Chapter 639: Upgrade to the Nine Gates Incineration Formation
A rumor had begun to run rampant within the Myriad Domain as of late. Moreover, the rumor had a proverbial face to attached to it, which was why those who heard it couldn’t help but look favorably on its authenticity. The rumor went that two treasures of the Myriad Empire had mysteriously disappeared when the nation had met its demise. Not even the Great Scarlet Mid Region, the force who had crushed the Myriad Empire, had been able to discover those two treasures. It was said that the day these two national treasures appeared once more would be the day the Myriad Domain was revived.
Meanwhile, another rumor spoke of an expert, skilled in divination and calculation, who predicted that the two treasures, the Imperial Jade Seal and the Guardian Dragon Seal, would appear during this upcoming Myriad Grand Ceremony. Although this rumor wasn’t widespread, everyone amongst the six great sects of Myriad Domain had heard about it one or another. The rumor was very much like a cat’s claw, scratching against the hearts of the various sect heavyweights; an indescribable itch that simply wouldn’t go away.
The attraction that these two treasures had was undeniable. Obtaining these two treasures symbolized the ownership of the inheritance tokens of the Myriad Empire. Obtaining them meant grasping the right to unify the Myriad Domain under one rule. Nearly every top sect in the Myriad Domain shared a similar ambition in this regard.
Who didn’t wish to unify and rule the Myriad Domain as its master?
Who didn’t wish to recreate the Myriad Empire’s glory and bring about eternal supremacy?
The benefits were obvious in terms of the increase in status and the monopoly of resources. Any ambitious expert would seek to gather all these for themselves. Palace Head Dan Chi was no exception.
Although danger lay in wait on all sides for the Myriad Grand Ceremony this time, and a devastating storm seemed ripe to descend upon the region, opportunities always coexisted with risk.
Jiang Chen had kept an unusually low profile upon his return from Mt. Rippling Mirage. After sending those from Precious Tree Sect off and curing Ling Su’s Divine Befuddlement Miasma, he no longer had any concerns he needed to take care of. However, it didn’t mean that he was idle. On his way back from Ling Bi’er’s, Jiang Chen had decided to further perfect his Nine Gates Incineration Formation. It certainly had plenty of room to improve. Back then, Jiang Chen could only allow the formation to display fifty to sixty percent of its maximum strength. At best, it could defend against a sky sage realm expert.
“I don’t know what misfortune will strike the Myriad Grand Ceremony. This formation should be improved for when I am absent from the sect.” Jiang Chen didn’t lack for wealth at the moment. Previously, he’d only had several tens of thousands of upper rank origin spirit stones that he could spare. But now, he literally had tens of millions in his pocket, from the various harvests he’d had. He wasn’t short on spirit stones for formations at all. Not to mention that he also had the two sets of formation flags from the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect. These two sets were the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect’s trump cards. Since the primary and secondary flag could be used separately, Jiang Chen took out the secondary set for his use.
He was of the mind to make his designs grander. Therefore, he decided to use the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect’s formation flag to construct the Nine Gates Incineration Formation.
The base of the formation had been constructed a long time ago. Switching to a more powerful formation flag would no doubt strengthen it further. Thanks to the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect, Jiang Chen now had a decent grasp on some of the profound mysteries of formations. Using that, he managed to improve the Nine Gates Incineration Formation further. He used almost a million spirit stones to upgrade it.
Each detail and step required to upgrade the formation was done to perfection. After spending a full four days on the task, Jiang Chen was finally done upgrading the Nine Gates Incineration Formation. After the formation had been improved, it was instantly ten times more sophisticated than it was before.
“Not even the formation splitting art executed by Cao Jin’s group of three can find a gap in a formation at this level!” Since Jiang Chen knew of the formation splitting art, he had purposely designed his formation to counter it. He closed all the loopholes he could find in this formation.
Besides, the only reason the trio had managed to enter Mt. Rippling Mirage was because the outer formation of the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect had been massively weakened over the years. Many flaws had appeared on the formation itself, and the spirit veins beneath it had been blocked. In reality, their success hadn’t been due to the trio’s strength at all. If it were otherwise, not even three emperor realm experts would have been able to cut through the ancient formation with their arts.
Of course, Mt. Rippling Mirage was just one part of the outer ring of the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect. It was obvious that the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect hadn’t bothered to make its outer formation overly complicated. In addition, the sect had to leave a glimmer of hope to its inheritor. If they built the outer formation to be impervious to everything, then how would their inheritor manage to enter? In the end, Mt. Rippling Mirage was just a part of Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect’s outer formations. It wasn’t the core of the sect’s formation. The forbidden area of inheritance beyond the altar was the true core of Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect’s formation. It was those formations that were the real proof of the sect’s true strength.
If Jiang Chen hadn’t had the sect’s keepsake, he wouldn’t have even gleaned hints of how the formation operated, much less enter it. Considering the breadth of his experience Jiang Chen possessed during his previous life, the fact that even he hadn’t been able to puzzle out how the formation worked showed just how much effort Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect had put into their inner core formations. The setup of Ancestor’s Cliff and the tower of inheritance had been closely intertwined with each other. In comparison, Mt. Rippling Mirage’s formation could only be considered trivial at best. It hadn’t been built to completely seal the path from the outside at all.
Jiang Chen walked around the formation several times and felt relatively satisfied with his handiwork. “I haven’t spent three years in the Ancient Crimson Heavens Sect in vain. My ability in formations has reached a different level of proficiency, and I can use formations a lot more flexibly than I used to. An ordinary first level emperor realm expert should not be able to break through this formation.”
