Chapter 396 - 381: Conversion Formation

Chapter 396: Chapter 381: Conversion Formation

Night fell in Mist Forest Marketplace.

Li Yuan sat cross-legged inside his stone house. The perceptual net of his Dark Evil Insight, an invisible web, remained tightly fixed on the few areas he had previously marked as suspicious.

Just past Midnight, an extremely faint tremor emanated from one of the coordinates.

It was an extremely covert Demonic Qi transmission. Its frequency, identical to the one he’d intercepted before, had been compressed by a high-intensity Array. Without the absolute sensitivity of Dark Evil Insight, it would have been completely undetectable.

Five Divine Sense Lines shot out in an instant, slicing with precision into the Demonic Qi’s harmonic wave.

The deciphering process was second nature to him. An incense stick’s worth of time later, the garbled fluctuations in his Sea of Divine Sense were decoded into a clear message.

It wasn’t a strategic deployment, but a brief message about resource allocation. To support their search operation deep within the Ghost Mist Forest, the Dark Abyss Association had urgently established a secret, temporary supply point on the outskirts.

The supplies had just arrived, and the location was very lightly guarded—manned by only two Early-stage Foundation Establishment Demon Cultivators.

The location was less than a hundred li from the marketplace.

Li Yuan opened his eyes and rose from his meditation cushion.

He fully activated Umbral Concealment. His figure blended into the night, not stirring so much as a whisper of wind. He vanished from the stone house, his Teleportation Skill tracing a series of invisible, jagged lines through the void as he sped toward the coordinates in a straight line.

His movement speed was completely unaffected while concealed, and in less than an hour, Li Yuan arrived at the target area.

It was a natural cave, hidden by dense shrubbery.

A simple warning Array was set up around the cave’s exterior. Li Yuan didn’t even pause. Relying on Umbral Concealment’s immunity to detection Magic of the same tier and below, he passed straight through the Array’s warning Spiritual Light.

The Array Disc showed no reaction.

The cave’s interior wasn’t large. Two Early-stage Foundation Establishment Demon Cultivators sat beside a pile of supply crates covered by a waterproof tarp; one of them was listlessly polishing a Magical Artifact in his hands.

Li Yuan stopped less than three zhang away from the two men.

He raised his right hand.

Two gray spatial rifts unfolded silently before his fingertips. Bolstered by his Tier Three Array mastery and his Golden Core-level spatial awareness, the formation speed of his Spatial Rend had reached its absolute peak.

The two Demon Cultivators didn’t even look up.

The gray rifts slid silently across their necks. Two heads rolled to the floor. Their protective demonic auras were useless before the spatial cuts, and they died without making a sound.

Li Yuan waved a hand, collecting the bodies, and turned toward the pile of supply crates.

The contents of the crates were miscellaneous. Most were Low Tier pills for restoring Demonic Qi and healing injuries, along with some common materials for repairing Magical Artifacts. But in a specially made lead box at the very bottom, Li Yuan found a jade slip covered in complex engravings and a set of Array Hub instruments.

He sent his Divine Sense into the jade slip.

Spirit Demon Transformation Array.

An extremely obscure Tier Two Array. Its sole purpose was to forcibly twist and convert Spiritual Qi into Demonic Qi.

The jade slip clearly noted the Array’s massive flaw: the loss during the conversion process was staggering. For every ten units of pure Spiritual Qi fed into the Array, only one unit of Demonic Qi could be produced. For the vast majority of Demon Cultivators, this conversion rate was simply unsustainable, making it useful only as an emergency measure in desperate situations with a severe lack of Demonic Qi.

Li Yuan withdrew his Divine Sense, his gaze falling upon the set of Array Hub instruments.

The core of the Array Hub was a dark purple Crystal Stone, polished into a multifaceted shape. A strange wisp of energy roamed within, seemingly possessing an innate ability to harmonize Spiritual Powers of different attributes.

The moment his finger touched the Crystal Stone, the panel popped up.

[Equippable Item Detected: Transformation Array Hub (Complete)]

[Equipment Affix Preview: Initial Spirit-Demon Fusion (Green)]

[Effect: Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi can be preliminarily fused]

[Permanence Condition Preview: Master one Tier Two demonic art to perfection (Requirement Met)]

Li Yuan placed the Crystal Stone into an empty equipment slot.

"Equip."

[Equipped: Transformation Array Hub (Complete)]

[Initial Spirit-Demon Fusion (Green) is now active]

[Permanence condition for Initial Spirit-Demon Fusion (Green) has been met]

[Initial Spirit-Demon Fusion (Green) has become a permanent affix]

The spectral image of the Array Hub Crystal Stone flashed in the equipment slot before vanishing, freeing up the slot again.

The instant it became permanent, an extremely subtle change occurred within his Dantian.

The formerly distinct and non-interfering Spiritual Power and Demonic Qi began to change. At the border where they met, the invisible repulsive force between them quietly dissipated. The two completely different energies began to show the faintest signs of fusion. Although it was only a very shallow blend, it had already broken the ironclad law of incompatibility between spirit and demon.

Li Yuan placed the lead box into his storage bag, then turned to leave the cave, setting a fire that burned the place clean.

On the way back to the marketplace, his path forward became perfectly clear.

The biggest bottleneck to achieving Core Formation with Demonic Qi—a place that could supply it in massive quantities—finally had a solution.

The Spirit Demon Transformation Array could convert Spiritual Qi into Demonic Qi. The extremely low conversion rate and massive loss were an insurmountable obstacle for ordinary people. But for him, that obstacle simply didn’t exist.

