After more than a month, it seemed as if everything had calmed down, but Overlord Level forces were still methodically expanding their influence.
Spirit Sword Valley and Heavenly Saber City had also dispatched their armies.
They began occupying Jian State, Yangwu State, and several nearby states, intensifying the chaos of war once again.
At the same time, Wang Sheng had just stepped out of Dream Prefecture.
Dream Prefecture was suffering from drought. Wang Sheng had traveled through many places to bring rain, helping many people through a difficult time.
In fact, half a month after the Treasure Bead was taken, Dream Prefecture seemed to be relieved from suppression and had already started to experience sporadic rainfall,
with the exception of some core areas close to the Treasure Bead, which were still without rain and in the midst of drought.
Wang Sheng couldn’t bear to give up such a prime location for racking up “rainmaking” experience, so he toured various places in Dream Prefecture, leaving behind many legends.
Some said that a Heavenly God had visited, seeing the hardship of the people of Dream Prefecture and thus had bestowed rain.
But others said it was not a Heavenly God, but a powerful being using extremely potent methods to bring rain and save the people of Dream Prefecture. It would be disrespectful to credit this merit casually to a Heavenly God—it was a disservice to that person.
There were quite a few who supported the second version of the story.
The main backers were those who had been saved by Wang Sheng’s rainmaking before the Treasure Bead was taken, as well as the refugees they had met along the way.
Of course, those who supported the second version were mostly ordinary people. The stronger the Martial Artist, the more disdainful they were of this claim, because even the peak Great Grandmasters with the power to destroy heaven and earth could not make it rain.
This was the consensus of thousands of years.
Two versions of the story, neither unified nor spread beyond Dream Prefecture, circulated only within it.
And since no one could prove their own version, it eventually turned into a legend.
Leave after the deed, hide the acclaim and name!
Wang Sheng didn’t need their gratitude. The purpose of his cultivation was to do as he pleased—to save if he wished to save!
And so, he left Dream Prefecture with Liu Jian’an and others, heading towards Tai Mountain.
After Yu State, passing through another large state would take them to Ji State where Tai Mountain was located, which also fell under the influence of Lihai City.
However, although it was within the range of Lihai City’s power, the influence there was minor due to the short duration of its governance. Moreover, since it was originally the capital of Wen Palace, most of the local areas were being managed by local forces.
It had been another month since Wang Sheng and his companions arrived at Tai Mountain.
To be honest, for Wang Sheng, it was almost impossible to make any significant improvement in just two months.
However, progress in one or two skills was still possible.
The most critical of these was the cultivation of the Treasure Bead.
“Treasure Bead Cultivation: 99.95%”
The cultivation of the Treasure Bead neared completion shortly after entering Tai Mountain, with just a tiny bit of progress left.
As for the Treasure Bead, Wang Sheng still didn’t know what exactly it was used for, so he continued to call it the Treasure Bead without renaming it.
Now, it was finally about to be fully cultivated.
Aside from the Treasure Bead, Wang Sheng had also almost finished dealing with the other spoils of war.
First and foremost was the Black Wood. This piece of Black Wood was about the same length as the previous one he had obtained, so Wang Sheng still planned to cultivate it into a flying sword.
In Yu State, he found a smithy that specialized in forging weapons for Martial Artists. First, he melted the weapons of Jiang Dao and King Yong Nian to allow the Black Wood to absorb them. Many common metal ores were absorbed as well.
It had to be said that it was indeed the material used by peak Great Grandmasters in weapon forging that was extraordinary.
After absorbing the two weapons and a large amount of metal, the new flying sword, though not as good as the first one, was much closer in quality than expected.
Upon this realization, Wang Sheng greatly regretted two things.
One was that he hadn’t thought to purchase ores along the way to further enhance the flying sword. The second was that during the struggle for the Treasure Bead, he hadn’t seized all the weapons of the Grandmasters, Great Grandmasters, and peak Great Grandmasters.
He had only kept the weapons of Jiang Dao and King Yong Nian.
So, on the subsequent journey, he kept collecting metal ores, and both flying swords saw significant improvements.
It was just that the second flying sword had not yet been completed and thus couldn’t be stored within his Dantian.
After all, his main focus was on the cultivation of the Treasure Bead.
Now, with the Treasure Bead nearly cultivated, he concentrated even more of his attention.
Another day passed, and the progress bar quietly moved forward.
“Treasure Bead Cultivation: 100%”
The moment the progress reached one hundred percent, the progress bar disappeared.
This signified the completion of the Treasure Bead’s cultivation.
“Finally, the cultivation is complete. It seems there has been some change.”
Wang Sheng could clearly feel a connection between himself and the Treasure Bead.
Previously, the Treasure Bead had been unresponsive, even to him. However, right after the completion of its cultivation, he knew the Treasure Bead seemed to be utilizable.
“It seems that any kind of energy can drive the Treasure Bead.”
Wang Sheng faintly felt that although he could now use this Treasure Bead, the method of his cultivation seemingly did not align with its original method of control.
