Stealing The Heavens
chapter-214

For the next few days after being informed that he had been officially accepted into the real core circle of Great Yan Dynasty, Lu Chengfeng had focused all his attention in absorbing and digesting the blood essence of flood dragon. He used the body strengthening technique of flood dragons to carefully temper his corporeal body, getting himself ready to forcibly form his Gold Core with the mystic technique and Wu Qi's help.

Meanwhile, through the teleportation formation, Wu Qi had come to one of his secret hideouts in Meng Mountains. In there, he took out the innate earth element energy essence and the thirty-six dragon scales given to him by catfish-flood-dragon. Just as what Yan Qijun and Qin Wuyang had told him, this innate item was covetous by many, and it would be best for him to digest it as soon as possible.

Generally speaking, when an ordinary cultivator obtained an innate item, there was no way he could craft it into a magical treasure. He could only bring the innate item with him all the time, using the wandering innate energies that emitted from it to temper his body, to slowly transform his corporeal body into an Innate Dao Body. That was the best advantage he could gain from the innate item. No ordinary cultivators, or even Heaven Immortals, could craft an innate item into a magical treasure, unless the cultivator had the cultivation base of Gold Immortal, or was aided by a divine flame of innate grade.

Fortunately, Wu Qi had long found himself the Divine Flame of Order. Although he still could not control it as he willed, by borrowing a little bit of its flame, and with the help from some mystic techniques in Scroll of Stealing, he could still craft himself a magical treasure that he could use.

He hefted the clump of innate earth element energy essence that weighed a few million kilograms, sent out his divine will and sensed the subtle soul ripple found right at its core. Wu Qi sighed deeply. This energy essence was indeed an incredible natural treasure, as it had already given birth to a tiny thread of its own soul. If it were not excavated from the energy cave by those merchants, perhaps after many years later, this clump of energy essence would give birth to a very powerful innate spirit treasure, or even a formidable innate divine beast.

Nevertheless, as Wu Qi was going to craft this clump of energy essence into a magical treasure which he could use, he could not have this tiny thread of soul remain in it. Crafting an innate item was a very difficult task, and if there were a thread of naturally born soul dwelling in it, the task would become impossible, as no one could subdue an innate soul, unless he was a high-grade Gold Immortal.

"What a pity!" Wu Qi sighed, then he smiled and said, "But I am blessed!"

Then, the silver lotus shot out from between his brows while emitting a faint, five-colored glow. A wisp of Divine Flame of Order that looked slightly larger than before was dancing and leaping in its stamen. In an instant, the surrounding temperature skyrocketed, as energies of all other elements were immediately driven out from the secret cave, leaving behind only the purest fire element energies that had its density in the air reach a thousand times higher than normal. The air had now taken a fiery red hue, and when Wu Qi took a breath, he felt like as if he had just swallowed a large clump of sticky lava. His body turned scorching hot and felt really bad.

He fiddled the energy essence in his hands for a while, feeling a little bit reluctant to kill the soul. At last, he made up his mind and threw it into the Divine Flame of Order. Then came a shrill cry from the tiny crystal core, while a strong soul ripple was emanated from the tiny thread of innate soul. A desperate and begging emotion could be sensed within the soul ripple, as if there were a voice of little kid crying for forgiveness in Wu Qi's mind.

Wu Qi hardened his heart and did not get moved by the voice. Casually, he pointed his finger at the Divine Flame of Order, shooting out a stream of bright green beam that was made out of innate wood element energies, and fused it into the flame, making the flame grow to a height of about three feet tall. The surrounding fire element energies quickly gathered towards the Divine Flame of Order, raising its temperature by another fifty percent. Abruptly, the clump of innate earth element energy essence twitched, then countless tiny yellow dust particles began whirling and spinning quickly around it, before turning into a ring of yellow mist that tightly protected the crystal core within.

As this natural divine item had already possessed its own consciousness, when someone tried to kill it, it would exercise its innate ability to protect itself.

