Chapter 472 - 444: Divination Skill

Chapter 472: Chapter 444: Divination Skill

After finishing his cultivation, Li Yuan turned his attention back to the Divination Skill.

The structure of the Divination Skill’s technique was simpler than Li Yuan had expected.

At its core was a single pattern for circulating Divine Sense. It worked by converting one’s lifespan into a special sensory pulse. This pulse radiated outward, capturing the faint feedback from the world’s Spiritual Mechanism, which was then interpreted by the user’s Divine Sense. The entire process was like a bat’s echolocation, only what one sent out was lifespan, and what came back were trends of fortune and misfortune.

The technique specifically highlighted three points.

First, performing divination too many times in a short period would cause its effectiveness to drop sharply. The feedback from the Spiritual Mechanism had a sort of cooldown, much like in the games of his past life. Casting it repeatedly would only yield increasingly vague signals, while the cost in lifespan would remain the same.

Second, the larger the scale of the event being divined, the more lifespan it would consume, and the longer the corresponding cooldown would be.

Third, one could not divine the same matter too frequently. The world’s Spiritual Mechanism would only provide a limited number of responses to the same question; asking repeatedly would only lead to garbled results.

Li Yuan channeled his Late-stage Golden Core Divine Sense and began to operate the Divination Skill’s pathways.

He grasped the basics with incredible speed.

The difficulty of this Magic lay not in its control, but in its interpretation. The feedback received after the Divine Sense radiated out was extremely vague, like trying to make out a distant fire through thick fog. One could only discern a general direction and brightness; the Caster had to determine the specifics on their own.

But for Li Yuan, who possessed twelve Divine Sense Lines and the permanent trait, Enlightened Spiritual Sense, interpreting vague signals was his specialty.

[Divination Skill: Uninitiated → Initiated]

Activating the Divination Skill, he converted a minuscule sliver of his lifespan into a sensory pulse and sent it out.

The Heaven’s Calculation Remnant trait activated the moment the pulse was released.

A basic divination that should have cost about six years of life was automatically reduced by nine years thanks to the trait. In effect, it cost him no lifespan at all.

’Too bad it can’t give me lifespan back.’

The sensory pulse spread in all directions. A few breaths later, feedback slowly trickled back from the world’s Spiritual Mechanism.

The signal contained no specific images or words, only a strong, directional sense of a coming trend.

The trend pointed northwest.

The signal’s tone was dark and heavy, carrying a sense of oppression, like thick clouds weighing down the sky before a storm.

Something major was about to happen.

Li Yuan opened his eyes, his expression impassive.

’Several Golden Core Cultivators are in a standoff at Skeleton Ridge, various powers have gathered, and an Earth Element Spiritual Embryo might be hidden beneath the Restriction. That in itself is a major event.’

’The divination result was as good as saying nothing.’

Li Yuan set aside the Divination Skill and turned to another matter.

A communication jade slip on his person was awaiting a reply.

Chen Yi’s message had arrived last night.

"The Sect Master of the Primordial Yang Sect will personally visit Skeleton Ridge in the coming days. The Sect hopes that Mist Forest Marketplace will cooperate on intelligence, including but not limited to monitoring cultivator activity in the surrounding area, reporting abnormal Spiritual Wave fluctuations, and coordinating early warnings for the marketplace. There is no need for the marketplace to contribute forces. The struggle at Skeleton Ridge is a contest at the Golden Core Realm."

’The Sect Master of the Primordial Yang Sect.’

’Late-stage Golden Core.’

’If the Primordial Yang Sect Master personally enters the fray, there will be two Late-stage Golden Core cultivators at Skeleton Ridge—including Xuan Pu Master. The Celestial Peak Sect and the Primordial Yang Sect might not see eye-to-eye on this, but when facing the Abyss Sect and the Evil Slaying Sect, the two orthodox sects will most likely cooperate for the time being.’

Li Yuan used the communication jade slip to reply to Chen Yi: "I agree to cooperate with intelligence sharing."

After sending the reply, Li Yuan rose and walked out of the stone house.

The night was thick.

He used his Traceless Concealment technique to suppress his entire aura and snuck toward Skeleton Ridge.

The distribution of auras over Skeleton Ridge had changed.

There were fewer Golden Core auras than before.

Xuan Pu Master was still there, his oppressive presence undiminished. The Mid-stage Golden Core from the Abyss Sect was also present, but the auras of the other two Early-stage Golden Core cultivators had retreated to the outer perimeter. The Bitan Sect’s Early-stage Golden Core cultivator had likewise withdrawn a certain distance. On the Primordial Yang Sect’s side, only the aura of a single Golden Core cultivator remained.

In their place were numerous Foundation Establishment Level auras.

At least a dozen Foundation Establishment Cultivators were scattered around the outskirts of Skeleton Ridge, their auras a mix of both orthodox and Demon Dao. Their positions formed a loose, web-like formation, maintaining a safe distance from one another while still being connected by some unseen protocol.

The Golden Core Cultivators had expended a great deal of energy during the standoff, making it impossible to maintain high-intensity aura suppression day and night without rest. Once the confrontation settled into a stable stalemate, the various factions began sending Foundation Establishment disciples to stand guard, relay messages, and conduct negotiations in their place.

