Chapter 484 - 465: Breaking the Illusion Array

Chapter 484: Chapter 465: Breaking the Illusion Array

The Centipede had just taken form when the Moonlight Sword Light hacked it to pieces, scattering severed limbs across the ground.

"Such a paltry light, yet it dares to shine!"

Bai Zichen had figured out the Battle Array’s secrets. It worked by having the Cultivators raise the same type of Gu Insect, using a Tier Three Gu Insect as the core and then sacrificing hundreds of its kin to amplify its power. Through the might of the array, they created a Tier Four Gu King.

By the looks of it, they were likely going for the full "Five Poisons," with scorpions, venomous snakes, and the like to follow.

He lost all interest in appreciating their efforts, dispatching only a single, frost-cold Sword Silk that found a flaw in the Battle Array where none should have existed.

The Sword Silk coiled around the Array Banners held by several Core Formation Cultivators of the Hundred Skills Sect. A sharp tearing sound, like ripping silk, echoed as long gashes were torn across the flags’ surfaces.

Ordinarily, the Battle Array’s defense was airtight, capable of withstanding a Nascent Soul True Monarch for a significant amount of time.

Unfortunately for them, they faced Bai Zichen, for whom "One Sword Breaks Ten Thousand Laws" was more than just a saying. He could force a flaw into existence where there was none.

The bodies of the Hundred Skills Sect disciples convulsed violently. They stumbled backward in unison like a receding tide, spitting blood and letting out stifled howls of agony.

The Cultivators in the very front rank were hit the worst. Though the Sword Silk only grazed them from afar, their limbs were severed, and they collapsed to the ground.

The leader, a Core Formation Perfection Cultivator, was about to make another stand when a Sword Silk flashed before him. It felt like a needle had pierced the spot between his eyebrows.

A tiny hole created by the sword ran from between his eyes straight through the back of his skull. His left hand had just reached for the storage pouch at his waist as he toppled over, stiff as a board.

With the Battle Array broken, the hundreds of Cultivators were like weeds before Bai Zichen. The Sword Light swept through them twice, and most of them were dead.

Several Core Formation True Men were among the fallen, and the tattered Array Banners from the Five Poison Battle Array lay scattered everywhere.

Judging by its performance, this Five Poison Battle Array was certainly far more powerful than the ones used by the Qingfeng Sect.

However, he had no time to collect the spoils of war. With a flicker of movement, he passed over several small bridges and streams, arriving before a pool of water.

A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. The pool looked perfectly ordinary, just a pond of mundane water.

And that, precisely, was the problem.

’A Jade Pool with such thin Spiritual Qi and no special properties, located in a vital area of a Nascent Soul Major Sect’s back mountains... They’re trying so hard to hide it that it’s become obvious. A classic case of overdoing it.’

Bai Zichen paced back and forth, his steps following the positions of the eight trigrams. He confirmed that this was indeed the location of the treasury he had seen in the memories extracted from Xin Youhuang’s Soul Search.

’What an exquisite Illusion Array. Even my Divine Sense can’t detect anything unusual.’

The Moon Xuan Sword flew up, scattering watery Moonlight over the Jade Pool.

The power of As Clear as Daylight broke through the illusion, dispelled the falsehood, and revealed reality.

With the help of the Supreme Qingwei Sword Box, he finally saw the mirror-like defensive light shield beneath the jade-green waves.

But it was still blurry; he had to stare intently to make out the details beneath the rippling water.

’The upper limit of this Secret Technique is tied to the Flying Sword’s Tier. The Moon Xuan is a Tier Four Flying Sword, equivalent to a Top-Grade Spiritual Treasure, so its illusion-breaking power can’t surpass the Nascent Soul Perfection level. My current Divine Sense is already comparable to that of a Late-Stage Nascent Soul Cultivator. It’s only slightly weaker than using the As Clear as Daylight technique to see through my sword.’

This Secret Technique had a virtually limitless potential, provided one’s Flying Sword was of a high enough Tier.

Back in his Core Formation Stage, it had been unfailingly effective.

But at his current Realm, it was gradually becoming inadequate.

’If I used the Ziwei Dazzling Thunder Sword, the effect would surely be better. Once it’s promoted back to Tier Five, I won’t have to worry about As Clear as Daylight becoming useless.’

Though he thought this, he had no intention of recalling the Ziwei Dazzling Thunder Sword.

