Chapter 1164: Exploding Divine Ability [Heaven-Tearing Earth-Splitting], Pulverize, Refine, [Tathagata Hurls Elephant]

[Contain Monster: Straw-Headed Demon]

[Containment Reward: Wind-Bending Grass Technique]

[Wind-Bending Grass Technique: Though the wild wind howls, the sturdy grass takes deep root, combining hardness with softness]

A little useful, but not very.

However, the origin of this thing was rather interesting.

Lu Ding vaguely remembered.

In "Erlang Shen Drunkenly Shoots the Demon-Locking Mirror," there were fragments of text about this kind of creature.

It was also one of the prototypes for the twelve hundred Straw-Headed Spirits under Erlang Shen's command later on.

The details were way too damn long, and since this Straw-Headed Demon wasn't exactly an important supporting character, Lu Ding's memories were sparse, and he couldn't be bothered to review them.

Anyway, it was from that time that he first learned that Erlang Shen didn't refer to just one person.

The modern image of Erlang Shen was a fusion of many different characters, reshaped into a single identity.

The Erlang Shen in "Erlang Shen Drunkenly Shoots the Demon-Locking Mirror" referred to Zhao Yu!

Not Yang Jian in the conventional sense!

It was because of this book, this ancient zaju tale, that Lu Ding later went looking and discovered that the son of Li Bing, the governor of Shu Commandery during the pre-Qin era, was also called Erlang Shen.

That was quite an eye-opener.

Lu Ding continued examining the Golden Finger.

[Contain Monster: Iron-Headed Blue Sky Ghost]

[Containment Reward: Mountain-Piercing Demon Fire]

[Mountain-Piercing Demon Fire: Burns mountains, bores through rock, starts great conflagrations, unstoppable]

Lu Ding stared at it.

So he really had barged into the lairs of those two big shots.

In the zaju "Third Prince Causes Chaos on Black Wind Mountain," there was a description of this creature.

It belonged to the same series, the same theatrical production as "Erlang Shen Drunkenly Shoots the Demon-Locking Mirror," but under a different name.

Just like how "Dream of the Red Chamber" was also called "The Story of the Stone."

If the Straw-Headed Spirits and the Seven Monsters of Meishan were Erlang Shen's subordinates.

Then the "Five Ghost Kings of Flame Demon Mountain" and the "Four Demon Maidens of Yecha Mountain" were the Third Prince's subordinates.

This was also one of the few records in the inherited canon that introduced the Third Prince's faction.

In other ancient texts, or film and television works, the Third Prince always acted alone, carrying the label of being ready to rebel at any moment.

But in reality, he wasn't lacking either. He had his own forces and foundation. Otherwise, he wouldn't dare rebel at the drop of a hat.

Beyond that, "Journey to the South" also contained some information about this Iron-Headed Blue Sky Ghost, though not much. The main focus was on Hua Guang's rebellion and the Third Prince's capture of him.

The Hua Guang Grand Heir in later folk deity processions was the son of this Hua Guang Emperor.

Maybe no one knew the Hua Guang Emperor, but if you mentioned his other name, the Horse-Faced Deity with the third eye, everyone should know that one.

He continued scrolling down.

[Contain Monster: Sky-Bearing Stone-Shouldering Titan]

[Containment Reward: Heaven-Tearing Earth-Splitting]

[Heaven-Tearing Earth-Splitting: A divine ability of raw force, driven by will, can pierce through heaven and earth, rip open the heavens' farthest reaches, and split apart the earth's domains]

This was the reward for killing the Village Chief of Niuxin Village.

Lu Ding hadn't expected that.

"Didn't think I'd run into this guy here."

The Sky-Bearing Stone-Shouldering Titan was the Crimson Heavenly Demon King of the Five Heavenly Demon Kings. Back when Lu Ding was still at the new city, he had contained the Anti-Mountain Six Eyes and obtained the Gold-Shattering Stone-Breaking Blast from Snorting Breath.

