Chapter 131 – Resurgence of Wind and Clouds
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The difficulty of ‘Cold Ice Fragments’ was quite a bit higher than the ‘Icefrost Guard’ symbol. Even though the level of Lin Ming’s inscription technique had progressed by leaps and bounds, there wasn’t a guarantee that he would be able to draw it up successfully.
“Crush one crystal ice quartz, mix it thoroughly with one cup of water and filter out the residue…” Lin Ming began to tell Wang Yuhan how to process the necessary materials.
After a few days of coordinating with each other, Lin Ming and Wang Yuhan had formed a unique, tacit understand. As long Lin Ming gave the directions, Wang Yuhan was able to quickly and perfectly handle the materials.
As Wang Yuhan’s 10 slender fingers danced like spirits in the wind, each material began to be quickly processed by her one at a time. Lin Ming looked on, took a material, and revolved his ‘Overbearing Soul Tactic’ as he began his inscription drawing.
Inscription symbols began to appear in the air, one after another. Some were round and luminescent like the moon, and some were small like pearls. They shined with a fantasy light, and seemed to breathe as if they were conscious beings given life.
Lin Ming’s inscription symbol drawing success rate was very high. From the start, almost none of the runes or symbols failed. But later, as Lin Ming’s soul force and true essence began to steadily decrease, there were occasionally glistening inscription symbols that fell apart, and turned onto grains of light like twinkling stars. These failed inscription symbol shards hovered in the air like scattered fireflies dancing in the night sky.
In the light of such unreal beauty, Lin Ming’s expression was one of incomparable focus. His eyes were like black gems as they stared with dedication at the gorgeous inscription symbols in the air; there was almost a feeling of instant addiction when looking at him.
Wang Yuhan’s hesitant heart jumped. She quietly gazed at Lin Ming’s profile, staring as the rays of light shadowed the contours of his face. For a moment, both her cheeks flushed red. She always thought that Lin Ming’s most appealing and interesting time was when he was concentrating on drawing an inscription, and it was only at this time that Wang Yuhan had no fear of being discovered by Lin Ming. She would secretly watch him from her own angle.
This scene continued for a long time, and the soon the sun began to drop below the horizon of the Zhou Mountain. The light within the inscription room began to gradually dim. This only served to accentuate the inscription symbols’ light and make them appear even more enchantingly brilliant. Lin Ming’s inscription plan was quite complex; he had continuously drawn more than 150 symbols and lines. The overlapping runes were like layers of ice blue light that wove together into a blissful picture, as if the curtain of night had fallen with shimmering stars glittering within.
This was a scene that had never appeared within the Sky Fortune Kingdom’s school of inscription technique.
Even the usually heartless and mindless Murong Zi, when she saw this magnificent display of shining light, was unknowingly enchanted. This was simply too beautiful.
After a quarter hour, Lin Ming had approached his limit. He clenched his teeth, and forced himself to draw up the last inscription symbol. As both of his hands gathered together, the innumerable blue lights instantly fused into one like a woven piece of blue dream.
Lin Ming took Bai Jingyun’s Blue Water sword and directed the ice blue colored flame symbol onto it. That inscription symbol fell onto the snow white blade of the Blue Water sword.
With a chi chi sound, the blue colored symbol mark on the Blue Water sword began to emit waves of sapphire flames that spread out from the center and covered the entire sword.
Soon, there was the sound of cold air condensing, and a layer of frost settled on the Blue Water sword’s blade. This sword seemed as if it was swallowing all the heat around it, and the temperature of the inscription room plummeted by several degrees.
Murong Zi helplessly looked on as the cold frost on the sword thickened, her beautiful eyes perfectly round.
“This is…” Bai Jingyun swallowed a mouthful of saliva, her eyes shining as she looked at the Blue Water sword. She hesitated for a moment, not thinking of picking up the sword.
