Chapter 199: The Formation of the Gold Core
Translator: StackThatCoin Editor: Hitesh
After helping Long Yuan form his Gold Core smoothly and avoid the Thunder Tribulation, which meant an inevitable death to the people of Long Bo Kingdom, in the minds of these one hundred Long Bo men, Wu Qi had become not only the master who had a total control on their life and death, but also the lord to their belief, an existence identical to their Great Divine Magus.
Wu Qi simply made up some stories and dismissed the guards of Zhang Le Garden, ordering them not to come any nearer to the cave. After that, he tilted his head up bewilderedly and looked at the ceiling of the cave, which had been blown away by the Gold Core Thunder Tribulation, then he gave an emotional sigh. He was wondering, how did the ancestors of Long Bo Kingdom anger and provoke the Heaven, making It punish their descendants with such a fearsome tribulation? The rock formation of over hundred feet was forcibly blown away by the shockwave generated from the Thunder Tribulation. The power of such a tribulation was simply frightening.
As a matter of fact, when Yan Dan was having his secluded cultivation in the Garden of Zhang Le, this cave was used as the pill concocting cave by his Imperial Alchemists, and it had been deployed with many defensive formations. However, none of those formations could withstand the sudden Gold Core Tribulation. Wu Qi had finally witnessed the true power of the infamous tribulation that the people of Long Bo Kingdom had to face.
For the following seven days, Wu Qi spent a great amount of effort, using one hundred times more ingredients, and concocted a cauldron of Ancestral Awakening and Body Tempering Soup, then fed them to all the giants from the Long Bo Kingdom. He was then greeted with 99 Thunder Tribulations, which all were absorbed into his body using the Positive and Negative Thunder Stealing Art of Five Elements. They became the aid for him to temper his corporeal body and evolve his soul.
The strength of Thunder Tribulations attracted by one hundred Long Bo men was almost equal to the strength of ten thousand Gold Core Thunder Tribulations attracted by ordinary human cultivators. They had tempered Wu Qi's body and made it even stronger. After absorbing over ten thousand 'enhanced' thunderbolts, a tiny wisp of Nascent Divinity was formed in his soul.
Yes, the Nascent Divinity that could only be produced after one's soul evolved, and only given birth by a formidable Nascent Soul cultivator. Just a few months ago, when Wu Qi witnessed Princess Zhang Le facing her Gold Core Thunder Tribulation, he already had the intention of using the Positive and Negative Thunder Stealing Art of Five Elements to harvest the energy essence of Heavenly Thunder, forming his own Nascent Divinity with a mystic technique. And finally, he had succeeded today.
It was as if a pure gold ingot was produced in a vast desert. The vast accumulation of the energy essence had led to a qualitative change. Right when this tiny wisp of Nascent Divinity was born, a fundamental change immediately occurred in Wu Qi's near-corporeal divine sense. His divine sense had become compact, nimbler, transient and untraceable. It evolved very quickly, and became the divine will that only a Nascent Divinity cultivator could have. The whole process had also triggered a chain reaction in his soul.
Before this, when Wu Qi sent out his divine sense and covered an area, he could only roughly see the directions of where the energies were flowing and the movement of people. But when his Nascent Divinity was born, his divine will could immediately rush out like a fierce wave and cover the surrounding area. He could now clearly sense the transformation of even a tiny dust particle on the ground. No matter it was the clarity or the agility of it, his divine will had ameliorated by at least a thousand times.
Without going through the process of breaking his Gold Core and giving birth to his Nascent Soul, and then turning his Nascent Soul into Nascent Divinity, Wu Qi was able to form a tiny thread of Nascent Divinity with the help from the force of Heavenly Thunder. This was the credit of the Scroll of Stealing, a heaven-defying cultivation technique, as only it could create such a miracle. The respect and gratitude he had for the shadowy figure became even stronger. Wu Qi really wondered how that shadowy figure came out with all the cultivation techniques in the Scroll of Stealing? All of them had really overturned the orthodox cultivation technique in the current cultivator's realm.
Wu Qi placed the one hundred Long Bo men who had formed their Gold Cores into the Spirit Breeding Ring, and handed them the Heavenly Hundred Spirit Warring Formation so they could slowly study and practice it. Then, he tidied up the messy cave, sat quietly down in the cave and took some pills, recuperating his body and spirit, getting ready to form his Gold Core with the mystic technique.
A few days later, Princess Zhang Le, Nie Baihong, Jing Ke, and Gao Jianli had arrived at Zhang Le Garden almost at the same time.
Upon her arrival, Princess Zhang Le flung her sleeve proudly and tossed out several dozens of glittering jade bottles.
