Chapter 359 - 348: Setting up a Formation in Mozhou

Chapter 359: Chapter 348: Setting up a Formation in Mozhou

The work of setting up the Teleportation Array in Yunyang Marketplace finally came to a close.

The core Array Masters began the final closed-loop debugging. After handing over the outer circuits he was responsible for, Li Yuan returned directly to Mist Forest Marketplace.

The moment he stepped into his stone house, a ring of faint green light flickered at the edge of his vision.

[Spiritual Essence Consolidation (Green) Permanence Condition Met]

He equipped it.

[Spiritual Essence Consolidation (Green) has become a permanent trait.]

In his equipment slots, the phantom image of the faintly glowing Spiritual Essence Jade Marrow Ore instantly dissipated, completely freeing up a space.

The moment the trait became permanent, the once-faint source point of Spiritual Power next to his Dantian completely stabilized. Wisps of pure Spiritual Power seeped out from it in a steady stream, flowing into his Dantian with extreme naturalness.

This was a self-sustaining Spiritual Power regeneration mechanism that required no support from the external environment.

Feeling the Spiritual Power steadily growing inside him, Li Yuan felt a bit more confident about his upcoming trip to Mozhou.

He went to the management office to briefly hand over the marketplace patrol duties to Chen Yi. Carrying an entire storage pouch full of Mid-grade Spirit Stones allocated in advance by the Sect, he quietly left Mist Forest Marketplace that same day.

「Several days later.」

Li Yuan crossed the border between Liangzhou and Mozhou.

The moment he stepped into Mozhou’s territory, the surrounding environment changed drastically.

The moist sense of Spiritual Mechanism in the air, something Cultivators were accustomed to, was completely gone. In its place was an extreme, shriveled desolation. It was as if even the wind carried an acrid taste that sucked the life out of everything.

Li Yuan stopped, his brow furrowed slightly.

’The Spiritual Mechanism is extremely faint, almost nonexistent.’

Not only could the outside world provide no Spiritual Qi replenishment, but even the Spiritual Power within his body was being pressured by this environment, showing an instinctive tendency to dissipate. The natural law of water from a high-concentration area pouring into a dry basin was on full display here.

Li Yuan immediately retracted his aura, circulating his Spiritual Power to tightly seal all the meridians and pores in his body, forcibly cutting off the interaction between his internal Spiritual Power and the outside world.

In a Land of Absolute Spirit like this, if a cultivator were to cast skills or leak their aura carelessly, their internal Spiritual Power would quickly be drained by the parched land and sky. They could only supplement their consumption by constantly crushing Spirit Stones and relying on the Spiritual Qi contained within.

Fortunately, he had the permanently active [Spiritual Essence Consolidation], allowing his body to generate some Spiritual Power from nothing.

Combined with his refined control over his Spiritual Power, Li Yuan’s own Spiritual Power barely dissipated at all.

Li Yuan felt that even in a true Land of Absolute Spirit, his Cultivation wouldn’t regress; it would continue to rise.

Li Yuan continued deeper.

He had originally thought that no cultivator would be willing to set foot in such a deathly silent land, but after walking for the better part of a day, he began to sense the traces of many cultivators’ activities.

Most of them were concentrated in the mountain mining areas on the fringes of Mozhou.

Their clothes were tattered, their Cultivation levels were generally low, and their movements were extremely cautious. They didn’t even dare to speak loudly, as if afraid of wasting a single extra ounce of energy. They were all swinging extremely primitive mining tools, striking away in bottomless mining pits.

Although the Spiritual Mechanism of Mozhou’s heaven and earth had completely dissipated, many ores buried deep underground had not yet had their internal Spiritual Mechanism fully drained.

These ores, with their faint residual Spiritual Qi, had become the only hard currency and cultivation resource in this desolate land. Many low-level Loose Cultivators who couldn’t survive in Liangzhou or Yunzhou were forced to flee here, hiding underground like rats and eking out a meager existence by digging up these scraps.

Li Yuan didn’t disturb these mining Loose Cultivators. He bypassed the mining area and headed straight for the location of the Teleportation Array marked on the Sect’s jade slip.

It was a ruin of giant stones hidden deep at the bottom of a canyon.

In the center was a circular stone platform over a hundred feet in diameter, its surface covered in cracks from the erosion of time. Six broken stone pillars stood around the platform, the once-complex Tier Three spatial Array Patterns on them mostly worn smooth by wind and sand.

This was one of the ancient Teleportation Arrays left behind by the Profound Nether Sect.

Li Yuan leaped onto the stone platform, swept away the thick layer of sand and dirt, and compared the blueprints provided by the Sect with the ruined array on site.

’It’s severely damaged, but the core foundation is still intact.’

He took out the materials from his storage pouch and immediately began the repairs.

His hands flew as he precisely hammered array-stabilizing copper plates and Spirit-Guiding Stones into the cracks of the stone platform. Five Divine Sense Lines unfurled instantly: three were used to inscribe Array Patterns, one was responsible for drawing Spiritual Power from a pile of Spirit Stones to the side and injecting it into the nodes, and the last one delved deep into his storage pouch.

The jet-black Demon Qi Restriction Box was taken out and placed on the edge of the stone platform.

He worked on setting up the array and deciphering the box at the same time.

While skillfully repairing the Teleportation Array’s outer circuits, Li Yuan split his focus, controlling a minuscule wisp of Demonic Qi. He used the previously intercepted encoding frequency to perform a brute-force trial and error process on the complex Demon Patterns on the surface of the Restriction Box.