After Lin Ming rested for a moment, he concentrated a small amount of true essence and poured it into the inscription symbol. He casually swung the sword, and a crescent beam of blue light, visible to the naked light, was sent forth from the sword’s blade. It was like a thin piece of tissue paper as it entered into a stone platform in the inscription room and vanished from sight.
At that moment, the stone platform was cut apart by that blue light, the two halves neatly sliced apart. As the stone platform was falling, at that moment, a layer of ice suddenly froze the stone platform, and thus the stone platform maintained its original appearance.
“Skill of inscription!” Yang Yuhan cried out in alarm as she saw this blue light.
A skill of inscription was when an inscription master would use inscription symbols and place a miniature array formation that would change the treasure’s flow of true essence, finally turning that true essence into a skill. This skill was similar to a martial skill that could wound an enemy! It was the equivalent of giving a martial artist another martial skill!
In the school of Sky Fortune Kingdom’s inscription technique, the skill of inscription had basically been lost; even many nearby countries did not have any inscription masters that were capable of this technique. Only some inscription grandmasters of Huoluo Nation had even the faintest possibility of understanding this technique.
Thinking this, Wang Yuhan was short of breath. To Wang Yuhan, who was obsessed with inscription techniques, this was something that she had only ever read of in the ancient records. To be able to see this in front of her caused her to feel incomparably excited.
When Lin Ming had drawn up his first inscription symbol, the ‘Overwhelming Rune’, had also come with a skill of inscription – ‘Instant Violent Strike’. When a martial artist concentrated their true essence into the inscription symbol, the array formation within would absorb the true essence and compress it to the limit. In that instant, it would erupt, and create a extremely lethal close-range attack.
At that time, Tie Feng had relied upon this inscription at the field to defeat his opponent, Li Qi, and become the unexpected winner of the tournament. Because of this, Lin Ming’s inscription symbol was brought to Muyi’s attention and that was how Lin Ming eventually met Muyi as a result.
However, a skill of inscription like ‘Instant Violent Strike’ was quite preliminary and simple. It was only equal to an ordinary low-grade human-step martial skill; its value was not very high. When Lin Ming had drawn up the inscription symbol, the cost of the materials had only been 100 gold taels.
The reason that the effect of ‘Instant Violent Strike’ was able to help Tie Feng turn defeat to victory was because Tie Feng had been enlisted in the military since his childhood and his family circumstances were very poor. He had never had a formal education on cultivation methods or martial skills, thus a low-grade human-step martial skill was very precious to him, and allowed him to raise his battle prowess to another level.
This was the reason that Muyi had paid Lin Ming 3000 gold taels to purchase his inscription symbol; this was already a very high price. To put it plainly, the skill of inscription ‘Instant Violent Strike’, was something that someone like Tie Feng, who had never had a formal martial arts training, could ever hope to afford. However, to wealthy individuals like Bai Jingyun and Murong Zi, they had no need for such a weak martial skill.
But this current ‘Cold Ice Fragments’ supplementary skill of inscription was different. This skill of inscription was equal to a medium-grade human-step martial skill, and it was also at the very top of that grade.
“What is the name of this skill of inscription called?” Wang Yuhan asked somewhat excitedly.
“It’s called ‘Ice Cold Cut’. Apprentice Sister may feel it. As long as you pour your true essence into the inscription symbol, you can activate it.” Lin Ming handed the Blue Water sword to Bai Jingyun as he said this.
Bai Jingyun took a deep breath and carefully took the Blue Water sword into her hands. As soon as she touched the sword, Bai Jingyun immediately felt a cold chill spread up her arms, as if it were part of her flesh and blood.
She then brought forth a small amount of true essence and injected it into the Blue Water sword. The entire process was lossless, and incomparably smooth!
“The increased true essence effect is at least 40%!” Bai Jingyun was startled. To her knowledge, only Wang Xuanji was at this level. Not only that, but this sword had a skill of inscription attached.
