Chapter 119

In the evening.

Wang Yu returned to a stone chamber inside a cave within the mountain’s belly.

The Tianzhu Mountain Spirit Domain possessed one large second-rank spiritual vein and one medium first-rank spiritual vein; though it could not compare to the original mountain gate of the Four Symbols Sect, it was already the greatest sincerity the Bamboo Grove Sect could offer, barely sufficient for the thousands of disciples to cultivate.

At this moment, Wang Yu sat cross-legged on a yellow cushion, flipped his hand once, and a crimson wooden plaque appeared in his palm. After scanning it with his spiritual sense, he immediately saw the merit points displayed: “1013.”

The thirteen merit points were rewards from the General Affairs Hall for repairing the airship these past few days.

The other thousand merit points came when he accompanied Xi Men Mei back to the mountain gate and escorted her to the Array Hall; several officials who came to greet her were overjoyed and immediately approved a massive merit point reward through the General Affairs Hall.

So many merit points nearly made Wang Yu bite his own tongue.

Could a mere array apprentice really be this important in the Four Symbols Sect now?

Or did Xi Men Mei possess some other significant status?

Wang Yu had a faint suspicion in his mind, but fortunately, when they parted, Xi Men Mei had gifted him a communication disc, saying he could contact her if needed.

With so many merit points, he naturally could not leave them unused.

Thus, on his way back, he had already verified the prices of pills at the General Affairs Hall.

The current mid-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pills on sale at the Pill Hall cost “50 merit points and 250 spirit stones”; the high-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pills required a full 1000 merit points.

According to the official in charge of pill exchanges, although both mid-grade and high-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pills had pure medicinal properties and excellent effects in boosting cultivation energy, they still contained toxic impurities that could cause disciples to develop greater drug resistance.

Therefore, a disciple could consume at most ten mid-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pills and three high-grade ones; beyond that, the effects would diminish sharply, impairing the purity of their cultivation energy and hindering later cultivation.

Wang Yu pondered, took out a storage bag from his person, and upended it onto the ground, spilling out a pile of colorful mid-grade spirit stones and four small vials.

There were about sixty mid-grade spirit stones, and each of the four small vials contained one mid-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pill—three had been taken from the cold youth’s storage bag, and the fourth was a reward from his last mission.

According to the Pill Hall official’s explanation, Yuan-Enhancing Pills generated cultivation energy directly within the body without requiring cultivation, so they ignored the user’s spiritual root quality, producing roughly the same amount of energy regardless.

The only difference lay in how much cultivation time each user saved.

For example, a three-spirit-root disciple, taking one low-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pill, could save roughly two to three months of cultivation time, while a two-spirit-root disciple, who cultivated faster normally, might save only a month or so.

The same applied to mid-grade and high-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pills—the worse the user’s spiritual root quality, the more cultivation time they saved.

Wang Yu was currently a four-spirit-root, but since his mental strength was six to seven times that of peers, his daily cultivation time was long enough; though still slower than a two-spirit-root disciple, he cultivated faster than a three-spirit-root one.

The advertised time savings for mid-grade and high-grade Yuan-Enhancing Pills were always based on three-spirit-root disciples.

One mid-grade pill was said to save half a year; a high-grade pill, about three years—this would not deviate too much for him.

If he could consume ten mid-grade pills and one high-grade pill, he could save eight to nine years of time, nearly allowing him to leap directly into Qi Refinement Seventh Layer and enter the later stage of Qi Refinement.

He already had four mid-grade pills; the remaining thousand merit points could be exchanged directly for one high-grade pill, and the other six mid-grade pills could be acquired gradually by accumulating more merit points.

In the past, this might have been extremely difficult, but now that the sect had just relocated to Jingzhou, the upper echelons had released their hidden reserves and issued numerous high-reward missions; with his alchemy skills, accumulating the remaining merit points should pose no problem.

Wang Yu made his decision, swept his sleeve, and gathered all the items on the ground into his storage bag, then submerged his spiritual sense into his spiritual sea.

Inside his spiritual sea, twenty crimson magical rune symbols floated quietly within two separate spell-mark regions, each covered in faint silver patterns that shimmered with a cool metallic luster, appearing somewhat eerie.

Wang Yu stared at these faint silver patterns, his expression strangely uneasy.

He suddenly shouted, “Overclock,” and in an instant, his senses amplified, everything around him slowed, and his mind entered a wondrous superstate.

Wang Yu closed his eyes, formed a hand seal, and murmured incantations; his mental strength began draining at a terrifying rate.

Simultaneously, within his spiritual sea, a golden rune symbol was rapidly coalescing under the precise control of overclocking, but as it formed, similar circuit-board-like faint silver patterns continuously surged across its surface.

“Huff.”

Wang Yu suddenly opened his eyes, a faint pallor and fatigue visible on his face.

In just those few breaths, his mental strength had been nearly depleted.

Yet in his spiritual sea, a newly formed complete rune symbol floated alone, showing no sign of collapse or disintegration.

If anyone else in the cultivation world saw this, they would never believe their eyes.

Spell marks in the spiritual sea could never be paused before the entire magical rune pattern was complete; otherwise, the entire spell mark would fail, causing spiritual backlash.

A single rune symbol could not exist independently in the spiritual sea—this was common knowledge known to every cultivator.

But Wang Yu looked at the new rune symbol in his spiritual sea with calm composure, as if he were utterly accustomed to it.

In fact, after using overclocking to comprehend the original spell’s Flame Shield rune pattern, he had spent nearly a year without once successfully forming the spell mark in his spiritual sea.

Just as he was on the verge of despair and ready to abandon the spell, he achieved the third layer of Star Mind Force, causing his mental strength to double again.

Feeling his mental strength had far surpassed his peers, he cautiously attempted once more to form the spell mark under overclocking synchronization mode.

The result: after his mental strength was violently drained and he barely managed to coalesce one Flame Shield rune symbol, he was forced to stop, his reserves exhausted.

He had expected to suffer the spiritual shock of spell failure.

But an unexpected event occurred.

The completed rune symbol remained intact in his spiritual sea, neither collapsing due to the interrupted pattern nor inflicting any spiritual backlash.

This sight stunned Wang Yu at the time.

In the following ten days, after his mental strength recovered, he used overclocking to continue coalescing the remaining eleven rune symbols of the Flame Shield.

The result: every other rune symbol behaved the same—once fully formed under overclocking mode, they did not collapse or interfere with the formation of subsequent symbols.

These rune symbols differed from ordinary ones in that their surfaces bore circuit-board-like silver patterns.

When he finally completed the full twelve-rune spell mark and attempted to cast the spell once, he was even more stunned.