Chapter 120: Solidification and Instant Casting

The flame shield spell mark, which should have vanished immediately after casting, still remained intact in his mental sea, and after reactivating it with his mental awareness, it could be cast a second and even a third time.

This aberrant spell mark seemed to have been solidified, allowing it to persist indefinitely within his mental sea.

Not only the flame shield spell, but all other basic spells, once their spell marks were formed under hyper-synchronization mode, could also remain within the mental sea.

When casting, he merely needed to connect his mental awareness to the corresponding spell mark to effortlessly unleash the spell—no hand seals or incantations required—truly “instant-cast spells.”

Of course, in previous battles, to conceal this anomaly, he still performed hand seals and recited incantations as usual.

Only during the critical moment of combat against the pale youth’s transformed Bone Demon Body did he instantly release five or six fireball spells, catching the enemy off guard and inflicting heavy damage.

The variation of the spell runes under hyper-synchronization granted him two major advantages.

As long as he could comprehend a spell’s spiritual rune diagram, no matter how complex or difficult the spell mark, given sufficient time, he could assemble it piece by piece like building blocks.

Second, the mutated spell marks could remain solidified in his mental sea for extended periods, eliminating the need to reconstruct them each time he cast—turning spellcasting into instant release.

These two advantages gave Wang Yu ample confidence in his future spell cultivation; with enough time and accumulation, he was certain he could advance far in the art of spells.

Yet, he harbored doubts about the rune variation under hyper-synchronization.

The silver streaks on the spell runes, resembling circuit boards, looked profoundly strange compared to ordinary spell runes.

After prolonged contemplation and analysis, he suspected the mutation was likely tied to two factors.

The first was the terrifying drain of mental energy during spell mark formation under hyper-synchronization—such an astonishing amount of mental energy was required to form even a single spiritual rune symbol, which was clearly abnormal.

The second was his Star Mind Force cultivation; Star Mind Force inherently contained some unknown element within mental energy, and using this energy to form rune symbols naturally could produce unknown mutations—this seemed plausible.

Though he felt he had identified the cause, he could not decipher the underlying principle, so he simply set it aside and stopped worrying about it; thereafter, besides the twelve-rune flame shield, he solidified another eight-rune fireball spell mark in his mental sea.

As for why he didn’t solidify more spell marks, it was simply because his mental sea had limited capacity—two spell marks already occupied a significant portion, and the rest needed to be reserved for other spell marks as backups.

Recalling this, Wang Yu’s mind shifted, and the newly formed pale golden spiritual rune symbol in his mental sea flickered and collapsed, vanishing without a trace.

Wang Yu grimaced, feeling a slight mental shock.

Though these solidified spiritual rune symbols could persist indefinitely in the mental sea, he could still easily erase them when deliberately removing them.

Wang Yu then reached into his robe with one hand, pulling out another book from his storage pouch, flipped to the last few pages, placed it before him, and murmured softly: “Infuse the lethal qi into the body, exhale as a blade.”

He closed his eyes, and his chest began to rise and fall rhythmically; from his seven orifices—nose and mouth—a thin stream of golden mist emerged, expanding and contracting in sync with his breathing.

Suddenly, Wang Yu drew a deep breath, his upper body swelling outward by a full circle, then he spat: “Pah!”

A golden streak shot from his mouth, striking the stone wall several zhang away with force.

“Boom.”

The stone wall trembled slightly; after the golden streak dissipated into a small cloud of mist, a shallow hole remained on its surface.

Wang Yu opened his eyes, watched the scene, and shook his head, murmuring again: “Emit lethal qi, refine qi into Gang , one man becomes an army.”

He rose to his feet, his eyes glinting with crystalline light; he drew another deep breath, and his body swelled once more, stretching his upper garments taut as a tiger’s head, lifelike and vivid, emerged on his back.

He spread his arms, let out a low roar, and golden mist surfaced across his body, swirling and coalescing into his arms, forming faint golden arm guards that even enveloped his fists.

But Wang Yu did not stop; he opened his mouth again, and a white mist surged outward, more golden mist emerging from his skin and gathering toward his chest, as if a golden breastplate were about to materialize.

Yet in the next instant, the massive tiger head on his back shuddered violently, and the golden breastplate on his chest instantly shattered and dissolved back into swirling mist.

Seeing this, Wang Yu raised an eyebrow, shook his arms, and the golden arm guards vanished—two golden-tinged mists, like long serpents, shot from his hands, their tips morphing into two giant golden hands that lunged toward the distance.

But after flying only a few zhang, they both “boom!”—collapsed into mist.

Wang Yu sighed.

Whether refining qi into Gang or emitting lethal qi, he clearly could not yet accomplish either smoothly.

In that case, he still had a long way to go before reaching the peak of the third level of the Breathing Method and forming the Black Tiger Lethal Body.

It seemed he must continue practicing the third-level incantation of the Black Tiger Breathing Method; fortunately, with the Four Beasts Body Refinement Method as auxiliary support and the precise control of hyper-synchronization, what was extremely dangerous for others was merely a matter of grinding an iron rod into a needle for him.

When the timing was right, he would naturally achieve the Black Tiger Lethal Body—but all of this must come after his Qi cultivation.

After all, only upon advancing to late Qi Refinement could he forge a grade-ranked artifact for himself and become a certified Artificer, securing genuine standing within the Four Symbols Sect and avoiding being easily discarded as a pawn by the upper echelons.

Wang Yu then put away the book, swallowed a mid-grade Qi-Enhancing Pill, and began today’s breathing cultivation.

In a small pond adjacent to the stone chamber, two iron-headed crocodiles—one white, one green—were playfully splashing; beside them, a large basin was filled with fresh demonic beast meat.

This demonic beast meat radiated heavy pressure—clearly from grade-ranked beasts, sufficient to feed the two young crocodiles.

…

Half a month later, while cultivating in the stone chamber, Wang Yu suddenly felt a humming vibration emanating from his body.

He opened his eyes, reached into his robe, and pulled out a slightly trembling circular disc.

A flicker of surprise crossed Wang Yu’s face; he pressed his hand onto the disc, and Ximen Mei’s crisp voice rang out from within.

“Brother Wang, today afternoon, the Seven Marvelous Immortal of the Thousand Bamboo Sect—their famed master of spells—is giving a public lecture here. Are you interested?”