Chapter 318: Phoenix Feather Pattern?

Cry!!

The phoenix's cry reverberated in the refining chamber, lingering for a long time without fading.

At this moment, if anyone entered his refining chamber, they would surely suspect they had come to the wrong place—not a cultivator's refining site, but an ice cave.

Thick ice and snow covered the surrounding walls and floor.

Icicles hung from the ceiling and ice pillars rose from the floor, nearly filling the entire refining chamber.

In this refining chamber, the only two relatively normal spots were the pair of ice-crystal wings, barely the size of two palms, hanging at the exact center, exuding faint chills, while beneath them hovered a similarly translucent flame that continually burned.

It's rather strange.

Those wings clearly exude such strong chill, yet they seem not to hinder the flame's forging of them; the two coexist peacefully.

Moreover, despite this scorching flame present, the whole refining chamber still seems buried in ice and snow, clearly indicating that the wings' level far surpasses that flame.

If one looks closely, they would surely see a faint illusion of an ice phoenix fluttering within those ice-crystal wings; the phoenix cries echoing in the refining chamber come from that illusory ice phoenix.

Another relatively normal spot in the refining chamber is where Yunhe sits cross-legged.

His eyes tightly shut, elbows resting on his knees, hands forming a strange seal before his chest, he remains motionless in that posture.

Were it not for the constant undulations of magical power flowing over his body, one could not tell whether he was alive or dead.

Around his body, surging magical power formed a solid barrier, completely blocking the refining chamber's thick ice and snow and chill from the outside.

Of course, while controlling Nascent Soul True Fire on one side and resisting that overpowering chill on the other, Yunhe's magical power consumption is enormous.

Especially during this extraordinarily long refinement, even though his magical power was decent among peers of the same realm, he could hardly bear such consumption.

Therefore.

By his side lay many empty jade bottles, still faintly fragrant with medicine.

Had Yunhe not known beforehand that this refinement would be extremely arduous and prepared a large quantity of elixirs to restore spiritual energy, the process would likely have failed.

Yet even after refining the ice phoenix's wings to this extent, the time for completion has not arrived.

Yunhe calmed his mind, sensed the remaining magical power within his body, and took a deep breath.

He took another jade bottle from his storage bag, pinched out two elixirs, and stuffed them into his mouth.

After regaining a bit more magical power, the seal on his hands suddenly changed.

"Now!"

Hum—

As his words fell, his hands fluttered, successively casting several magical seals.

On the snow-covered ground, lines forming a pattern emerged, glowing faintly while injecting a special spiritual undulation into the ice phoenix's wings.

This is the refining formation for crafting the Luan Phoenix Wings.

Without this formation's aid, even Yunhe would struggle to forge these ice phoenix wings into a tool.

Crack crack crack!

Immediately afterward, clear sounds like shattering ice rang out, echoing within the refining chamber.

On the pair of palm-sized ice-crystal wings before him, fine cracks appeared.

The more magical power Yunhe poured in, the more the formation was activated, the denser the cracks on the wings became, and Yunhe grew increasingly focused.

Rustle rustle rustle—

The next moment.

Those wings actually shattered like ice blocks into countless tiny ice fragments that scattered down.

Seeing this, Yunhe did not panic; he simply flicked his sleeve, stirring a gentle breeze that blew away all the ice crystals on the icy wings.

What remained was merely a heap of jade-colored white bones.

Ice Phoenix Wing Bone!

This is the true essence of that pair of ice phoenix wings.

Yunhe's hand seal shifted again, and the refining formation on the ground rose with a hazy glow, gradually enveloping the bone-only wings.

This caused Yunhe's expression to turn solemn of its own accord.

He slapped his storage bag, and with a few 'pops', dozens of multicolored materials of various shapes flew out.

These materials, merely infused into the light orb, were instantly refined.

Through that hazy light orb, one could see the wings, reduced to bone, gradually solidifying, their feathers growing fuller.

Yunhe took a deep breath.

He furrowed his brow and took out another irregular crystal.

Its surface was extremely rough, yet inside seemed to flow faint dark red streams of light.

Phoenix Marrow Crystal!

"Phoenix Marrow'—it promotes blood production, condenses spirit, gathers substance, and is key to reforging flesh and feather."

As soon as he exerted force, the crystal in his hand shattered with a 'bang' into powder.

He gently blew a breath, and the Phoenix Marrow Crystal powder was drawn into the light orb.

Cry!!!

Another clear, icy phoenix cry rang out.

The gradually plumping wind wings grew restless.

And the extreme-cold spiritual energy surging from above became ever more violent.

A bitterly cold wind swept in instantly, far stronger than before.

Even.

Even the defensive formations Yunhe set outside the refining chamber trembled with a 'hum' under the impact of that fierce cold's aftershock.

Yunhe, who had been sitting cross-legged here for who knows how long, now slowly rose to his feet.

The spiritual power barrier surrounding his body was like a tiny skiff in a raging sea, tossed by wind and rain, at risk of breaking at any moment.

His robe hem also fluttered loudly under this urgent, surging breath.

"No wonder, as the Ice Phoenix wings that have at least reached the late Fourth Level, once fully activated, their ferocity is this strong."

Three days later, these wings, which originally consisted only of a skeletal frame, had already filled out with flesh and even some scattered feathers.

Seven days later, the wings were already covered in dense snow-white feathers.

