Chapter 63: Recruiting Workers (9)

In the Nuwa Palace, on the blood jade skull held in Wu Jin's hand, three points of flame flickered slightly.

Curled up in the dimly lit mine cavern, clutching tightly the crystal brain left behind by Lao Tie, the sleeping Wu Tie suddenly awoke.

A faint joy sprouted from his heart.

In his glabella, because of the massive infusion of information, a huge amount of information was directly imprinted in his mind, so much that the golden light ball, which had already been depleted by ninety percent, quivered slightly.

Primal energy continuously surged from the air, turning into visible glittering streams that poured into Wu Tie's head. Because of the joy in his heart, his qi and blood became extremely active; the qi-blood energy mixed with primal energy, being repeatedly forged and hammered by the Vast Righteous Qi.

Strands of golden light arose from the qi-blood energy, continuously flowing into his glabella and pouring into the golden light ball.

Originally, Wu Tie's soul power was as strong as that of a hundred ordinary people; this imprinting of information burned away ninety-five percent of his soul total, leaving only the equivalent of five ordinary people's soul total.

But this remaining soul total equivalent to five people was extremely pure and refined, like a tiny droplet of mercury suspended in his glabella—condensed, heavy, each strand tough and strong, hard to destroy.

After this tempering, the essence of his soul suddenly rose by several major levels.

After the enhancement, the soul's desire to 'repair and strengthen' became difficult. Strands of golden flow continuously poured into his glabella, yet that cluster of golden light remained unmoved, showing no increase at all.

Wu Tie was not anxious either.

After experiencing so much, especially after Lao Tie fell into an unknown slumber right before him, his temperament was also tempered.

He became much more composed and calm, faintly bearing an air of having seen through life and death.

With ninety-five percent of his soul total consumed, the range of the invisible force field that enveloped him shrank back to fifty meters.

But within the fifty-meter radius, even the trajectory of a speck of dust was clearly visible; the world within fifty meters seemed like a realm of glazed crystal, every movement and stillness present in his mind, his grasp far surpassing before by a hundredfold.

His mind was in an uproar, countless strange characters and patterns turning over and over; only after a while did they settle down.

Many things could not be 'browsed'; even a slight touch in his mind caused a stab of pain.

Only some simple, basic things could be easily accessed.

Wu Tie pondered for a moment, then picked up a stone and rubbed it hard against the ground, and a spark shot out violently.

"Control!"

The invisible force field twitched slightly, and Wu Tie gave a low, stern rebuke.

He curled his right hand into a strange seal and pointed at that spark.

A fist-sized blaze erupted from the spark; within the fire, several thin strands of primal energy writhed and condensed into a simple fire rune. The blaze rapidly expanded to the size of a head, then stabilized.

Following the method, soon another eight blasts of fire erupted.

Under the control of the invisible force field, the nine fire blasts formed a nine-palace arrangement, hovering above Wu Tie's head and emitting a faint reddish light that illuminated the entire mine chamber.

A metallic glint flashed on the ground.

Wu Tie lowered his head; there had lain half of Lao Tie's brain.

Lao Tie's brain finally shattered, and the countless multicolored streams of light within it condensed into a tiny crystal brain.

Originally, it was thought that Lao Tie had simply vanished like smoke.

Unexpectedly, he had actually left behind a little trinket.

Wu Tie pulled from a pile of fine metal debris on the ground a pallid chain over two feet long; the chain was extremely thin, only half the thickness of a mung bean, with delicate hooks at both ends and a small metal spider-shaped pendant in the middle.

The metal spider's body was tiny, its several limbs very slender.

Wu Tie examined the pendant's shape, then picked up Lao Tie's crystal brain and gently brought it close.

Several metal limbs clinked together, fastening Lao Tie's crystal brain onto the pendant.

"Lao Tie… you thought ahead quite well. I was still worried I might lose you."

Wu Tie smiled satisfiedly, hung the chain around his neck, and carefully tightened the delicate hooks at both ends. He gave the thin chain a hard pull, from hundreds of catties of force to tens of thousands, yet the chain did not budge an inch.

"Hmm, the essence of your whole brain has fused into this chain? Quite sturdy, this is good."

Wu Tie murmured softly.

In his heart, a warm surge of joy still welled up.

He suspiciously patted his own cheek: "Why would I feel happy? Could it be that I actually want Lao Tie to die quickly? That makes no sense……"

The golden light ball in his glabella twitched, and Wu Tie glanced in a certain direction.

