Chapter 382 - 370: Stone Wilderness Teleportation

Chapter 382: Chapter 370: Stone Wilderness Teleportation

Li Yuan returned to the Teleportation Array.

The Teleportation Array on the stone platform was dormant, its Array Patterns dim and lusterless. Li Yuan injected his Spiritual Power to awaken it. The Array Patterns slowly lit up, and spatial fluctuations rippled above the stone platform.

After infusing Spiritual Power into the positioning layer, the spatial-type Array Stones sent out a search signal to the northeast. A few breaths later, the Teleportation Stone’s spatial sense caught an extremely faint response.

The signal was there, but it was intermittent, like a flickering flame about to go out. The destination node was either in deep hibernation or severely damaged, making it impossible to establish a stable teleportation channel.

He switched the search direction, pointing it southwest.

A response was captured almost instantly.

The response was clear and stable. The destination node was on standby, and the frequency of its spatial fluctuations was a high match for the local Array. The teleportation channel formed and locked within a few breaths.

Connection established.

Li Yuan used the Teleportation Stone’s spatial sense to carefully inspect the channel’s structure. The spatial folding layers between the two nodes meshed perfectly, and the Spiritual Power conduction was completely stable.

What was more noteworthy was that the two nodes had the exact same permission level.

In the Teleportation Array’s permission system, a higher-permission node could teleport to a lower-permission one without approval, while the reverse required verification. But these two nodes had identical permission levels, seemingly set up with some kind of reciprocal access mechanism—both sides could teleport to each other freely, without restriction.

Li Yuan did not teleport right away.

First, he made an adjustment to the control Array Patterns on the local node, setting its receiving permissions to an open state. This way, after he teleported to the other side, he could teleport directly back and wouldn’t be trapped there by a one-way lock.

After confirming the settings were correct, Li Yuan stepped onto the center of the stone platform.

He injected Spiritual Power into the Array Hub, and the Teleportation Array began operating at full power.

The light from the Array Patterns shifted from soft to brilliant, and the spatial fluctuations intensified dramatically. The spatial folding layers beneath the platform began to rotate and compress, enveloping his body in a rapidly shrinking spatial bubble.

His vision abruptly distorted.

After about three breaths, the distortion faded.

Li Yuan’s feet touched down on completely new ground.

Beneath his feet were smooth stone tiles, a completely different texture from the stone platform in the limestone cavern. The air was dry and cold, without the slightest flow of Spiritual Qi. It was pitch-black all around, but the passive modes of his Teleportation Stone’s spatial sense and Dark Evil Insight immediately fed information about the surroundings back to his mind.

’A sealed, underground stone chamber.’

It was about four zhang square, twice the size of the limestone cavern. The four walls had been finely polished, and remnants of Profound Nether Sect-style Array Patterns were visible on their surfaces. The domed ceiling was intact, with no signs of collapse. In the center of the floor was another round stone platform, almost identical in specification to the node he’d come from.

He was standing on this very platform.

Li Yuan stepped off the platform and first inspected the state of this destination Teleportation Array. The Array Patterns were intact, and a Space Crystal Stone was embedded in the Array Hub. Though its luster was dim, its structure was undamaged. This node was in much better condition than the one in the limestone cavern and required almost no repairs.

After confirming the Teleportation Array could send him back, Li Yuan began to search the stone chamber.

In the northeast corner of the chamber were several stacked wooden storage chests. The chests had been sealed with Spiritual Power and coated with a layer of moisture-proof and anti-corrosive talisman lacquer. They were in surprisingly good condition.

Li Yuan used his Spiritual Power to shatter the seals and opened them one by one.

The first chest contained a batch of Array materials. There were Spirit-conducting Copper sheets, spatial-type Array Stones, high-purity Spiritual Power crystal powder, and several high-quality spirit-conducting materials he couldn’t name but whose Spiritual Mechanism was still well-preserved. The style and craftsmanship of the materials were characteristic of the Profound Nether Sect era, at least several hundred years old, but the Spiritual Power seal had been done so well that most of them were still usable.

The second chest held a jade slip.

Li Yuan picked up the jade slip and probed it with his Divine Sense.

’Array Improvement Manual.’ The content described a method for optimizing the efficiency of a Teleportation Array. The manual’s author seemed to be an Array deacon of the Profound Nether Sect. The writing was concise, recording only practical experience. The core idea was to reconfigure the Spiritual Power circuits in the second positioning layer of the Teleportation Array to reduce Spiritual Power loss during the signal search process, thereby increasing teleportation distance and connection stability.

This manual was extremely useful for his current situation. Although the Teleportation Array in the limestone cavern had its basic functions restored after his repairs, its range and stability were still limited. If he optimized it using the methods in this manual, its performance could be elevated to a whole new level.

Li Yuan placed the jade slip into his storage bag.

The third chest was the smallest, and inside it was a single Cultivation Technique booklet bound in black beast hide.

There was no text on the booklet’s cover. The beast hide was of a very special material, cool to the touch, with a faint, almost imperceptible dark-purple glow flowing across its surface.

Li Yuan took the booklet in his hand.

A panel popped up.

[Detectable equippable item: Demonic Spirit Fusion Technique (Complete)]

[Equipment Perk Preview: Demonic-Spirit Concordance (Purple)]

[Effect: Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi can be interconverted; Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi can be fused to a moderate degree; Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi caps are each increased by 10%.]

