire continuously surged out along the spatial rift, like a burning river, flowing into specially made containers in the collection area. The surfaces of the containers were already densely engraved with layers of runes. With each injection of fire, the runes would light up with a circle of fine golden patterns, firmly locking the violent fire and sealing it inside.
In this process, silver-white stellar force was also extracted from within the solar true fire.
The silver-white light particles flowed slowly along another conduit pipe, merging into the star power pool, where they were compressed and stored.
A sea of stellar force converged, condensing into layers of Starlight Crystal Facets so thin they were nearly transparent.
Those facets spread out layer upon layer at the bottom of the pool, like a calm sea of stars, containing astonishing energy.
The entire refinement process was exceptionally smooth, and as it proceeded, the Creation System continuously collected new data, optimizing the process through analysis by the Destiny System.
It could be foreseen that once enough stars had been refined, this process would become a nearly assembly-line "simple" operation. "Yao! This speed is beyond my expectations."
Jie Ming watched the rapidly shrinking star, unable to keep his eyes from widening.
The refining capability of the Creation System itself did not disappoint him, but what surprised him most was the Spiritual Material Maturation function.
Jie Ming really hadn't expected that this function would also be useful in the process of refining artificial spiritual materials!
"No wonder this function is categorized under the Creation System."
A star, from the start of refinement to complete decomposition, took only a very short time.
And before this star had fully disappeared, the Data Loading Interface of the Creation System had already automatically generated the refinement parameters for the next star.
A new rune array was already being cast through the spatial rift toward the depths of the star sector.
As long as there were sufficient raw materials and energy supply, this system could operate continuously like a tireless divine machine, squeezing the entire star sector into the purest nourishment.
Jie Ming called up the real-time data panel of the Creation System and quickly glanced at it.
Then he made a quick calculation in his mind.
When the Creation System itself had sufficient energy, it could perform multiple refinements simultaneously.
Based on the current refinement efficiency, with sufficient energy, it could refine over a million stars per year.
That might sound like a lot, but with the Tentacle Tree Plane's total inventory of fifty billion stars, refining them all would take over fifty thousand years. Fifty thousand years.
To mortals, that was an almost unimaginably long time.
But to Jie Ming, it was merely a long enough, but not unreasonable, long-term project.
He could just leave it to the system to run automatically.
Jie Ming glanced again at the energy consumption data of the Creation System, then was silent for a few seconds.
Then he sincerely congratulated himself for having decisively chosen the Grade-7 Large Elemental Pool when building the core facilities of the Infernal Sulfur Plane. The energy consumption of the Creation System at full power reached an astonishing degree.
If he had chosen a sixth-level elemental pool... every time he fully activated the Creation System, all other power supply systems in the entire plane would be paralyzed. Then he would have to save even the lights in the lab.
Jie Ming shook his head, then issued a long-term order to all Black Giant Priests and the Tentacle Tree Civilization through the Incense Faith Path communication network. The Creation System would continue to refine the stars within the plane.
Their task was only one: collect the solar true fire and stellar force.
Following standard procedures, store them in batches in special containers, ready for use when refining the array eyes of the All-Heavens Star Grand Array.
After issuing the order, he no longer concerned himself with it.
The Black Giant Priests had followed him for thousands of years; such matters no longer required his personal supervision.
Once the final work plan was compiled, someone would naturally send it to his lab.
As for Jie Ming himself, he hurriedly passed through the teleportation array and returned to the main laboratory.
Almost as soon as he landed, he plunged into the meditation room.
When he had personally operated the Creation System to complete the first full-cycle refinement, he had clearly felt that the gold thread representing his mastery of the Spiritual Qi Law in his spiritual sea had surged forward significantly.
The Creation System itself was a subsystem of the Incense Fire Divine Dao.
Every time it operated, it was a practical application of all his theories regarding the Spiritual Qi Law.
This kind of feedback from actually putting theory into practice boosted his law mastery far more directly and intensely than sitting around in deduction.
Jie Ming sat down cross-legged and sank his consciousness into his spiritual sea.
The gold thread of the Spiritual Qi Law had thickened by an entire full circle compared to before.
Without hesitation, Jie Ming intercepted some gold threads of law from other laws on the Ring of Truth and fed them into the Law-Crystallization Domain. The moment the new law information was injected, the domain boundary, as if hit with a catalyst, immediately began to expand outward rapidly.
The dark gold light membrane rose outward without pause, and at the same time, the domain strength also increased synchronously.
The dark gold light membrane at the boundary gradually became more solid from semi-transparency, and the arrangement of law runes inside grew denser and denser.
The numerical curve pressing on his spiritual sea was climbing at a steady and astonishing rate.
Jie Ming quietly felt this change, and a clear judgment gradually formed in his mind.
At this strength...
It should now be possible, with the aid of a plane-level array, to formally merge with the planar origin of the Infernal Sulfur Plane.