Heaven's Devourer

"Apparently, refining immortal medicines can help in improving one's control of their Jindan and immortal fire. During this process, one can feel the heavens and earth more. One can also better experience the heavens, the earth, and the dao through this rigorous process. It will greatly promote a fifth tier Jindan Dao cultivator's progress in becoming one with his or her Jindan. So much so that many people have found their own way of becoming one with their Jindan through refining immortal medicines.

"Familiarity with oneself is an important step to refine your Jindan. Although I have the best Jindan Condensation Wondrous Art, and an abundance of Golden Essence Pills, I still need to become more familiar with myself and realize the existence of dao in order to reach the fifth tier of the Jindan Dao Realm. Otherwise, I will be stuck in this bottleneck forever.

"There are hundreds of thousands of fourth tier Jindan Dao cultivators in the Common Sword Domain, and most remain at this tier for many decades. With such a long time, no matter how slow they are in refining their Jindan, they can also reach the breakthrough point of the fifth tier. The reason why they cannot reach the fifth tier is because they lack the understanding of dao. They are unable to be familiar with themselves to become one with their Jindan, to understand the heavens and earth."

Wu Yu’s path to martial cultivation was basically smooth-sailing because of his extraordinary Jindan Condensation Wondrous Art. It was now that he realized that in the path of martial cultivation, he would ultimately have to rely on himself. The fifth tier of the Jindan Dao Realm  was the first test he had met. Perhaps he could only truly receive the qualifications to step onto the road of dao after passing this test.

And this was one test no one could help him with.

"Other than refining immortal medicines, creating spirit designs is another relatively important portion. Spirit designs are the crystals of wisdom born from the understanding of the heavens and earth by countless martial cultivators. The ones who created spirit designs were ancient powers, the true existences of immortals-to-be. They travelled far in the path of dao and left behind extraordinary treasures. The most serious and most detail-oriented mindset is required for creating spirit designs. It needs high levels of focus at every second and every moment. The spirit design will fail if there is even the most minor of errors somewhere. It is this type of high level focus that allows one to devote oneself to the process. Through following the strokes and thought processes of predecessors, through understanding what they have understood, one can raise one’s level.”

Refining immortal medicines and creating spirit designs seemed to contribute little to battle power, but in reality, history has proven that martial cultivators who do not know how to refine immortal medicines and create spirit designs could never achieve the true dao.

Of course, demons were the exception. Demons relied on their bloodlines, and their ancestors would pass down the methods of cultivation, except it was different from refining immortal medicines and creating spirit designs.

However, after countless years of mixing between humans and demons, there were also demons who were highly adept at refining immortal medicines and creating spirit designs. For instance, this Supreme Hunting Ground was surrounded by layers and layers of arrays.

He opened a glossary called the Glossary of Spirit Design. Within this glossary, there was no method for creating spirit designs. However, it had a comprehensive introduction of spirit designs.

Strong and powerful words were on the first page of the Glossary of Spirit Design. These words were similar to the Na Word Array. While these were words, they also had the meaning of the array. Wu Yu seemed to see an image upon taking one look at the words. Within the image, an elder with a long beard stood with his arms folded at his back. His voice was deafening. He said loudly, “All beginners have to be very careful. The methods used for the Jindan Dao Realm and the Violet Kingdom of the Inner Sea Realm are not the true methods! In ancient times, you had to form your primordial spirit first. The true spirit design must be created by using the primordial spirit. Only this type of spirit design can possess the ability to destroy the heavens and earth! The strong possessed unparalleled primordial spirits and they ruled the world through their spirit designs!

“But after the work of some cultivators, Jindan Dao and Violet Kingdom of the Inner Sea marital cultivators could create pseudo spirit designs by emulating ancient spirit designs and adding supplementary methods. The power of pseudo spirit designs cannot compare at all to the power of true spirit designs. One belongs to the heavens and one is as common as the mud on the ground. The spirit designs being used now in the world are mostly pseudo spirit designs that have been simplified from true spirit designs. The true spirit designs are controlled by the strongest cultivators in the world. Hence, pseudo spirit designs are more commonplace than true spirit designs.

