Chapter 145 – Core Formation (2)
The three cores fuse together to form a prototype core. The next step is to fuse with the body. If his body doesn’t reject it, Wang Lin will begin to nourish it with his spiritual energy and divine sense. After a certain point, the core will transform into a golden core. When that happens, Wang Lin will have stepped into the Core Formation stage.
The final push with spiritual energy would require the aid of the Distant Heaven Pill. As Wang Lin suddenly opened his eyes, cracks began to appear beneath his head. His body emitted a cracking sound, and soon, cracks covered his entire body.
As his body moved, the crack became larger and larger. Wang Lin slowly stood up and shook his body violently. The ice fragments quickly fell as if a strong wind was blowing them away.
The clothes on his body also turned to dust and disappeared. Only the dragon skin inner armor remained in tatters on his body.
Wang Lin stood still and closed his eyes. After a long time, he opened them. Blue light shone from his eyes. Although he was only half a step into the Core Formation stage in terms of cultivation, his Underworld Ascension Cultivation Method had reached completion.
A mass of blue flames emerged from the prototype’s core and flowed through his body before appearing in his hand. At this moment, three inches above his hand, a mass of blue flames was burning silently.
Instead of emitting heat, the fire radiates cold. This fire is the essence of the Netherworld Ascension Cultivation Method: Netherworld Fire.
As the Netherworld Fire appeared, the surrounding blue ice immediately began to emit white gas. It looked as if it was about to melt. Wang Lin waved his hand, and the blue fire disappeared. The white gas slowly dissipated, and a dent appeared in the ice.
Wang Lin observed the power of the fire before looking around and putting on new clothes. With his eyes fixed on the bones, he began to think. After a while, he sat in the lotus position and took out the dragon skull.
Staring at the skull, Wang Lin’s eyes lit up. He decided to go to Nan Dou City to exchange for a pill furnace so Li Muwan could complete the Distant Heaven Pill. Although three years had passed in the blink of an eye, he knew through the Soul Blood Essence that Li Muwan hadn’t faced any danger.
However, after seeing the countless frozen beast bones, he hesitated. The God of War Shine refining technique required a reaction furnace.
After the first failure, he never obtained any more spirit beast skulls. He had Li Muwan keep the dragon skull because he wanted to use it to build a reaction furnace. However, because he was trying to fuse his three cold cores, and because he wasn’t sure if it would work, he hadn’t tried yet. After all, if he failed, it would take a lot of effort to find another one.
But now that he realized he was surrounded by bones, his desire to build a reaction furnace resurfaced. He recalled the steps for building a reaction furnace from memory before taking out the jade to double-check.
He brought his hands together, then, when he opened them again, threads of spiritual energy connected them. Wang Lin’s expression became serious as he raised his hands upward. The threads of spiritual energy flew out with him.
Wang Lin didn’t even blink as he brought his hands together again and repeated this process over and over. More and more spiritual energy threads gathered before him until they resembled a taut bundle of glowing silk.
After doing all this, Wang Lin sighed. The first step in creating the reaction furnace was complete. Now he had to see if the skull could withstand the melting of the threads.
He pointed at the dragon’s skull and the threads touched it. The threads slowly fused with the skull, and the purple color on the skull gradually faded.
But soon, cracks began to appear where the threads touched. Then the skull shattered into pieces, leaving only threads of spiritual energy hanging in the air.
Wang Lin took a deep breath, but then he immediately revealed a reluctant expression. He stood up, grabbed the thread, jumped onto another corpse, and pressed it down. This corpse was about 500 or 600 meters long and gray in color. Its head was extremely large, almost the same size as the dragon’s skull.
As soon as the thread reached the corpse, it immediately pierced through it. Wang Lin was shocked. He tried again, and once again the thread pierced through the bone.
Wang Lin stared at the beast, his eyes sparkling. Its bones were covered in blue ice, as if they were frozen. Wang Lin reached out and squeezed the bones. A series of cracking sounds rang out, but the bones didn’t break.
Wang Lin pondered for a moment, then released the Netherworld Fire. As the fire approached the bone, waves of white gas floated out of the bone. The closer the fire got, the more white gas appeared, and the blue ice melted at a visible rate. Eventually, all the blue ice melted, revealing the gray bone within.
Wang Lin didn’t hesitate; he pressed the spiritual energy thread down. This time, the thread immediately wrapped around the skull.