His Lifebound Flying Sword was like an untamed stallion, joyfully slaughtering its way through the entrance to the Grand Array.

The Cultivators of the Hundred Skills Sect wanted to shut down the Grand Array, but the Ziwei Dazzling Thunder Sword was an insurmountable mountain blocking their path.

The Flying Sword had its own Artifact Spirit. Even without its master’s direct control, its Swordsmanship was executed without a hint of disarray or error.

It was no different than if it were being wielded by a battle-hardened veteran of the Sword Dao.

For that matter, when it came to actual combat experience, the Ziwei Dazzling Thunder Sword, having survived the great wars of Ancient Times, truly surpassed any living Sword Cultivator.

The notion that a few mere Core Formation Cultivators could capture it was nothing short of a fantasy.

It was precisely because the Ziwei Dazzling Thunder Sword was guarding his back that Bai Zichen could so brazenly plunder the Hundred Skills Sect’s interior.

Otherwise, if he were trapped inside the Tier Four Grand Array with no way to break out, the arrival of another Nascent Soul True Monarch would pose a real danger of being imprisoned indefinitely, unable to advance or retreat.

’If Zhou Suqing were here, she could probably break this with her mastery of the Array Dao... But with my pathetic skills in arrays, I can’t even find the core.’

Bai Zichen studied it for a moment. The core of this Illusion Array was constantly shifting. With every ripple on the water’s surface, the array’s configuration changed once more.

With his limited skills in arrays, he could spend an eternity on it and still not be able to break it.

But no one ever said there was only one way to break an array.

’If this were a Tier Four Defensive Array, I’d turn around and leave without wasting any time. But it’s just an Illusion Array. Who says you can’t break it with brute force!’

Bai Zichen was quite confident he could take on an unattended, self-operating Tier Four Illusion Array.

The dual swords, Moon Xuan and Splendid Youth, flew from the Sword Box. Nascent Soul Xiaobai spat a mouthful of Innate True Essence onto them, after which its chubby white body immediately started panting as it collapsed back into his Qi Sea.

The two Sword Lights flared to several times their original size, seeming to connect heaven and earth. His entire field of vision was filled with a single color.

The frigid Moonlight was mixed with a ghastly, pale-white chill, bleaching the world of all color. Any Cultivator who dared to enter this area would feel everything, from their blood to their very thoughts, freeze solid.

He completely ignored the array’s core and the profound mysteries of its operation, simply pushing his Flying Swords to their absolute limit.

Every strike was infused with the entirety of his comprehension of the Sword Dao, from Sword Qi Thunder Sound to Refining Sword into Silk.

He cast aside all exquisite Sword Techniques. Aided by the Sword Box, he held nothing back, unstintingly pouring his True Essence into every single strike.

It was like a grand, fast-paced symphony performed by dozens of Musicians simultaneously, the melody soaring and relentless, without a single moment of rest, keeping one’s nerves stretched taut, not daring to relax for even an instant.

The Jade Pool erupted. The flickering, mirror-like protective light shield was beaten into view. Of the dozens of Sword Lights, perhaps only a single strike would actually take effect.

The rest of the attacks were redirected by the array, blasting craters into the surrounding area.

But with every strike that landed, another clear crack appeared on the mirror’s surface.

The dense barrage of Sword Light was all-pervasive, as numerous as the grains of sand in the Ganges. Even though ninety percent of his attacks were rendered useless, he did not alter his Sword Path.

He could see clearly that while his attack efficiency was extremely low, the raw destructive power clearly exceeded the Illusion Array’s threshold for damage.

If a Tier Four Array Master were present within the Illusion Array, this wouldn’t be a major issue. They could simply shift the array’s formation to repair the damage.

They wouldn’t give him a chance to strike the same spot on the mirror twice, hiding the damaged section and drawing upon the Power of the Earth Veins to mend it.

It would have been a question of whether he could attack faster than the array could recover.

Several hours later, a crisp cracking sound echoed. A fissure shot across the mirror’s surface, and the entire defensive light shield shattered into tens of thousands of fragments.

With the mirror shattered, the treasury hidden behind the Illusion Array was finally revealed.

It was a stone hall built from stacks of dark Basalt. Two sword strikes pierced clean through the main gate, releasing a musty aura from within.

