Chapter 487: Phased Success
Chapter 487: Phased Success!
By the fourth day, just as Jiang Chen prepared to enter his personal spatial realm to construct a minor transfer Formation, an acquaintance unexpectedly arrived at his door.
“Old Mo, what brings you here?”
“I need someone to forge a Spirit Weapon for me.”
“What kind of Spirit Weapon?”
“A Spirit Protection Pearl!”
“Isn’t that an artifact specifically forged to guard the soul?”
“My mind has been plagued by restlessness lately…”
Jiang Chen had not seen Old Mo or Old Jin for quite some time.
Ever since the two of them had formally acknowledged their masters, everyone had become deeply occupied with their own cultivation.Now, Old Mo appeared deathly pale, the spiritual light in his eyes utterly dimmed.
This was absolutely not the vitality a Foundation Establishment cultivator should possess.
Mo Yu drew a deep breath, forcibly rallying his spirits before speaking. “I am preparing to break through to the Earth-Grade Golden Core soon, and I am in dire need of certain Spirit Weapons, talismans, and Spirit Pills. You possess broad connections; please help me inquire about the prices.”
Jiang Chen was taken aback. “Breaking through so soon?”
Mo Yu gave a heavy nod. “Ever since the dragon vein within the Canglan Sea was severed, the cultivation speed of my Water Spirit Root has surged immensely. Furthermore, after being accepted by my master, I have been granted profound spiritual bounties. I already reached Foundation Establishment Perfection a year ago.”
Before the three of them had even crossed paths, Mo Yu was merely at the early Foundation Establishment stage.
Now, propelled by Fated Chances, his cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds.
Jiang Chen retrieved a Spirit Protection Pearl from his robes and tossed it over. “It just so happens a friend from Vajra Peak gifted this to me. Take it.”
In truth, he had privately forged numerous Spirit Weapons of all varieties, purely to hone his own craftsmanship and deepen his insight into the Dao of Artifice. He never expected there would come a day they would actually be put to use.
Mo Yu caught the pearl and immediately noticed five distinct spiritual runes glowing upon its surface. He was astonished. “A High-Grade Spirit Weapon?”
Low-Grade Spirit Weapons bore one to three spiritual runes.
High-Grade Spirit Weapons bore four to six spiritual runes.
Top-Grade Spirit Weapons bore seven to nine spiritual runes.
Super-Grade Spirit Weapons bore more than nine spiritual runes.
A Spirit Weapon of this caliber commanded a price of several hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones, especially defensive and auxiliary types, which were exorbitantly expensive.
Casually gifting a High-Grade Spirit Weapon proved the artificer from Vajra Peak possessed terrifying talent.
Naturally, it also indirectly proved that his good brother’s network of connections was growing increasingly monstrous.
Jiang Chen smiled faintly. “I have no use for it anyway. Keep it.”
Mo Yu hesitated for a moment before asking, “How many Spirit Stones do I owe you?”
Jiang Chen waved his hand dismissively. “We are brothers. Speaking of coin is an insult.”
Mo Yu spoke with solemn sincerity, “Even blood brothers must settle their accounts clearly. Old Jin and I have constantly basked in your care; I cannot continue to take advantage of your generosity.”
Jiang Chen fell into thought, then replied, “Then give me one hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones.”
Mo Yu blinked in utter disbelief. “In that case, I will gladly continue to take advantage of you.”
Jiang Chen burst into laughter. “Hahaha.”
Despite his words, Mo Yu still withdrew a pouch of Spirit Stones. “I merely jest. Right now, forget a mere hundred-even a thousand or ten thousand is well within my grasp.”
Jiang Chen did not refuse and swept the pouch into his spatial ring. “Very well. I will help you ask around and see what specific varieties and prices of Spirit Weapons, talismans, and Spirit Pills are required to survive a Water Spirit Root’s Tribulation.”
Mo Yu visibly exhaled a breath of turbid air. “You have my gratitude.”
Jiang Chen asked with piercing curiosity, “You possess a single Spirit Root. To condense a Human-Grade Golden Core, you need only endure a single bolt of turbid lightning. But to reach the Earth-Grade Golden Core, you must prepare the cores of five different elemental demon beasts in advance. Do you have them?”
The more Spirit Roots a cultivator possessed, the more devastating the wrath of the heavenly lightning, making the Tribulation exponentially more perilous.
This was precisely why, although the orthodox path revered those with complete five-element Spirit Roots…
In reality, the vast majority of surviving cultivators only possessed single or dual Spirit Roots.