[Permanence Condition Preview: Cultivation reaches Late-stage Golden Core.]

’A purple perk.’

Li Yuan opened the booklet and read it from beginning to end.

The Cultivation Technique had no name. The content began on the second page, the handwriting neat and the style rigorous, like a scholarly treatise that had been repeatedly refined.

The core theme was the fusion of Demonic Qi and Spiritual Power.

The author of the Cultivation Technique believed that Demonic Qi and Spiritual Power were not completely opposing energies. In essence, they were both different manifestations of the world’s Spiritual Mechanism. If a suitable method could be found to allow them to coexist and interconvert within a Cultivator’s body, the Cultivator’s overall strength would experience a qualitative leap.

The technique detailed several cultivation paths for fusing Demonic Qi and Spiritual Power to varying degrees. It ranged from the most basic state of non-interfering coexistence, to a moderate level of mixed utilization, and finally to the ultimate goal of complete fusion.

The last few pages proposed a bold theoretical concept: first, use either Demonic Qi or Spiritual Power to form a Golden Core Embryo, and then use the other energy to complete the Core Formation.

If successful, the resulting Golden Core would possess the dual attributes of both Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi, its power far exceeding that of a conventional Golden Core.

But immediately following the theory was a warning marked in vermilion ink.

In practice, the embryo formed from Demonic Qi would clash violently with the infused Spiritual Power. The intensity of this conflict would far exceed the limits of a Cultivator’s physical body and meridians, leading to the destruction of the core and death in nine cases out of ten.

’Perfect in theory, fatal in practice.’

Li Yuan closed the booklet.

’This is an unfinished Cultivation Technique. The author found the right direction but couldn’t walk the final step.’

’A purple perk.’

’Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi can be interconverted. Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi can be fused to a moderate degree. Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi caps are each increased by 10%.’

The first effect had some overlap with the Fire-Evil Integration’s interconversion of Fire Element and Evil Element energies. However, the scope was completely different. Fire-Evil Integration was limited to converting between Fire Spiritual Power and Evil Qi, whereas Demonic-Spirit Concordance, much like Spirit-Evil Interconversion, covered all Spiritual Power and all Demonic Qi—a whole level broader in scope.

The second effect was moderate-degree fusion. This meant he could simultaneously draw upon both Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi in a single magic spell, allowing for a mixed output. Before this, he could only use Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi alternately, never truly mixing them.

’The permanence condition is Late-stage Golden Core. This means it can’t be made permanent any time soon.’

What concerned him more was the theoretical concept within the Cultivation Technique.

’What if I combine it with that perk I have, the one that increases the difficulty but lets me form a core twice? I could form a core normally with standard Spiritual Power first, then get a chance to form a second one. For the second Core Formation, I could consider the possibility of using Demonic Qi to form the embryo.’

’First Core Formation with Spiritual Power, taking the safe route. Second Core Formation with Demonic Qi, gambling for a higher ceiling.’

’But this is all just theoretical deduction for now. The author of the Cultivation Technique couldn’t even walk the final step themselves. The risk of the core being destroyed and dying is very real.’

’I’ll form my first core with Spiritual Power and take it one step at a time.’

Li Yuan organized the Cultivation Technique booklet and his other gains, then walked to the wall of the stone chamber.

He activated the Earth Escape Technique. His body slowly sank into the stone wall and floated upward.

After passing through several dozen zhang of rock, the density of the strata above him suddenly decreased.

Li Yuan broke through the ground’s surface.

The Stone Wilderness.

Before him was a boundless, desolate landscape. The ground was covered in grayish-white weathered gravel, without a single tree or blade of grass in sight. The skyline was low and empty, with a hazy gray sky pressing down from above. The air was so dry it was almost devoid of moisture.

The Spiritual Qi concentration was extremely low, several times thinner than even the outskirts of the Ghost Mist Forest. Cultivating in this environment would likely only be twenty to thirty percent as efficient as normal.

’No wonder no one has ever set foot here before.’

But Li Yuan’s perception caught a hint of something unusual.

The effect of his Spirit Vein Affinity perk kicked in at this moment. Deep beneath the ground under his feet, an extremely thin branch of a Spirit Vein was slowly pulsing. The branch was only about one-tenth the thickness of the large Spirit Vein at the Mist Forest Marketplace and was over a hundred zhang deep, but it was definitely there.

Hidden beneath the surface of this desolate land, where Spiritual Qi was almost nonexistent, was a secret Spirit Vein.

Li Yuan recorded the topography of the Stone Wilderness, its coordinates, and the general direction and depth of the Spirit Vein branch onto a jade slip.

He then returned to the underground stone chamber the way he came and used the Teleportation Array to go back to the limestone cavern node.

It was nearly dawn by the time he returned to the marketplace.

Inside the stone house, Li Yuan sat cross-legged on a cattail mat and began to cultivate with his eyes closed.

[Spirit Vein Affinity (Green) Permanence Condition: Cultivate for more than six hours per day, for a cumulative total of thirty days (8/30).]

The Spirit Vein was just a few dozen zhang beneath his feet, so the twenty percent cultivation speed bonus from Spirit Vein Affinity was in constant effect. Although his progress in his Cultivation Technique wasn’t lightning-fast, he was making steady, solid headway every single day.