Chapter 987: Strength Advances

On the Golden Dew Platform, golden mist drifted and all was silent.

All those occupying seats were quietly absorbing the golden mist, feeling their affinities within their bodies improving bit by bit.

In the blink of an eye, half a day had passed.

Half a day later, the first to awaken were those who held the bluestone seats; the golden mist they received was the thinnest, so they were also the first to exhaust it.

Looking over those who had received the bluestone seat baptism, only a handful of them saw the fluctuations of affinity within their bodies undergo an evolution at this moment, successfully breaking free of their original rank.

However, without exception, these people's affinity ranks were not too high—roughly in the Sixth and Seventh Ranks range. Perhaps their affinities had already reached their peak before, and now being stimulated by the Golden Dew Platform, they naturally crossed that threshold and evolved successfully.

Don't underestimate this step. Without this opportunity, to complete this evolution of affinity, they would likely need to spend a great deal of spiritual water and strange light, as well as time, before they could seize some favorable chance to advance.

Many gazes from around looked over, all carrying a hint of envy, but the crowd was not disappointed with their own gains. Although they had not completed the evolution of their affinity rank, they could feel that this baptism was equivalent to saving them half a year of affinity tempering time. And this half year was not merely a matter of time—the spiritual water and strange light consumed during this half year would certainly amount to a considerable sum, an expenditure that absolutely could not be ignored for many rogue cultivators, and even for the prodigies of some major powers.

Didn't you see that even Li Luo, a direct line member of the Dragon Fang Branch, was

living so frugally before, only to face such expensive eighth-grade spiritual water and strange light? This kind of consumable forces others to maintain a restrained pace of absorption and refinement for fear that impurity accumulation will ultimately solidify their affinity; but Li Luo's special constitution, while allowing him to act without restraint, also makes him a true gold-devouring beast.

A million-grade purple-eyed treasure, in his hands, is merely the equivalent of a few days' worth of spiritual water and strange light consumption.

And when the baptism on the bluestone seats ended, Li Luo's side, as expected, also welcomed an evolution of affinity.

It was the evolution of the lower seventh-grade Dragon Thunder Affinity.

After Li Luo obtained the Dragon Thunder Affinity, he had invested a great deal of effort into nurturing this third affinity, so this Dragon Thunder Affinity had long been on the verge of evolution. The opportunity on the Golden Dew Platform merely brought the arrival of this evolution forward by some time.

Li Luo sank his mind into the third affinity palace, where he saw thunderclouds continuously expanding, Lei Ting flashing within them, and a dragon shadow among the thunderclouds growing increasingly majestic. The dragon roars and thunder that occasionally emanated converged together, brimming with a sense of violence.

This evolution continued for quite a while before the violent Lei Ting gradually weakened. Li Luo also saw the dragon shadow within the thunderclouds—its body, originally only a dozen or so zhang, had now stretched to over thirty zhang, dragon scales flowing with Lei Guang, quite wondrous.

Dragon Thunder Affinity, upper seventh-grade.

A trace of joy welled up in Li Luo's heart. Although it was only an advancement of a minor rank, he was very clear on the difficulty involved.

Moreover, this baptism was not yet completely over for him.

Next, he wanted to borrow the power of the Golden Dew Platform to push the

upper seventh-grade Wood Earth Affinity to the eighth-grade rank! This was Li Luo's main goal this time. Once the Wood Earth Affinity advanced to eighth-grade, he would possess two eighth-grade affinities!

However, although upper seventh-grade and lower eighth-grade differed by only one rank, the difficulty involved was incomparably greater than that of lower seventh to upper seventh, so Li Luo did not know whether this Golden Dew Platform could help him complete it. But if it could, that would be best; if not, at least it would fill up much of that progress bar, which for Li Luo was, after all, not a losing deal.

Thinking this in his heart, Li Luo next began to channel all the golden mist flowing into his body into the Wood Earth Affinity.

Before the Golden Dew Platform, time flowed on, and the golden mist drifted gently.

About an hour after the bluestone seat baptisms had all ended, the baptisms on the jade cushion side were also gradually drawing to a close.

And among the jade cushion seats, those who successfully achieved an affinity advancement were similarly extremely few. After all, those who could generally seize a jade cushion seat were mostly elites among the major powers, and their own affinity ranks were naturally not low. With such a high starting point, achieving an evolution was naturally not so easy.