Probe. Sever. Probe again.

Aided by [Dark Evil Insight], the brute-force method became extremely efficient. Every time a Demonic Qi circuit produced a fluctuation that threatened to detonate, he was able to snuff it out in the nick of time.

Time trickled by in the desolate canyon.

The Teleportation Array’s Patterns were filled in bit by bit, and the Spiritual Light on the stone platform began to show faint signs of connecting into a whole.

Just as the Array repairs reached the final third.

The perception network of [Dark Evil Insight] suddenly twitched.

High above in the canyon, two extremely dense auras of Demonic Qi were silently creeping down from the northern cliff face.

They were extremely well-concealed, not making a single sound. Any other cultivator, even a Late-stage Foundation Establishment peer, would have been completely unable to detect such a silent approach with their Divine Sense restricted in this Land of Absolute Spirit.

But Li Yuan detected them.

He didn’t even lift his head, nor did the movements of his hands pause in the slightest.

The inscription of the Array Pattern remained steady, and the trial and error on the Demon Box continued.

’Normally, I might stop setting up the Array to deal with the trouble first. But things are different now. The pile of Spirit Stones from the Primordial Yang Sect is as large as a small mountain, so my supplies are plentiful. I also have various ways to regenerate my own Spiritual Power. Most importantly, the deciphering of the Demon Box has just reached its most critical stage.’

’I don’t want to break this rhythm.’

The two auras of Demonic Qi rapidly approached, pausing for a moment behind a rock less than two hundred feet from the stone platform.

Then, two jet-black figures burst from the shadows like cheetahs, pouncing toward the center of the platform.

Two Late-stage Foundation Establishment Demon Cultivators.

They had clearly discovered Li Yuan repairing this crucial Teleportation Array. Without a word of nonsense, they struck with fatal killing blows.

The Demon Cultivator on the left shook his arms, and thick Demonic Qi transformed into two ten-foot-long black scimitars that slashed toward Li Yuan’s neck with a piercing whistle. The Demon Cultivator on the right formed hand seals, and the sand and stones on the ground were instantly assimilated by Demonic Qi, turning into dozens of sharp Earth Spikes that shot up to impale Li Yuan’s body from below.

The death trap was sprung.

Li Yuan remained seated.

He made only a single move.

His left hand continued to inscribe the Array Pattern, while his right hand shot up to meet the two descending black scimitars and clenched into a fist in the empty air.

BANG.

A dark purple Demon Pattern shield erupted over the surface of his body.

Demon Pattern Body Protection triggered automatically.

The shield, infused with the terrifying physical foundation of his Iron Bones Golden Body, withstood the full-force attack of two Late-stage Foundation Establishment Demon Cultivators. The black scimitars struck the shield, managing only to create a distorted halo of light before being unable to advance another inch. The Earth Spikes shattered one after another as they slammed into the bottom of the shield.

A trace of horror flashed through the eyes of the two Demon Cultivators.

Before they could pull back, Li Yuan’s right fist was already wreathed in blinding crimson flames.

He threw a punch.

The rampaging, fiery Evil Qi transformed into a roaring Fire Dragon and slammed directly into the chest of the Demon Cultivator on the left.

The Demon Cultivator didn’t even have time to raise a second layer of protective demonic light. His original shield was like a thin layer of brittle ice before the Spirit-Breaking Sharp Blade and was instantly pierced. The fiery Evil Qi struck his chest, charring half his body black.

With another punch, the Fire Dragon passed through his chest, instantly incinerating his internal organs to ash.

His corpse flew out like a broken burlap sack and slammed against the cliff wall.

The Demon Cultivator on the right was scared out of his wits and retreated frantically, burning his Demonic Qi without a second thought.

Li Yuan didn’t give chase. An Evil Qi Cone, compressed to its absolute limit, pierced through space and accurately slammed into the Demon Cultivator’s shield. Its spirit-breaking effect ignored his back shield, striking his back and creating a bloody hole.

The Demon Cultivator’s Demonic Qi circulation stagnated for a moment. Li Yuan launched a Fire Arrow Skill, which shot directly through his head.

At that exact moment, Li Yuan’s left hand, guided by his split Divine Sense, finished inscribing the final node circuit of the Teleportation Array.

Above the stone platform, a soft silver light shot into the sky before quickly receding back into the Array Patterns.

The Array repair was complete.

Li Yuan stood up and retracted his Divine Sense. At the same time, the final Restriction on the Demon Box was successfully severed with a soft CLICK.

He didn’t rush to see what was inside the box. Instead, he stepped down from the platform and walked over to the two Demon Cultivators’ corpses.

He forcibly ripped off their storage pouches and erased the imprints on them.

’Pills, Demon Artifacts, a few pieces of High Tier ore.’

He then opened the box. From inside, Li Yuan took out a palm-sized black Token.

The Token was made of a material that was neither metal nor wood, and it was cool to the touch. The front was engraved with a twisted character for "Dark," while the back was covered in an extremely complex Demonic Qi circuit pattern.

’This isn’t an ordinary Identity Token.’

[Equippable Item Detected: Dark Demon Token (Intact)]

[Equip Trait Preview: Demonic Qi Circulation (Blue)]

[Effect: Increases Demonic Qi circulation speed by 30%. After the Golden Core Stage, Demonic Qi can be preliminarily fused with Spiritual Power.]

[Permanence Condition Preview: Kill a Demon Cultivator whose Cultivation has reached Tier Two.]

Li Yuan pinched the Token, a thoughtful look flashing in his eyes.