Those were all spirit pills that she brought out from Imperial Treasury, which had the effects of protecting and nourishing one's corporeal body, and calming and soothing the soul. All of them could help Wu Qi greatly improve the success rate of forcibly forming his Gold Core with external forces, reducing his pain during the process, while greatly lowering the risk of having his body shattering as the result of being unable to withstand the impact from external forces. They were extremely rare and precious, even for Great Yan Dynasty. Only goodness knew how Princess Zhang Le kept bugging Yan Dan and Yan Qijun for the past two weeks, which eventually allowed her to bring these spirit pills out from the core treasury.
She complacently tilted her little chin up, smiled and said, "You know what? Grandpa is as generous as usual, but why does my dad become stingier as he grows older? Zi Xuan only wanted some spirit pills, yet Zi Xuan had to keep bugging him for so long to get him to agree to my request! If not for my dad being the only person who holds the key to the core treasury, aye, Zi Xuan would have long brought these pills and come back!"
Jing Ke brought Wu Qi an armor of middle-grade magical treasure level, a dozen powerful weapons made by Mo Sect, thirty Gold Cores he dug out from some Human Immortals' bodies, and a huge amount of potent pills that could increase one's cultivation, shrinking and compacting one's energies.
The armor had a watery-green hue. On its chest was a huge, three-dimensional dragon head, with both eyes made from two ten-thousand years old Water Essence Pearls. The same types of pearls were also found on the armor's shoulders, dantian, back, and knees. Thick water vapor and cold air kept emanating from the entire armor. As Yue Xu was one of the rare people in Yue Clan who did not possess the Spirit Root of Gold Element, he was actually cultivating a Fire element technique - the 'Flaming-tigers Nine-Slaughtering Script'. The armor contained nearly unlimited water vapor, a perfect measure to counter the offensive strength from any Fire element technique. Thus, it could reduce the power of Yue Xu's skills to the minimum.
As for the dozens of small but powerful weapons, they were actually lethal weapons that Mo Sect produced by combining the Art of Mechanisms and Dao of Formations. Each of them possessed enough power to inflict serious injury to a Gold Core Human Immortal. If Wu Qi knew how to use them appropriately, the power they could unleash was comparable to a full force strike from a peak-stage Gold Core cultivator. Mo Di was nice enough to just let Jing Ke take away the 'Water Dragon Armor', but for these powerful weapons, it took Jing Ke a great effort to persuade and convince him, and were all personally produced by Mo Di in the last two weeks.
Nie Baihong had brought the Dustless Lamp with him. He and Nie Yaonu had to take a bath and put on clean clothes, praying to their founding patriarch in the most serious manner. Only then were they able to bring the lamp out from the cave of Sword Stems From The Mind. As Wu Qi was going to borrow the external forces to form his Gold Core, a true evil technique that defied the will of heavens and changed one's destiny, if he really formed his Gold Core, he would be attacked by countless external and internal evils. As long as he was protected by the Dustless Lamp, no external or internal evils could hurt Wu Qi.
Nevertheless, the essence of this Dustless Lamp had long been stolen by Wu Qi. Thus, although Nie Baihong had brought it over, he could only gain Wu Qi's gratitude.
As for Gao Jianli...
He was now walking about aimlessly in the cave with hands behind his back. Although he claimed that he was here to keep guard for Wu Qi, making sure Wu Qi could form his Gold Core smoothly, but judging from his expression and bearing, he was only here to be a bystander. Or perhaps, the reason he came here was just to show his attitude of standing side by side with Jing Ke. As for whether Wu Qi would eventually form his Gold Core smoothly, that was not something that really concerned him.
As a matter of fact, from some looks that occasionally flashed and flickered in the depth of Gao Jianli's eyes, Wu Qi could tell that he did not pay too much attention to the duel between Wu Qi and Yue Xu. For Gao Jianli and his comrades, whether it was Yue Xu or Wu Qi, both of them were just chess pieces that were placed on the chessboard by someone. No matter how violent and bloody their duel would be, a chess piece would always be a chess piece. Apart from letting these top men have a clear understanding of the situation on the chessboard, these chess pieces did not serve any other purpose.
The indifferent attitude of Gao Jianli made Wu Qi really uncomfortable.
And because of this uncomfortable feeling, Wu Qi did not answer their question on why the ceiling of the cave was blown away by some thunderbolts. He just sat quietly in the center of the cave and began exercising the Qi Circulating Technique of Five Elements. Everyone thought that it was because his mind was troubled by the death match with Yue Xu, and he was nervous about what was going to happen. So, nobody really felt offended by his impoliteness. Then, according to what they had discussed and planned before, everyone got into action.
Nie Baihong hung the Dustless Lamp at the highest point in the cave, making it pour down a large sheet of green light that fully enveloped Wu Qi's body. Princess Zhang Le had activated the energy gathering formation located right below the cave, which attracted a huge amount of natural energies that kept wheeling around Wu Qi, increasing the success rate of forming the Gold Core. Meanwhile, Gao Jianli placed his hands on the ancient musical instrument he always carried and kept guard near the entrance, preventing anybody from entering the cave and causing a distraction to Wu Qi.
