Chapter 421: Difficulties in Research

Translator: AnubisTL

Inside a high-intensity testing laboratory in the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, Jieming frowned deeply, remotely controlling a newly crafted rune-imbued magical artifact for a power test.

With a mere thought, he manipulated the circular spell artifact, about thirty centimeters in diameter, as it hovered in mid-air. Its surface was densely carved with a new composite pattern that fused immortal cultivation talismans with wizard runes, and at its center sat a fist-sized energy-focusing crystal.

Buzz…

As he issued a mental command, the focusing crystal at the center of the disk suddenly flared with a blinding white light.

A bolt of pure elemental energy was unleashed, trailing a long streak of light as it shot toward the “target zone” in the distance—an area expanded through space-folding technology.

The entire testing field had undergone special space-folding processing. From the outside, it appeared to be a mere room measuring a hundred meters square, but its actual internal depth reached a staggering five hundred kilometers.

The light bullet streaked through the air for about three seconds. This speed wouldn’t be considered fast in a real battle, but it was more than enough for the test environment.

Immediately after, a colossal flash of light erupted from the distant target zone, so blinding that it forced Jieming to squint even behind the protective shield.

There was no sound of explosion. The energy shield blocked all noise from transmitting.

In its place came a more fundamental shock: the multiple layers of energy shields deployed throughout the test field rippled and warped violently, like a curtain of water struck by an invisible giant hammer, emitting a strained, low-frequency hum.

Even with the “distance buffer” provided by the space-folding technology, the intense shockwaves continued to echo and amplify within the test field. The shields’ fluctuations grew more violent, threatening to collapse at any moment.

Jieming paid the crumbling shields no mind. After all, they were designed to withstand extreme tests. Besides, they were only the innermost layer of the facility’s defenses; if they broke, they could just be repaired.

His attention was completely focused on the real-time data stream scrolling across the row of precision instruments beside him.

Peak energy readings, destruction range simulations, elemental reaction intensity, spatial disturbance coefficients…

A few seconds later, the preliminary analysis results were ready.

Jieming stared at the data on the screen, his expression grim.

“Strictly speaking, the absolute power of this strike is indeed impressive…” Jieming’s fingers traced several key parameters on the screen as he sighed inwardly.

“The ‘leverage multiplier’ a fourth-tier wizard applies to elemental power, stacked with the ‘mobilization multiplier’ a divine transformation cultivator uses on environmental energy. Multiplying the two has indeed caused the total energy and impact range of this theoretically fourth-tier energy bullet to skyrocket…”

The data clearly showed that the total energy output and impact range of this strike had already surpassed the conventional standards of a fifth-tier wizard, even brushing against the threshold of the sixth tier—meaning it was theoretically sufficient to inflict a “devastating blow” upon the ecosystem of a mid-sized continent.

“But…” Jieming’s frown deepened. “The power is too dispersed!”

He pulled up the detailed energy distribution map.

It was a three-dimensional heat map, displaying the energy density decay curve radiating outward from the explosion’s center.

Unlike the area-of-effect attacks typical of wizardry or immortal cultivation techniques, which generally strive for a relatively uniform lethality across the entire attack range, the energy distribution of this light bullet exhibited an extremely steep decay curve.

With the explosion’s center as the origin, the energy density plummeted by an order of magnitude for every kilometer moved outward. By the time it reached the edge of the attack range, the remaining energy intensity was less than one ten-millionth of that in the central region.

“This is… practically identical to the energy distribution pattern of nuclear bombs from my past life,” Jieming muttered, his brow furrowing. “Though its attack range is vast—claimed to be ‘nation-extinguishing’ or even ‘continent-level’—the lethality in the core region is a completely different concept from that at the fringe. A massive amount of energy is wasted just on creating the ‘area,’ while the true ‘lethal blast radius’ is much smaller.”

This issue had actually begun to surface when he first advanced to a second-tier wizard.

At that time, he was simultaneously practicing the cultivation system, and the two power systems began to exhibit subtle conflicts and redundancies in how they manipulated “environmental energy.”

He had intended to address this issue when advancing to a third-tier wizard.

However, the unexpected events in the “Justice” plane accelerated his advancement far beyond expectations. Subsequently, he became preoccupied with constructing the Incense Divine Path, participating in Wizard Starfall’s research, and other matters, causing this problem to be perpetually shelved.

Now, with his advancement to the Divine Transformation Realm, the cultivation system’s ability to manipulate environmental spiritual energy had undergone a qualitative change, and the problem had finally come to a head.

“The attack range and total energy are comparable to a sixth-tier wizard, yet the actual lethality in the core region only reaches the mid-grade level of a fifth-tier wizard…” Jieming stared at the jarringly contrasting data on the screen.

“Moreover, the energy peak lasts for an extremely short duration. As long as one survives the initial shockwave, the subsequent damage decays drastically. An experienced and well-prepared fourth-tier wizard with excellent defensive measures might even survive this attack by tanking it head-on.”

What did this mean?

This meant that over ninety percent of the energy was dissipating inefficiently into the environment during the shockwave’s expansion, rather than being fully converted into lethal force against the target.

A more intuitive data model simulation showed that if this attack were unleashed on a real continent, the core blast zone might create a region of total destruction hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Yet, at the outer edges—the fringes theoretically marked as the “affected area”—the remaining energy would be so weak it couldn’t even kill a first-tier wizard apprentice. At most, it would cause some structural damage and casualties among ordinary people.

“The root of the problem…” Jieming closed his eyes, rapidly running simulations in his mind, “…is that my current ‘precision of control’ cannot keep pace with the growth rate of my ‘total energy mobilization.'”

This was easy to understand.

If the attack were compared to archery, the wizard system’s path was to “fire a single arrow and then continuously enhance its power through various methods.” In contrast, the cultivation system’s path was more like “firing a greater number of arrows all at once.”

Jieming’s actual “control capacity” at present could only support him in the precise manipulation of “three arrows” at most.

Yet his divine transformation realm cultivation was equivalent to piling “dozens of arrows” onto the bowstring.

Not only did this fail to enhance his attack’s effectiveness, but the arrows also interfered with one another, dispersing the bowstring’s power. This caused the potency and precision of each individual arrow to plummet, resulting in an overall effect that was even worse than if he had focused on firing just three arrows.

(End of the Chapter)