One hundred and sixty zhang beneath Mozhou lay a massive, intact Spirit Vein, sealed by the Profound Nether Sect.

In his special equipment slot, this massive Spirit Vein was currently equipped, giving him perfect control over its output of Spiritual Qi.

A massive, unending supply of Spiritual Qi, with no need to worry about depletion.

If he set up the Spirit Demon Transformation Array over the Mozhou Spirit Vein and used his perfect control to channel Spiritual Qi into the Array, the massive loss could be completely offset by the Spirit Vein’s terrifyingly vast reserves.

After returning to the marketplace, Li Yuan didn’t go back to his stone house.

Under the cover of night, he knocked on the doors of several familiar shops and bought up large quantities of auxiliary materials needed to set up Arrays. Spirit-conducting copper sheets, Spirit Gathering Array Stones, space-stabilizing boundary stones—he unsparingly spent his Spirit Stones on any material he could use, buying them in bulk and sweeping them all into his storage bag.

Two hours later, he had gathered all the materials.

Li Yuan left the city and descended into an underground cavity beneath the limestone plateau.

The Teleportation Array activated as twenty Mid-grade Spirit Stones were embedded into the Energy Slots. Space warped, and his figure was instantly swallowed by the teleportation tunnel.

Mozhou. The underground stone chamber in the Stone Wilderness.

Without pausing, Li Yuan used the Earth Escape Technique and dove rapidly into the depths of the strata.

One hundred zhang, one hundred thirty zhang, one hundred sixty zhang.

The surrounding rock strata grew extremely dense. Behind that hard rock wall, a massive Spirit Vein lay dormant. Its surface was covered by an ancient Restriction from the time of the Profound Nether Sect, like a heavy shackle that kept the Spirit Vein’s power sealed tightly inside.

Li Yuan stopped in front of the Restriction.

He had now reached the introductory level of Tier Three Arrays. Facing this ancient sealing Restriction, he no longer had to stand by and watch helplessly as before.

He extended his Divine Sense Lines, seeping them bit by bit along the patterns of the Restriction.

He didn’t attempt to forcibly break the entire Restriction, as that would likely trigger a violent backlash from the Spirit Vein. Instead, at a node on the Restriction’s outermost layer, he used the spatial folding principles of Tier Three Arrays to carefully cut open a minuscule spiritual power vent.

The instant the vent opened, a gush of incomparably pure Spiritual Qi erupted from it.

Li Yuan immediately activated his control authority from the special equipment slot. Like a great, invisible hand, he clamped down on the gushing Spiritual Qi, preventing a single trace from escaping.

Next, he began to carve out a space within the strata around the vent to set up his Arrays.

On the outermost layer, a breath-concealing array covering a ten-zhang radius took shape first. This Array would completely isolate all aura fluctuations within. Even if someone were to scan the ground directly above, they would be completely unable to perceive any anomalies below.

The interior was the main event.

Li Yuan took out the Spirit Demon Transformation Array Hub he had just seized and, using it as the core, began to set up the transformation Array.

The conversion efficiency of a single Array was too low. Leveraging his introductory mastery of Tier Three Arrays, he managed to forcefully set up nine Spirit Demon Transformation Arrays within the ten-zhang-square space.

The nine Arrays weren’t simply laid out flat; he used spatial folding techniques to nest them, one inside the other, layer upon layer. The Demonic Qi converted by an outer Array would be immediately re-purified and compressed by the next inner Array, ultimately converging at the central Array Hub.

Setting up the Arrays took a full four hours.

When the last spirit-conducting copper sheet was embedded into the rock stratum, the entire composite Array system was sealed.

Li Yuan walked to the very center of the nine great Arrays and sat down cross-legged.

Within his special equipment slot, he pushed his control authority over the massive Spirit Vein to its absolute limit.

"Open."

Through the vent he had cut in the Restriction, a tsunami of Spiritual Qi was forcibly drawn from the Spirit Vein, transforming into a tangible torrent that poured directly into the outermost Spirit Demon Transformation Array.

The great Array roared to life.

A blinding white light flared across the Array Patterns before rapidly transforming into a deep, dark black. Amidst intense friction and distortion, the massive amount of Spiritual Qi had its attributes forcibly changed. For every ten parts of Spiritual Qi that entered, nine were violently consumed and dissipated during the process. The remaining part transformed into a wisp of pure, ink-black Demonic Qi.

But that was only the first layer.

The Demonic Qi continued to push inward, passing through the second layer, the third, and so on...

Under the layered nesting and frenzied compression of the nine transformation Arrays, the Spirit Vein’s massive reserves became the most solid of backups. No matter how much Spiritual Qi the Arrays consumed, Li Yuan could use his authority to draw ten or even a hundred times that amount from the Spirit Vein to replenish it.

In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the concentration of Demonic Qi at the central Array Hub had already reached an appalling level.

The pitch-black Demonic Qi had nearly condensed into tangible droplets, which floated slowly around Li Yuan. The air was saturated with a violent, cold, and extremely aggressive power.

This concentration of Demonic Qi far surpassed that of an ordinary Demon Cultivator garrison like Skeleton Valley. Even the core strongholds that the Dark Abyss Association had spent a fortune to create couldn’t possibly compare to the environment currently surrounding him, which had been forcibly converted from a massive Spirit Vein.

The crucible for Core Formation was ready.

Li Yuan took a deep breath, and the frigid Demonic Qi flooded into his meridians through his nose.

From his storage bag, he took out the black, square box containing the core of the Demon Qi Pill Platform.