The Golden Core Cultivators themselves retreated to the rear to rest and cultivate, only showing themselves at critical moments.

By listening in on the partially concealed Spiritual Power transmissions among the Foundation Establishment disciples, Li Yuan pieced together the latest developments.

The factions were currently negotiating how to divide the spoils.

Whatever was beneath the Restriction, be it the Earth Element Spiritual Embryo or not, would eventually need a distribution plan.

The problem was, if it was an Earth Element Spiritual Embryo, there was only one. Unlike Spirit Stones or Spiritual Materials, it couldn’t be divided up proportionally; it was a single, complete entity that would be ruined if split.

Several proposals had been put forth: an auction, an exchange for other resources, even joint development. But every proposal met with opposition.

In an auction, the highest bidder would almost certainly be the Celestial Peak Sect, and the other factions were unwilling to see them claim it exclusively. As for an exchange, the various parties’ valuations of the Earth Element Spiritual Embryo were too far apart to even begin negotiations.

Besides, a treasure that could help a Golden Core Cultivator break through to the Nascent Soul Realm was not something that could be measured in mere wealth.

If a cultivator from any of the other sects managed to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm, a new Nascent Soul Sect would be born, capable of dominating the entire region.

The negotiations had reached a deadlock.

Li Yuan committed all the intelligence to memory and returned to the marketplace the way he came.

Back in his stone house, he did not venture out again, instead pouring all his energy into his cultivation.

The Nascent Soul-level perspective was an enormous help to his Artifact Refining Technique.

The spatial perception granted by the Profound Nether Bead elevated the precision of his observations of internal Spirit Pattern structures to an unprecedented level. The pathways of Spirit Patterns and the linking of their nodes, which previously required repeated trial and error to determine, could now be optimized with a single scan using his Nascent Soul-level perspective.

Li Yuan set up an artifact refining furnace next to his Pill Furnace and began to craft Magical Artifacts.

On the evening of the sixth day, as Li Yuan finished his forty-third Magical Artifact, the Spiritual Power circuit he was working on achieved a sense of perfect, rounded completion as it converged at the final node.

[Tier Two Artifact Refining Technique: Great Success → Perfection]

His Tier Two Artifact Refining Technique had reached the Perfection stage.

The second effect of his Pattern Forging Refinement permanent trait activated simultaneously: When Artifact Refining proficiency reaches the Perfection stage for its current tier, the success rate of Artifact Refining increases by an additional thirty percent.

From now on, it would be nearly impossible for him to fail when refining Tier Two Magical Artifacts.

Li Yuan extinguished the artifact refining furnace and cleaned up his tools and scrap materials.

He closed his eyes and completed a Grand Circulation.

In his Dantian, the grayish-purple, Low Grade Golden Core rotated slowly.

The Origin Consolidation permanent trait was constantly in effect. The Golden Core’s solidity was increasing with extreme slowness. The fine, web-like patterns on its surface had grown slightly denser than when he first broke through to the Late Stage, and the color of its faint glow was gradually shifting from grayish-purple to a deeper, dark purple.

The Low Grade Golden Core was slowly ascending toward Middle Grade.

The rate of ascension was not fast, but its direction was clear.

Li Yuan used his Nascent Soul-level perspective to carefully observe the internal structural changes within his Golden Core.

When he had broken through to a new stage, the tempering process had lowered his grade, shattering and reforming the crystalline lattice structure within his Golden Core. It had changed from the dense arrangement of a Middle Grade core to the loose arrangement of a Low Grade one.

What the Origin Consolidation trait was doing now was re-compressing this loose lattice, restoring its density little by little.

Restoring it to Middle Grade was only a matter of time.

But for him, the significance of this process went beyond a mere increase in combat power.

As his Golden Core recovered from Low Grade to Middle Grade, every change in the crystalline lattice structure was under his observation. He could see how the Demon Qi Golden Core operated internally, how the Demonic Qi flowed between the crystals, and exactly which structural parameters reflected the improvement in grade. It would be nearly impossible to observe such details so clearly during a normal breakthrough.

A normal breakthrough was an instantaneous event, leaving no time for observation.

But recovery was a long, continuous process, giving Li Yuan ample time to observe every single change, frame by frame.

These observations would be invaluable for the subsequent shattering and reforming of his core.

’In any case, I’ll have to shatter my core and re-form it eventually. This recovery from Low Grade to Middle Grade only boosts my current combat strength; it doesn’t affect the upper limit of the core I’ll form later. However, the observational data I’m accumulating during this process will directly influence the quality of that re-formed core.’

’Killing two birds with one stone.’

Li Yuan retracted his Nascent Soul-level perspective, activated the Profound Nether Killing Skill, and continued to cultivate.

Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi flowed alternately through his meridians. The Demon-Spirit Affinity permanent trait made switching between the two energies as natural as breathing. The fifty-percent cultivation speed bonus from Core Essence Separation, stacked on top of the continuous supply from Spirit Vein Nurturing and his three personal Spirit Veins, pushed his cultivation efficiency to a point that even he found slightly ridiculous.