Bai Jingyun concentrated her true essence into the inscription symbol as Lin Ming told her. She felt her true essence go through an amazing transformation as it turned into an icy air. As she continued pouring her true essence into the blade, the cold air around the Blue Water sword became increasingly terrifying. Little by little, the Blue Water sword began to excitedly ring, and the blade violently shivered!
Bai Jingyun did not doubt that as long as she slashed her sword now, she could split apart the entire inscription room!
“This ‘Ice Cold Cut’ is probably superior to the two medium-grade human-step martial skills that I chose from the Seven Profound Martial House’s depository!” Although Bai Jingyun had yet to wield her sword, she knew what the result would be.
After listening to Bai Jingyun’s appraisal, even though Wang Yuhan was mentally prepared, she was also surprised. One must know that the martial skills and cultivation methods in the Seven Profound Martial House’s depositories were already the best one could find within the Sky Fortune Kingdom.
There were many martial artists in the Sky Fortune Kingdom that were unable to enter the Seven Profound Martial House. Or, even if that had entered the Seven Profound Martial House, if they hadn’t entered the Heavenly Abode, they would not be able to choose a medium-grade human-step martial skill.
And even if they did enter the Heavenly Abode and were given an opportunity to choose a medium-grade human-step martial skill, this choice was also limited by their ranking. Most of the time, they could only choose a martial skill that received little attention.
Bai Jingyun was ranked 22, and the martial skills she could choose from were very good. Still, those choices were actually inferior to the ‘Ice Cold Cut’. How could Wang Yuhan not be startled by this?
As one could imagine, if news of this kind of inscription symbol spread throughout the circles of Sky Fortune Kingdom’s martial artists, it would inevitably cause uproar. Maybe even most Pulse Condensation Period martial artists or even Houtian experts would come and pay a visit to ask for this inscription symbol.
Wang Yuhan lightly estimated that this inscription symbol could sell for at least 20,000 gold taels. Even if it costed 30,000 gold taels there would be a high demand.
However, no matter how high, it couldn’t be much higher. After all, only a medium-grade human-step treasure would be worthy of such an inscription symbol. The treasure added together with the cost of materials would easily cost more than 50,000 gold taels. This was a price that the majority of Pulse Condensation Period martial artists could not afford.
So, after deducting costs, an inscription symbol could earn Lin Ming 20,000 gold taels. Although the consumption of true essence and soul force was very high, with Lin Ming’s frightening resilience, he could most likely draw two a day.
Two of these inscription symbols were 40,000 gold taels! As long as there were customers that could afford this, he could earn 1.2 million gold taels in a month! That was simply mass robbery!
An estimation of the number of martial artists that could afford more than 20,000 gold taels was no fewer than 100. In light of this, Lin Ming could gain more than 2 million gold taels with just this one inscription symbol!
If Wang Yuhan thought of this, then Lin Ming had too. With his practice till now, coupled with his cultivation of the peak Third Stage of Body Transformation and the crazy amount of training he had done in inscription technique these days, Lin Ming had just barely been able to draw this inscription symbol.
What Lin Ming lacked now was not gold, but materials. There were many materials that simply could not be bought with gold. Therefore, Lin Ming had planned to trade the inscription symbol for those rare and precious materials that he needed. He would ask those that wished for his services to have the materials he wanted ready. He did not believe that with the help of all of Sky Fortune Kingdom’s martial artists, he would not be able to collect all the materials he needed for the body inscription symbol in a short period of time.
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The news of Lin Ming trading top-quality inscription symbols for rare and precious materials was like a bomb; it rapidly spread throughout all of Sky Fortune City!
True essence amplification factor of 40%, coupled with a top-tier skill of inscription. In Sky Fortune City, this inscription symbol could possibly be called an incomparable treasure; even Wang Xuanji did not have the means to draw this inscription symbol, because in the Sky Fortune Kingdom’s school of inscription technique, this skill of inscription had already been lost.