But after half an hour, the skull changed color three times before disintegrating. The threads were now much fewer. It seemed to have lost much of its spiritual energy.
Wang Lin frowned. The difficulty of making this reaction furnace was much higher than he had imagined. It seemed the reason so few people had successfully learned the refining technique was because of this reaction furnace.
It takes a lot of luck to obtain a spirit beast skull, and for the reaction furnace, you need a recently deceased spirit beast skull, and the higher the quality of the spirit beast, the better. If you use a spirit beast skull that has been dead for a while, the success rate will decrease drastically.
Of course, if one could obtain the skull of a wild beast, then even if the beast had died a long time ago, the success rate would increase severalfold.
As a result, the difficulty became much more difficult. If he had tried right when the dragon died, his chances would have been much higher. However, at that moment, he didn’t have time to think about it because his entire focus was on reaching the Core Formation stage.
Wang Lin snorted softly as he looked at the endless sea of corpses around him. As for how many spirit beast bones there were, he had no idea.
“I can’t believe I can’t create a single reaction furnace with this many spirit beast corpses.” Wang Lin’s eyes lit up as he closed his hand and created more spiritual energy threads. After refilling the threads, he took them and placed them on another skull.
An hour later, the skull cracked again.
Just like that, he kept trying. Wang Lin couldn’t even remember how many skulls he had destroyed, but he knew that he had refilled the thread more than 100 times.
His brows furrowed even more. Finally, he leaped into the air and coldly looked around. He flung out threads of spiritual energy, and they began to swirl around him.
His hands continuously opened and closed. Each time he did this, more threads formed. His hands moved faster and faster, and the threads looked like rain. Gradually, the number of spiritual energy threads increased.
The number of spiritual energy threads increased rapidly, and he didn’t stop even after exhausting all the spiritual energy in his body. He immediately took several sips of spiritual liquid and continued to create threads.
Time slowly passed, and the mass of thread grew larger and larger. It was now over 100 meters wide.
Wang Lin looked at the size of the sea of corpses and thought, “It’s still not enough.” Then he drank more spirit liquid and began to create more threads. Finally, when the mass of threads was over 1,000 meters wide, he stopped. He spread his divine sense to control all the threads, then pressed them down. With that, blue flames also appeared.
There was a thunderous rumble as the threads pressed down, creating a wave of ash. The wave of ash roared, and all the bones in its path turned to ash and joined the wave.
Along with this wave, there were also wisps of white gas. This scene was truly astonishing. Once all the white gas disappeared, nothing remained. Wang Lin gritted his teeth as he drank more spirit liquid and created more threads before pressing them down again.
A wave of ash rumbled across the area. After the white gas dissipated, Wang Lin’s eyes locked onto the carcass of a small, lone beast in this open area with a radius of 1,000 meters.
Wang Lin showed a joyful expression and immediately flew toward the corpse. He took a closer look and found that there was nothing strange about the corpse.
The bone was very white and looked perfectly normal. Wang Lin’s eyes lit up as he pointed to the sky. He quickly grabbed threads of spiritual energy and attached them to the small beast’s skull.
The skull’s color changed rapidly. Once, twice, three times… after changing color nine times, the skull detached from its spine and floated into the air.
The threads had completely fused with the skull. After the skull changed color nine times, it slowly transformed into a bowl-shaped shape while emitting waves of spiritual energy.
Wang Lin caught it in his hands and began to examine it.
The origins of the War God Temple’s refining technique are extremely mysterious. It is said to have been invented alongside the Heavenly Path technique by the ancestors of the War God Temple. Later generations spent countless years developing it into the refining technique it is today. The reaction furnace is part of this technique and has ten levels of quality.
The higher the reaction furnace rating, the better the furnace. The ratings are also easily identifiable. When a furnace is built, the frequency with which it changes color determines its rating.
“Rank 9!” Wang Lin muttered to himself. He felt extremely regretful. Despite the large amount of spirit beast bones he possessed, he still hadn’t been able to create a rank 10 reaction furnace.
However, rank 9 was better than nothing. Wang Lin took out the jade and examined it again.
What the jade didn’t mention was that even the Nascent Soul cultivators in the War God Temple only had level 6 reaction furnaces. As for the rest, almost all of them were level 3 or lower.
Wang Lin’s ninth-ranked reaction furnace had a lot to do with the corpse of that small beast. This small beast was a rare beast that had been abandoned in this sea of corpses.
