Liu Xiaolou went back the way we ca, climbing out of the tunnel. A man was waiting there, and he led him to a small courtyard in the back. After he handed back the hat, cloak, and mask, they opened the gate for him. He stepped out and was instantly swept back into the noise and energy of the bustling street.
He squeezed into the crowd, and for a mont, it felt like he’d stepped into a different world.
He drifted along with the crowd past shop after shop, thinking over his plans, until he finally walked into a store that dealt in spiritual ingredients.
“Hey there,” he said. “I’ve got so materials to sell. They’re from the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains down south. Do you take that kind of stuff?”
Spiritual materials from the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains were fairly common in the southern markets, like Qing City, Kuocang, and Luofu. But here in Chicheng, thousands of li away, they were rare and fetched a higher price.
So the mont the clerk heard where the goods ca from, he imdiately invited Liu Xiaolou upstairs. And when he learned Liu was looking to sell in bulk, he ushered him into a quiet back room so the shopkeeper could handle things personally.
During his journey through the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains, Liu Xiaolou had collected quite a haul. He laid everything out on the table, causing the shopkeeper’s eyes widened in surprise.
There were also two pieces of Dragon-Claw Golden Locust Wood. It could be used to refine magical tools, and the shopkeeper bought them for seven spirit stones.
A three-foot snake slough ca next. The shopkeeper offered two spirit stones, but Liu Xiaolou bargained him up to three.
A small clump of Immortal Shell Grass, weighing about three ounces, followed. The shopkeeper said it was an alchemy ingredient and priced it at five spirit stones.
Then there were two yellow toad corpses, still locked together in mating. They could be ground into powder for pills as well, and the shopkeeper offered twelve spirit stones.
Five dried bodies of large crimson-gold centipedes, each as thick as a thumb, were taken for thirteen spirit stones.
Next were five spirit blossoms with petals thin as cicada wings, giving off a faint, unusual fragrance. Liu Xiaolou had expected them to fetch a high price, but the shopkeeper wouldn’t take them at all, leaving him scratching his head.
After that ca a segnt of Red Lotus Root worth six spirit stones, though the shopkeeper refused to say what it was used for.
Once everything had been haggled over, Liu Xiaolou walked away with a total of 79 spirit stones.
With this much in hand, he launched into a buying spree.
After comparing several shops, he finally picked out four suitable jade pendants. They were rich with spiritual energy and counted as mid-grade spiritual jade; several levels better than the pendants he’d used before for the Abyssal Blackstone Formation. Not only could they hold nearly twice as much power, but their talisman conductivity was far more responsive, almost thirty percent faster.
Of course, good materials didn’t co cheap. The four pieces cost him 50 spirit stones altogether.
Next ca all sorts of supporting spiritual materials. He didn’t have the ti to gather the various tals and stones himself, but his Qiankun Pouch already held a small stash. The rest he bought for five spirit stones, and he even ended up with half again as much. The other thirteen key auxiliary ingredients were all stocked up too, costing him eighteen spirit stones in total.
All told, he'd spent 73 spirit stones on materials, leaving only six stones in his pocket.
Still, the quality of these supplies was leagues beyond what he’d used in the past when patching up the Abyssal Blackstone Formation.
With all his supplies ready, Liu Xiaolou left Chicheng Market and returned to Xingde Mountain seven days later.
The earthfire at Xingde Mountain was excellent. So good even Green Bamboo had praised it nonstop. Liu Xiaolou didn’t have anywhere better to go, so he ca back to the sa place as before.
This ti, though, soone had finally settled down there and taken over Xingde Temple.
The temple’s archway still stood tall, and the small courtyard was swept clean. The main hall, side halls, wing rooms, and storage areas had all been repaired and tidied up.
He arrived near dusk. A tall candle was burning inside the main hall. Soone was kneeling before the deity statue, bowing in worship.
There was only this one person in the entire temple. Liu Xiaolou slipped up behind him without making a sound, yet the man didn’t react at all.