Meanwhile, Jing Ke brought the huge amount of spirit pills and Gold Core and sat facing Wu Qi. He was the one who would help Wu Qi form the Gold Core with the mystic technique. Not only would he have to help to control the violent medicinal strength and core energies in Wu Qi's body, he would also have to help keep out Wu Qi's Gold Core Thunder Tribulation.
Actually, all sects that cultivated the Dao of Immortality had a similar mystic technique of forcibly forming Gold Core by devouring Gold Cores from other Human Immortals and all sorts of spirit pills that could increase one's cultivation. However, without taking consideration the high death rate of such a mystic technique, even if a cultivator was able to form his Gold Core through the method, once the Gold Core Heaven Tribulation descended, the cultivator would not be able to withstand it as the strength was all coming from external sources and not cultivated by himself. Even in case of ten thousand men who formed their Gold Core with this mystic technique, none of them would survive through the Thunder Tribulation. Thus, Jing Ke would need to help block off the Heaven Tribulation for Wu Qi, fighting for the slimmest chance of survival.
The fact was that Wu Qi was never bothered by what was going to happen, as it was merely a disguise he put out to confuse everyone. However, Princess Zhang Le and all the other people had treated it with utmost seriousness. It was especially true for Princess Zhang Le, as when she was controlling the functioning of the energy gathering formation, she was so nervous that she nearly fainted.
Wu Qi threw a glance over at Princess Zhang Le, who was performing incantation gestures and reciting some spells. He laughed, then without hesitation, picked up three Gold Cores emanating tremendous ripples of energy, and swallowed them in a draught. His behavior frightened Jing Ke, causing the man to have his facial muscles twitch violently, fearing that in Wu Qi would explode and be ripped into pieces in the next moment.
But, Wu Qi's performance had startled everyone. Unlike what everybody expected, he did not suffer any pain or struggle, and he did not experience any complicated transformation. After he finished eating all thirty Gold Cores and spirit pills brought by Jing Ke, he circulated his energies through his body for thirty-six rounds according to Qi Circulating Technique of Five Elements, and a Gold Core was then formed inside his dantian.
It was easier than how those people from the Long Bo Kingdom formed their Gold Core, effortless and painless, without any obstacles or bottlenecks.
When the Gold Core was formed, a sheet of pale five colored fog suddenly burst out from behind Wu Qi's back, then slowly condensed into a vague, misty and dark fog. Amidst the dark fog was a small, partly visible Sword of Greedy Wolf darting around soundlessly, without reflecting any light or generating any wind breaking noise.
This was the strange sign produced after Wu Qi formed his Gold Core using the cultivation technique from Heaven Breaking Sword Sect. Although he had already formed his own Gold Cores in the Seven Stealing Heaven Meridians, their auras were concealed by a mystic technique he learned from the Scroll of Stealing, so there wasn't any strange sign shown.
When the strange sign of Wu Qi's Gold Core appeared, Princess Zhang Le immediately cried and yelled excitedly, while Gao Jianli and Jing Ke were having a very strange expression, and Nie Baihong nearly coughed out a mouthful of blood. The sword techniques of Heaven Breaking Sword Sect were well known for their brutal and violent characteristic, and that was the reason their sect was named 'Heaven Breaking Sword Sect'. However, the strange sign of Wu Qi's Gold Core looked like a sneaky little thief holding a dagger and getting ready to cut one's throat from the back. To Nie Baihong, it was a really strange and bizarre sign.
The surrounding natural energies kept surging and rushing into Wu Qi's dantian. As he had laid a very strong and solid foundation, right when his Gold Core was formed, its quality was comparable to some ordinary middle-grade Gold Core cultivators. The huge amount of energies kept pouring into his dantian, rushing at a high-speed that even created a small storm around his body.
A thin dark cloud was seen drifting in slowly and lifelessly from a far distance. Then, like a little chick peeing, it sprinkled down three tiny lightning arcs, which looked extremely malnourished. Just like that, Wu Qi had gone through his Gold Core Thunder Tribulation. Jing Ke did not even have to do anything, as the defensive formations of the cave itself had easily blocked off the three lightning arcs.
Gao Jianli was struck dumb with amazement. "This is a method that had defied the Heaven's will and had changed one's life, a Gold Core that was formed using an evil method by forcibly devouring Gold Cores from other cultivators! This is a heaven-defying behavior that will be punished by one hundred thunderbolts! And this is Wu Qi's Thunder Tribulation? Why is he so lucky?"
Wu Qi was seen smiling shyly, nodding his head at Gao Jianli. Then, the overexcited Princess Zhang Le suddenly sprung from where she stood and leaped into Wu Qi's arms.