Chapter 467

In the cultivation chamber of the black fortress.

Wang Yu sat cross-legged on a golden cushion, cradling a yellow jade slip in both hands as he silently pondered its secrets; beside him stood a bronze censer, its black incense stick emitting a peculiar, faintly metallic scent that invigorated the spirit and cleared the mind.

Wang Yu opened his eyes, flipped his palm, and the yellow jade slip vanished; he murmured incantations, formed hand seals, and tapped ten fingers rapidly into the empty air before him.

“Puff.” “Puff.”

A series of pale silver incantations shot from his fingertips, transforming into translucent gray runes.

These runes coalesced and rolled in the air, now forming a pale gray chain, now condensing into a rune-shaped sphere—utterly wondrous to behold.

Yet this strange spectacle lasted no longer than the burn of a single incense stick; Wang Yu’s face paled, and he released the hand seals.

All the runes dissolved into specks of gray light and vanished instantly, as if they had never existed.

“Soul Subjugation Art” “Guardian Soul Runes”

Wang Yu closed his eyes and rested for a long while before opening them again, murmuring softly.

The secret technique he had just performed was none other than the Soul Subjugation Art bestowed upon him by the Ancient Master Tianchan—a technique capable of refining beast souls into Guardian Soul Runes, thereby enhancing spiritual awareness, strengthening mental focus, and safeguarding the soul.

The translucent gray runes he had just summoned were the means by which this art bound and refined beast souls; as long as the beast had no physical body, one could use this method to pull its soul into one’s own spiritual sea and refine it into a Guardian Soul Rune.

This art had six levels; each rune refined elevated the practitioner to the next level—the stronger the beast soul refined, the stronger the rune’s effect; only after refining six Guardian Soul Runes was the art considered complete.

Although Wang Yu had possessed this art for some time, he had never practiced it, for the simple reason that he had been unable to find a suitable beast soul during his time at the Four Symbols Sect.

After all, he was already a Foundation Establishment cultivator; the beast souls he required naturally had to be second-rank, for refining a first-rank beast soul into a rune would yield negligible benefit.

But compared to beast flesh and beast cores, beast souls were already rare, and second-rank ones were exceedingly scarce.

Even though the Four Symbols Sect raised many spirit beasts, they possessed few second-rank specimens, and those they did have were raised as sect spirit beasts—not to be killed as consumables by disciples.

Even if the Four Symbols Sect occasionally acquired a second-rank beast soul, the contribution points required were astronomical—nearly equivalent to the price of a mid-grade second-rank artifact—and were almost always pre-claimed by the sect’s Golden Core elders, never reaching the hands of Foundation Establishment disciples.

Within Wu State, wild second-rank beasts were not nonexistent, but they were exceedingly rare; the same was likely true in the other two states, otherwise the demon cultivator named Tong whom Wang Yu had slain would not have resorted to researching second-rank composite corpse-beasts.

But now that he was in the Eastern Wastelands, a land teeming with beasts, the situation was vastly different.

Second-rank beast souls were not easily obtained, but according to the information he had gathered, they were sold at the Hanlan River marketplace—though the price was still steep, starting at several thousand spirit stones.

Hence, he had re-familiarized himself with this art, planning to first purchase one or two second-rank beast souls at the Hanlan marketplace, refine one or two levels of the Soul Subjugation Art, and test the true power of the Guardian Soul Runes before proceeding further.

According to the jade slip’s description, the process of refining a beast soul with this art was extremely perilous; a single misstep could result in the beast soul devouring the cultivator’s soul, turning him into a living corpse.

The stronger the beast soul refined, the greater the backlash; and as more runes were refined, the spiritual burden increased, making subsequent refinements exponentially more dangerous.

In short: the stronger the beast soul chosen, the fiercer the backlash; the more runes refined, the more perilous each subsequent refinement became.

After this attempt, Wang Yu discovered a problem not mentioned in the jade slip.

That was: the spiritual cost of activating this art far exceeded his expectations.

