by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
“No need. Zifeng walks a different path from us. Helping him would be harming him. He knows his own path much better than us, so there’s no need for us to worry about him.”
“But his physical body and Spiritual Strength are both lacking. Although his attacks are sharp, he has essentially zero defensive power. Only knowing how to attack and not defend is a fatal weakness.”
Long Chen smiled. “That’s why I said you don’t know his path. Have you heard this saying in the secular world? The sword is a simple tool, with a three feet blade, half a foot hilt, and a sheath that covers its entire edge. Why is it that way?”
“I actually don’t know.”
“When the sword is in motion, it represents its killing power. At that time, it has no need for defense. Its edge is something no one can block. Only when it is still can it be attacked. That’s the most dangerous time for it, which is why it has its sheath. Yue Zifeng is a sharp blade. He knows his strongest point is his offense, so he has abandoned his defense, making his offense unstoppable. As for defense, he has no need for it, because I, you, and every last Dragonblood warrior can be his sheath. Why would he need to waste his time on that?” explained Long Chen.
Meng Qi nodded. Yue Zifeng had sacrificed his defensive power to make his offensive power incomparably sharp. Within the same realm, all his enemies were killed with essentially one attack. In the Dragonblood Legion, he was second only to Long Chen in terms of offensive power.
“However, raising his soul and physical strength is only beneficial. He could focus that power on his offense as well, couldn’t he?” asked Meng Qi.
“It’s because Yue Zifeng is a sword cultivator. In his heart, there is only the sword, nothing else. That is his firm and fanatical conviction. He feels that as long as he comprehends the Sword Dao, he can one day arrive above the Heavenly Daos. In fact, I feel like he has achieved some kind of enlightenment, or his conviction wouldn’t be so strong.”
“What kind of enlightenment?”
“I’m not sure. But I would guess it has something to do with the legendary Sword God.”
Yue Zifeng had finally returned from the Heavenly Sword Gate, but his temperament had completely changed. There was a firm conviction in his eyes now that no one could shake. Perhaps Yue Zifeng should now be called a sword fool, a sword fanatic.
“Are there really gods in this world?” asked Meng Qi.
“Perhaps there are, perhaps there aren’t. Perhaps the term god is just a name. I once asked the same question of senior Yun Shang. At that time, senior Yun Shang only smiled faintly and didn’t reply. However, I saw a touch of disdain in his smile or perhaps a kind of contempt. In any case, it doesn’t seem like he has a high opinion of them.” Long Chen sighed. Back then, he had managed to speak to one of the Sovereigns that had once shaken the continent. However, Sovereign Yun Shang hadn’t given him any useful information.
“Don’t bother Zifeng. No matter what happens, he’s our trustworthy brother. He wants to walk the path of offense. In that case, we’ll protect his path. Using offense as defense is also a kind of unstoppable Dao. Zifeng will become our Dragonblood Legion’s strongest sword warrior.” Long Chen smiled.
“Guo Ran’s so happy that he’s forgotten his name, while Gu Yang is using the blood essence stone to temper his body. He focuses on his bloodline and physical strength in the first place, so he’ll become a real monster after this tempering. There’s no need to say anything about Li Qi and Song Mingyuan who are also going to be monsters after absorbing the earth essence. Everyone’s getting stronger, but you’re still where you started. Aren’t you afraid of getting thrown behind? I should warn you that Wan-er is quickly merging with the wind energy and rapidly improving each day. Be careful of her bullying you like you bullied her before. I definitely won’t be helping you at that time,” warned Meng Qi.
“Everyone’s strength is my strength. Their improvement is my improvement. My greatest dream is to have a bunch of unstoppable fighters. By then, if someone gets cocky in front of me, I won’t even have to do anything. I can just point and have them beaten to the point where their mothers wouldn’t recognize them,” laughed Long Chen.