He had thought the other Heavenly Demon Kings would be hiding in the new city. He never expected to encounter one here too.

Although the skill was good, Heaven-Tearing Earth-Splitting overlapped with Lu Ding's [Mountain-Shaking Earth-Quaking].

Combining the two, while it could break through to something better, they couldn't merge. This created a situation where one plus one was less than two.

But that was fine.

Lu Ding's Golden Finger had a new feature now.

He looked at the new functions on the Golden Finger.

Two of them.

One was [Pulverize].

The other was [Refine].

Pulverize was simple. It took useless skills, stored them in the Golden Finger's reserve, and then shattered them directly into colorless crystal fragments.

Techniques yielded small crystals.

Spells and divine abilities yielded large crystals.

[Refine] was for taking spells and divine abilities with excellent inherent grade foundations and re-forging their affix attributes.

Of course, this was more of a gamble on luck.

If luck was good, a single roll could land gold, red, or even rainbow-tier results.

If luck was bad, you could refine until you died without rolling anything useful.

But that didn't matter. Lu Ding had more than enough spells and divine abilities to pulverize into large crystals and slowly refine.

Just this trip to Niuxin Village alone had dropped him over a hundred spells.

Though many of them overlapped with Lu Ding's existing skill effects, or he simply looked down on them.

The skills Lu Ding currently possessed covered many directions, a full-spectrum development, so running into skills of similar nature was only to be expected.

He opened the [Pulverize] interface.

All the miscellaneous spells he'd dropped today went straight in.

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

Colorless large crystals continuously decomposed out.

+6, +7, +8, +9... The numbers kept popping up. The maximum was +9, the limit for spells.

To get double digits, he'd need to pulverize divine abilities.

Lu Ding didn't even have many divine abilities on him, so he couldn't bear to part with them.

After all the skills were pulverized, Lu Ding's stockpile of colorless large crystals had reached eight hundred and fifty-two.

Time for the exciting part.

He opened [Refine] and dragged [Heaven-Tearing Earth-Splitting] onto it.

[Pay two colorless large crystals to perform divine ability refinement?]

Lu Ding selected yes.

He watched the refinement interface begin to spin.

A rumbling sound inexplicably appeared in Lu Ding's ears.

With a flash of light.

[Divine Ability: Tathagata Hurls Elephant]

[Tathagata Hurls Elephant: The Tathagata hurls an elephant, tossing mountains with a throw, formless and shapeless, no mountain, no object, lifting heavy as if light]

Lu Ding stared at it, unable to make a decision in his heart for a moment, because there was no frame of reference. Although this thing was an allusion, the allusion was a bit absurd.

It was said that once, when Sakyamuni was out and about, he encountered an elephant blocking the road in the middle.

He was stubborn, and the elephant was stubborn too. Neither would yield to the other.

Sakyamuni said, "Do you know who I am? If you know me, get out of my way!"

The elephant looked at him, "I don't care who you are."

Sakyamuni said, "Hey, you motherfucker, you're pretty stubborn, aren't you? I'll make you know who I am today."

He stepped up, grabbed the elephant's leg, spun it around like a giant windmill, and shouted, "Get the hell out of here!" and hurled it!!

The elephant flew straight off, taking three full days to land. The fall had the elephant howling in pain, "Oh my, every part of me hurts."

Lu Ding really couldn't understand what this allusion was trying to express, but that night, listening to the big brother on the car radio tell this story, he had genuinely laughed out loud.

Looking at the [Tathagata Hurls Elephant] refined from the Golden Finger, no wonder gambling was so addictive.

"Although Tathagata Hurls Elephant sounds impressive, something that can be refined with just two colorless large crystals..."

Lu Ding pondered, a theory flashing through his mind: you get what you pay for.

Refine again!!!

He had plenty of reserves anyway.

He dragged [Tathagata Hurls Elephant] onto the refinement module.

[Pay four colorless large crystals to perform divine ability refinement?]

Lu Ding mentally selected: Yes!

Rumble rumble, the refinement module began to spin.