Chapter 522: Spiritual Energy Conversion Array
Cloud Return Inn occupied a considerable area, offering tranquility amidst the bustle. The defensive formation at the main gate was of no low grade, clearly indicating the fees were not cheap.
Master Xuanming requested four adjacent courtyard houses.
“We’ll rest for a day in Myriad Manifestations City tomorrow. Don’t you two run off.” Master Xuanming stood at the moon gate of his courtyard house, his hoarse voice carrying an irrefutable command, “The day after tomorrow, at dawn, we’ll use the city’s teleportation formation to head directly to Tianji Pavilion’s outer perimeter outpost.”
With that, he turned and walked into his own courtyard. The heavy wooden door slammed shut with a bang.
Qingfeng and Mingyue breathed a sigh of relief. The oppressive atmosphere of the entire journey had left them gasping for air.
The two entered their own courtyard. Not long after, Su Ming heard the sound of a window being pushed open next door.
The two young disciples, clearly unable to suppress their curiosity about this super-massive city, were peeking through the crack in the window, sneaking glances at the bustling street outside.
Su Ming didn’t join the fun.
He pushed open the door to his own room and walked inside.
The room was elegantly arranged, with even a censer of calming spirit incense burning in the corner.
But Su Ming’s first reaction wasn’t to rest.
He walked to the center of the room and retrieved eight Formation Flags carved with ancient patterns from his storage pouch.
His wrist flicked.
“Swish! Swish! Swish!”
The eight Formation Flags transformed into eight streaks of light, precisely sinking into the eight cardinal directions of the room, embedding themselves beneath the floor tiles.
Then, his hands quickly formed hand seals, instantly activating a dual composite formation for soundproofing and blocking divine sense detection. A faint ripple spread around the room, completely sealing off all external noise and prying gazes.
Only after doing all this did Su Ming sit cross-legged on the bed.
Shadow poked its head out from his collar. It seemed to have caught the contagious curiosity of Qingfeng and Mingyue next door, as it flapped its wings and flew to the windowsill. Its golden eyes swiveled around, and through the formation’s light barrier, it watched cultivators flying on swords outside, occasionally letting out an extremely faint “Cheep.”
“Don’t let it run around,” Lin Yu’s voice echoed in his Consciousness Sea. “With that atavistic bloodline of hers, if someone with ill intentions gets a look, it’ll be a huge problem.”
“Disciple understands.”
Su Ming responded softly.
Then, he slowly closed his eyes, his hands forming a strange seal over his Dantian.
His mind, in an instant, sank completely into his Dantian.
He passed through the deep lake of spiritual energy, crossed the seven hundred and fifty circulating formation runes.
His consciousness directly touched the square seal that hung silently suspended deep within his Dantian.
That was his ultimate trump card, inscribed with ten thousand years of ancient formation principles from the Ancient Path secret realm. Here in the Central Continent, where everything required a bargaining chip, he had to quickly transform the power within that True Imprint into a blade he could truly wield.
The calming incense in the censer burned down a small section, its blue smoke curling up in the sealed room.
Su Ming sat cross-legged on the bed, his eyes tightly shut.
Deep within his Dantian, the Border Defense True Seal slowly manifested in his Consciousness Sea. The complex, dizzying ancient formation lines on the seal’s surface were glowing with a faint blue luster, bit by bit, as his divine sense probed inward.
As the luster flowed, the ever-renewing vitality of the towering ancient trees in the secret realm’s Ancient Path, and the natural perfection beneath the stone path, all unfurled in his mind like a scroll painting.
He didn’t covet those grand killing formations or illusion arrays.
Su Ming’s goal was very clear.
Lock Spiritual Energy, Convert, Guide In.
These were the three cornerstones for surviving in the Central Continent.
“That meridian path on the left is wrong.”
Lin Yu’s Soul Body hovered in front of the bed. The faint, flickering glow made his gaunt face appear uncertain, now bright, now dark.
A section of the formation line that Su Ming had sketched in his Consciousness Sea dispersed.
“That formation line was used in ancient times to extract fire qi from earth veins,” Lin Yu said, his speech half a beat slower than usual, his gaze fixed on the spiritual energy trajectory in the void that only the two of them, master and disciple, could see. “What you need to extract now is low-grade spirit stones. If you use such a violent method, the spirit stone will explode directly in the formation core. Not only will the spiritual energy dissipate, but the inn’s defensive formation will also be alerted.”
