Chapter 98: The Altar Is Not Built in One Day
Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
Intelligence Revenue Service Director Wang Lu took a deep breath.
The next moment, the weather began to change, and the wave violently surged up.
The dirty old man and Wu Feihua’s complexions drastically changed. Although their cultivations were not high—with low-grade spirit root and sensitivity to detect the surrounding spiritual energy no better than the Spirit Sword Sect newcomers… however, how could they not feel this like-a-stormy-sea change in the surrounding spiritual energy?
With a single breath, Wang Lu had sucked the surround spiritual energy within three hundred meters away from him! This happened partly because of the nature of his spirit root and partly relied on the array power. However… it encompassed the surrounding three hundred meters radius! Even a common Jindan Stage cultivator could not have such a wide spiritual energy field!
For the dirty old man, even if he tried his best to absorb the surrounding spiritual energy, he could only affect the surrounding spiritual energy a few meters away from him!
Meanwhile, Wang Lu, who was in the middle of that stormy sea of spiritual energy, also felt the great pressure from this kind of frantic absorption; even his Qi Cultivation Stage breathing exercise was of little use. At this time, inside his Inner Mansion, a spiraling spiritual energy cycle had already formed. Based on his Void Spirit Root strong permeability, it was sufficient to handle the normal spiritual energy absorption speed rate. Although this kind of rampaging absorption has an astonishing efficiency, it also injured his body. The like-gigantic-waves spiritual energy crashed into the external barrier of the Void Spirit Root and appeared inside the Inner Mansion in the form of platinum colored rain. However, the two hundred and six Sword Bones that supported it was under a huge pressure—these Non-Phase Sword Bones were the sole links between inside and outside, but they have limited capacity. When Wang Lu absorbed the spiritual energy with all his strength, the two hundred and six Sword Bones would be running at full capacity. However, at present, under the assistant of the array, it became overloaded. The low end of the Sword Bones continued to stream out golden liquids, however, the Jade Pillars themselves endlessly shook as if they were bracing for an explosion.
After an indeterminate amount of time, this round of spiritual energy gathering finally came to an end. When the platinum colored rain had volatilized and the surrounding spiritual energy scattered away, Wang Lu suddenly felt relaxed.
Of course, looking from the outside, after the waves of surrounding spiritual energy had gathered quite enough, it suddenly rushed back with even more violent momentum! This change was very dramatic that the dirty old man and Wu Feihua subconsciously retreated two steps. Simultaneously, they felt that the magical power circulation within their body was vaguely affected. Their countenance went pale: what an overbearing spiritual energy tide!
Breathe in, breathe out; gather, disperse; like the rising and falling of sea level which worked in a cycle and named as tide. Since it worked in a cycle, it naturally meant that there were more than one.
A moment later, Wang Lu once again stirred the Sword Bones, taking a deep breath.
This time, even more spiritual energy was sucked in. Under the influence of pulling-in and pulling-out effect, the distance where the surrounding spiritual energy was affected by this second breathing expanded by fifty meters! This was the core of the spiritual energy tide.
Each gathering and dispersing could bring even more spiritual energy to enter this tide cycle which, over time, would snowball.
This, of course, gave Wang Lu even greater pressure. If the Sword Bones just trembled in the first breath, when the second round came, he could even hear the Sword Bones issuing a painful cry… and the previously platinum colored rain within the Inner Mansion has now poured like waterfalls.
However, this wasn’t enough.
On the third round of absorption, the spiritual energy within four hundred meters crazily surged in. The total amount of spiritual energy was almost doubled from the first round! The intensity of the impact was also increased three to four times than the first. Wang Lu clearly felt the unbearable pain from the pressure on his bones, knowing that he had been indeed injured.
Merely by this spiritual energy absorption, his indestructible Non-Phase Sword Bone was injured, so it could be imagined how powerful this spiritual energy tide was! However, according to Wang Lu’s expectation, this was still not enough!
He needed to absorb at least three more times, so that the energy was sufficiently accumulated to build a self-gathering-and-dispersing spiritual energy tide. However, after three more rounds, he was afraid that he would end up torn into pieces!
However, who told him to cultivate Non-Phase Sword Bone? Non-Phase Sword Bones’ practitioner was never afraid to get injured. As long as it wasn’t a difficult-to-recover devastating blow, each wound would only make the Sword Bone tougher. Although the process was undoubtedly painful, when did Wang Lu ever cared about it?
Therefore, the fourth round, the fifth round, the sixth round… When the spiritual energy within the five hundred meters radius was crazily surging in like a tidal wave, Wang Lu knew that the condition was almost ripe.
Then, it was time for the core part. At the boundary between the rising tide and the falling tide, he needed to add in his own influence so that it would artificially form a spontaneous tide in order to form the real tide… To accomplish this, it wasn’t necessary for him to have powerful strength, but extremely precise calculation and assurance. And these were exactly the strong points of a top student!
