Before addressing all else, there was a matter of utmost importance—advancing to the Golden Core Realm.
His wizard rank had long stabilized at the second level, but his cultivator’s cultivation had lingered at the peak of Foundation Establishment for far too long.
Once, Jie Ming believed this bottleneck stemmed from the psychological wounds caused by the fall of his dear friends Amy and Victor on the planar battlefield.
But upon reflection, his emotions back then weren’t so intense—no overwhelming sorrow, no blazing anger, only a faint mist that settled in his heart, a calm yet pervasive fog.
It wasn’t thick, but it was enough to obscure the sun.
Now, Jie Ming understood that the mist was called loneliness.
As a transmigrator, there had always been a subtle, intangible barrier between his soul and this world.
Amy and Victor’s presence had been like two windows opened in that barrier, allowing him to glimpse and feel a trace of this world’s warmth.
Their sudden departure slammed those windows shut, leaving behind a cold, lonely mist.
Until… he faced Jack’s visage, twisted by jealousy.That ugliness, that raw, unmasked fervor born of incompetence and resentment toward another’s talent, pierced through the fog in Jie Ming’s heart like a beam of intense light.
He suddenly realized that, rational or not, cold or otherwise, the wizards of this world—indeed, all living beings—were, beneath their masks, vividly alive, driven by the seven emotions and six desires.
They cried, laughed, envied, raged, acted on desire, and retreated in fear.
This realization, this profound sense of the world’s “reality,” anchored his wandering, foreign heart into the soil of this world.
In that moment, he felt not disgust but an indescribable sense of release, akin to “coming home.”
With his heart’s knot untied, the bottleneck dissolved.
He clearly sensed that the barrier between Foundation Establishment and Golden Core had become as thin as a cicada’s wing.
The reason he suppressed his breakthrough during the planar war was, naturally, his deep wariness of Dionysius Spencer, a seventh-level fate wizard.
Attempting a cultivator’s breakthrough—one involving the essence of the soul and a leap in energy level—under the gaze of someone who could peer into the threads of fate?
Jie Ming wasn’t that bold.
Now, back in the Infernal Sulfur Plane, fully under his control, he had no more reservations.
To ensure absolute certainty, he didn’t rush.
He spent over a decade delving into the depths of his consciousness, connecting to the Great Dao Book Pavilion, studying and comparing tens of thousands of pill recipes and jade slips detailing insights on advancing to the Golden Core Realm.
Combining the principles of wizardry’s potioncraft and alchemy techniques, he refined his approach, weeding out the chaff and repeatedly simulating until he successfully crafted a promotion potion perfectly suited to his condition.
With this done, his restless mind calmed considerably.
Gazing at the vial of potion shimmering with radiant golden light in his hand, Jie Ming suddenly had an epiphany: “The time for advancement has come!”
He activated the planar defense system built into the infrastructure he had modified, completely sealing off all connections between the Infernal Sulfur Plane and the outside world, transforming it into an absolutely isolated retreat.
All preparations were complete.
Jie Ming sat cross-legged in the quiet chamber, his five vital points facing the heavens.
A faint medicinal fragrance filled the room, while the restless energy of the Infernal Sulfur Plane was blocked by layers of arrays, leaving only absolute silence.
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and his gaze became incomparably clear and resolute.
“Let it begin.”
His mind sank into his dantian, guiding the Foundation Establishment true essence, which had long reached its peak, to charge toward the intangible Golden Core barrier.
Jie Ming’s focus condensed, his consciousness fully withdrawn, centered on his lower dantian.
There, the liquid true essence, once swirling like a cyclone, had been compressed to its utmost limit.
At its core, a brilliant golden spark was forming, radiating boundless vitality and an ineffable, profound charm of the Dao.
His foundation was simply too robust—over two hundred years of relentless cultivation, supplemented by an unending supply of high-grade resources.
Then, eighty years of planar conquests across two realms, countless brushes with death, and deep insights into his own path had honed his foundation to an unshakable degree.
Now, as he assaulted the Golden Core Realm, it felt effortless, almost without resistance.
The once-imposing barrier, after his heart’s knot was undone, was as fragile as morning dew.
Under the impact of his pure, vast true essence, it shattered and melted away silently.
Hum…
A faint resonance, perceptible only to the soul, echoed from the depths of his dantian.
In an instant, the golden spark at the center of his dantian erupted!
Like the first light at the birth of the universe, it illuminated the rivers and mountains of his meridians.
All the liquid true essence surged like countless rivers returning to the sea, converging, compressing, and condensing toward that golden spark!
No earth-shattering phenomena occurred, only a profound transformation at the energy level within his body.
The three treasures—essence, qi, and spirit—as the Golden Core formed, seemed to find a common nexus, beginning to blend and resonate spontaneously, producing an indescribable qualitative change.
Time passed—perhaps a moment, perhaps an eternity.
When Jie Ming’s consciousness clearly “saw” his dantian again, a dragon-eye-sized, flawless, lustrous golden core, radiating gentle yet boundless power, hovered quietly at the center, slowly rotating.
With each rotation, it naturally absorbed and released the surrounding spiritual energy, resonating mystically with the heavens and earth.
The Golden Core was formed!
He hadn’t even used the meticulously prepared promotion potion beside him, achieving this breakthrough—a chasm countless cultivators dreamed of crossing—solely through his own accumulation.
Yet, the moment the Golden Core stabilized, before Jie Ming could savor its mysteries, an overwhelming, almost brutal suction erupted from his lower dantian where the Golden Core resided!
This suction didn’t target the outside world but voraciously drew upon the newly transformed, still-scarce spiritual energy in his body, as well as the vital essence within his flesh and blood.
Far from alarmed, Jie Ming was elated, understanding dawning: “As I thought, the next phase of Internal Circulation has begun!”
The Internal Circulation method he cultivated centered on the creation of an inner cosmos.
When he advanced to Foundation Establishment, this method had opened an initial inner space within his body.
Now, with the formation of the Golden Core and the leap in energy and life essence, this inner space was naturally poised to evolve and expand!
Jie Ming had anticipated this and prepared accordingly.