Li Li Fengyi, Li Li Jingtao, Lu Lu Qingmei, Deng Deng Fengxian and others had not obtained an advancement in affinity rank, but they had other gains: their own strength had received no small boost during this baptism.

Li Li Fengyi and Deng Deng Fengxian had originally been at the late Extreme Sha Realm, and the condensation of their sha gang had already reached their own limits. Although they had not touched the ninety-nine zhang mark, their foundations were still solid.

And now, after the baptism of the Golden Dew Platform, their own affinities became more refined through tempering, which in turn led them to take that

step of breaking through in phase force.

Behind both of them, a brilliant and solid Tian Zhu condensed, clearly stepping into the true Xing Tian Zhu Jing.

Li Li Jingtao had already reached the Virtual Pearl Realm during the Dragon Head Struggle, and after tempering himself over this period, he had thoroughly stepped into the Xing Tian Zhu Jing. This time, after another baptism, his strength advanced another step, becoming a genuine two-star Tian Zhu Jing.

Lu Lu Qingmei, meanwhile, advanced from her original Xing Tian Zhu Jing to two-star Tian Zhu Jing as well, and judging by the brilliance of that second Tian Zhu, in terms of grade, she had likely already caught up with Zhao Zhao Shenjiang before his baptism.

Among the jade cushion seats, everyone was overjoyed. Although their affinities had not directly evolved, the advancement of their phase force grade was real and solid—this was indeed a rare opportunity that could save them nearly half a year of bitter cultivation.

While rejoicing, many gazes turned once more toward the lotus platform area in the innermost ring. Their eyes carried envy and curiosity—after all, if even the jade cushion seats could bring them such benefits, then how powerful must the golden lotus seats be?

Under the watch of these gazes, in the innermost ring, the dense golden mist flowed as if alive. As time slowly passed, people on the golden lotus seats finally began to open their eyes one after another, ending their baptisms.

Without exception, the phase force fluctuations of those who ended their baptisms rose steadily, the magnitude of improvement indeed a full notch stronger than that of the jade cushion seats.

Jiang Jiang Wanyu and Zhao Zhao Shenjiang were the most obvious.

These two originally possessed the strength of two-star Tian Zhu Jing, yet when the baptism ended, they had climbed directly to four-star Tian Zhu Jing.

Of course, the starting point of these two's affinity ranks

was quite high, especially Zhao Zhao Shenjiang, who possessed a lower ninth-grade Force Affinity. For a ninth-grade affinity to advance another step, the difficulty was unimaginable; the spiritual water and strange light required in between could be called a sea. So even the Golden Dew Platform could not achieve such an effect—at most, it only made Zhao Zhao Shenjiang's lower ninth-grade Force Affinity somewhat more refined.

However, both had long anticipated this, so they were not disappointed, but rather delighted at the advancement of these two Tian Zhu.

Zhao Zhao Shenjiang's arm had already been reattached with spiritual medicine. Although it slightly affected his combat power, compared to Zhao Zhao Jingyu's fate back then, it was far better. At this moment, his gloomy and sinister gaze was cast toward Li Luo.

At this moment, he was quite eager to try, wanting to clash with Li Luo again and reclaim his previous face.

But the current Li Luo clearly had no time to pay attention to Zhao Zhao Shenjiang, because his side was also gradually approaching the end of the baptism. However... to his disappointment, even though he had poured all the subsequent golden mist into the Wood Earth Affinity, this affinity still lacked some final touch before evolving to eighth-grade.

Faced with this result, Li Luo was naturally quite unwilling, but the golden mist was gradually thinning, which meant the baptism was about to end—what could he do?

And just as Li Luo was feeling unwilling, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind—the words spoken earlier by the lantern-bearer.

"The ceremony on the Golden Dew Platform..."

Li Luo's heart stirred slightly. Until now, he seemed to still have never touched that so-called ceremony. Could it be because some step had not been completed?

He racked his brains. If this ceremony was set up for the personal disciples of the Faceless Holy Sect, then what was still missing?

?

Li Luo pondered for a few seconds, and a flash of inspiration struck his heart.

Missing identity verification!

So what could be done to complete the identity verification of the Faceless Holy Sect?

At this moment, Li Luo felt a sudden inspiration, then with a shift of his mind, the "Minor Faceless Divine Forging Art" began to circulate slowly within his body.