Previously at the Dog Ear Mountain, Wang Lu had simulated on how to do this several times to make sure his calculation would not go wrong. When the sixth round of dispersing came to an end, the area where the spiritual energy tide influenced at had expanded to over five hundred meters. As long as he added the spiraling force at the perfect moment, it could form a permanent spiritual energy tide, and this spiraling force had been prepared by him previously in his Inner Mansion.
When the sixth round of dispersing came to an end, there was a fleeting moment of tranquility. At this moment, Wang Lu, holding back the pain within his Inner Mansion, prepared to extract that spiraling force, which would then, at the seventh round, trigger an effect that was nothing sort of miracle. However, just at this time....
Buzz!
In Wang Lu’s field of vision, when the sixth round of tide already stopped, and when the surrounding spiritual energy was about to begin another regular movement cycle, all of a sudden, there was an abnormal tremble.
What the! Suddenly, Wang Lu became uneasy!
To construct an altar using his Qi Cultivating Stage cultivation was in no way relying on just his Void Spirit Root. Each step was the result of Wang Lu’s repeated calculation and deduction. Even if the difference was only a hair’s breadth, the end result could be thousands of miles off the intended target. And this abnormal tremble was precisely that hair’s breadth difference!
Not having the time to ponder the reason for that error, Wang Lu put that spiraling force back into his Inner Mansion and quickly sent his command to his Non-Phase Sword Bone.
Suck it!
The best way to wipe away the error was to submerge it within the surging wave of the spiritual energy tide! Wang Lu had a great expectation on the construction of this altar, so how could he possibly not consider the occurrence of an accident? Therefore, when an accident really happened, though he was surprised, he wasn’t rattled.
The seventh round of the spiritual energy tide successfully wiped out the trace of that tremble. When the tide receded and before the time for the next round of rising tide came, Wang Lu once again was about to take out the spiraling force from his Inner Mansion, but at this time...
Buzz!
There was that inexplicable tremble, which completely disrupted Wang Lu’s rhythm! This time, Wang Lu wasn’t just uneasy.
The first time the accident happened, it could be said to be accidental. However, for two successive accidents to happen… then there must be a reason!
However, whatever the reason was, to Wang Lu, could still not stop him from building the altar! He exerted his Sword Bones to suck in once more, pulling in the eighth round of spiritual energy ride to smooth out the error!
To this time, each round of surging tide put enormous pressure on Wang Lu’s body. However, even though the Non-Phase Sword Bone was extremely tough, under the scour of the crazy spiritual energy, there was a sign of full collapse.
However, at this time, Wang Lu was like riding a tiger. From the sixth round, the spiritual energy tide entered a gradually powerful channel. Without external aid, the spiritual energy tide would voluntarily rise and fall, and the strength would, of course, be more and more powerful! Of course, the distance to the perfect spiritual energy tide had still fallen short. If ignored, the spiritual energy tide would become more intense, and when it reached the extreme point, it would blow away… However, before that could happen, Wang Lu’s body would’ve already been shattered by that frantic spiritual energy tide.
By his estimation, the Non-Phase Sword Bone could only last until the tenth round. After the tenth round, his tendons would break off, his bones would be fractured, and his Inner Mansion would collapse...
However, right now, the spiritual energy tide had already reached the ninth round.
Wang Lu only hoped that in the following two rounds, he could find the origin of the error and fix it. However, this was not going to be easy.
This spiritual energy abnormal tremble wasn’t artificial, because every tremble happened exactly when the spiritual energy tide declined to a certain extent. According to what Wang Lu learned from his study, it was very much like touching a Feng Shui line [1] node inadvertently.
This was somewhat strange because, for several days at the Dog Ear Mountain, Wang Lu had inspected most of the Feng Shui lines. He had even tried to find out the surrounding spiritual energy movement pattern, otherwise, he wouldn’t dare to casually construct this altar. If there was any hidden Feng Shui line node at the Dog Ear Mountain, he should’ve seen it in those few days.
Unfortunately, that was the case. Hence, he could only blame his poor eyesight… While Wang Lu was desperately thinking the source of this error, the ninth round of impact finally arrived.
He nearly blacked out because of the enormous pain, however, this intense stimulation also gave him a flash of insight—if he couldn’t eliminate this error, couldn’t he just incorporate this error into the entire system of spiritual energy? If he could alter his original calculation to include the error, he could smooth out the outcome differences and still be able to establish the tide. Right now, the only problem was, could he have enough time to adjust the calculation?
Because, the tenth round of the tide had finally arrived.
In theory, Wang Lu’s limit was this tenth round of tide. However, just now, the ninth round of tide had almost made him unconscious, and the tenth round would definitely be stronger than the ninth. Thus, quite possibly, he would be unconscious when the eleventh round of tide crush in.
However, at this time, panicking was of no use. In this current crisis, Wang Lu willed his spirit up. His Emperor Bone frantically rotated, incessantly transmitting instructions to the other Sword Bones to act; each of them adjusted their angle and released their piled up spiritual energy to cope with the future shock.
Theoretically, the eleventh round could severely shock a Jindan Stage cultivator, and Wang Lu’s own chance of survival was only one percent. However, his professional adventurer spirit quality was reflected here. Even if it was just one percent, it was worth to give his one hundred percent of effort.