After a wild animal dies, its bones are not much different from those of other wild animals. Unless you’re an expert, it’s difficult to tell the difference.
After Wang Lin’s divine sense disappeared from the jade, he began to ponder. The War God Shrine’s refining technique focused on three main points: transference, melting, and fusion.
Wang Lin became extremely focused as he took out the materials from his storage bag and threw them into the reaction furnace. These were some of the materials listed in the jade slip. After he became familiar with the contents of the jade slip, he was able to find some of them in his bag.
Chicken Blood Stone: when mixed with spiritual energy, it can produce a lot of heat.
Violent Moon Vine: a type of plant that can produce a decomposition effect after being refined by Heaven Star Wood.
Heaven Star Wood: a type of wood with corrosive properties.
Wang Lin had these three materials in his bag. Although it wasn’t much, it was enough to refine a treasure. Wang Lin had always been very confused about the materials he obtained in the foreign battlefield, but at least he knew a little now.
He began placing the Violent Moon Vine into the furnace. Each time he placed a piece, he would crush it with a piece of spirit beast bone. His divine sense focused on the furnace’s interior. Gradually, the furnace filled with a thick, purple paste.
Staring at the reaction furnace, Wang Lin muttered as if waiting for something. Then his eyes lit up and he dripped a drop of his blood into it.
At this moment, bubbles appeared inside the reaction furnace. Wang Lin didn’t panic as he calmly sent spiritual energy into it.
Jade provides a detailed description of what a reaction furnace does. A reaction furnace takes a side-step in refining by using the reaction furnace as a medium to allow the refiner to directly manipulate the materials within.
Wang Lin took a deep breath. After hesitating for a moment, he took out the Heavenly Star Wood, crushed it, and sprinkled it into the reaction furnace.
The purple liquid immediately bubbled and emitted a pungent odor. Wang Lin immediately took out his only Chicken Blood Stone and threw it inside.
After completing all this, his expression became more serious as his hands quickly formed seals. The purple liquid inside the reaction furnace quickly gathered together to form a purple ball.
Wang Lin pondered for a moment, then waved his hand. The ball split in two. One part floated up while the other sank back into the reaction furnace.
Under Wang Lin’s control, the floating ball rose higher and higher. Wang Lin pondered for a moment before pointing to his chest and forehead. He spewed out purple spiritual energy, and the spiritual energy immediately entered the ball.
The first step of the War God Shrine’s refining technique, transfer, has been completed. Now it’s time for the second step, smelting.
This smelting process required treasures as raw materials. Wang Lin patted his storage bag and 35 flying swords flew out.
Wang Lin pointed one of the flying swords and stabbed the ball with it. Slowly, the tip of the sword melted until the entire sword melted into a ball.
After that, the remaining 34 flying swords melted into a ball under Wang Lin’s control. Eventually, the ball began to emit a dazzling rainbow-colored light.
The entire process, from placing the Violent Moon Vine into the reaction furnace until now, had taken two hours. During these two hours, Wang Lin had focused his entire attention on refining. Not only did he not relax, but he became even more focused as he took out a black flying sword from his storage bag.
It could be said that this flying sword had been through a lot with him. From the moment he obtained it after killing Master Zhang Hu, to being chased by Teng Li, and finally, he died in battle outside Jue Ming Valley. He was then rescued by Situ Nan’s Nascent Soul, and the sword’s body was destroyed. However, because of its connection with Wang Lin, the sword’s spirit was able to survive by remaining within Wang Lin’s soul.
After that, Wang Lin tried to find new bodies for himself, but none of them worked. This black sword was the newest one, and after using teleportation a few times, it was already a mess.
Wang Lin grabbed the sword and stroked it gently. The sword buzzed loudly. Soon, the shadow of the sword flew out. The demon also flew out and stood to the side. He stared blankly around him. No one knew what he was thinking.
Wang Lin took a deep breath and grabbed the orb. He clenched his teeth, issued a command, and the black flying sword immediately flew toward the orb.
Wang Lin’s divine sense immediately spread out and surrounded the sphere. The final step of the War God Shrine’s refining technique, fusion, began.
Time passed slowly. The ball slowly expanded and gradually solidified. After an unknown amount of time passed, a loud shout rang out, and then a crystal-clear flying sword appeared before Wang Lin.
