Chapter 162: Chapter 155: Evil Qi and Engineering

“A strong battle likely took place here.” Jeming speculated in his heart.

Such terrifying destructive power, even capable of destroying the earth vein and causing a volcano to die completely, is definitely not something ordinary creatures can achieve.

This should be the remnants of the intense battle that occurred when Nolun Workshop’s wizards were clearing the plane and capturing the Upper-Rank Demon.

The powerful attack even destroyed the energy core of this volcano, making it forever dormant.

Looking at the silent volcano in front of him, Jeming’s eyes suddenly lit up, and a surge of excitement rose in his heart.

Because in this way, the earth vein of the volcano is severed, a large number of living things perished, and it contains various residual energies, according to the philosophy of the Cultivation Immortality World, some special evil qi will be born inside!

Evil Qi itself is also a conceptual material, a highly insidious and mixed energy in the cultivator system, often formed by a combination of resentment, blood energy, destructive power, and specific environmental factors.

It is not pure negative energy, but it is extremely corrosive and can backfire if not refined properly.

However, if it can be correctly collected and refined, it can become an excellent resource for some special cultivation techniques in the cultivator system.

For instance, the Golden Garden is a place Jeming specifically created for the production and collection of Flower God Poison.

And like this volcano, its special “experience” makes it a potential source for the birth of some “evil qi.”

Jeming immediately took out a large amount of materials and laid down a complex array surrounding the entire volcano.

With a seal made by his hands, the True Essence in his body circulated, and the array was activated.

As the spell operated, waves of invisible fluctuations spread from the center of the array, permeating every inch of the volcano, every corpse.

Invisible to the naked eye, gray mist carrying the aura of death, resentment, and mixed energies slowly emerged from the depths of the volcano’s broken earth vein and those magical beast carcasses.

They were drawn by the power of the array, continuously flowing towards the center of the volcano like hundreds of rivers meeting the sea.

Gathered by Jeming using the Soul-Collecting Spell and eventually transformed into a trickle, they entered the Soul-Collecting Gourd he held.

“Such rich evil qi!” Jeming was ecstatic.

Without any intention of stopping, Jeming continued collecting the evil qi flowing through the array into the Soul-Collecting Gourd, simultaneously using the Soul Refining Spell to categorize the evil qi within the gourd.

This whole process continued for several days, with Jeming tirelessly collecting and refining the evil qi within the dead volcano.

As the evil qi and death qi were continuously extracted, the air around the volcano seemed to become clearer, and the oppressive and eerie feeling noticeably diminished.

Finally, when the evil qi and death qi inside the volcano were extracted to the extent that their concentration was insufficient for efficient capture with the Soul-Collecting Spell, Jeming ceased using the cultivation technique.

He raised his hand to catch the slowly falling Soul-Collecting Gourd, gently shaking it to feel the agitation of the evil qi within, and his face showed a satisfied expression.

Just this round of collected evil qi already matched the amount of Flower God Poison he harvested in a month at the Golden Garden.

“Indeed, although a man-made environment can also gather evil qi, in terms of ’concept,’ it is still not as abundant as those naturally formed hazardous grounds due to accidents.”

Stowing away the seemingly heavier Soul-Collecting Gourd into his internal space.

After initially collecting the evil qi and death qi within the volcano, Jeming did not stop there.

Conceptually speaking, as long as this special area maintains its current state, new evil qi will continuously arise as time passes.

Having finally gained a “periodically producing evil qi area,” Jeming spent several days carefully placing various complex arrays around this dead volcano.

These arrays were not meant for attack or defense but for protection and stabilization.

He first laid several Concealment Arrays around the outskirts of the volcano. This Fifth Level Array, purchased from the Magic Net, was enough to ensure that the special energy fluctuations here would not be easily detected by beings from the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.

Then, he engraved dozens of Gathering Evil Runes and Soul Summoning Arrays at key nodes within the volcano.

These can slowly guide the free negative energy between heaven and earth, attracting newly born evil qi nearby, making it gather in the depths of the volcano and refined into a higher purity form.

At the same time, these arrays can also stabilize the residual energy of the earth vein to a certain extent, ensuring the “silent” state of the volcano can be maintained long-term, becoming his exclusive cultivation bed for breeding evil qi.

In principle, these arrays can slowly gather relevant concepts according to the local geomorphology and special situations.

The downside is that all these rely on Spiritual Qi to operate, making it impossible to leave them unattended.

Fortunately, Jeming need not stay here all the time.