Seeing Meng Qi glaring at him, he hastily added, “It was a joke. Everyone’s getting stronger, so I also have to go into seclusion. Furthermore, I have a very brazen idea. I’ll give you all a pleasant surprise when the time comes.”
Chapter 1676 Celestial Lightning Body Blink
Long Chen had a truly brazen thought. When he had subdued the Black Illusion Dragon Flame, he had thought of a certain diagram.
That was a diagram he had almost forgotten about. Back in the Eastern Wasteland, he had entered the Immemorial Path and obtained the diagram. He had asked the Eastern Wasteland Bell, but it had refused to tell him too many details, saying that his cultivation base was too low. It merely said it was a kind of essence of one of the four major elements.
Afterward, the Eastern Wasteland Bell had repaid Long Chen for his help and disappeared. The matter of the diagram was left forgotten and unsettled.
However, when he had worked together with the Pill Fairy to subdue the Black Illusion Dragon Flame, he happened to glimpse a diagram on the ceiling of the underground palace. That diagram was somewhat similar to the diagram from the Immemorial Path.
Regretfully, he hadn’t had time to record it at that time. Shen Bijun had come, and then the palace had exploded.
However, it had served as a reminder. He was now a Soul Transformation expert and no longer the same rookie as back then. If the Eastern Wasteland Bell refused to tell him, he could try to see if he could understand it himself.
Long Chen found himself a private room. However, before entering seclusion, he moved the divine lightning he had swallowed during his tribulation into the primal chaos space.
Lei Long had never managed to fully refine this divine lightning. However, after being suppressed for so long, the destructive will of the divine lightning had been erased, leaving behind its pure energy for Lei Long to absorb.
Once the lightning was moved, his stomach was free to digest an ocean’s worth of medicinal pills. Huo Long was busy refining the Black Illusion Dragon Flame’s berserk energy, but Long Chen asked it to first help him refine some Soul Transformation Pills. To raise his cultivation base, he would need a huge amount of medicinal pills.
Suddenly, Long Chen thought of the jade tablet he had obtained in the Jade Lake Sacred Land around the time he had killed Wang Shan. He had yet to investigate it.
“Celestial Lightning Body Blink? It’s actually a lightning attribute movement art.”
Long Chen was stunned. What was recorded in the jade tablet was an extremely ancient lightning movement art. By summoning the power of heavenly lightning to form a lightning domain, you could freely blink anywhere inside with just a thought. There were basically no spatial or temporal limits.
“Damn, I’ve actually obtained a similar movement art as the human-shaped lightning right before the Devil Abyss erupts?” Back when the Xuantian Dao Sect’s Infernal Devil Abyss had erupted, Long Chen had summoned his heavenly tribulation to block the tide.
In the end, there was a certain human-shaped lightning that had appeared. Its speed had been incredible, and it was only thanks to a reminder from Li Tianxuan that he had managed to defeat it.
This movement art recorded in the jade tablet might be a different method, but it had the same result. By filling the space around him with thunderforce, he would arrange spiritual runes that could each be used as a tiny lightning transportation formation. In truth, this kind of ability wasn’t speed-based. It depended on using a kind of spatial law.
Previously, in order to raise his speed to its peak, he had come up with his own technique and called it the Lightning Flash Step.
He filled a space with thunderforce, however, his technique relied on creating spatial faults and then charging through those openings to appear in a corresponding exit within a three-thousand-meter area.
Back in the Grand Han, he had used the Lightning Flash Step to kill Sha Guangyan and Ye Qingkuang.
However, not only was the Lightning Flash Step’s range limited, but when he encountered true experts who were unleashing all their power, their power would compact space and make any spatial faults he made unstable, so he couldn’t use it.
On the other hand, the Celestial Lightning Body Blink formed a network of spatial channels with lightning runes. It was like a giant web with runic nodes that he could freely move through. Seeing this technique, he finally understood why that human-shaped lightning had been so difficult to deal with.