“Even though it is just an emulation, they continue to have great effect. It is the hard work and simplification done by predecessors that formed an era where most cultivators could use spirit designs! Hence, these predecessors who did the simplifications and created methods of emulating have made great, honorable accomplishments!”

It was because of the spread of pseudo spirit designs that those above the Jindan Dao Realm could use the method of emulating spirit designs to improve their understanding. From understanding the crystals of knowledge of their predecessors, martial cultivators of these two realms could improve faster.

Of course, in the world outside today, no one used the term “pseudo spirit design” at all. In today’s world, pseudo spirit designs had long been taken to be part of spirit designs.

Next, Wu Yu started reading through the glossary. It was divided based into spirit design categories.

Of which, there was offensive spirit designs to be placed between the heaven and earth, such as 10,000 Swords Formation and Shushan's 99 Rank Immortal Swords Formation.

There were also purely defensive spirit designs which restricted movement, just like the outer limits here in the Supreme Hunting Ground.

There were also those like the Ghost Isolation Array, built between the heavens and earth via cruel methods. These spirit designs collected energies and spiritual qi to power themselves. There were many types from this category of spirit design, especially for ghostly cultivators.

These three types were all called Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs. The most important characteristic was that these spirit designs were all built between the heavens and earth.

The second category was the Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs. Wu Yu had seen many of these Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs. They existed basically in all immortal treasures and spiritual immortal treasures. While the scale was not as big as the Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs, the effects were exquisite. They were the cores of immortal treasures, and their effects were long-lasting.

The third category was the Talisman Spirit Designs. Talisman Spirit Designs were the easiest to create. When created on a talisman paper, it could be a one-type attack, releasing destructive energy. With different Talisman Spirit Designs, the talismans formed were different too. For instance, Message Talismans and core-tail talismans had no offensive abilities. For instance, the Homing Soul-Shocker Talisman and the Soul Devourer Talisman were terrifying, but they could only be used once.

The fourth category of spirit design was built on mechanisms and puppets. Such arrays were less common but very valuable. In history, there were people who used such arrays to build machines and puppet armies to rule the world. It was said that there was an era during the ancient times where Mechanism Spirit Designs and Puppets Spirit Designs were very popular.

There were countless spirit designs outside of these four big categories, and they belonged to the category of “other” spirit designs.

Because the category was different, the ways they were created and emulated were different too.

In reality, the methods for the creation of spirit designs were similar. Except, for them to succeed, the methods of presentation were different.

For example, the Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs. This type of spirit design was powerful. To make one, they basically needed many years of preparation and used huge amounts of materials, including precious treasures and immortal essences. They could also include evil things. It was also highly affected by the geographical position. For instance, the Ghost Isolation Array. The set up of these powerful Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs required large amounts of energy. It could not be set up by the average Joe. For smaller Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs, like the Gates of Hell, Ghostly Wings of the Black Mountain could do it in half a day. Of course, he would need enough materials too.

As for the emulation of Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs, it was in itself much more complicated than other arrays and could fail easily.

Next was the creation of Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs. Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs and Talisman Spirit Designs were not that different, but for Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs, the creation of the spirit design would have to be done while smelting the immortal treasure. This required the use of an Immortal Treasure Furnace and other immortal treasures that could be used for forging. First, one had to forge a sword from precious materials, or even forged from other things. There were some mysterious items in heaven and earth, and the Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs could be directly created on them. For instance, gourds. However, most items still required the use of an Immortal Treasure Furnace to be burned and forged. They also needed the use of immortal fire. For instance, in the forging of swords, only after forming the sword's initial shape can one create an Immortal Treasure Spirit Design. After it is successful, an immortal treasure is created.

