I Can Upgrade My Talent Infinitely

"If you don’t reach Foundation Establishment soon, you’ll only ever be a Sect Steward."

"Becoming a Sect Steward isn’t so bad."

"It’s a shame Junior Sister Zhong left for the branch sect a few days ago. If she’d gone just a little later, she could have seen this Core Formation Phenomenon."

"I’m sure there will be plenty of chances to see a Core Formation Phenomenon."

The disciples who had paused on their way chatted back and forth.

As they chatted, they all looked toward the sky above the Main Peak, Cloud Summit.

Fang Yun only sensed the major fluctuations in Spiritual Qi after the Core Formation Phenomenon appeared.

This wasn’t because his perception was faulty.

He was currently in the Artifact Refining Room of his cave residence. The room was equipped with several isolation Arrays, designed to shield an Artifact Refiner from various disturbances during the Artifact Refining process.

An Elder successfully reaching Core Formation, triggering a Core Formation Phenomenon and abnormal fluctuations in Spiritual Qi, was clearly one such disturbance.

If not for his acute sensitivity during Artifact Refining, he truly wouldn’t have noticed the Spiritual Qi fluctuations after they had been dampened by the Arrays.

These were the kind of Spiritual Qi fluctuations that only a successful Core Formation could produce; Fang Yun knew without a second thought that Huang Mengyang had succeeded.

He didn’t dwell on it, quickly returning his focus to the refining process.

He was currently refining a Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact designed specifically to counter Ghost Cultivators. This was his first time refining a Spiritual Artifact meant to deal with them.

He had announced long ago, at a meeting in the main hall of Battle Peak, that he could refine Spiritual Artifacts specifically for dealing with Ghost Cultivators.

The reason an Elder had only now sought him out to refine a Spiritual Artifact for dealing with Ghost Cultivators was that there were very few situations that called for such an item.

The Elders’ actions in the Earth Realm of the Black Ghost Cave were mostly superficial, and they rarely had direct confrontations with the Foundation Establishment Ghost Cultivators there.

At most, they would simply eliminate any Qi Refining Stage Ghost Cultivators they happened to run into.

Their strategy was not to start an all-out conflict with the Black Ghost Cave; their actions served more as a warning.

「Two days later.」

The refining of the Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact meant to deal with Ghost Cultivators was complete.

There was a huge difference between refining Spiritual Artifacts to deal with Ghost Cultivators and those for dealing with Demons; only a fraction of the experience was transferable.

Because it was his first time, this Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact for countering Ghost Cultivators was even more difficult to refine than an Upper Grade Spiritual Artifact for countering Demons.

Fang Yun could now refine Upper Grade Spiritual Artifacts for Demons with ease, so to him, the overall difficulty was not high.

The stone door of the Artifact Refining Room opened.

When Fang Yun emerged, he saw Song Qiaoqiao in the main hall, along with the siblings Huang Mengzhu and Huang Mengyang.

He hadn’t been there when Huang Mengyang successfully reached the Core Formation Stage; instead, Huang Mengyang had made a special trip to see him after his success.

Fang Yun reacted quickly, immediately offering his congratulations.

"Mengyang, congratulations on reaching the Core Formation Stage!"

"Big Brother Fang Yun, I had over a sixty percent chance of reaching Core Formation. Among the Elders in the sect preparing to attempt their breakthrough, there were no more than three with a higher chance of success than me. It would’ve been humiliating if I had failed," Huang Mengyang responded with a laugh.

Listening from the side, Huang Mengzhu nodded.

"Mm, not bad. It’s good to have that kind of self-awareness."

Now that he had successfully reached the Core Formation Stage, Huang Mengyang was brimming with confidence in front of Huang Mengzhu.

"In any case, I’ve already reached the Core Formation Stage. I’m telling you, Sis, you need to work harder and try to reach Core Formation yourself. Don’t fall behind."

"Oh, really, Mengyang? You become a Supreme Elder and suddenly you’re lecturing your big sister?" Huang Mengzhu feigned anger and rapped him on the head. "Whatever happens, I’m still your sister. It’s not your place to lecture me."

"Big Brother Fang Yun, you tell her."

Huang Mengyang wanted Fang Yun to do the lecturing.

In private, the way the two siblings interacted was basically unchanged from their childhood.

In front of outsiders, however, they presented a completely different picture.

