Above the altar, the light receded like a retreating tide.

Jie Ming slowly opened his eyes.

The thousand-meter-tall dark golden giant was currently seated cross-legged at the center of the altar.

“Huu… I’m back.”

As his true body Dharma Form released its radiance once more, Jie Ming’s consciousness fully awakened.

With a thought, his Dharma Form began to contract.

The dark golden light collapsed inward. The thousand-meter-tall body was compressed by an invisible force, finally transforming into a streak of golden light that merged into his human form.

Having returned to his normal appearance, Jie Ming stood on the altar and rolled his neck.

The surroundings did not seem to have changed much, so he habitually checked his biological clock.

Then, Jie Ming froze.

“…How much?”

He checked again.

Three hundred years.

To be precise, three hundred and two years, one month, and ten days.

Jie Ming blinked, finding it somewhat difficult to accept for a moment.

In his subjective perception, the process of advancing to the Dao Integration Realm, though long, had felt like no more than a few hours at most.

Yet in reality, a full three hundred years had passed.

It seemed that when immersed in the comprehension of laws, one’s perception of time lost all meaning.

But thinking about it, that made sense. That state of resonating with heaven and earth and merging with the Great Dao had been as wonderful as a fleeting dream.

“Cultivation truly knows no years,” Jie Ming murmured to himself, a trace of emotion in his voice. He quickly regained his composure.

The Great Dao Book Pavilion’s records had mentioned similar situations.

Still, when it actually happened to him, Jie Ming felt a sense of wonder.

Three hundred years was several generations for mortals, but for wizards, it was merely a slightly longer period of seclusion.

From the perspective of high-rank wizards’ sense of time, the duration he had spent this time barely even qualified as closed-door cultivation.

His enemies, his allies, his mentors, and his senior sister were all beings who had lived for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

Three hundred years was truly nothing on the time scale of wizards.

He just didn’t know how the Infernal Sulfur Plane had fared these years.

Jie Ming reined in his thoughts and began carefully sensing the changes after his advancement.

The most intuitive change was his perception of the world.

At the very beginning, the way he viewed the world was “a mountain is a mountain.”

Energy was energy, matter was matter. All things were distinct and independent.

Later, he learned the All-Purpose Eye, established the Fate Subsystem, and entered the field of fate-type knowledge.

From then on, the way he viewed the world underwent a fundamental transformation.

The boundary between matter and energy began to blur. A massive rock was no longer merely simple matter, but an accumulation of ores, geological changes, the condensation of elemental forces, and the intersection of causal threads.

He could read thousands of years of history from a single stone and perceive the trajectories of elemental flows from a wisp of wind.

That was the realm of “a mountain is not a mountain”—seeing through appearances to gaze directly at the essence.

And now…

Jie Ming slowly raised his hand and looked at his fingertips.

He could not feel any “analysis” process, yet the movement trajectory of every dust particle in the air appeared clearly in his consciousness. That mountain had become a mountain once again.

But this “mountain” in his eyes was both appearance and essence.

The boundary between appearance and essence had disappeared. Understanding no longer required the process of “observation—analysis—cognition”; it had directly become part of his existence.

“A mountain is still a mountain,” Jie Ming said softly, his tone carrying an indescribable calm.

He closed his eyes and shifted the focus of his attention inward.

In his spiritual sea, the golden lines representing law mastery were growing at a visible speed.

Watching the exaggerated growth rate, Jie Ming’s breathing paused slightly.

He had not done anything. He had not even consumed any plane origin, let alone conducted research.

He was simply standing there, yet the golden lines were increasing “out of thin air.”

It was as if the laws of heaven and earth were actively approaching him, actively being understood and mastered by him.

There was no need for hard study; it was as natural as water flowing downhill.

Jie Ming observed carefully for a while and soon discovered the pattern.

The golden line for the Spiritual Qi Law was growing noticeably slower than the others.

As a law not belonging to the wizard world’s original system, its mastery after Dao Integration had climbed from the original fifty percent all the way to eighty percent, then slowed down.

Jie Ming did not mind. This showed that he had fully digested the Spiritual Qi knowledge he had learned before. Next, he only needed to learn one new application of the Incense Fire Divine Dao to fill it completely.

Compared to the “slow” progress of the Spiritual Qi Law, the other laws were completely different.

The four foundational laws of the wizard world—fire, wind, water, and earth—had only been lightly touched by Jie Ming before when studying rune imprint wizard tools, with mastery at merely one or two percent.

Now they grew like wildly spreading vines. The golden lines extended rapidly in his spiritual sea, growing from tiny points of light to nearly seventy or eighty percent in an instant.

More importantly, even after reaching this level, the growth speed of the four elemental laws showed no signs of slowing and continued to rise!

In addition, abyss-type laws, life-type laws… those laws that Jie Ming had barely grasped by consuming plane origin for spell modification were now growing at a terrifying speed.