In an extremely distant place……

Wu Tie instinctively felt that from an extremely distant place, a power that made him joyful was transmitted.

It seemed like a summons, a strange summons originating from his bloodline, urging him to hurry to that direction, where someone very important to him awaited.

"What is this?" Wu Tie wondered to himself.

He was merely a small cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Realm, possessing only brute strength and some extraordinary divine abilities, but lacking the capacity to cultivate further.

This strange feeling made him a bit joyful and a bit uneasy.

With too much information in his mind, Wu Tie furrowed his brows and thought for a long time before finding something similar in the superficial knowledge Lao Tie had inscribed.

"In the great marsh there is a strange serpent, skilled at summoning souls from a thousand miles away… those who hear it feel joy in their hearts, as if hearing an elder call their personal name… joyfully rushing over, they are swallowed whole by the strange serpent."

"Therefore, in the wilderness, if one hears someone calling their personal name, they must not respond, must not heed, and should swiftly flee…… Remember, remember."

After bustling about for a quarter of an hour, Wu Tie finally found this slightly useful record.

"In the great marsh there is a strange serpent"?

Wu Tie instinctively thought of the flood dragon in the secret realm; he shivered, jumped up, straightened his body, looked left and right, then strode straight toward the direction opposite where the summoning power came from.

Such a dangerous thing—let him wait until he becomes very strong before provoking it.

Now…… following Lao Tie's instructions before his slumber, Wu Tie must live on well.

Live well, cultivate well, study the Primordial Classic, until he becomes strong enough, strong enough to help Lao Tie find a new body and revive him.

Even, becoming strong enough……

When Lao Tie was implanting the data, he deliberately marked a piece of information for Wu Tie that burst forth with a brilliant light of ten thousand zhang inside Wu Tie's chest:

"In antiquity, there were sages…… capable of warping spacetime, bringing the dead back to life"!

Become strong enough to become a sage!

Wu Tie didn't know what kind of existence a sage truly was…… but since they had existed, Wu Tie also wanted to become a sage.

Twisting spacetime, bringing the dead back to life.

"I will let my father and brothers live again." Wu Tie clenched his fists tightly: "Since such a possibility exists…… then let's strive to do it. Ha, strive in battle, young one……"

Nine fireballs the size of human heads hovered above his head, silently releasing light and heat.

Wu Tie infused his primordial vigor into the damaged tight-fitting armor on his body; the pallid armor writhed, eventually turning into a small white loincloth covering his lower body, while his upper body became two thick heart‑mirrors, front and back, snug against Wu Tie's body.

Both the loincloth and the two heart‑mirrors shared the same hue as the White Tiger armguard on Wu Tie's right arm.

The original full set of tight‑fitting armor was too conspicuous; it was better to stay low‑key. This crude heart‑mirror, not even qualifying as half‑body armor, would not attract much attention.

If anyone were truly so poor as to rob even this crude heart‑mirror……

Such a person would likely not be strong; Wu Tie could easily deal with them.

While walking briskly, Wu Tie recalled the knowledge Old Iron had imparted to him.

Alone and isolated, in an unfamiliar environment, how could he survive?

Moreover, Wu Tie's cultivation of the Primal Beginning Classic…… he now knew that the Foundation Establishment method was part of the Primal Beginning Classic, an introductory gate.

Cultivating the Primal Beginning Classic could forge the "Perfect Way" spoken of by Old Iron, but it took an extraordinarily long time; one had to amass vast resources to accelerate the cultivation speed.

Resources…… the main resource needed for cultivating the Foundation Establishment method was a large amount of flesh and blood.

Wu Tie needed a large amount of flesh and blood.

But from the information Old Iron had input, Wu Tie knew that many strange flowers and grasses could actually provide great auxiliary aid to cultivating the Foundation Establishment method. Since he had already reached the Foundation Establishment realm, primordial vigor stage, he only needed a continual abundance of primordial vigor.

A huge amount of flesh and blood was not as effective for cultivating primordial vigor as some strange flowers and grasses.

"However, Old Iron analyzed that the heavenly and earthly environment here was vastly different from what he was familiar with…… those strange flowers and grasses were likely already extinct……"

"However, there is a diagram here? Is it a deduction of how those strange flowers and grasses would mutate upon entering a new environment, changing with the environment?" Wu Tie flipped through the information in his mind, muttering: "Is that reliable? To deduce their future mutations purely from speculation……"

"Hmm…… this definitely isn't something Old Iron came up with…… he doesn't have that ability; he only knows how to fight and kill."

