I am grinding experience in another world - Chapter 758 - 746: Chains
Seven days later, in the morning, Golden Pool Pavilion, second floor.
All the doors around were wide open, and a gentle breeze slowly blew in. The room was empty, with only a meditation cushion placed at the center of the polished wooden floor.
At this moment, Chen Mu was seated cross-legged on it with his eyes closed.
A round black log, as tall as a person, floated horizontally in mid-air in front of him.
Wisps of cold aura slowly gathered in the palm of Chen Mu’s right hand.
After a while, Chen Mu opened his eyes and pressed that cold aura into the wooden stake in front of him.
Chichichichi…
The sound of corrosion, like acid, resounded, and delicate silver patterns roamed across the black wooden stake.
Before Chen Mu could carefully examine the Soul-Calming Stake before him, countless insights suddenly surged into his mind.
Chen Mu’s heart stirred, and he immediately summoned a gray stone gate.
Ghost Channeling (Strong Wall Ghost Pattern): 3139/10000;
Ghost Channeling (Yama True Acupoint): Limit;
“Reached the top?”
“It should be perfect now.” Chen Mu nodded in satisfaction.
In order to escape Golden River City as soon as possible, he had been tirelessly refining thirty-nine sets of Soul-Calming Stakes over the past few days. The experience of the Yama True Ghost Pattern soared along with it, and reaching perfection today was expected.
“Let me see what’s different.” Chen Mu skimmed through the insights fed back from the stone gate and then closed his eyes to cast the Ghost Channeling Technique again.
A familiar falling sensation engulfed him, and his consciousness appeared in a pitch-black environment.
Chen Mu was long accustomed to this, releasing a bit of Yama True Ghost Pattern aura to maintain the stability of his Ghost Channeling Divine Power, waiting leisurely for the ghost pattern to appear.
But after only a dozen breaths, twelve nets, the size of basketballs, glowing with a faint white light, slowly emerged around him.
They floated leisurely around Chen Mu like luminous jellyfish.
“So fast?”
“It used to take at least a minute or two to show up.”
“Wow! This perfected secret technique is really handy.”
Chen Mu was about to grab one of the ghost patterns and leave when the twelve nets suddenly began to whirl rapidly in the air, colliding and fusing together in no time.
In just a breath, they merged into a bright pearl the size of a fist.
Chen Mu was left dumbfounded.
As he carefully observed the glowing pearl, an insight from the stone gate feedback floated into his mind.
“This is the complete Yama True Ghost Pattern? The previous twelve ghost patterns were merely the split components of the Yama True Ghost Pattern?”
“No wonder, there were clearly twelve Yama Ghost Patterns before, yet they only occupied one category on the stone gate.” Chen Mu suddenly understood.
He opened his eyes and waved to pull out a wooden stake from Thousand Lanterns City.
Pressing his right hand onto the stake, familiar silver patterns began to wander inside it.
The next moment.
Buzz!
A hint of a cool aura appeared around the stake, as the Heavenly Star Essence was transformed into Netherworld Jade Dew.
“It worked!” Chen Mu couldn’t help but smile.
In the past, crafting a Soul-Calming Stake required twelve stakes in a set. He had to refine twelve times and inject a different Yama True Ghost Pattern into each stake.
Now, a single wooden stake and one refining process could achieve the full function of a Soul-Calming Stake.
This greatly shortened the process of crafting the Soul-Calming Stakes.
Chen Mu laughed as he piled up the newly crafted Soul-Calming Stakes on one side of the grand hall and turned back to continue crafting more.
Golden River City is abundant in water systems, with not only a moat on the outskirts but also four inner rivers within the city. Tang Sect had remodeled nearly a hundred spots for breeding Silver-scaled Fish.
This perfection of the Yama True Ghost Pattern conveniently accelerated his crafting of Soul-Calming Stakes.
…
The next day.
Golden Pool Pavilion, first floor.
A pile of black wooden stakes was stacked on one side of the grand hall.
With the Yama True Ghost Pattern perfected, he spent just a day crafting another 23 sets.
Adding the 37 sets crafted before, it was enough to cover all the Silver-scaled Fish breeding waters.
“Rest assured, the earth spirit vitality in the Golden River City’s waters is rich,”
“With your Secret Technique and the assistance of these Soul-Calming Stakes, the maturity time of Silver-scaled Fish will be significantly shortened.”
“In no more than three months, the first batch of over eight thousand Silver-scaled Fish can be harvested,” Tang Sect confidently declared.