“The wisdom of the ancients truly isn’t something I can compare to. I didn’t even think of such a method. I’m so stupid.” Long Chen was filled with admiration and shame.
He had wracked his brain before, but had never thought of using lightning runes to form spatial channels to increase his speed. This Celestial Lightning Body Blink was like a light in the dark. It was like he was seeing a whole new sky. It was extremely enlightening to him.
“I really struck gold this time. That bastard Wang Shan, I suppose he did at least one good thing before dying.” Long Chen couldn’t help sighing emotionally. If it hadn’t been for Wang Shan, he wouldn’t have obtained this jade tablet. When it came to killing someone innocent to take their treasure, he really couldn’t do it.
The more he studied this technique, the greater his admiration for the creator grew. At the same time, he realized that creating any masterful magical art required being skilled in many different areas.
This Celestial Lightning Body Blink, at the very least, involved changes in thunderforce, cooperation with Spiritual Strength, comprehension of spatial magical arts, and the principles of establishing a formation. A magical art that had truly reached the pinnacle required endless revision, effort, and great intelligence.
The Celestial Lightning Body Blink could only be used by lightning cultivators, and any other lightning cultivator would require a long time to train in it. However, Long Chen instantly mastered it due to his previous research into the Lightning Flash Step. There were definite similarities between them, allowing him to learn it easier. Furthermore, his Spiritual Strength was so vast that he didn’t need to slowly and carefully steady each part of it for fear of his Spiritual Strength running out midway and having the magical art explode in his face like others.
There was also one other aspect that made it so easy to learn, and that was that his thunderforce came from Lei Long. Lei Long could help him control his thunderforce. In truth, it would be Lei Long creating the lightning formation, and he just had to know how to use it. It could not be simpler for him.
Long Chen handed the Celestial Lightning Body Blink to Lei Long and had it go study it. When the time came, he would just have to have his Spiritual Strength coordinate with it. This kind of lazy method was something that would make other lightning cultivators die of envy. It was practically as easy as eating a meal for Long Chen.
After tossing the Celestial Lightning Body Blink to Lei Long, Long Chen took out that strange rune from the Immemorial Path. It was a strange octagonal diagram. Eight lines merged together in the center to form a central circle. There were also other thin lines coming out of the exterior and spinning around it, like waves of divine light.
Before, Long Chen couldn’t understand anything about it. However, now he felt his aura gathering just by looking at it.
“It’s too bad my cultivation base was too low to understand this rune’s meaning when I saw it back then. Now, just looking at this recording of it, it’s much harder to understand its essence,” sighed Long Chen.
A ball of fire appeared in Long Chen’s hand. Flame runes condensed together as Long Chen tried to imitate the design of the diagram. When it was done, he suddenly felt an invisible energy concentrating at the center. It was like streams of power were gathering together.
BOOM!
The flame rune in his hand exploded, and its immense power made his hand shake.
“This is…” Long Chen was startled. He had just used the slightest trace of flame energy, but its explosive power had been so immense. “The Eastern Wasteland Bell said that it was the will of one of the four major elements. It seems it’s the fire element. Fire. Fire can burn down the heavens and the earth. It is berserk and merciless. Energy gathers within and then explodes outward. When condensed, it can refine the sky and the land, when scattered it can destroy stars. Between the two is a cycle of energy. Gather energy to one point, and when the energy reaches its peak, release it in an instant to exterminate all life…”
Long Chen seemed to be sleep-talking as he faced this enlightenment. The flame rune once again condensed in his hand, but this time he was prepared and examined it closely.
He found that when this rune was condensed, it formed a strange cycle. Without him needing to do anything, it seemed to possess its own life, absorbing energy from the air. Eight streams of energy gathered toward the central point. There were several bright spots at the center like the pistils of a flower, absorbing that energy. A portion of the energy then flowed down and out toward the edges once more, as if this one rune was its own flame world, a cycle of energy in constant motion.
The first time he had summoned it, his energy hadn’t been stable enough, causing it to lose its balance and explode. This time, he found the trick and maintained its stability. He carefully observed its motion.
“So, as soon as its form is born, it will naturally absorb flame energy to strengthen itself. Just what level of magical art is this? Or is it even a magical art?” Long Chen suddenly found that even without him pouring in any energy, the rune simply floated in the sky and continued to grow larger and stronger.
It was no wonder the Eastern Wasteland Bell had only told him that it represented one of the four major elements. Without a high enough realm, there was simply no way a person could understand it.
Even Long Chen could only tell that the things he was saying were true. He didn’t know the why or the how of it. Even at the Soul Transformation realm, with his immense control over other magical arts, he couldn’t fully comprehend this rune.
“It seems to just be a profound law, not a magical art. However, it’s even more precious than a hundred or even a thousand magical arts. As long as I can understand it, I will know how to circulate my flame energy in the best possible manner.”
Long Chen smiled. So this rune was even better than a magical art. If a magical art was like a precious medicinal ingredient, then this divine rune was the fertile soil from which amazing medicines could be grown. If he properly used this soil, it would benefit him endlessly.
“I should try to see if I can make my own magical art.” Long Chen suddenly had a thought.
He carefully examined the flame rune in his hand. Looking at the way it circulated, he poured in eight streams of flame energy. The rune instantly transformed, taking on the shape of an eight-petaled lotus flower.
BOOM!
However, as soon as this lotus flower appeared, it exploded. Long Chen’s smile grew brighter. “No, I was wrong. Perhaps this rune is the embryonic form of a magical art. Maybe, I really can make a magical art that belongs solely to myself with it.”
Long Chen took a deep breath and concentrated. He began experimenting with the divine rune, testing what shape he could turn it into.
Chapter 1677 World Annihilation Flame Lotus, Heavenly Manifestation
Long Chen didn’t view himself as particularly talented or as someone possessing the immense intellect of the ancient creators of magical arts. Those experts had been truly peerless when it came to intelligence, and they had come up with amazing techniques.
Those who could create amazing magical arts were capable of founding their own sects and inheritances. However, in the long river of history, countless heavenly geniuses soared like shooting stars, but then also fell like shooting stars. The absolute majority of the supreme sects from those times had vanished after the da
rk era. No more sects on their level ever rose.
That was due to the decline of this era. By this point, the current generation had been severed from the inheritances of the immortal era. It was impossible for someone to create similar magical arts on the same level.
Long Chen knew that this was very difficult, and his chances were slim, but he still wanted to see if he could do it. After all, as long as he constantly consumed the pills that Huo Long refined for him, he was still steadily increasing his cultivation base. He could focus on other things while digesting those pills since he had the divine ability that Evilmoon had given him for his stomach.
As he absorbed the medicinal pills, he also experimented with creating his own magical art based on the principles of the divine rune.
His unwavering perseverance resulted in a notebook filled with notes after three days.
Bang!
The flame sphere in Long Chen’s hand exploded again. Long Chen wrote down: Failure #798. Reason for failure: unable to stabilize the core.
After writing down this line, he sat on his butt. Although he had prepared himself from the start, failing so many times dispirited him.
“It really isn’t a normal level of difficulty.” Long Chen bitterly smiled.
Before this, he had thought of countless possibilities for his magical art. However, after failing time and time again, the space for his imagination shrank. When he failed the last time, it was a big blow to him.
Long Chen sighed. “Maybe I’m aiming too high. Perhaps I should take things step by step.”
Originally, Long Chen had felt that using the divine rune’s principles to blaze an alternate path would be possible. However, when he tried to summon a flame domain similar to the Celestial Lightning Body Blink, he found he was completely unable to stabilize the core of it. He was unable to summon a true domain.
Although he had created a few simple magical arts, those were practically garbage. If he used them in combat, his enemies would laugh at him.