He had only activated the art for the duration of one incense stick—and had already consumed seven or eight tenths of his spiritual energy.

Consider this: his spiritual energy, already vastly stronger than average due to his fusion with Wang Tiezhu’s mental force, had been further amplified by three levels of Star Mind Force, making it nearly ten times that of a normal cultivator at his level.

Even he could barely sustain it for one incense stick; a regular Foundation Establishment cultivator would likely last only one-tenth of that time.

Could such a brief window truly suffice to refine a powerful beast soul?

No wonder the jade slip repeatedly warned of the art’s dangers.

Wang Yu’s heart tightened, and he resolved: if he felt strain during beast soul refinement, he would wait until he reached the fourth to sixth levels of Star Mind Force, doubling his spiritual energy again, before continuing this art.

But as soon as he thought of the vast quantity of Star Stones required for the fourth to sixth levels of Star Mind Force, his brow furrowed.

It seemed that besides beast souls, he would also need to check whether Star Stones were available for purchase at the Hanlan marketplace—after all, the ones he had bought from the Four Symbols Sect had been entirely consumed during his cultivation of the first three levels of Star Mind Force.

He had never anticipated being transported to the Eastern Wastelands; had he known, he would have emptied the sect’s remaining stock of Star Stones before departing.

Wang Yu felt a faint pang of regret as he thought of this.

Star Stones did not seem particularly rare in Wu State—but he did not know how abundant they were in the Eastern Wastelands.

Besides cultivating the Soul Subjugation Art to compensate for his weak soul defenses, he had another secret art to practice: the unnamed auxiliary art the system had deduced for him.

This unnamed art had been tailor-made to help him break through the bottleneck of the Crimson Sun Great Art.

The art itself could not increase spiritual energy; its incantations and meridian pathways were not particularly unique.

Only the external substances used in its activation combined forces from both the cultivation world and the Blue Star world, making it radically different from ordinary secret arts.

He had even risked exposing the mysterious talismans by bringing gene-injection tools from the Blue Star world.

But now was not yet the time for this unnamed art to be used; he must first reach the bottleneck of the third layer of the Crimson Sun Great Art, then use the art’s power to break through into Foundation Establishment fourth layer.

He had only just entered the third layer of the Crimson Sun Great Art; reaching its bottleneck would take at least three to four more years of cultivation.

This assumed he had sufficient cultivation resources.

Wang Yu thought of this, slapped his waist pouch, and a small white vial flew out; he poured out a crimson pill.

It was the Fire-Refining Pill, essential for early cultivation of the Crimson Sun Great Art, helping cultivators better control fire spiritual energy and accelerating cultivation speed.

Though a second-rank pill, the Fire-Refining Pill was not unique to Wu State; the Four Symbols Sect even possessed its formula, which Wang Yu had quietly obtained long ago.

The fire-aspected spirit herbs required to brew it were not rare; he had simply avoided drawing attention by always purchasing the pills from the sect rather than brewing them himself.

Other auxiliary pills could only enhance cultivation but were not essential to the Crimson Sun Great Art and could be substituted with other pills.

Wang Yu considered this.

Besides pills, a pure fire spiritual energy environment was crucial for cultivating the Crimson Sun Great Art.

This island possessed only a mid-grade first-rank spiritual vein, located in the Hanlan River; there were no fire crystals nearby, only abundant water spiritual energy—making it impossible to construct a Fire Chamber.

But this problem was not unsolvable: one could purchase large quantities of fire crystal ore to artificially create a miniature fire crystal vein.

This method required a large number of spirit stones and could only produce a micro-scale vein, but with a Spirit Gathering Array, all fire spiritual energy could be contained within a single cultivation chamber for his exclusive use—sufficient for his needs.

Additionally, fire-aspected beast meat and spirit rice were indispensable, greatly aiding his daily cultivation of the Crimson Sun Great Art.

Finally, specialized artifacts to assist in cultivating the Crimson Sun Great Art were required.

Wang Yu thought of this, flicked his wrist, and the vial vanished.

In its place appeared a white lotus platform, the size of a palm.