Satisfied, Jiang Chen created jade formation tokens. This time however, he refined only three tokens. He kept one for himself, one for Gouyu, and was planning on giving Huang’er the last.
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However, when Jiang Chen came to pass the jade token to Huang’er, she said, “Sir Jiang, I’ve heard that the Myriad Grand Ceremony is an extremely grand proceeding. Huang’er wishes to follow you and broaden her horizons. Is that acceptable?”
Jiang Chen stared blankly at Huang’er for a moment. Then he remembered that she was likely fraught with boredom after cooped up inside the residence for several years. Being cooped up all the time would not do well for her illness either. After thinking for a moment, Jiang Chen nodded, “It is good for Miss Huang’er to travel and divert your boredom if you are feeling stifled. However, the Myriad Grand Ceremony this time is particularly dangerous…”
Huang’er smiled charmingly, “No, no, I am not afraid. If anything happens to me, then only Huang’er is to blame. I guarantee that Elder Shun will not make trouble for you, hee hee.”
Jiang Chen wasn’t afraid that Elder Shun would trouble him. Rather, he was missing that old fellow a little. Many years had passed by already. He wondered if Elder Shun had found the Requiem Wood yet. Although Huang’er’s condition was very stable right now, the Generation Binding Curse would still exist as a hidden threat after a decade or two. The curse couldn’t be eradicated completely without the Requiem Wood, and thus Huang’er’s condition at present couldn’t be considered good.
Huang’er was an incredibly intelligent and understanding person. She immediately guessed that Jiang Chen was worrying about her illness when she saw the slightly odd look on his face.
“Sir Jiang, all life and death are ruled by fate. Thanks to your skillful treatment, Huang’er has never lived an easier life than these last three years. I am satisfied with this already.” Huang’er’s attitude was incredibly optimistic. She actually consoled Jiang Chen instead. Jiang Chen was seldom impressed by anyone, but he greatly admired Huang’er’s optimistic and magnanimous temperament.
Of the many women he’d come to be acquainted with, Gouyu was bold and vigorous, Dan Fei quiet and elegant, Ling Bi’er reserved as ice, and Ling Hui’er cute and innocent. Last but not least, Wen Ziqi was cultured and refined. However, no one could compare to Miss Huang’er in terms of unearthly manner and magnanimous bearing.
Miss Huan’er seemed to carry the bearing of a well-mannered noble lady since birth. Her words and actions were ever perfectly appropriate and gracious. What was even rarer was her innate kindness and lack of competitiveness. Jiang Chen wasn’t familiar with Huang’er’s true identity, but he could guess that her birth was anything but common. In fact, she might just be greater than his imagination.
Since Huang’er was now going to the Myriad Grand Ceremony, Jiang Chen had no choice but to give Xue Tong the last formation token. He instructed him carefully on how to use it. Thankfully, Xue Tong was an extremely reliable person. He would memorize anything Jiang Chen said in his heart and execute them strictly to the letter. Out of all of Jiang Chen’s personal guards, Xue Tong’s ability to execute matters was unparalleled among them all.
Looking at the time, Jiang Chen noted that there were still a few days left before the beginning of the Myriad Grand Ceremony. Therefore, he took the opportunity to enter closed door cultivation for several days and refine some pills.
He had two to three thousand blades of Sage Fledgling Grass in his possession right now. Every Sage Fledgling Grass could be used to refine a cauldron of Heroic Sage Pills. In the best case scenario, one refining would result in seven to eight Heroic Sage Pills; in the worst case, perhaps five to six pills. The overall production value was quite high.
Jiang Chen took the opportunity to refine over one hundred Heroic Sage Pills. Ever since he’d ascended to the sage realm, his demand for pills had grown with each passing day.
No matter how superior Jiang Chen’s memories from his previous life, cultivation was still ultimately attained through the accumulation of countless resources. No theoretical knowledge could replace this truth.
Apart from the Heroic Sage Pills, Jiang Chen also refined a cauldron of Longevity Pills. This time however, he successfully refined a total of five Longevity Pills. Four of the five pills were middle rank products, but the last one was actually of upper rank quality. Adding these to the three Longevity Pills he had left, Jiang Chen had a total of eight Longevity Pills.
“The empyrean expert level pill masters of ancient times were all wealthy beyond imagination. Pill refining is truly a skill that creates wealth.” Jiang Chen couldn’t help but sigh ruefully. The Longevity Pill he’d sold – a lower rank pill no less – at the auction last time had netted him over tens of millions of spirit stones. If he were to auction these middle and upper rank pills again, the prices would only be far greater than before.
The last time Jiang Chen had refined the Longevity Pill, he’d taken a total of seven days to succeed. However, he was only at earth origin realm at the time, and the strength of his consciousness at the time was far inferior to his present level. This time, the amount of time Jiang Chen spent to refine the Longevity Pill didn’t even reach half the amount of time he spent last time. The amount of consciousness he exhausted was also far less than last time. Almost every aspect of Jiang Chen had greatly benefited as his cultivation and level of consciousness increased.
Jiang Chen had heard of Elder Yun Nie’s multiple attempts to refine the Longevity Pill. He hadn’t succeeded even a single time. Jiang Chen could understand why. After all, a pill wasn’t something that could be refined just because one had a recipe. This was particularly true for an extremely complicated pill like the Longevity Pill. There were a lot of things that needed to be taken into consideration. It was unlikely that Elder Yun Nie would discover a path to success without ten to twenty years of research.
Naturally, Jiang Chen remembered that the Regal Pill Palace had promised the Dark North Sect’s Honored Master Tian Ming a Longevity Pill. Therefore, Jiang Chen took three Longevity Pills – one lower rank pill and two middle rank pills – and delivered them to Palace Head Dan Chi.