"It should be what Old Iron said, those bits of knowledge not his own…… they were forcibly crammed into his mind……"

"Just like the Primal Beginning Classic…… Old Iron and his brothers became disseminators of a civilization's spark? This knowledge was implanted into his mind, and when they encountered a suitable target, they would broadcast this knowledge outward?"

The thin chain around his neck swayed back and forth.

The Old Iron brain embedded in the spider pendant also swayed back and forth.

On its complex facets, countless tiny glints flickered, appearing lively and splendid, full of unfathomable charm.

Wu Tie suddenly halted his steps, he lowered his head to glance at the dazzling crystal brain, pondered for a moment, then infused a strand of primordial vigor into the heart‑mirror on his chest. The heart‑mirror writhed, and soon a small lump of metallic fluid separated out.

This mass of metallic fluid quickly covered Old Iron's crystal brain; after a writhing, it turned into a crude gray‑white spider pendant.

In the underground cavern there were countless spiders; as Wu Tie knew, many gray dwarves and stone goblins took the spider as their totem of worship.

Many of them carried spider‑shaped amulets on their persons.

Thus he wore a metal spider ornament; it was quite common and ordinary, attracting no attention.

Wu Tie continued forward, sprinting swiftly along the curved mine tunnel.

After an hour, he left the complex mine tunnel and entered the external passageway.

He also didn't recognize the local terrain, nor did he know where each path led; he arbitrarily chose a direction and continued forward along a passageway whose floor showed abundant signs of activity.

Each day, he would devote a large portion of his time to cultivating the Foundation Establishment method.

Every move and every form of the Foundation Establishment method was perfectly imprinted in Wu Tie's mind.

Each day he would hunt a large beast, simultaneously gathering some odd auxiliary ingredients, and using Old Iron's taught method to concoct Foundation Establishment pills himself.

In the first one and a half months, Wu Tie failed completely.

Beast after beast's flesh and blood was wasted; under the potent medicinal corrosion of those auxiliaries, chunks of flesh turned into foul pus.

After one and a half months, Wu Tie finally succeeded once.

Without using the alchemical devices of the Ancient God Armory, relying entirely on handwork, he finally succeeded in producing a batch of ten Foundation Establishment pills.

Old Iron's transmitted concoction method was extremely exquisite; if a mistake were made in the preparation, all raw materials would surely be utterly ruined.

But once the concoction succeeded, the result would certainly be a product of extremely high quality.

Wu Tie chiseled several stone bottles and carried the pills on his person.

"Damned Mist Blade, damned Changsheng Sect…… Old Iron's belly hid so many pills…… a pity, they were all destroyed."

After taking a Foundation Establishment pill, Wu Tie cultivated the Foundation Establishment method while chuckling softly.

"One day, I will repay you…… one day."

Walking, cultivating, and hunting beasts to make pills, such three or four months passed quickly.

Wu Tie's hair grew very long, and fine, sparse fluff sprouted on his face.

His physique also underwent subtle changes.

Perhaps due to skeletal mutation, his height increased by about a foot compared to before, his figure became much taller and slimmer, his face elongated slightly, turning into a slightly longer oval face.

His nasal bridge rose somewhat, his brow bone protruded a little, his eye sockets deepened……

Wu Tie's whole person gave others a feeling that his other features had become extremely sharp, like a straight spear that could thrust out and kill at any moment.

He and his appearance when he had just left the secret realm had already undergone a great change.

That day, Wu Tie stood by a small pool, carefully examining the changes in his features and physique reflected in the water, then nodded in satisfaction.

After another seven or eight days, Wu Tie reached the end of the passageway.

Ahead lay a stone wall over three hundred meters wide and about ten meters high, completely sealing off the passageway.

Outside the city wall's gate, a plump big fellow sat behind a wooden table, incessantly shaking a copper bell and shouting loudly: "Great opportunity, hey, great opportunity…… you lot of wandering riffraff…… the Shi Family is hiring, hiring hey!"

"Food and meat provided…… if you earn merit, you'll even get a‑woman to enjoy……"

"Not slaves, but hired workers…… the Shi Family is hiring hey!"

"A tremendous good opportunity, you lot of riffraff, what are you waiting for?"

Outside the city gate, nearly a thousand people had already gathered.

At a glance, they were mostly dwarves, gnomes, lizardfolk and the like.

Wu Tie pondered for a moment, then strode over to the fat man: "All-you-can-eat? Meat included? Really?"