This time, the feathers were no longer like ice crystals as before, but truly fluffy feathers.

However, compared to the unconscious chill released earlier, the chill now is even more grim.

Half a month later.

A snow-white Ice Phoenix needed to condense within the chill, encircling the double wings and swaying them.

And with each vibration of its wings, the chill within the forging chamber inevitably surged.

Another ten or so days passed.

Yunhe, standing in the forging array, opened his eyes once more, a gleam of light flashing in his pupils and then vanishing.

"Phoenix cry, phoenix shadow, this implement is complete!"

But there remained one final crucial step.

Refinement!

Yunhe carefully took out a small vial again, peeled off the talisman stuck to it, and a faint fragrance mixed with a hint of bloodiness wafted out.

With a flick of his wrist, his fingers drove spiritual power to hook, and a cluster of essence blood that seemed to burn with azure flames flew out of the jade bottle.

Qing Yao's essence blood!

And the ice wings at the center of the forging array also seemed to sense Qing Yao's aura, which belonged to the Qing Luan; the chill that had ravaged the forging chamber for who knows how long gradually grew calm.

Seeing this, Yunhe's mouth curled up as he tightly closed his eyes.

Afterward.

A chubby little hand suddenly appeared on his crown!

Immediately after, a baby boy who looked seventy to eighty percent like Yunhe, dressed in five-colored robes, holding five five-colored flying swords in his arms, and carrying a small armor on his back like a backpack, stood on his head.

Yuan Ying separates from the body!

The adorable Yuan Ying furrowed its brow, gritted its teeth as if making a decision, and carefully extended a hand to block beside the flying sword held in its arms.

With a forceful slash!

A strand of five-colored liquid, resembling blood, flew from his fingertip, and the Yuan Ying, looking pained, shoved its finger into its mouth.

Below, Yunhe's face paled a bit.

However, the Yuan Ying did not return to the dantian just yet; instead, it pointed with a hand, and the five-colored essence blood merged into Qing Yao's essence blood.

Finally.

The merged essence blood droplet flew toward the wings.

Almost in an instant, the wings absorbed that drop of essence blood.

Hum—

The wings trembled, and streams of aura flowed across their snow-white feathers.

At the same time.

The Yuan Ying returned to the qi sea dantian, Yunhe's consciousness returned, his eyelids twitched before slowly opening, and his face paled a little more.

Using Qing Yao's blood as a guide and merging the Yuan Ying's blood, they smoothly broke through the wings' chill and spiritual energy barrier, allowing refinement to proceed.

He took a slight breath, Yunhe pinched out two elixirs and stuffed them into his mouth, while his entire body's spiritual power shuddered, and a qi mechanism belonging to the Ice Phoenix spiritual body arose.

Sensing this wisp of qi mechanism, plus the connection formed earlier when Yunhe mixed Qing Yao's essence blood into the blood, he gradually drew the fully fledged pair of wings before him.

His gaze sharpened.

The wings seemed to have an instinctive struggle, wanting to break free from his restraint.

But whether it was the essence blood or the qi mechanism, they made 'it' unable to discern Yunhe's identity.

Finally.

Yunhe poured forth all the remaining spiritual power in his body, and before the wings could react, he forcibly drew them into his qi sea dantian.

And the infant within his qi sea dantian, seeing the wings fly in, unhesitatingly took them and placed them on its back.

Shush—

The wings shuddered, then settled completely.

Feeling this, both Yunhe and his Yuan Ying let out a long sigh.

Thud—

Yunhe plopped onto the ground, his face ashen as he gasped violently.

At this moment, he truly had not a drop of spiritual power left.

Yet his face was filled with great joy.

"Success!"

To be honest, although he had long known that refining these Ice Phoenix wings would be difficult, their toughness still exceeded his expectations.

Fortunately, he managed to pull through and successfully refined them.

If at the crucial moment these wings had not been drawn to him by his essence blood and spiritual body qi mechanism, but instead turned and fled, Yunhe feared he wouldn't even be able to cry.

These wings have a great chance of developing self-consciousness and becoming an artifact spirit in the future.

If they fled, perhaps after hundreds or even thousands of years, they could become an artifact spirit rare enough to rival a Yuan Ying cultivator in this realm.

Moreover, they are of the type whose escape technique is extremely swift, making it nearly impossible to chase down and subdue such an artifact spirit.

"Exhale—"

Yunhe took a long breath, and having slightly recovered some of his magical power, he stood up again.

He pinched with both hands.

He only felt a sudden surge of spiritual energy behind him, and after two "puff" sounds, a pair of snow-white wings about one and a half zhang long appeared out of thin air behind him.

The snow-colored long feathers were filled with countless strands of unending cold energy.

Yunhe turned his head to look behind him; with a thought, the wings fluttered twice, scattering a light white mist, and he felt a force pushing him forward.

Ice Phoenix Wings!

However, this place is narrow, and it does not allow him to act freely.

Immediately afterward, he curled his wings behind him; the extremely strong cold air inside the refining room was actually absorbed by the wings at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Good, very good!"

Feeling the spiritual energy circulating over the wings, Yunhe couldn't help but exclaim.

This pair of Ice Phoenix Wings is at least a Fourth Level top-grade magical treasure!

Suddenly.

Yunhe raised his eyebrows, showing a hint of surprise, which quickly turned into delight.

"Is this the power of the Phoenix Feather Pattern?!"

(End of chapter)