Wu Qi was amazed to see that. If not for the fact that he was still tens of thousands of years from reaching the sufficient cultivation base, he really wished he could spare this clump of innate earth element energy essence, which had given birth to its own soul, and only craft it into a magic treasure when he became a Gold Immortal. With the cultivation base of Gold Immortal, he would be able to subdue the soul, then refine it into the item spirit of an innate spirit treasure. However, it was just a wild dream for anyone that was below the realm of Gold Immortal.

He sighed again. In the next moment, he quickly performed many different incantation gestures with both his hands. A set of Back Earth Seal Wu Qi learned from the Script of Ancient Law, so powerful that it could easily crumble a mountain and crack the ground, began taking shape quickly near his fingertip. Eventually, it turned into ninety-nine yellow runes that were as tiny as a sesame seed, emanating with a blinding yellow light. His fingertip began to tremble at high speed, then the yellow runes shot out with loud noises of mountain crumbling and hit onto the innate earth element energy essence. They immediately distracted the perfectly unified and flawless yellow mist, opening up a small crack on it.

Without the slightest hesitation, the purple and green divine flame of order rushed into the crack, and wrapped up the tiny crystal core in an instant, while wiping out the thread of innate soul in a blink of an eye. Dazzling rings of light burst out from the crystal core, some purest soul energies spreading out into all directions with faint whistling noises, rocking and rolling violently in the air. Wu Qi's pupils suddenly contracted, then wisps of bright rays shot out from his Mystic Eyes of Universe and captured all these soul energies, bringing them back into his eyes and fusing into his soul within the spiritual ocean.

A feeling of heaviness and nourishment kept coming from the depth of his soul. As the innate soul given birth by this energy essence was also earth element, after absorbing the soul energy that arose from its disintegration, Wu Qi's soul was immediately strengthened by several times. It became tougher and heavier, and he had a feeling that it had become as heavy as a lofty mountain, that no external forces could move it.

The Seven Holy Deities and Devils derived from Wu Qi's soul were cheering happily in the spiritual ocean, as they had absorbed a large chunk of the soul energies. Their hazy bodies had become much denser, which made them look like seven little Wu Qis jumping around everywhere in the spiritual ocean, each with different expressions on their faces. They were either laughing, crying, angry, sad or sorrowful. There were all kinds of different looks, while they were emanating a bizarre force that could stir one's mind.

Wu Qi himself had devoured fifty percent of the soul energy, while giving the rest of to these seven little deities and devils. As he needed them to help him later, he had to feed them with enough food and drink now.

As its soul was completely wiped out by the divine flame of order, the clump of innate earth element energy essence had lost the core that was controlling it. The once-rapid spinning energy had become listless and weak, slowed down and eventually transformed into a human-head-sized yellow clay block. Apart from its extreme weight, no energies or whatsoever could be sensed on it, and it looked like a clump of clay that one could find anywhere on the ground.

Wu Qi smiled, then forcibly exercised his five elements meridians. From two wood element false cores, he carefully forced out a drop of dazzling green liquid. It was a drop of innate nectar which he managed to produce in his wood element false cores, and he was going to use it in a very wasteful manner.

Wu Qi only managed to produce a drop of innate nectar in each of the five elements false core after digesting over one hundred Gold Cores, and for the sake of refining this clump of innate earth element energy essence, he had used up 1/5th of all his innate nectar.

His heart was bleeding because of that. While dripping the drop of innate nectar onto the energy essence, he kept murmuring under his breath, "What a waste! One must know that only the cultivation base is the foundation of a cultivator! If this drop of innate nectar is given to someone, it is more than enough to make an ordinary human step into the mastery stage of Gold Core realm. This is such a waste! If not because you are an innate earth element energy essence, I will never waste my precious innate nectar!"

When the wood element innate nectar fused with the energy essence, the once heavy and solid energy essence immediately became as light as a feather, and its surface began to ripple like water. Without hesitation, Wu Qi quickly took out the thirty-six dragon scales given to him by catfish-flood-dragon, and also a large jug of flood dragon blood essence from the Black Dragon Spirit Ring.