And just when Wang Lu was ready to face this test of time, yet another unexpected occurrence happened.
The Sword Bone came out of the scabbard.
Wang Lu’s Non-Phase Sword Bone was now in the ninth layer realm. Most of his body’s two hundred and six bones were, in fact, just sword sheath bones. He only had a handful of real Sword Bones, which distributed along his two hands, effectively increasing his Non-Phase Sword Art’s flexibility. However, their real function was far from being played out. The next step should be “sword coming out of the sheath”, “turning passive into active”, to further enhance the defense—which was the tenth layer realm.
Initially, Wang Lu thought that only after all of the two hundred and six bones were fully converted to the real Sword Bones that they could be unsheathed; this was also confirmed by his Master. However, in this crisis, the Sword Bones were spontaneously induced, even without the direction from Emperor Bone, to voluntarily came out of their sheaths, much to Wang Lu’s surprise.
However, this was a good thing. Sword Bones unsheathed and sheathed were two completely different things! When the Sword Bones were unsheathed, they dissipated a very large amount of spiritual energy, which greatly reduced the pressure!
The sword divided the gigantic wave. This was the might of the unsheathed Sword Bones… Despite the incomplete realm and the lack of cultivation of the two hundred and six Sword Bones, in front of the huge wave of spiritual energy that came from all directions, although they couldn’t completely offset its power, but overall, the pressure on Wang Lu was still offset by thirty to forty percent! This meant that he could, at least, still resist two rounds of spiritual energy tides. Moreover, the during the instance of the Sword Bones breakthrough, the scabbards were induced to combine more closely with the spiritual energy; most of the cracks that originally appeared were immediately eliminated...
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Wang Lu quickly adjusted his calculation and then changed the structure of the spiraling force within his Inner Mansion. Before long, a brand new perfect spiraling force was produced. The next thing he needed to do was to extract this spiraling force out, and a perfect spiritual energy tide would emerge.
And then… the ideal altar would be formed.
As the sect’s altar, Wang Lu, with utmost care, has chosen the sixth rank altar, the Jade Condensation Altar. This altar’s spiritual energy refining degree was extremely high; even in a place like Wang Family Village, where the spiritual energy concentration could not be called as a real paradise land, it could still produce top rank spirit stones and other precious materials.
Of course, spirit stones rank and other precious materials didn’t really matter to Wang Lu. What made him chose this Jade Condensation Altar was that: it was the sole altar type that could be built using his low-level Qi Cultivating Stage cultivation, where the crucial point in establishing the tide was that there was an extremely high level of spiritual energy pressure, which was the specialty of Wang Lu. Therefore, this altar type was simply a perfect fit for Wang Lu.
Facing the last round of this raging spiritual energy tide, Wang Lu extracted the spiraling force from within his Inner Mansion. In a split second, it collided with the surrounding spiritual energy, which triggered a mysterious reaction. The materials for the altar that were distributed around him slowly floated in mid-air. These materials were moved by the combination of the spiritual energy and that spiraling force. They then broke down and assembled again to form the foundation of the altar, and within moments, the initial form of the altar finally appeared!
However, just at this time, within Wang Lu’s field of vision, an astonishing fluctuation soared up!
F*ck! Again!? Wang Lu didn’t have the time to feel surprised, because he had already found the source of that fluctuation.
At the final round of the spiritual energy tide, the range had extended to a radius of seven hundred meters, which allowed him to finally lock the source of this fluctuation.
The source of this fluctuation was actually from his house! Of course, it was not the house in the eastern part of the village. Under the old house where he was born, a piece of strange stone, which was different than the common stone, was shallowly buried in the soil. However, in the last round of spiritual energy’s ultra intense impact, it actually stormed up, which soared the spiritual energy fluctuation; its body also broke, leaving behind a sword-like shape!
Wang Lu inwardly laughed self-deprecatingly at himself. That stone was the one that he personally buried more than a dozen years ago. At that time, he felt a burst of sadness, as if he was burying all of his life… Unfortunately, his body was still young at that time so, his mind has yet to fully grow, and his memory was fuzzy. Later on, unknowingly, he actually forgot it.
That stone was a debris of an incomparably valuable comet! It carried an inconceivable energy; as a professional adventurer, when he calculated the spiritual energy tide, he actually neglected such an important factor! It was simply a miscalculation!
Unfortunately, this time, it was already too late. That piece of debris had been swept by the howling spiritual energy, darting towards him in an incredible speed. Even little Ling’Er didn’t have the time to react.
However, in a twinkling of an eye, that piece of debris was swallowed up by the spiritual energy and pulled into the center of the spiritual energy tide.
Initially, the initial form of the Jade Condensation Altar was already constructed, however, being invaded by a foreign object, it suddenly twisted!
Wang Lu tightly pursed his lips; after persisting for a moment, his heart suddenly made a decision; he inwardly shouted fiercely, “F*ck it! I, your father, don’t care anymore!”
[1] geographical position according to the principles of feng shui