Su Ming opened his eyes.
He looked at his right index finger. A trace of spiritual energy fluctuation that he hadn’t been able to stabilize still lingered on his fingertip.
This was the twelfth failure.
If he were in the Northern Frontier, he could freely absorb spiritual energy at will. But here in the Central Continent, the worst outcome was that the spirit stone would be wasted, and not only would he fail to recover his spiritual energy, he would also attract unwanted attention. The best outcome was to use the fewest spirit stones to gain the greatest spiritual energy benefit.
He still had a few intact mid-grade spirit stones hidden in his sleeve, meant for emergencies, and absolutely not to be wasted on testing.
“Under the thirty-fifth stone slab of the Ancient Path, there’s a section of cushioning lines,” Su Ming lifted his eyes to look at Lin Yu. “That line pattern can smooth out turbulent spiritual energy. If I graft it between the Lock Spirit array and the Guide array, could it work?”
Lin Yu didn’t answer immediately.
His Soul Body hung motionless in the air for three breaths.
A faint ring of light rippled from the edge of his soul form.
“It’s worth a try,” Lin Yu’s voice dropped low. “But you’ll need to use the ‘Lead’ character rune as a bridge.”
Su Ming closed his eyes again.
In his Consciousness Sea, the seven hundred and fifty formation runes lit up like stars. He deftly extracted the “Lead” character rune from among them, stripped away the excess edges, leaving only the core guiding momentum, and carefully embedded it between those three modules.
The prototype of the formation plate gradually became complete in his mind.
No breakpoints. No blockages.
Su Ming slowly opened his eyes and took five low-grade spirit stones from his storage pouch.
He arranged the spirit stones in a five-point formation on the bed before him. He crooked his index finger, and an extremely thin thread of azure-blue spiritual energy seeped from his fingertip, weaving between the five spirit stones like spinning silk from a cocoon.
The spiritual energy threads intertwined, finally forming a miniature Spirit Gathering Array, the size of a palm, at the center of the spirit stones.
“Cheep.”
Shadow, who had been dozing on the windowsill, was attracted by the commotion here. It fluttered its wings and flew over, landing on the edge of the bed.
The little one tilted its head, its golden eyes fixed on the spirit stones that were beginning to emit a faint glow. It couldn’t help but extend a sharp claw, wanting to touch that glowing thread of spiritual energy.
Su Ming extended his left hand and gently tapped it on the head with the back of his finger.
“Don’t touch.”
Shadow resentfully retracted its claw, its feathers slightly ruffled, but it obediently backed off, watching only with its curious eyes.
Su Ming gathered his concentration, his hands forming seals, and he closed his eyes, sinking into the operation of the Like Water Art.
The first strand of spiritual energy was drawn out from the low-grade spirit stone directly in front.
The moment that strand of spiritual energy left the spirit stone, it immediately began to struggle violently, as if summoned by the laws of this world, wanting to dissipate into the air.
But the formation lines of the Lock Spirit array lit up instantly, like an invisible net, firmly trapping it.
Next, the conversion module began to operate, forcibly smoothing and compressing that strand of spiritual energy.
Finally, guided by the bridge of the “Lead” character rune, like a drop of water falling into a pond, it silently slid into Su Ming’s meridians.
No dissipation. No backlash.
Su Ming’s breathing became steady and long. One after another, the low-grade spirit stones lost their luster at a visible rate, eventually turning into gray-white powder.
An hour later.
The last spirit stone turned to ash.
Su Ming opened his eyes, exhaling a long breath of turbid qi that carried a hint of warmth.
“It worked.”
He clenched his fist, feeling that sliver of newly added spiritual energy foundation in his Dantian.
Lin Yu drifted down, looking at the gray-white powder covering the bed.
“What’s the efficiency?”
“Only fifty percent of what it was in the Northern Frontier,” Su Ming frowned slightly. “Too much spiritual energy is lost during the formation conversion process. If I want to reach my original cultivation speed, I’ll need to spend twice as many spirit stones as I did in the Northern Frontier.”
Lin Yu listened and then replied, “That’s still fine. Just use it as is.”