Ten years passed quietly amid focused research and the intricate work of artifact refinent.
In the core laboratory of the Infernal Sulfur plane, Jie Ming gazed at the spell model hovering on the light screen before him. At last, a look of satisfaction appeared in his eyes.
The modification of 【Return to Ruins Armor】 was complete.
“Theoretically, this model has already reached the predetermined values. But whether it’s a mule or a horse, you still have to take it out for a walk to find out.”
Jie Ming did not linger in admiration. He went directly to the large comprehensive testing ground attached to the laboratory.
The testing ground was located deep within the mountain, its space vast. The walls and floor were constructed from special materials capable of absorbing and dispersing extrely high-energy impacts. The surrounding area was densely covered with various monitoring arrays and energy generators.
Several black giant priests serving as assistants and researchers had already received the order and were waiting here.
With a shift of thought from Jie Ming, the spell model in his mind lit up. A set of dark-silver Return to Ruins Armor materialized out of thin air.
Like a living liquid, it automatically unfurled, covering his torso, limbs, and even his neck. It clung tightly yet felt almost weightless.
The minute vortex runes on the armor’s surface began to slowly circulate, emanating a deep, tranquil aura as though it could devour all light.
He stretched his arms and legs, performing several large-range movents, even deliberately casting multiple spells.
After confirming there was no interference, Jie Ming nodded in satisfaction. “The body-tracking operation module is functioning normally. The friend-or-foe identification module is also fine…”
With a flick of his hand, the entire Return to Ruins Armor shrank into a mass of dark-silver liquid and hovered above his palm.
He slapped it forward. The spell instantly enveloped the target dummy in front of him like solid armor.
“Begin basic energy resistance testing,” Jie Ming ordered.
One of the black giant priests imdiately controlled the testing ground’s arrays. Standardized fifth-ring energy beams fired from various angles, at different frequencies and intensities, continuously bombarding the target.
Jie Ming stood in the observation room, watching through the isolation window as the target remained completely motionless.
The vortex runes on the surface of the Return to Ruins Armor accelerated slightly. Every incoming energy attack, the mont it made contact with the armor, vanished like a mud ox into the sea—silently devoured and decomposed by the layer of “Return to Ruins Force Field.”
The monitoring arrays showed that the attacking energy was being efficiently converted and stored. Not only did it fail to cause any damage to the target, it was actually replenishing the spell’s operational consumption!
“Increase intensity. Simulate peak fifth-ring single-target spell.”
Stronger beams struck. Their power was enough to easily penetrate conventional fifth-ring defensive spells.
The result remained unchanged.
The Return to Ruins Armor stood steady as a rock. Absorption efficiency showed no decline whatsoever.
“Saturated coverage test. Simulate focused fire from multiple fifth-ring wizards.”
Tens of thousands of energy generators activated at full power simultaneously. A multicolored torrent of energy poured down like a violent rain, completely subrging the area where the target stood.
The monitoring arrays’ readings jumped wildly, showing that the energy density here had reached a terrifying level—enough to instantly vaporize the defensive ans of most fifth-ring wizards.
Yet at the center of the energy storm, the target remained perfectly unhard.
The Return to Ruins Armor acted like a bottomless abyss, greedily devouring all surrounding energy.
The circulation of the vortex runes had ford a faintly visible pale-gray force field shield. Every collision of energy was rapidly absorbed and broken down.
This basic test lasted a full ten days and ten nights.
The energy generators went through three complete sets of power cores.
Finally, when the test concluded, the data showed: after enduring ten days of theoretically maximum-density saturated fifth-ring spell bombardnt, the Return to Ruins Armor’s internal energy storage had reached only 67% of the estimated upper limit. Its defensive performance showed absolutely no sign of degradation.
From this test alone, it was clear that no type of fifth-ring or lower energy attack could inflict aningful damage on it anymore. Instead, such attacks would only beco its “nourishnt.”
“Next—sixth-ring simulation test,” Jie Ming said calmly, a trace of anticipation in his voice.
The testing ground’s arrays switched modes. The output power of the energy generators and the law simulation level rose sharply.
This ti, what ca roaring in was a dark-red high-temperature plasma torrent simulating a standard sixth-ring wizard attack—its power on a completely different level from before.