Someone like Chen Tian, who successfully broke through to the Earth-Grade Golden Core while burdened with three Spirit Roots, was an absolute rarity.
Thus, the moment he succeeded, he drew the heavy gaze of the Immortal Sect’s upper echelons, with countless figures practically begging to curry his favor.
Mo Yu offered a mysterious, knowing smile. “I have them, and in boundless supply.”
Recalling the man’s Fated Chance and the colossal black water serpent he had encountered, Jiang Chen instantly deciphered the meaning hidden behind that grin. “That is good.”
Mo Yu nodded. “Alright, I must depart. Send a communication talisman once you have the information.”
Seeing his friend’s lingering pallor, Jiang Chen remained cautious. “Wait. I have a Protection Talisman here. Consider it a parting gift.”
Protection Talismans were ubiquitous throughout the Azure Realm, as common as cheap Spirit Wine.
However, the Protection Talisman Jiang Chen offered was anything but ordinary.
It had been inscribed utilizing Miracle Hands-level techniques, imbued with a sliver of the supreme might of a Heavenly-Grade Golden Core.
Against a strike from a late-stage Human-Grade Golden Core, the wearer could essentially ignore the blow for a set duration.
Against a late-stage Earth-Grade Golden Core, the wearer was guaranteed to suffer no fatal harm in the short term.
As for a late-stage Heavenly-Grade Golden Core… there was simply no need to calculate how long it could hold.
Mo Yu accepted the talisman and scrutinized it, finding it visually indistinguishable from any mundane ward. But since it was a gift from a sworn brother, he naturally would not decline. “My thanks.”
Jiang Chen offered a stern warning. “Ensure it remains pressed flush against your skin at all times.”
Mo Yu tucked the talisman deep into his robes, turned, and strode away. “Farewell.”
Jiang Chen watched his retreating silhouette, his thoughts churning. “It is exceedingly rare for a cultivator at Foundation Establishment Perfection to suffer from a restless Dao Heart.
Especially someone like Old Mo, who is infamous for returning empty-handed from his hunts yet always scrambles to preserve his pride.”
It was highly probable that a shadow of another nature had fallen over him.
It seemed he would have to find a time to summon Jin Fugui, so the brothers could share a heavy jar of wine.
Once the wine flowed freely, sealed lips would inevitably part.
With a flicker of movement, Jiang Chen vanished, stepping seamlessly into his personal spatial realm.
…
…
Four days and three nights had passed, and the profound materials for the minor transfer Formation were finally prepared.
Bearing these treasures, Jiang Chen sought out a vast, unbroken expanse of level earth entirely devoid of obstructions.
This virgin terrain remained untouched, making it the perfect foundation to lay down a spatial array.
With a sweeping flick of his wrist, he unleashed an unbroken torrent of Magic Power, commanding the very earth to warp and mold.
With blinding speed, a perfectly circular earthen dais breached the surface, measuring exactly 1.2 zhang in diameter and one chi in height.
Because it was merely a minor transfer array, it did not require a grandiose scale.
Simply put, it only needed to accommodate the physical stance of a single cultivator.
However, the earthen dais was merely the foundation. Next, Jiang Chen carved a trench tracing its outer rim-measuring roughly three chi deep and two chi wide. This was known as a spiritual channeling groove.
He then poured vast quantities of viscous, gelatinous earth marrow into the trench. This acted as an absolute seal, preventing the natural earth qi within the dais from bleeding away, forging it into a stabilized wellspring of spiritual power.
Wielding a specialized carving blade, he personally inscribed a Nine Palaces grid upon the surface of the dais. Each square measured exactly four cun on its sides, with the runic lines carved one cun deep.
Once the inscriptions were flawless, he filled the grooves with Meteorite Sand that had been meticulously cleansed and bathed in spiritual light. Thus, the foundational spiritual veins of the array were perfectly laid.
Naturally, the refinement did not conclude there. He proceeded to smear the gelatinous earth marrow evenly across the dais, completely burying the glowing Meteorite Sand beneath it.
Seeing the preparation was complete, Jiang Chen once again stimulated his Magic Power, pouring it endlessly into the dais while drawing in boundless tides of earth qi from the surrounding realm.
The inscribed surface and the entirety of the earthen platform suddenly emanated a faint, earthy-yellow luminescence. As the moments bled away, this spiritual radiance grew increasingly profound.
Jiang Chen draped his Divine Sense over the construct, perceiving every minute fluctuation. Only after confirming absolute harmony did he cease his expenditure of Magic Power.
The next pivotal step was to enshrine the Spatial Earth Essence Fruit into the dais.