Where it once took six months to grow a batch, now it only needed three months?
A decent progress!
Chen Mu nodded in satisfaction.
Just a patient wait of three months, and the power of the Ghost Gate could increase by thirty percent. Perhaps by then, he could forcefully employ Ground Shrinking to escape the Golden River City.
“Of course, if I could remove the restraining force completely or even slightly weaken it, it would make it even easier,” he thought, casting a glance at Tang Sect’s retreating figure before turning his gaze to the well at the center of the grand hall.
A well placed at the center of the room was quite strange.
During breaks in crafting the Soul-Calming Stakes, he’d already used the Giant Spirit Divine to explore and had found some anomalies. Now with the Netherworld Worm cultivation on track, it was a good time to thoroughly investigate this well.
In a flash, Chen Mu dove into the well.
…
The well as a whole resembled a bottle with a long neck and a large belly, with a cylindrical well wall above and a huge cavity at the bottom.
Not long after submerging, Chen Mu reached the bottom of the well.
Inside the enormous underground cave, there was only a ground covered with stones of varying sizes, and the curved stone walls were lined with a thin layer of water.
And the water snug against the stone wall was, at that moment, defying gravity, flowing slowly upward along the wall toward the well above.
“Interesting.”
Chen Mu clicked his tongue in wonder and turned his gaze toward the center of the cave.
There lay a large, dark gray dragon’s head sculpture, as tall as a person.
In front of the dragon head, a human-sized water ball floated. The inside was hollow, yet it seemed as if an invisible spring constantly gushed forth with water replete with earth spirit vitality.
The droplets dripped pit-pat onto the ground and finally flowed in reverse up into the well. Clearly, this water ball was the source of the well water.
Chen Mu, intrigued, took only a glance at the water ball and then focused on the dragon head sculpture itself.
The stone dragon’s head was entirely exposed above ground, but most of its body was buried, with only a small part visible.
But around this small visible part, several black chains were wrapped tightly.
An indistinct cold aura swirled around the chains.
Chen Mu carefully discerned and soon detected a trace of Netherworld attributes within the cold aura.
“Currently, it seems highly likely that this Golden River City is the handiwork of the Yin Ghost Sect members from Kangzhou.” Chen Mu shook his head helplessly.
“The Lock Dragon Courtyard of Yunzhou once coveted the Yunzhou Heavenly River Realm, after all.”
“I should have realized this earlier!” he mused, feeling a bit regretful.
“Even though I’ve already searched the path using the Giant Spirit Divine before, how did I not notice?”
After composing himself, he turned his attention to those black chains.
“The restraining force that was wrestling with the Ghost Gate before is probably connected to these chains.”
“If I can unravel this Forbidden Law, and then convert the Netherworld Worms cultivated by Tang Sect into Ghosts to enhance the Ghost Gate, it’s bound to boost my escape plans significantly.”
“Even if I can only weaken it slightly, it would help me leave this place sooner.”
With that in mind, he immediately began to employ the Spirit Treasure Core Mechanism Technique to probe the chains.
But the Exotic Force of the Spirit Treasure Mechanism only just slightly penetrated, as if it hit a stone wall.
After several attempts, Chen Mu had to cease and looked back at a specific section of the stone gate.
Spiritual Treasure Pivot Scripture: 8699/10000/Eighth Rank;
“I have to get to the Ninth Rank first.”
“Once I push the Spirit Treasure Core Mechanism Technique to the Ninth Rank, I should be able to explore this Forbidden Law in depth.”
Previously, to speed up the Yellow Springs Gourd, I needed to cultivate the Netherworld Worm raised by Tang Sect to enhance the Ghosts.”
“If I can understand the Forbidden Law and then convert the Netherworld Worms cultivated by Tang Sect and the others into Ghosts, it will strengthen the Ghost Gate. It might help me escape sooner from this place.”
With hope of escape in view, he finally could relax a little.
Having been trapped in Golden River City for nearly ten days, he had been restless and anxious.
Now that he saw a ray of hope for escape, he could finally loosen up.
Scanning the surroundings once more with Ghost Channeling Divine Power, nothing suspicious appeared.
After a quick look around, he flapped his sleeves and poured out two Soul-Calming Stakes.
A moment later, sensing nothing unusual, he exhaled deeply and returned along the same path. Once back above the well, Chen Mu looked deeply at that stone dragon, muttering under his breath as he landed on the ground.
“There must be other secrets waiting to be uncovered here.”
“””