Boom!
The very first impact caused the entire testing ground to tremble faintly.
The vortex runes on the surface of the Return to Ruins Armor suddenly blazed brighter, their circulation speed surging.
But when the smoke cleared, the target remained intact.
Monitoring data showed that when facing sixth-ring spells, the Return to Ruins Armor could no longer devour them as effortlessly as before. It had entered “full digestion” mode.
Under the continuous full-power focused fire of a simulated standard sixth-ring wizard, the Return to Ruins Armor held firm for over an hour!
When the simulated attack finally ceased, internal energy storage had reached 97%.
Close to theoretical saturation, yet the defensive structure remained intact, showing no signs of collapse.
After several more rounds of testing, the testing ground finally returned to silence.
Jie Ming dispelled the spell and carefully inspected every rune and structural point while reading all the monitoring data.
Ultimately, he confird:
The modified Return to Ruins Armor could achieve complete immunity to any type or intensity of fifth-ring and below energy attacks, efficiently converting and absorbing them as stored energy.
It could also effectively withstand standard sixth-ring energy attacks, enduring continuous saturated bombardnt for more than one hour.
Absorption and conversion efficiency decreased as attack intensity rose, but remained impressive.
However, the armor’s relative weakness against physical attacks still existed—though it had seen considerable improvent.
When facing physical attacks, the Return to Ruins Armor could rely on stored energy to generate temporary physical force fields for defense.
If it was simultaneously receiving high-density energy attacks to recharge it, its resistance to physical attacks would increase dramatically in tandem.
In an energy-deficient state, its defensive capability against pure physical attacks would mainly depend on the wearer’s own physical strength.
Most importantly, when confronted with special attacks such as causal erasure, ti suspension, and similar chanisms, the Return to Ruins Armor perford astonishingly well.
Before the spell itself was broken, it could render its user almost completely immune to such rule-based spells.
Jie Ming was extrely satisfied with this test report.
He knew very well that the “energy bearing upper limit” of the Return to Ruins Armor itself had not undergone any qualitative leap.
That limit depended far more on the depth of his comprehension of the “Return to Ruins Concept,” which required long periods of insight and could not be broken through by technical optimization alone.
What had truly caused such an exaggerated qualitative leap in the armor’s defensive capability was the massive increase in another key parater—energy digestion and conversion speed!
Over the past ten years, in order to understand concepts such as “Return to Ruins,” “devouring,” and “finality,” he had devoured and analyzed vast quantities of related planar origin knowledge.
Although he had not yet truly grasped the core of the concept, the enormous and ticulous knowledge concerning energy absorption chanisms, matter decomposition pathways, information entropy increase control, energy conversion efficiency, and so on had long since been deeply imprinted in his consciousness.
Thus, when reconstructing the energy processing array inside the Return to Ruins Armor’s spell model, he had unconsciously integrated these cutting-edge insights on “highly efficient devouring and conversion.”
The final result: compared to the theoretical values of the original spell, the modified Return to Ruins Armor’s “digestion speed” of stored energy and its “conversion speed” into usable energy or defensive power had increased by more than one hundred thousand tis!
This was the fundantal reason why a spell that was theoretically only fourth-ring could now stand up to a sixth-ring wizard face-to-face.
It ant that as long as the “instantaneous intensity” of an attack did not exceed a certain terrifying threshold, any sustained energy bombardnt would, in front of the Return to Ruins Armor, be more like an endless stream of “portable chargers.”
It could transform incoming violent energy into its own power in an extrely short ti.
“Knowledge truly is the primary productive force,” Jie Ming thought as he sensed the spell model in his spiritual sea, filled with a sense of accomplishnt.
He was also quite satisfied with his own research efficiency.
In ten years, to complete the deep modification of a top-tier defensive spell and achieve such results—this speed far surpassed many research projects of wizards at the sa level.
However, he did not imdiately begin modifying 【Causal Trace Shadow Technique】 and 【Great Void Step】.
Because a few years earlier, his three treasures—essence, qi, and spirit—had finally returned to that perfectly rounded, flawlessly balanced, mutually reinforcing ideal state.
The adaptive evolutionary potential of his body had once again been awakened.
“It’s ti to restart the ti afterimage training.”
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