Talisman Spirit Designs needed talisman paper. Talisman paper was simpler, but the materials needed to be handmade. The stronger the Talisman Spirit Design, the better the talisman paper required. However, martial cultivators usually did not make their own talisman paper. Most chose to purchase or trade for them. Some people specialized in making talisman paper to sell and earn money. The steps to making talisman paper were more complicated. It was said that the use of wood or tree-type immortal essences was required. It was similar to the technique of making paper on Earth, except that the materials were now immortal essences and required the supplement of spiritual arts.

As for Mechanism Spirit Designs, they were more mysterious. They were not even introduced in the Glossary of Spirit Designs.

“For beginners, the Heaven and Earth Spirit Designs are too demanding. Mechanism Spirit Designs and Puppets Spirit Designs are too mysterious. Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs and Talisman Spirit Designs are the best for practice. And because talisman paper is easier to get, beginners usually choose to make talismans and create the emulated Talisman Spirit Designs first.”

But Ghostly Wings of the Black Mountain was a spirit design master, and within his inventory, there was a large number of immortal treasure furnaces and many hammer-like spiritual immortal treasures. The best immortal treasure furnace was much better than Wu Yu’s Three-Legged Cauldron. Today, they were all master-less items. Wu Yu cultivated one immortal treasure furnace called Crimson Flames Furnace. Immortal treasure furnaces were slightly more complicated than medicinal furnaces. Other than the furnace, they included other workspaces.

Then he made a blood bond with a hammer-like immortal treasure called Sky Quake Hammer. There was no offensive spirit design on this Sky Quake Hammer. It only had strength and measurement-type spirit designs. It was made specifically for smelting immortal treasures. It did not have any offensive abilities.

The Crimson Flames Furnace and the Sky Quake Hammer were both important items in creating immortal treasures. Other than these, he also needed immortal fire.

As for the creation of spirit designs, it was said that Primordial Spirit martial cultivators used spiritual power. There was no such power in the Jindan Dao Realm. He could only replace it with Jindan essence. This was another difference between pseudo spirit designs and spirit designs.

Because he was not familiar with the Crimson Flames Furnace and the Sky Quake Hammer, precisely because he had never been a metal smith before and did not have the skill in forging the initial form of immortal treasures, and because he had more than a hundred ready-made pieces of talisman paper, Wu Yu studied Talisman Spirit Designs first.

For which, Ghostly Wings of the Black Mountain had left behind a secret manual. It specifically recorded more than 10 types of Talisman Spirit Designs. In reality, there was no distinction of righteous or evil Talisman Spirit Designs. After all, they did not require the use of any cruel materials. Hence, Wu Yu could study the Talisman Spirit Designs from this secret manual.

On the other hand, the secret manual of Immortal Treasure Spirit Designs mostly required the use of human blood, flesh, and souls to be the starter. Those he would not learn.

It was said that secret manuals were very important in the study of spirit designs! The secret manuals of spirit designs could only be exchanged for very high amounts of merits. For instance, the Talisman Spirit Design secret manual in Wu Yu’s hands. The spirit design of every single Talisman Spirit Design was first created within the book. This was a real spirit design that could even be used! After all, this piece of paper was talisman paper.

After the real spirit designs came the description and history of the spirit designs, and lastly, the sequence of every stroke of the spirit design. The sequence was the basics of spirit designs. If one was unaware of the sequence, he would never be able to succeed in the creation and emulation. This was also the reason why others would not be able to replicate the spirit design even if they had the talisman.

Other than the sequence, there were many other techniques from predecessors, every detail that needed extra care, and the specific spiritual art required at each place. Wu Yu only looked at a very simple Talisman Spirit Design called Fireball Charm and already felt dizzy.

“The dao of spirit designs is too deep. It is much deeper than the refining immortal medicines!”

Wu Yu said earnestly.