Bai Zichen strode inside and found that the interior space was different from what the exterior suggested. It descended into layers of catacombs, with over a thousand Jade Shrines carved into the walls.

’Purple Gold Primordial Copper... There are so many pieces. It must be hundreds of pounds all together...’

The Jade Shrines on the first level were filled with nothing but various Artifact Refining Materials.

Each Jade Shrine was protected by a layer of Forbidden restrictions. He simply reached out and tore them open with a forceful tug.

A good number of the Jade Shrines were empty, likely because they had lacked suitable Artifact Refining Materials worthy of being stored in the treasury.

In total, he collected over forty different kinds of Artifact Refining Materials, mostly Tier Three, with a few Tier Four Spiritual Materials among them.

It was just as one would expect from a Nascent Soul Sect with a legacy spanning thousands of years. Their accumulated resources were far beyond anything the Qingfeng Sect could hope to match.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine what the treasury of an even stronger Super Major Sect might look like.

The Artifact Refining Materials here alone were enough to refine hundreds, if not thousands, of Magical Treasures.

Crucially, many of these Spiritual Materials were incredibly rare. This ensured that if a Sect Cultivator needed to refine a special Magical Treasure, the materials could be provided instantly, without the need to purchase them from outside sources.

Bai Zichen did a quick inventory before sweeping everything into his personal Realm, where the materials quickly piled into a small mountain in an inconspicuous corner.

He only took the time to specially sort out and categorize the few Spiritual Materials that were suitable for Sword Refinement.

The next level down contained various Spirit Medicines, the youngest of which were at least a thousand years old.

However, there were far fewer items on this level. At most, only a fifth of the Jade Shrines had Forbidden restrictions; the rest were completely empty.

’It seems the Hundred Skills Sect doesn’t have its own Medicine Garden Secret Realm, so they’re stretched thin when it comes to Spirit Medicines... A Thousand-Year-Old Vermilion Fruit, a Thousand-Year-Old Yellow Spirit... Why are these all such low-value Spirit Medicines?’

Though he spoke disdainfully of these Spirit Medicines, he in fact carefully placed each Thousand-Year-Old Spirit Medicine into its own Jade Box.

Compared to the Artifact Refining Materials, which he had just tossed aside, the difference in how much he valued them was obvious.

After all, even the worst Thousand-Year-Old Spirit Medicine could be used as a supplementary ingredient for a Tier Three Elixir, significantly increasing the success rate of Alchemy.

’Thousand-Year-Old Golden Crown Lingzhi! Five of them!’

Bai Zichen delightedly stored away the five Lingzhi, each with a brilliant golden crown. One could never have too many Foundation Establishment Pills.

In fact, the stronger a Sect became, the greater its demand for Foundation Establishment Pills grew.

It was just that the space in a Medicine Garden Secret Realm was limited. It was impossible to allocate too much of it to growing Golden Crown Reishi, as that would mean neglecting a vast amount of other Spiritual Materials needed for elixirs that could advance one’s Cultivation or create Realm-Breaking Elixirs.

After all, while everyone paid lip service to the idea that the number of Foundation Establishment Cultivators was a Sect’s foundation and the key to its prosperity, those other Spiritual Materials were what Core Formation True Men and even Nascent Soul True Monarchs desperately needed.

So when it came to cultivating Spirit Medicine in a Medicine Garden Secret Realm, there was bound to be a bias.

It was said that two Super Sects in the Central Domain were already trying to crack the Pill Formula for the Foundation Establishment Pill to solve this very problem.

They were attempting to either replace the Thousand-Year-Old Golden Crown Lingzhi with other Spirit Medicines or drastically increase the pill yield per batch, hoping to solve the issue at its root.

However, the Pill Formula for the Foundation Establishment Pill was hailed as the greatest alchemical achievement in the Cultivation Realm in tens of thousands of years. It was the one Pill Formula that every single Alchemist had to master, without exception.

In terms of how frequently it was refined, it also ranked among the top three of all elixirs.

After being forged and tempered through countless attempts, and repeatedly scrutinized and improved by innumerable Alchemy Grandmasters, one could only imagine how difficult it would be to make another breakthrough.

The current news was that the various substitute Spirit Medicines had all proven ineffective, falling far short of the desired results.

They had, however, managed to increase the yield of Foundation Establishment Pills per batch by improving supplementary ingredients and refining their fire control techniques during Alchemy, so it wasn’t a total loss.