Chapter 562 - 42: Distributing Communication Tokens

To the south of Shang’an Prefecture lay a small island that Wang Ping had once used to experiment with his Magic. Due to the development of maritime shipping over the past few decades, it had been incorporated into the prefecture’s jurisdiction, and a simple sea transfer station had been built there.

Ten years ago, Wang Ping had one of his puppets buy the island. The transfer station was still in operation, but most of the island had become Wang Ping’s private leisure area. When he had free time, he liked to bring Yu Lian here to watch the sunrise.

After coming out of seclusion and meeting with the necessary people, Wang Ping once again vanished without a trace. He came to this unremarkable overseas island, where he began refining Communication Tokens while enjoying the sunrises and sunsets he hadn’t seen in a long time.

The materials for refining these items didn’t need to be too precious, but they had to be compatible with the Wood Spirit attribute. After much consideration, Wang Ping chose Iron Bamboo. Not only was it tough and resilient, but it also had a high affinity for the Wood Spirit. The only problem was that fully matured Iron Bamboo was now quite hard to find.

With the explosive increase in the number of Cultivators over the past century, the prices of all kinds of cultivation materials had skyrocketed. Nowadays, even immature Iron Bamboo could be sold for the price of a mature stalk, so some merchants couldn’t be bothered to wait for it to grow. After all, waiting for it to mature was equivalent to a mortal’s entire lifetime.

Fortunately, because of the resources required for his ’Iron Bamboo Sword,’ Wang Ping had already stockpiled a large amount of finished Iron Bamboo. Most of it had even been pre-refined by him in his spare time and could be used directly.

The Array Runes inside the Communication Token were similar to those in a Communication Jade Token. It was certain to include a tracking Array, but this one needed to resonate with the vibrations generated by the communication device and the Wood Spirit Qi, not the user’s aura. Furthermore, it didn’t need a Flying Array, as it didn’t have to return to its owner’s side.

In addition, it required a ’Transfer Talisman’; otherwise, even if it could track the resonance generated by the communication device and the Wood Spirit Qi, it wouldn’t be able to link the information. Finally, Wang Ping’s ’Heaven-Reaching Talisman’ would be used to grant the Token communication authority.

Finally, he had to test whether the information produced by the resonance was clear.

The first few steps were very simple. Each Array was a fixed pattern, and Wang Ping could use a single thought to drive the Wood Spirit Qi to carve it into a slice of Iron Bamboo, then use gold dust to connect the Rune Lines.

The only troublesome part was the final step: calibrating the resonant frequency between the Communication Token and the communication device.

This was a time-consuming process. The first Token, in particular, took Wang Ping nearly two months to get right. Of course, he couldn’t just calibrate it non-stop, or he would have gone mad.

During these two months, he spent his cultivation time just as he did when he first started his practice, driving his Primordial Spirit to perform Qi Cultivation in the Inspiration Realm to coalesce a Qi Sea for it. The progress was somewhat slow. If he continued at this pace, he feared he wouldn’t be able to form the Qi Sea within twenty years, which would mean failure.

But Wang Ping had the Divine Technique Formation gifted to him by the Xiao Shan Lord. If worse came to worst, he could also find a way to construct an Array to gather Spiritual Energy. And if that still wasn’t enough, he could use a Nine Revolutions Pill to strengthen his Primordial Spirit.

In short, as long as he could finish integrating the ’Heaven-Reaching Talisman’ within the allotted time and successfully cast Magic with his Primordial Spirit, this step was almost impossible to fail. Of course, that was all on the premise of having sufficient wealth. Otherwise, one couldn’t even gather the Array Materials for a Spiritual Energy-gathering Array, let alone an Elixir like the Nine Revolutions Pill.

A year passed in the blink of an eye. The Zhongzhou Continent remained in chaos. Whenever Wang Ping idly strolled to the island’s transfer dock, he would always hear rumors of wars and death in various places. This was especially true for the boatmen from the Liangjiang Region. Their hometowns were conscripting soldiers every month, scaring them so much they didn’t dare return home and could only continue to drift at sea.

It was the twelfth lunar month once again. With the end of the year approaching, more and more merchant ships traveled to and from the small island, most of them heading back north. By now, Wang Ping had made over sixty Communication Tokens. After the first one was completed, the rest were much simpler, but the process still consumed a great deal of his energy.

He quietly returned to the Mountain Peak Dojo. The palace on the mountainside of Qianmu Mountain, meant for consciousness projection, was still under construction but had reached the roofing stage. The main reason for the slow progress was that Yu Cheng Taoist wanted to build a magnificent palace, using the best quality wood for the beams and carving them with various auspicious Taoist Family symbols, all while leaving space to construct the Communication Array.

This step was the most time-consuming. If not for so many disciples with cultivation bases helping, a project like this in the Mortal World would have likely taken five or six years to complete.

Finally, after the Start of Summer in the second year, the palace was officially declared complete. Wang Ping had also finished making one hundred Communication Tokens half a month prior.

The palace was named Heaven-Reaching Hall and assigned to the front hall’s Wood Institute. Inner Sect Disciples from the various institutes were dispatched to guard it in shifts.

Wang Ping already had a plan to distribute the one hundred Communication Tokens. Each Third Realm Cultivator who had joined Qianmu Temple would receive one. A total of twenty Tokens were allocated for Inner Sect Disciples, though they were only eligible to receive one when leaving the sect, and only in squads of ten or more. Along with the Token for Yu Cheng Taoist, this accounted for twenty-three Tokens.

Next was the Sanhe Temple gathering. In the future, their meetings would be held directly via consciousness projection, which would save a lot of trouble and allow for the timely exchange of information. Wang Ping allocated twenty-one Tokens for this group, which was the original designated number of members, even though the group was not currently at full capacity.

Then there were Zi Luan, Wu Quan, and Ganxing. This alliance was very important to Wang Ping at his current stage. In addition, there were Hu Yin and Zhi Gong; Wang Ping also needed to maintain his alliances with these two, especially his relationship with Hu Yin’s side.

This left about half of the Tokens remaining. Wang Ping would assign twenty of them to his puppets in the Western and Eastern Continents. Although direct communication was impossible over such vast distances, they could use special frequency codes. He could also have them secretly establish relay facilities. Perhaps in a few decades, this communication system would span the entire world.

Wang Ping decided to keep the final twenty-odd Communication Tokens for now, ready to be given to other important contacts in the future.

However, before the Communication Tokens could be distributed, the consciousness projection Array had to be completed. Moreover, it needed to be split into at least four channels: one for the Sanhe Temple gathering, one for meeting with Zi Luan and his allies, one for receiving feedback from the puppets, and one for internal communications within Qianmu Temple.

This took up another half a year of Wang Ping’s time. The projection and information-receiving device for internal sect use was set up in the front hall, to be managed by the Sect Leader of the front hall’s Inner Courtyard. The Sanhe Temple projection was installed in the newly built Heaven-Reaching Hall, normally managed by Yuan Zheng Taoist. The meetings with Zi Luan and his group were arranged in a hidden cave beneath the Mountain Peak Dojo.

As for the communication device for his puppets, it was placed directly inside the ’Pocket World Mirror.’ After all, communication with the puppets only required information, not a projection of consciousness.

This flurry of activity took another three months to sort out.

Unconsciously, the Qi Sea of Wang Ping’s Primordial Spirit had already begun to take rudimentary form. He just needed to successfully shape the hundred meridians to complete this step entirely. After that, the next task would be to cultivate the realm of ’Nothingness’.