There was only one person in the entire Xingde Temple. Liu Xiaolou quietly approached from behind, but the man gave no reaction at all.
After looking him over for a bit, Liu Xiaolou guessed the guy was just a beginner in Qi Refinent. Not any higher than the fourth layer.
He had been watching for a while. The guy looked barely twenty, and he couldn’t figure out where he ca from, so he chose not to make a move. He just slipped back to a quiet spot halfway up the mountain. And started processing the spiritual materials.
He extracted cinnabar from the blood-chicken stone, then added powdered toad skin. After that, he refined blackstone, silver, gold, and other materials to produce black-gold liquid. Finally, he handled the rcury and the spring jade.
The whole process took seven days. He rembered the first ti he ever handled spiritual materials. It had taken him a full month. Ten years of cultivation made all the difference, and it showed in every step he took now.
Next ca the formation disk. He began by etching the formation talisman with his true qi to shape a small world. Then fused each material into the patterns on the disk.
This part was far more complicated. His formation skills were leagues beyond what they had been back then, but even with the secret art of the Heaven’s Origin, Beginning to End thod, he still ruined one jade pendant. It took half a month before he finally finished etching the remaining three and fusing them with the spiritual materials.
Needless to say, he aslo added the special Bewildering Fragrance Tendon.
The three jade pendants were refined according to Heaven, Earth, and Man.
The Earth disk served as the foundation and carried the laws of the Five Elents and Eight Gates.
The Heaven disk governed ti and held the sequence of sun, moon, and stars.
The Human disk embodied spirit and contained the first of the six sacred rites: wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, and gui.
Once the formation disks were fully etched, it was ti to use earth-fire.
He waited for a moonless night and made his way back to Xingde Temple. Finding the young cultivator sound asleep, he gave a quick shake of his arm to release the Bewildering Fragrance. Under the push of his true qi, the young man’s face flushed, his eyes went hazy, and he slumped into a deep, helpless stupor.
Liu Xiaolou then flicked out the Mysterious True Cord, tied the young cultivator up, sealed a few key acupoints. And carried him off to a corner of the artifact-refining room.
He looked around the room for a mont. Nothing important had changed. It was almost exactly the way he rembered it.
Shaking his head, he pushed the mories and stray thoughts aside, sat down cross-legged, opened the earth-fire pit, pulled out the three formation disks, and began refining them.
Every other day, he’d give the young cultivator a boost of true qi and feed him a bit of honey to make sure he stayed alive.
And so it went, day after day. After seven days, the Heaven, Earth, and Man disks finally fused into one, forming a new Abyssal Blackstone Formation.
At its core, it was still an illusion formation, but far more powerful than before. Liu Xiaolou figured it could handle three tenth-layer Qi Refinent cultivators at once, letting each of them observe the visions inside.
And with the Human Plate added, the illusions got even better. Now, if you stepped into the formation, you could actually interact with the illusory figures. Things like exchanging looks, teasing, or flirting. The whole thing felt startlingly real.
It was a sha the illusions still couldn't handle physical touch. That shortcoming nagged at him. While refining the formation, he had realized this particular aspect was profoundly complex. It was far beyond his own capabilities. He doubted even soone as skilled as Diao Daoyi could manage it.
Maybe only a master on Tang Song’s level could make sense of it. If the chance ever ca up, he figured he should look for Tang Song and ask him about the deeper secrets behind it.
The formation’s defensive strength had also gone way up. As long as he was controlling it with his full focus, even if all three experts trapped inside tead up to break it, he should still be able to hold out for at least the ti it takes to drink a cup of tea.
And because the Bewildering Fragrance had beco so much stronger, the formation’s offensive pressure had grown as well. Once Liu Xiaolou pushed it to full power, anyone below the seventh layer wouldn’t last more than a few breaths. Even late-stage Qi Refinent cultivators would struggle to stay on their feet.
Counting the days, Liu Xiaolou figured the Lu family’s Foundation Establishnt Pill was probably ready. He left Xingde Mountain and headed for Tianmu Mountain.
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