"Mengzhu does need to pick up the pace with her cultivation," Fang Yun said after a moment of thought. "Putting Core Formation aside, she should at least reach the Peak of Foundation Establishment within the next ten years."

"See, Sis? You heard him," Huang Mengyang said with a playful laugh.

"I know, Brother Fang Yun."

Huang Mengzhu shot Huang Mengyang a glare before turning to Fang Yun and simply nodding.

In truth, her cultivation speed was already quite fast. After all, she only had Three Spirit Roots, unlike her brother’s Abnormal Spirit Root.

But Fang Yun had started with a mere Five Spirit Roots. Although he had cleansed his Spirit Root later on, that only happened during the Late-stage of Foundation Establishment. Considering she had access to a great deal of resources for her own cultivation, it seemed perfectly normal that in Brother Fang Yun’s eyes, her progress was rather slow.

As the four of them continued to talk,

Huang Mengyang kept steering the conversation to get Fang Yun to say the things he found awkward to tell his sister himself.

Seeing that her brother was only doing it for her own good, Fang Yun played along and said quite a lot.

Eventually, Huang Mengzhu’s glares at Huang Mengyang grew more and more dissatisfied, carrying a clear "you just wait" warning. Only then did Huang Mengyang stop prompting Fang Yun.

With Huang Mengyang’s successful breakthrough to the Core Formation Stage, the sect now had nine Core Formation Cultivators.

Three were at the middle-stage Core Formation, and six were at the early-stage Core Formation. For now, there were none at the late-stage Core Formation or higher.

If the sect produced another Core Formation Stage Cultivator before Sect Leader Duan Qingyun passed away, their Celestial Cloud Sect would have ten Core Formation Cultivators at the same time.

「One month after Huang Mengyang’s successful breakthrough.」

It was a good day for Fang Yun.

Because he had finished gathering the materials for his second vessel avatar.

Now, he could immediately begin refining his second vessel avatar.

’I wonder what kind of toll simultaneously controlling two vessel avatars will take on me.’

The Core Formation Technique, Skillful Heaven-Stealing Technique, had a theoretical maximum of nine vessel avatars. At the Early-stage Core Formation, the theoretical limit of controllable avatars was two.

The theoretical limits for the subsequent middle-stage, late-stage, and peak were four, six, and nine avatars, respectively.

If he allowed the vessel avatars to act independently, the impact on him would surely be small. What he was mainly curious about now was how great the drain on his stamina would be when he was simultaneously interfaced with two vessel avatars.

「In the Artifact Refining Room.」

Having entered seclusion, Fang Yun had already begun refining his second vessel avatar.

He already had experience refining one vessel avatar, and his Artifact Refining skills had improved even further over the years. Therefore, as he began refining another, the difficulty could be said to have decreased significantly.

It was a simple and easy task now.

But Fang Yun was not the least bit careless.

Before refining the second vessel avatar, he deliberately recalled the process of refining the first one.

Reviewing his past experience would ensure this attempt went more smoothly.

「More than half a month later.」

Fang Yun completed the refining of his second vessel avatar with great success.

’It took nearly half a day less than the first time I refined a vessel avatar.’

The reduction in time was a sign of his growing proficiency.

With a flick of Fang Yun’s will, two vessel avatars appeared before him.

The first vessel avatar entered from outside; it had naturally not been idle while he was refining the second.

Fang Yun had arranged everything; about half a day earlier, the first vessel avatar had completed all its assigned tasks and had been standing quietly at the entrance of the Artifact Refining Room ever since.

’First, I’ll refine two Lower Grade Spiritual Artifacts to test the waters.’

As he thought this, Fang Yun replenished the first vessel avatar’s Spiritual Power and filled the second one completely as well.

After completing this process, he had very little Spiritual Power left.

This was the least Spiritual Power his Qi Sea had held since he reached the Core Formation Stage.

’Let’s begin.’

At Fang Yun’s mental command, both vessel avatars sprang into action.

They both began refining Lower Grade Spiritual Artifacts. These were, of course, just ordinary ones; refining Lower Grade Spiritual Artifacts meant to counter Demons would still require his personal involvement.

Two vessel avatars were different from one, after all.

He first had to test what would happen if he let them operate completely independently.

He needed to see if having an additional avatar would cause their operational precision to decrease when left to their own devices.

With this new variable in play, he had to test many things to avoid errors down the line.