At the absolute dead center of the platform, he had reserved a spherical Formation Eye, measuring five cun across and four cun deep.
Retrieving the steeped Spatial Earth Essence Fruit, he pressed it firmly into the Formation Eye. The crown of the fruit sat perfectly flush with the platform. He then produced twelve meticulously prepared Earth Essence Crystals, arranging them in a grand circle according to the Twelve Earthly Branches, each crystal spaced exactly one cun apart.
Next, he utilized the gelatinous earth marrow to seal any remaining gaps between the Formation Eye and the Earth Essence Crystals, ensuring not a single flaw remained, before violently compressing it with his imposing Magic Power.
At that exact moment, the Spatial Earth Essence Fruit-now serving as the true Formation Eye-and the twelve Earth Essence Crystals ignited simultaneously. The core blazed with an eternal radiance, while the surrounding crystals pulsed in an echoing rhythm.
This phenomenon signaled the preliminary completion of the minor transfer Formation.
Jiang Chen drew a long breath. “Now comes the true trial. Even with my talisman techniques reaching the Miracle Hands level, the specter of failure or a fatal misstep still looms.”
Merely possessing a dais and a Formation Eye was insufficient; he had to carve the profound array runes.
They were strictly divided into two layers: the outer and the inner.
The outer layer consisted of the spatial transference runes.
The inner layer housed the stabilization runes.
The spiritual ink used was a harmonious blend of earth marrow and Meteorite Sand.
Furthermore, the Magic Power channeled during the carving had to remain purely of the earth attribute; not a single trace of worldly impurities could be permitted to taint it.
Centering upon the Formation Eye, he inscribed the Eight Trigrams to form the inner stabilization layer.
They were: Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, and Dui.
Each line was precisely 0.5 cun wide and 0.3 cun deep, with their ends anchoring directly into one of the Earth Essence Crystals.
This architecture was designed to violently channel earth qi directly into the Formation Eye, forcibly suppressing any chaotic spiritual turbulence and restricting the energies to a harmonious state.
Adhering strictly to the ancient records, when Jiang Chen carved the Gen trigram, he seamlessly blended in a pinch of crushed Earth Essence Crystal dust.
As for the outer transference runes, their construction was comparatively simpler.
Or rather, they were simpler for a grandmaster like Jiang Chen.
Along the inner lip of the qi-gathering trench encircling the dais, he meticulously carved out the Seven Stars pattern.
This design served a dual purpose: first, it mirrored the cosmic alignment of the Big Dipper for celestial anchoring; second, it resonated with the Twelve Earthly Branches of the Earth Essence Crystals, forming a twofold spatial lock to eliminate any deviation during transit.
One had to understand that traversing the void was a delicate art where a hair’s breadth of error could banish one thousands of li astray. Should the spatial alignment fracture, only the heavens knew into what desolate realm one might be thrown, perhaps never to return.
After an indeterminate passage of time, both the outer and inner runes were flawlessly realized.
Jiang Chen exhaled a long breath of turbid air. “To think I succeeded on the very first attempt.”
In truth, he had already steeled his Dao Heart for multiple catastrophic failures.
It appeared that the convergence of a Heavenly-Grade Golden Core and absolute mastery in talisman crafting was truly a heaven-defying combination.
The final stages were effortless; he merely needed to embed the required sum of Spirit Stones to fuel the array.
The larger the spatial array, the broader its reach, and the more staggering its consumption of Spirit Stones.
Even a minor transfer array demanded Mid-grade Spirit Stones, and a greater abundance equated to profound stability in the void.
For the currently affluent Jiang Chen, this expenditure was easily borne without batting an eye.
With the Spirit Stones in place, only the ultimate step remained: spatial anchoring and spiritual attunement.
Yet this could not be accomplished within the isolated void of his personal spatial realm. He had to step out into the physical world, perhaps even making the journey to Jin Xuanzi’s immortal cave at Azure Rock Peak.
To bridge the void, he had to physically lock onto the exact coordinates of his destination, establishing the anchoring Earth Essence Crystals and Spirit Stones in a secure, open expanse.
Because pressing matters tied his hands at the Spirit Farm, Jiang Chen shifted his gaze toward the Golden Miner. “It is your time to act. Carry the Earth Essence Crystals to our new abode.”
Though the golem possessed no Magic Power of its own, its physical fortitude had already been tempered to the peak of Foundation Establishment Perfection.
Even if it encountered treacherous beasts along the journey, so long as it did not cross paths with a Golden Core patriarch, the odds of it falling were practically nonexistent.
Crack~
Hearing its master’s command, the Golden Miner raised its right hand and struck a firm thumbs-up!