“Priests?”

Jie Ming’s first reaction upon hearing the black giant leader’s report was surprise.

The black giants were biological weapons he had personally designed and modified, with stability and controllability as their core requirements.

Though he had granted them extremely high intelligence, combat prowess, and growth potential, everything was supposed to remain within his predetermined framework.

The spontaneous emergence of “priests”—a role clearly leaning toward social and cultural functions—should theoretically never occur.

But this astonishment lasted only a brief moment. Jie Ming’s gaze instinctively turned toward the laboratory window. Though he couldn’t see it, his senses clearly captured the Incense Fire Divine Dao network that enveloped the entire Infernal Sulfur plane, operating slowly yet steadfastly.

“That’s right… the Incense Fire Divine Dao.” He murmured to himself, a flash of understanding in his eyes.

The essence of the Incense Fire Divine Dao was to guide faith, condense the power of civilization, and transform the mundane into the divine.

It influenced not only energy but also subtly shaped the intelligent beings immersed within it.

As the sole and recognized “core inhabitants” of the Infernal Sulfur plane under the Incense Fire Divine Dao, the black giant clan inevitably received feedback and molding from this power while providing faith and mortal dust qi.

The birth of priests was precisely the qualitative leap in the clan triggered after this feedback accumulated to a certain degree—they were beginning to evolve from pure combat weapons into a complete civilized race capable of building social structures and generating culture and faith.

“Let’s go take a look.” Jie Ming suppressed the ripples in his heart and said to the black giant leader.

Jie Ming had grown interested in this matter; he needed to witness this historic moment with his own eyes.

Following the leader, Jie Ming arrived at a massive incubation pool deep within the plane.

Many black giants had already gathered here, silently encircling the pool’s edge. Beneath their ferocious and terrifying exteriors, one could sense a solemn anticipation.

Another fifth-level black giant leader stood guard here like a black mountain range.

“How long have you… been waiting here?” Jie Ming asked casually.

Upon seeing Jie Ming’s arrival, the guarding leader bowed and reported: “Master, we have been standing vigil for one full day.”

“One day?” Jie Ming raised an eyebrow slightly.

He knew the efficiency of the incubation pools—mass-producing a standard black giant warrior took only one minute.

Yet this special individual had consumed an entire day’s worth of energy and time from one incubation pool?

This alone spoke to its terrifying potential.

Jie Ming said nothing more and simply waited in silence.

As time passed, the energy fluctuations within the incubation pool grew increasingly intense, as if a vortex at the bottom was frantically drawing in power.

With a thought, Jie Ming connected to the plane’s control array through his maginet terminal and cautiously channeled one-millionth of the energy from a seventh-level large-scale elemental pool.

In an instant, a vast and pure torrent of elemental energy was directed into the incubation pool, causing the energy halo within to nearly condense into substance.

At the very peak of this energy convergence, Jie Ming keenly sensed a faint yet pure special power beginning to emanate from the gathered black giants around him.

Having deeply studied divine faith networks, Jie Ming immediately recognized it—that was the power of faith!

These originally scattered faith thoughts were captured, purified, and twisted by the omnipresent Incense Fire Divine Dao network, ultimately transforming into a new energy with a faint golden glow, brimming with order and strength—that was nascent incense divine power!

This newborn incense divine power, as if finding its home, unhesitatingly poured into the forming embryo at the center of the incubation pool.

Boom!

Accompanied by a rumble that originated not from the material world but from the soul level, light and shadow twisted above the incubation pool as a figure slowly condensed and manifested.

It was indeed a black giant.

Its entire body was pitch-black like ink, covered in a flowing layer of liquid metal.

But compared to its kin who often stood dozens of meters tall, its size could be called “petite.”

Only a little over two meters in height, with a slimmer, leaner torso—its contours even faintly revealed a harmony somewhat akin to humans.

It lacked some of the brutish ferocity of giants and instead carried an unusual refined vigor.

It hovered in mid-air, slowly opening its eyes.

Those eyes were no longer the energy-flame-burning or pitch-void forms of ordinary black giants but resembled the purest obsidian—deep, calm, containing rational brilliance far surpassing its kin.

Its gaze locked onto Jie Ming immediately. Without any hesitation, it descended to the ground and, in Jie Ming’s direction, knelt on one knee in a solemn posture, lowering its head.

The movement was fluid and natural, filled with awe and submission, displaying extremely high intelligence and clear awareness of its own status.

“Master.” Its voice, unlike the thunderous dullness of other black giants, was clear and steady.

Jie Ming stepped forward, activating his All-Purpose Eye and combining it with the nearby arrays to begin an intrigued examination.

Basic physical strength, energy absorption and conversion efficiency, time manipulation talent… The results showed that in these aspects, this priest was comparable to ordinary black giant warriors and had not weakened due to its changed form.

Its uniqueness lay mainly in two points:

First, this priest seemed to innately master the complete “energy” law.

By the standards of the wizard world, the moment it was born, it was a genuine sixth-level being!

This was not achieved through devouring evolution but an innate talent.

Second was its extraordinary intelligence.

Jie Ming conducted a few simple tests on logical reasoning and complex information processing, and the results surprised him.

Even compared to the most intelligent black giant leaders under his command, this priest made them seem like naive children.

Its thinking speed, depth of understanding, and completeness of logical chains reached an entirely new height.

However, perhaps because the underlying code of the black giant race was ultimately “biological weapon.”

Aside from this astonishing intelligence and innate mastery of the energy law, this newborn priest did not seem to awaken traditional priestly supernatural abilities such as healing, prophecy, large-scale blessings, or curses.

Jie Ming stroked his chin, sizing up the respectfully kneeling “slender” black giant before him while his mind raced with calculations.

Such high intelligence, such strong law affinity, yet lacking matching “divine arts” or special abilities… Doesn’t that mean?

Suddenly, Jie Ming’s eyes lit up.

“Isn’t this a natural experimental assistant?!”

He no longer hesitated and directly said to the priest: “Follow me.”

Bringing this newborn priest back to his main laboratory, Jie Ming casually pulled a stack of knowledge crystals from his mountain of materials—covering high-energy physics and foundational law theories—and handed them over.

“Study them, understand them, then tell me your insights.” Jie Ming issued the command, wanting to see for himself just how efficient this priest’s learning was.

The black giant priest respectfully accepted the knowledge crystals. The instant its obsidian-like eyes scanned them, countless data streams seemed to flicker within.

Without any delay, it found a corner and, like the most devout scholar, immersed itself in the ocean of knowledge, reading and comprehending at incredible speed—its focused posture as if it were born for this very purpose.

Watching the back of this new priest buried in study, Jie Ming nodded in satisfaction.

“If this works out… I’ll finally have an assistant who can keep up with my thoughts…” In a pleasant mood, he turned around and redirected his attention to the spider-snake shell fragments on the experiment table, glistening with crystalline light.