His ritual refinement was a sort of universal key, forcibly making the treasure bead his own.
The feeling he had was mainly because Wang Sheng discovered that whether he used his Qi Blood Power or Divine Thought, it seemed that he could drive the treasure bead.
In other words, once he found the right method, the treasure bead could be utilized whether it was through the Qi Blood Martial Arts or the spiritual cultivation path.
However—
“This has nothing to do with me.”
It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice, it’s a good cat.
All he needed was to be able to use the treasure bead.
Without hesitation, Wang Sheng directly used his Qi Blood Power to drive the treasure bead.
After the Qi Blood Power flowed into the treasure bead, Wang Sheng was still guessing what kind of power the bead would unleash when the Qi Blood Power returned to his body and underwent a miraculous transformation.
Wang Sheng felt something, instantly teleported into the sky, and then threw a punch.
Whoosh!
A strong gust followed the punch, the pressure heading towards the void. Wang Sheng had practiced this punch countless times before, but this time the pressure was different.
This time, instead of wind pressure, it was more like a sea of fire.
Indeed, the Qi Blood Power unleashed by Wang Sheng directly transformed into flames, scorching the void, with an extremely high temperature, even higher than the flames that protected the treasure bead before.
Wang Sheng knew that this was due to the bolstering of his Qi Blood Power, which was extremely strong and not something ordinary people could compare to.
When the flames dissipated, Wang Sheng used Divine Thought to drive the treasure bead, and a similar event occurred. After the power of Divine Thought crushed outwards, fires spontaneously ignited in the void, also with a terrifyingly high temperature, as if they were distorting space itself.
Seeing this result, Wang Sheng instantly teleported back into the carriage.
Holding the treasure bead in his hand, after a round of testing, he roughly understood the function of the treasure bead.
Transformation!
He wasn’t clear on the specifics, but at least, his energy was something the treasure bead could transform, turning all power into the power of flames, unleashing extremely terrifying flames.
“Flame power, huh?”
In reality, according to the principles of cultivating Inner Core Skill and using the Five Elements’ powers, it should’ve been a natural progression for Wang Sheng.
But as with the refinement method.
Creating something from nothing has always been the most difficult.
The practice of Inner Core Skill was a path that Wang Sheng had forced through using his own progression, and as for mastering the technique of the Five Elements, he didn’t know even one, so he had the energy but couldn’t use the power of the Five Elements.
Because he had been sufficient up to that point, he had not delved deeply into it.
The most crucial part was that the Five Internal Organs Containing God itself was about nurturing the deities of the Five Elements, and as long as the nurturing was successful, he would naturally control the power of the Five Elements, so he didn’t pursue it overly.
But now, this treasure bead seemed to allow one to directly use the energy of flames and, moreover, once one used his own energy to drive the treasure bead, the resulting flames were incredibly powerful.
If one of the Great Grandmasters had gotten it at that time, leveraging this very special ability might indeed have directly broken the balance.
“Too bad this thing has ended up in my hands!”
“From now on, it’ll be called the Fire Transformation Pearl!”
Knowing the function of the treasure bead, Wang Sheng named it directly.
The Fire Transformation Pearl, a treasure bead that could transform energy into the power of flames.
“I need to study it properly, to see exactly how the transformation occurs, and whether I can do it myself?”
Five Internal Organs Containing God would allow Wang Sheng to master the power of Five Elements, although not yet, it was only a matter of time.
Moreover, with his immense strength that could easily crush the current top Great Grandmasters, he didn’t have much desire for the Fire Transformation Pearl that could transform energy into flames.
Compared to the converted flames, he was more interested in the method of transferring his own energy into flames.
This was actually about another Divine Skill.
“Control the weather: 7 (58%)”
During his time in Yu State Dream Prefecture, Wang Sheng stayed for a month, and he also practiced occasionally afterwards, directly raising Control the weather to level seven.
Now, he found manipulating the Natural Law much simpler, calling for rain and wind with ease.
But the problem with Control the weather was also clear, which was discovered at Dream Prefecture—if the drought was really severe, he couldn’t actually defy nature and bring rain by force.
This was definitely a significant flaw for him.
At that time, Wang Sheng thought of a method, which was to use his own energy to bring rain to compensate for the defect. Only with such a method might it truly be “controlling the weather.”
Wang Sheng had also tried this approach before, but due to the lack of time, he didn’t make much progress.
In fact, in some of the secret manuals of Qi Blood Martial Arts, there was something similar to the Five Elements Energy, and Wang Sheng also had the corresponding manuals, but those were obviously not enough. No matter how similar, they weren’t complete transformations.
So that matter was temporarily put aside.
But now there was hope again.
The method of transformation with the Fire Transformation Pearl was very peculiar, but since he had refined it, figuring it out was not an impossibility.
“Perhaps this is where the greatest value lies for me.”
The ability of the Fire Transformation Pearl itself to convert energy into flame power was indeed strong, but Wang Sheng had unlocked a new application…