He threw the dragon scales into the Divine Flame of Order, gave them a round of violent burning, and turned them into thirty-six golden lights that took the shape of dragon scales. After that, he poured the jug of about nine thousand kg of blood essence into those dragon scales, which was immediately absorbed by all thirty-six golden lights. In the next moment, they burst out with a blinding glow that struck a severe pain into Wu Qi's Mystic Eyes of Universe.

As even a single drop of the blood essence contained a vast amount of energy, with the pouring of nine thousand kilograms of blood essence onto these thirty-six dragon scales, and through the purification done by the divine flame of order, the quality of these thirty-six dragon scales had taken a great improvement. Their quality was now almost equal to the dragon scales that had been taken off the body of a divine dragon at the Heaven Immortal realm.

Wu Qi then forcibly exercised his energy and coughed out three mouthfuls of his own blood essence into the divine flame of order, making it burn even more violently. It enveloped the innate earth element energy essence which looked like water ripples, and the dragon scales. After that, he quickly performed many incantation gestures, forming all kinds of defensive and offensive runes that he learned from Script of Ancient Law.

His energies were depleting quickly. Whenever he finished unleashing a full set of runes, the energies in his body would be gone completely. However, there was no way he could stop now. From the Black Dragon Spirit Ring, he took out many demon cores which Ying Zheng gathered from after killing many powerful demon beasts, using the massive energies in those demon cores to support him in continuously unleashing runes. The entire process went on for a whole twenty-four hours, and after Wu Qi swallowed a total of thirty-six powerful demon cores, a blinding light flashed before his face, and finally, a pale golden wrist guard that was very anciently fashioned, was revealed before him.

The wrist shield was not large, about one foot and two inches in its length, the right length of an adult's arm, and measured three inches from edge to edge, the right width of an adult's arm. But, it only had half an inch of thickness. The thirty-six dragon scales were interlocking with each other on the surface of it, forming a perfect formation of Nine Halls and Eight Trigrams. Countless runes were vaguely blinking on top of these dragon scales. The edge of the shield was razor sharp, and every single dragon scale was glinting brilliantly, making one's flesh creep upon looking.

He stretched out his left arm and buckled the wrist shield on it, then injected a tiny bit of energy into it. In an instant, a layer of thick yellow energy barrier sprung out and fully enveloped around him.

The Sword of Greedy Wolf shot out with an ear-piercing sound, hitting forcefully right onto the yellow energy barrier. Upon impact, the sword was knocked flying back, yet the energy shield was intact. Wu Qi nodded his head satisfyingly. Judging from the defensive strength, perhaps even an Earth Immortal of Nascent Soul realm would not be able to break through it.

Then, with a twist of his wrist, all thirty-six earthy yellow dragon scales shot out from the shield, piercing through the air while generating loud whistling noises. With his divine will, he sensed a large amount of earth element energies on each of the dragon scales. On top of that, each of them weighed about five thousand kilograms, and their edges were razor-sharp. With such an incredible weight and sharpness, even the Dharma Body of an Earth Immortal would not be able to withstand its attack.

Wu Qi laughed. With his current cultivation base, it was not an easy task for him to craft such a powerful magical treasure. As the true form of the innate earth element energy essence was still there, when he attained a stronger cultivation base in the future, he could always give the wrist shield a further crafting, and it could become a pretty excellent innate spirit item. Although at that point in time, he would need to find a good soul and make that as its item spirit, that would be the problem in the future.

"You're now the Earth Element Dragon Scale Shield, and I will have to depend on you to protect the safety of my life. As I cannot let people know that I own an innate gold element silver lotus, I'll have to depend on your help more than the silver lotus." After saying that, he waved his hand and retracted the silver lotus and divine flame of order.

Then, a vast bright light burst out from the Black Dragon Spirit Ring, as Wu Qi now took out the Chariot of Eight Horses. He looked fervently at this Item of Virtue, and thought to himself that it was the time for him to subdue this magnificent treasure.