Seventy percent, eighty percent, ninety percent… then they crossed the one hundred percent threshold without hindrance, advancing toward progress beyond one hundred percent.

Reaching this level of mastery meant he could attempt law solidification and advance to sixth-ring at any time.

Jie Ming took a deep breath.

In just a few breaths, the golden lines in his spiritual sea had surged like a golden tide, sweeping past one previously unreachable threshold after another.

“So this is the Dao Integration Realm…” Jie Ming murmured.

He truly understood where the real improvement of the Dao Integration Realm lay.

The advancement of the Dao Integration Realm was not an increase in pure power or energy, but a qualitative change in the way one perceived the world.

When his way of viewing the world leaped from “a mountain is not a mountain” to the third realm of “a mountain is still a mountain,” laws were no longer high walls he needed to climb, but streams that actively flowed toward him.

Of course, Jie Ming also understood that this did not mean he could lie back and advance straight to eighth or ninth-ring wizard.

The reason the four elemental laws and abyss-type laws grew so quickly was because they were the most foundational laws of the wizard world, widely present throughout heaven and earth, with relatively low thresholds for comprehension.

The Spiritual Qi Law slowed after reaching eighty percent because it was a “foreign law” that required building a complete law system from nothing within the soil of the wizard world.

The road ahead still needed him to walk it himself.

However, the most troublesome problem had already been solved. What remained was simply proceeding step by step.

There was no need to rush for now.

Jie Ming collected his thoughts and stepped down from the altar.

The altar was the core area of the Infernal Sulfur Plane, surrounded by dense arrays and protective barriers.

Three hundred years had not caused any changes here. The air was filled with the faint sandalwood scent characteristic of Incense Fire power.

Pushing open the heavy stone door, Jie Ming walked into the corridor leading to the secret chamber.

Pale blue fluorescent stones were embedded in the walls on both sides of the corridor, their soft light illuminating the path ahead.

A black figure waiting at the end of the corridor had already dropped to one knee.

It was a Black Giant priest.

“Master.” The Black Giant priest lowered his head. “Congratulations on emerging from seclusion.”

Jie Ming nodded, his footsteps not pausing. “I didn’t expect three hundred years to have passed. What has happened in the plane? Give me a brief report.”

The Black Giant priest stood up and followed half a step behind Jie Ming, beginning his report in a steady tone. “The plane is operating well overall. The Incense Fire Divine Dao system coverage has reached ninety-seven percent, an increase of twelve percentage points from three hundred years ago. The population has grown from twenty billion to thirty-five billion. Annual production of Mortal Dust Qi has increased by forty percent, and the refining efficiency of Incense Fire power has improved by thirty-seven percent…”

Jie Ming listened as he walked all the way to the laboratory.

Pushing open the laboratory door, a familiar scene greeted him.

Various half-finished wizard tools and rune imprint originals were placed on the large circular workbench. The multi-layered shelves in the corner were neatly organized with rare materials and experimental records.

In the center of the room, a two-meter-diameter plane projection sphere floated and rotated slowly, displaying the real-time status of the Infernal Sulfur Plane. Everything was exactly the same as before his seclusion.

“Continue,” Jie Ming said as he walked to the workbench, picked up a half-finished rune imprint wizard tool, and casually turned it over to inspect.

“The seventh-ring large-scale elemental pool is operating stably, with energy reserves reaching ninety-two percent of design capacity. Automated factory production capacity is sufficient. Following the instructions set before your seclusion, the main output consists of standard components for Black Giant incubation pools and Trigram Fire Annihilation Divine Light charging units. Currently, thirty-six thousand new Black Giant incubation pools and twelve thousand charging units have been added.” The Black Giant priest paused.

“Additionally, the Fate Subsystem successfully completed its four hundred and thirty-second algorithm iteration seventy years ago, increasing prediction accuracy of fate trajectories by two orders of magnitude.”

“It seems everything has been running very well. You’ve all done a good job.” Jie Ming set down the rune imprint wizard tool and walked toward the plane projection sphere.

On the projection sphere, the full view of the Infernal Sulfur Plane was clearly visible.

The once barren sulfur wasteland had transformed into a continuous urban cluster. The gathering areas of the Black Giant tribes were distributed like pieces on a chessboard, orderly placed across the plane’s habitable zones.

Golden light points of Incense Fire power converged into pale golden clouds above the cities, drifting slowly with atmospheric circulation and delivering power to every corner of the plane.

At the plane’s edges, several newly fused small planes were undergoing environmental transformation.

Black Giant mining teams moved through the rock layers like ants, transporting ores and energy crystals back to the main plane.

After three hundred years of development, the fused Infernal Sulfur Plane had evolved from a newborn plane into a true medium-sized plane.

Its internal systems were mature, and its defensive strength was ample.