Translator: AnubisTL
Leaving the vicinity of the teleportation point, Jieming relied on his mobility rune artifact to swiftly traverse the vast wilderness of the wild plane.
Below him, the gray rocky terrain, twisted ancient vegetation, and occasional glimpses of bizarre beasts combined to create a primal and perilous landscape.
He had no specific destination in mind; each movement was a deliberate search for suitable "test subjects" and environments for his upcoming combat trials.
His first encounter was with a group of creatures resembling oversized lizards. Their bodies were covered in thick, keratinous armor, and they could spew corrosive acid from their mouths.
Numbering about seven or eight, they lay in ambush within the forest's gaps, their massive, moss-covered bodies camouflaged as boulders, waiting to ambush passing creatures.
After spotting their tracks from high above, Jieming deactivated his mobility rune and landed lightly on the ground.
Instead of avoiding them, he walked directly toward their hiding place.
The first lizard beast launched its attack, a stream of green acid shooting toward him.
With a thought, Jieming instantly activated his hidden shield at full power, a thick, earth-yellow barrier materializing around his body.
Sizzle!
The acidic liquid struck the shield with a piercing corrosion sound, sending up plumes of smoke.
The shield's surface remained unchanged, the acid continuously sliding down its surface and dripping onto the ground.
"No damage to the shield... No elemental power enhancement, just a purely corrosive liquid?"
As more acid surged toward him, Jieming immediately switched his defense rune to a wind element shield.
An invisible wind membrane flowed around his body. When the subsequent acid streams made contact, a clever force guided them, deflecting them away from his sides and into empty space.
The acidic mist rising from the corroded ground was also swept away by the wind shield's currents.
"Against kinetic attacks with limited force, the wind element shield's deflection effect is even better than expected. It's also remarkably effective against mist-based attacks."
Seeing their attacks fail, the lizard beasts charged out from their hiding places, intent on tearing him apart with their claws and teeth.
Jieming seized the moment, activating his attack rune artifact.
Chih! Chih! Chih! Chih!
Four fireballs materialized at his fingertips in less than a second, launching with astonishing speed toward the lead beasts.
The violently surging fire element caused the fireball to expand mid-flight, its destructive power terrifying.
The four beasts didn't even have time to approach before being engulfed in successive explosions. With only a brief, piercing wail, they were reduced to charred remains and shredded flesh.
The remaining lizards, witnessing the carnage, panicked and turned to flee without hesitation.
Jieming didn't relent. Advancing steadily, he adjusted the Attack Rune's output frequency, pushing for even more rapid-fire bursts.
The rune-imbued magical artifact grew slightly warm, yet maintained its ability to unleash three to four fireballs per second.
Like a walking turret, Jieming precisely picked off the remaining lizard beasts one by one.
The battle—or rather, the slaughter—concluded in mere moments.
Jieming approached the wreckage, using analysis art and alchemy to scan the remains. He collected samples of keratinous scales and residual acidic fluids from the corpses.
"The Attack Rune's instantaneous casting and rapid-fire capabilities far surpass those of ordinary wizards," he mused, "but under high-frequency use, the talisman seal heats up slightly faster than it did in the training grounds. Perhaps the plane's elemental power is too volatile, causing excessive energy activation. The energy dissipation can't keep pace with the material's heat dissipation rate."
Jieming mused inwardly, "Do I need to add heat dissipation or energy buffering structures to the talisman seal materials?"
He reactivated the mobility rune and left the lizard beast's lair.
As he ventured deeper into the forest, Jieming soon encountered another type of beast: massive in size yet surprisingly agile.
These creatures resembled giant apes, but their heads were insect-like.
They possessed immense physical strength, excelled at leaping and climbing rocky cliffs, and launched devastatingly powerful attacks.
Jieming chose a lone giant ape as his target.
Instead of attacking directly, he lured it into pursuit, then navigated the complex terrain to test the mobility rune's evasion and directional change capabilities.
The giant ape roared in pursuit, launching relentless attacks from above and the sides.
With the mobility rune, Jieming glided close to the ground, soared into the air, and briefly leveraged momentum off cliff faces, each maneuver flowing as smoothly as drifting clouds.
While evading, Jieming pushed the mobility rune's power output to its maximum.
The wind element swirled around him in visible vortices, propelling him to even greater speeds.
However, this extreme velocity could only be maintained for less than a minute before the mobility rune began emitting an overloading buzz, its surface runes glowing intensely hot.
He was forced to immediately reduce power to allow it to cool.
"The mobility rune far surpasses standard flight spells in basic speed and agility," he concluded, "but its sustained high-speed capability is a weakness. Its maximum duration is significantly shorter than a wizard's self-cast flight spell."
After all, one relied on material buffering while the other was guided by the wizard's own mental sea, resulting in a substantial difference.
Having thoroughly tested the mobility rune's limits, Jieming switched from defense to offense, unleashing a series of full-power fireballs in rapid succession. The giant ape's massive body crashed to the ground under the relentless assault.
Jieming approached to collect materials.
The giant ape's hide and bones were exceptionally durable, potentially useful for improving defensive rune-imbued magical artifacts.
In the following days, Jieming continued his "experiments" across various regions of the wild plane.
Facing an armadillo-like beast that could burrow underground for ambushes, Jieming attempted to use alchemy to analyze the geological strata, aiding in pinpointing the creature's location. He then controlled the fireball spell to create a sea of flames, scorching the ground and forcing the beast to surface.
He also encountered strange plants that sprayed poisonous mist or ensnared prey, adding novel materials to Jieming's collection.
Each battle, each encounter, served as a test of the rune-imbued magical artifact's capabilities.
He continuously pushed the artifact to its limits, recording data and analyzing the results.
Beyond the usual overheating issues, Jieming noticed another limitation: regional elemental depletion.
During a sustained, high-intensity barrage of fireball spells, he felt the surrounding fire element being rapidly drained. Subsequent fireball talisman seal activations became significantly less efficient, their power plummeting.
While the rune-imbued magical artifact boasted performance far surpassing its peers, it had clear limits under sustained, high-intensity use. It wasn't truly "infinite energy," merely shifting its energy source from internal reserves to the external environment.
Once the elemental power within a region was depleted, though surrounding elemental power would quickly converge, the concentration remained temporarily low.
Jieming currently lacked a good solution for this, resorting to casting spells while moving rapidly.
(End of the Chapter)