The moment the flying sword appeared, a vortex of spiritual energy appeared beside Wang Lin. After circling Wang Lin a few times, the vortex entered the flying sword. Wang Lin stared at the flying sword for a long time before opening his mouth. The flying sword flew inside.
The demon was shocked. He forced a smile, rubbed his hands, and said, “This… since you swallowed the sword, where will I live?”
Wang Lin raised his head and looked at the demon. He waved his hand, and the dragon tendon flew out of his bag. He reached into the reaction furnace and scooped out half of the ball that had returned to the reaction furnace. His eyes lit up, and the dragon tendon immediately flew into the ball.
After refining for a while, the ball became smaller and smaller. Finally, it transformed back into a dragon vein, but now it was golden in color. Wang Lin looked at the demon and obediently entered it.
He waved his right hand, and the dragon vein descended. After observing it for a moment, he put it away. He raised his head and looked at the cold blue wall above him. Blue Underworld Flames appeared in his hand, and he flew upward.
He blasted through over 1,000 meters of earth and rock like he was tearing through paper. His speed was too fast, and coupled with the destructive power of the Netherworld Flame, the Corpse Valley trembled. This caused the expressions of all the cultivators within the Corpse Valley to change. They all hurriedly left the area as the tremors intensified.
Several key cultivators saw that a loud rumbling sound came from the 14th valley as a black shadow shot into the sky and disappeared into the mist.
The cultivators stared at the 14th valley in bewilderment for a long time. After all this happened, various rumors began to spread. Eventually, the rumor became that it was a corpse that had been sleeping within the Valley of Corpses for tens of thousands of years. Then, it suddenly awoke and charged out from the underworld. The thing that flew out was the cultivator’s corpse.
After Wang Lin flew out, he didn’t stop and continued flying north. According to the information he received from Sang Muya, Nan Dou City was about 300,000 kilometers north of Corpse Valley.
Wang Lin knew that he had spent a lot of time refining it, so he didn’t want to waste any more time. He only had one goal right now: to obtain a pill furnace to refine the Distant Heaven Pill.
After two days and two nights of flying, a city appeared in Wang Lin’s sight. This city was extremely large, and at a glance, he couldn’t even see where the end was. This was Nan Dou City, one of the 999 cities in the Sea of Devils.
The city was named Nan Dou because that was the name of its ruler. He was a Nascent Soul cultivator with many experts under him. It could be said that he was the ruler of this region.
Basically, if someone owned a city, they had to have at least some status, and the city lords were always well-known. Under the city lords, there were various sects, but none could compare to the city lord.
Fortunately, the ruler of Nan Dou City disappeared 500 years ago, leaving the region uncontrolled like a headless dragon. This also allowed for the formation of a large sect like the Fighting Evil Sect.
Nan Dou City was a city without a ruler in the Sea of Devils, and was managed by several large sects. However, Nan Dou City was located on the edge of the Sea of Devils, so resources were scarce, and the lack of spiritual veins meant that Nascent Soul cultivators rarely came here. This resulted in a situation where within millions of miles of Nan Dou City, there were no Nascent Soul cultivators but many Core Formation cultivators.
Someone once said that if a Nascent Soul cultivator appeared here, that person would become the new ruler of Nan Dou City.
It wasn’t that there weren’t any Nascent Soul cultivators who wanted to take over the city, but none of them could stand the lack of spiritual energy and the barren land, so they all eventually gave up.
At some point, the Nascent Soul cultivators stopped coming. After all, there were nearly 1,000 cities in the Sea of Devils, so there was no reason to come to a lousy city like Nan Dou.
Nan Dou City is currently ruled by the Heaven Punishing Sect, the Soul Extermination Sect, and the Solitary Heaven Path Sect. Although the Evil Fighting Sect also possesses the power to rule, due to the strength of these three sects, they are unable to gain a foothold in the city.
After all, dividing the city’s ownership into three parts was very different from dividing it into four parts. Furthermore, no one liked seeing the Evil Warrior Sect exterminate the other sects as they grew in power, so the three sects agreed on this matter.
After paying ten low-grade spirit stones and obtaining the token to enter the city, Wang Lin immediately walked through the streets toward the Treasure Refining Pavilion in the east.
The Treasure Refining Pavilion had three floors. The items on each floor were several times more expensive than those on the previous floor. Currently, there were about seven or eight cultivators bargaining with the workers inside.