He calculated briefly, and found that the True Essence required to operate these Evil Summoning Arrays is not much.

He only needs to fill these arrays with True Essence, which can last for about one or two months.

After all, he planned to come once every month to collect evil qi, so it’s not too much trouble.

With all the arrays and formations being set up, the entire dead volcano was wrapped in these faintly visible rune chains.

From a distance, it still appeared as that dark and silent peak, but in Jeming’s perception, it had already transformed into a highly efficient conceptual material transformation factory.

After completing the setup of the extinct volcano, Jeming was just about to continue searching for other locations that might harbor evil qi, when his portable communication witchcraft artifact suddenly rang.

Seeing the unfamiliar contact, Jeming was slightly taken aback, momentarily failing to react.

Then he remembered that the person seemed to be the leader of the construction team he had invited.

Connecting the call, Jeming learned that the project he had previously commissioned had been completed, and they were now waiting for him to inspect the work.

“I’ll be there right away!”

Disconnecting the call, Jeming decisively turned around and flew at full speed towards the location where the wizard squad he had hired was conducting the preliminary transformation work.

When Jeming arrived, he couldn’t help but be awestruck by the scene before him.

In a little over a year, the project team composed of low tier wizards had achieved remarkable transformations in the area.

Originally covered with active volcanoes and various rugged mountains, the area had been leveled, though there weren’t many buildings on it.

Looking around, outwardly, it only appeared to be a vast, completely flat metallic surface.

This metallic surface was cast from refined special metals, gleaming with an obsidian-like cold metallic luster under a sky filled with sulfurous smoke.

The entire surface was as smooth as a giant mirror, reflecting the dark red clouds above.

Its surface was polished to such smoothness without any bumps, forming a stark contrast with the rugged scorched earth of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.

This expansive metallic area was large enough to accommodate a vast city.

Gazing at the surface, Jeming couldn’t help but recall the black surfaces he often saw at Nolun Academy, realizing that this was a commonly used plane transformation technique.

Moreover, Jeming knew that this was far more than just a level surface.

He walked to the center of the metallic surface and gently touched it with his palm.

With the activation of alchemy and deciphering skill, a faint energy fluctuation came from beneath the surface, detailed and orderly.

His spiritual power penetrated it, as if probing into a giant spider web, “seeing” the complex network within the metallic surface.

In reality, within the enormous metallic foundation, numerous permanent arrays were solidified.

These arrays weren’t directly exposed but were intricately embedded within the metal layers, distributed like blood vessels throughout the foundation at various depths.

They were interconnected by countless energy conduits and rune links, forming a large and precise energy network.

However, because this was preliminary work, most of the effects of these arrays weren’t very strong.

Aside from the most basic protective abilities, they served more as “amplifiers” and “fundamental frameworks.”

Jeming then walked to the center of the foundation, closed his eyes, and felt the pulse of the array network beneath his feet.

These internally solidified arrays were primarily meant to amplify the effect of arrays Jeming would construct in the future, allowing them to influence the entire plane when implanted into vacant spaces.

They were like enormous amplifiers buried underground.

Whether it was the elemental pool, alchemy workshop, or various plane-level protective arrays Jeming planned to construct here in the future.

As long as their core arrays were embedded into this foundational network, their effects would be magnified, and their range and power would grow geometrically, ultimately impacting the entire Purgatory Sulfur Plane!

This was the foundation Jeming laid for future plane transformation and constructing massive arrays.

During his inspection, Jeming also noticed some reserved interfaces and energy nodes.

According to the lead wizard of the “construction team,” this preliminary construction could actually achieve some more advanced functions, such as amplifying arrays that communicate with the plane origin.

Such arrays could allow a wizard to more deeply perceive and influence the plane origin, extract plane origin power more efficiently, and even make preliminary modifications to plane rules.

However, this level of array required the wizard to have more potent spiritual power, reaching the sixth level wizard level, to truly master and safely utilize it.

“Anyway, I haven’t reached the sixth level wizard yet, so there’s no rush to construct it,” Jeming pondered silently.

Constructing such arrays required massive resource investment, and without full mastery, it might result in energy backlash or even repulsion from the plane origin.

During initial communications with the project team, Jeming excluded these complex arrays that exceeded current needs, prioritizing resource allocation to the most fundamental and practical parts.

He looked at the results before him with satisfaction.

Even though it was only preliminary construction, it had already taken shape.

(There’s an additional Chapter, and another coming soon.)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep