Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-223

Ever since obtaining the Nascent Life Primordial Star Chart, Lu Ping had wanted to use it as his nascent weapon. However, it was an array formation which required a formation chassis, and twelve formation pearls.

As a result, the Nascent Life Primordial Star Chart had repeatedly mentioned the difficulty to forge the nascent formation and the excessive arcane energy required to cast the weapons.

Despite that, Lu Ping still didn't hesitate after gathering the twelve spirit pearls—he proceeded to refine the spirit pearls with his arcane energy.

However, prepared as he was to face the obstacles, the difficulty in refining the spirit pearls still exceeded his imagination.

In the past six months, Lu Ping focused on the refinement, putting aside everything except for his daily cultivation.

Since cultivators generally didn't want their strongest means to be known, the refinement of nascent weapons was rarely done by others. Lu Ping only asked Chen Lian for his professional advice.

Even though Lu Ping was not a smith and definitely lacked the relevant skills, he still had to refine and forge the nascent weapons on his own.

In order to ensure their quality, Lu Ping went through each step with extreme caution. He would rather take more time and effort to perfect every detail than to rush over it.

Furthermore, the Nascent Life Primordial Star Chart was made up of twelve nascent weapons, so Lu Ping had to spend a lot of time refining each and every one of them.

After six months of continuous effort, the nascent weapons were nearing completion, and Lu Ping couldn't help anticipating the reveal of their final forms.

In those six months, Lu Ping had engraved eight Arcane Inscriptions in each nascent pearl. This was thanks in part to their Grade 3 quality, so they didn't have to be purified and refined like ordinary spirit materials.

Their quality gave Lu Ping the confidence to refine them on his own. However, he soon realized that in order to forge them into Nascent Life Primordial Stars, they had to be engraved with nine Arcane Inscriptions each.

Meaning, each pearl was actually a top-grade mystic instrument on its own.

In other words, casting the Nascent Life Primordial Star Chart would be akin to casting twelve top-grade mystic instruments at the same time!

The consumption of arcane energy and divine sense required would be outrageous to an ordinary cultivator, a task almost impossible to achieve. Even with Lu Ping's abnormally strong reserves, he was still shocked upon realization.

Yet, Lu Ping had already spent three months to fully refine the twelve spirit pearls with his arcane energy, and another three months to engrave eight Arcane Inscriptions in each spirit pearl.

He just had to engrave the final set of Arcane Inscriptions and they would become his Nascent Life Primordial Stars, and subsequently, the Nascent Life Primordial Star Chart.

After all that, there was no way Lu Ping would back down now. Not to mention that he had no other options left.

But just as he was about to engrave the ninth Arcane Inscription in the spirit pearls, an aura suddenly burst up into the sky. It seemed to come from the Li Clan's residence, which was just behind Lu Ping's cave-dwelling, causing the winds to howl and the clouds to roll turbulently.

Immediately afterward, a divine revelation swept over every corner of Three Clans City, declaring its presence to everyone. At the same time, Lu Ping could tell that the divine revelation was rudimentary, and carried a hint of curiosity and excitement as it expanded outward.

Spiritual energy from all directions converged above the Li Clan's residence, forming an inexplicable but soothing breeze. The vortex of spiritual energy was invisible to the naked eye, but definitely perceptible to a cultivator’s divine sense.

Such an abnormal phenomenon, coupled with the divine revelation and spiritual energy vortex; these were clear signs that a new Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master had emerged in the city!

In this medium-sized island where the average cultivation level was not high, Core Forging Realm Enlightened Masters were at the peak of the island's power pyramid, which granted them the right to speak for the fate of Three Clans Island.

At this time, the forces on the island and the rogue cultivators all looked at the Li Clan with differing perplexed expressions on their faces.

In his cave-dwelling, Lu Ping carefully spread his divine sense to observe the Core Forging Realm breakthrough, hoping that it could give him some enlightenment for his own advancement. But obviously, he didn't perceive anything useful from this investigation.

Lu Ping sighed and redirected his attention back to his Nascent Life Primordial Stars.

On the other hand, the vortex of spiritual energy had sped up Dabao's cultivation breakthrough. It looked like he might wake up earlier than expected.

Four hours later, just as Lu Ping finished engraving the final set of Arcane Inscriptions, a second wave of aura burst out from the Li Clan's residence again.

This time, the aura was more majestic and tore open a huge hole in the cloud overhead!

A divine revelation swiftly swept through Three Clans City, covering a much wider range than the first in a shorter amount of time. The wave carried a thread of calmness this time, as if the breakthrough was only natural and even long overdue, yet hidden underneath flowed a heavenly power.

Lu Ping recognized this divine revelation—it was Chu Ting's, the female alchemist he met at the Li Clan, and also Participant 72 who he fought at the underground trade fair.

But now, this divine revelation had clearly become more powerful, far more powerful than the average cultivator, and even stronger than an alchemist of the same rank.

All spiritual energy within three miles had now converged above the Li Clan again. But this time, the vortex was much larger and covered almost half of the Li Clan's residence.

Li Clan had produced two new Core Forging Realm Enlightened Masters on the same day!

The onlookers’ initial feelings of admiration at the vortex of spiritual energy quickly turned into shock!

A reshuffling of power in Three Clans City was about to transpire!

Eventually, the hole in the sky disappeared and the divine revelation returned to the Li Clan's residence.

Just when the cultivators heaved a collective sigh of relief, thinking how this would affect the city’s situation, they suddenly noticed that the spiritual energy was still flowing in the Li Clan's direction.

Furthermore, the speed of the spiritual energy flow was comparable to that of the first spiritual energy vortex!

Could there be a third Li Clan cultivator having a breakthrough to the Core Forging Realm?

This time, the cultivators weren’t shocked anymore, they were in a panic!

How could this be possible?

What was the Li Clan trying to do?

All the cultivators in Three Clans City were busy ruminating on this issue, especially the Zhang Clan and Wang Clan cultivators.

However, an hour had passed, the spiritual energy was still gathering, but the phenomenon of a Core Forging Realm breakthrough did not appear again.

Was it not a breakthrough?

The cultivators finally realized that this was not a cultivator breaking through to the Core Forging Realm, but rather the refinement of a powerful mystic instrument, or the setting up of a large array formation.

…

In one of the top-class cave-dwellings owned by the Li Clan's inn, Lu Ping was struggling to refine the twelve shimmering beads that surrounded him.

At the moment when Chu Ting broke through to the Core Forging Realm, Lu Ping finally refined the ninth Arcane Inscription into the last Nascent Life Primordial Star.

With that, the twelve Nascent Life Primordial Stars were finally refined and the Nascent Life Primordial Star Chart array formation was completed.

Lu Ping was so happy that he couldn't wait to start refining his nascent mystic instruments. But he was dealing with a set of nascent mystic instruments now, so he had to refine the Nascent Life Primordial Stars as a whole all at the same time.

If Lu Ping's arcane energy was described like a gushing river, then the Nascent Life Primordial Stars were like a bottomless pit that continuously drained the river of its water.

Throughout the refinement process of the spirit pearls, Lu Ping's arcane energy had been challenged time after time, which made him raise his expectations on his arcane energy consumption every time.

Even so, his expectations fell short once again!

Lu Ping only wished that this would be the last time.

Chu Ting's breakthrough had drawn a large amount of spiritual energy from miles around, which had undoubtedly helped Lu Ping in the refinement process.

But one must not forget, this was just the beginning!

As the spiritual energy around him ebbed, his arcane energy couldn't be regenerated as quickly, and he gradually couldn't keep up with the consumption anymore.

Hence, Lu Ping decisively took out a hundred mid-grade spirit stones, crushing them to release the spiritual energy they contained.

Although directly crushing the spirit stones meant a huge waste of spiritual energy, they still alleviated Lu Ping's situation.

However, after a few moments, he was forced to crush another hundred mid-grade spirit stones again to maintain his progress.

By now, Chu Ting, who had broken through to the Core Forging Realm, had already retracted her aura and began to consolidate her cultivation base. Li Xiu-Zhu was also doing the same.

Lu Ping's refinement work continued, and the spiritual energy around the cave-dwelling was eventually insufficient to his needs.

Hence, the spiritual energy that had been gathered around Li Clan was now moving towards Lu Ping's cave-dwelling.

This inevitably attracted the attention from the cultivators in the city.