Chapter 345: Lotus Sword Formation! (1/2)

Chapter 345: Lotus Sword Formation!

Boom!

One early morning, a bolt of lightning appeared above the elegant basin, outside one of the buildings.

The roof of this building was long since gone, apparently destroyed. Black ash was visible everywhere. There were roughly a thousand Cultivators here now, and all of them were more or less used to the lightning.

As the parrot soared through the air, it looked up into the sky and gave a sympathetic sigh, then thought about how helpful it had been. After that, it wheeled off with determination to go train the Cultivators in the use of the Celestial spell formation.

“This formation uses people as its base! With hundreds, you can rock Core Formation. With thousands, you can strand Nascent Soul. With tens of thousands, Spirit Severing doesn’t count for a fart! With millions, you can shake Immortals! Back when Lord Fifth swept over the nine great Mountains and Seas, no one refused to bow to him!” A wistful look appeared in its eyes, and it sighed as it seemed to recall its past glory. Then, it redoubled its efforts to train the Cultivators.

Inside the building that had just been struck by lightning, Meng Hao’s face was unsightly. Even more unsightly, however, was the face of the Li Clan Patriarch, who looked as if he were on his last legs.

“You’re my ancestor!” he wailed, his soul embodiment trembling. He seemed to be on the verge of going crazy. “My ancestor, okay?! Just let me go…. I can’t hold on much longer. Just let the lightning rend me in half, okay…?”

Meng Hao didn’t say anything. He put the Li Clan Patriarch’s soul embodiment away, then looked back up at the sky. It seemed clear, completely devoid of any lightning. At this point, he wasn’t quite numb to the situation, but had gotten used to it.

After some practice, he had developed some methods to pull out the Li Clan Patriarch even more quickly. By now, it had developed into a sort of intuition; as soon as a bolt of lightning appeared, the Li Clan Patriarch would be called upon.

Currently, Meng Hao didn’t reach complete success at first. However, the dangerous training method worked, and soon he was able to use the technique almost perfectly each time.

Under these circumstances, Meng Hao’s intuition with the lightning gradually formed into a type of instinct.

At the moment, Meng Hao couldn’t quite keep his face completely calm; it still looked a bit pained, although not as much as the Li Clan Patriarch's. Meng Hao looked over at the middle-aged man who lay in front of him, body trembling, face pale, seemingly locked in place and unable to move. This man was even worse off than the Li Clan Patriarch.

This Cultivator was not from the Black Lands, but rather the Western Desert. This was the man Meng Hao had knocked out earlier, the one who had three totem tattoos. Meng Hao had taken him here, sealed him to prevent him from moving, and began to study him.

Meng Hao loved studying. Back when he was a scholar, he would study books. After he entered the Cultivation world, he would study magical techniques or contemplate alchemy.

It didn’t matter when, as long as he had some time on his hands, he would take time to study something. This always led to further understanding on his part.

However, this was his first time studying a person.

Meng Hao had already been studying him for three days, inside and out. Whenever he encountered some area he didn’t understand, he would make some cuts and focus further until he understood.

Meng Hao had learned a lot in these three days, which left him very excited. As for the middle-aged man, however, it was a nightmare, as if he were residing in the depths of hell. The feeling was hard to describe. His coldness had turned into misery, cursing and insanity. Eventually, he just began to wail, and to truly believe that Meng Hao was the most fearsome person in the entire Cultivation world.

At the moment, Meng Hao was studying the Cultivator’s blood. He reached out toward the man’s arm, which was covered in wounds and scabs. Some of it was even missing pieces of flesh. Meng Hao made a long scratch and then collected some blood.

He placed the blood into a pill furnace and began to refine it.

The man’s face was ashen, his eyes listless and filled with despair. He didn’t know how much longer this treatment would go on, and his mind was on the verge of collapse. In fact, the previous night when Meng Hao was preparing to study his brain, the fear caused tears to leak out of his eyes.

At that point, Meng Hao had hesitated and then decided not to proceed.

Meng Hao had always been extremely interested in the totem tattoos of Western Desert Cultivators. After much analysis, he had come to the conclusion that they contained a power similar to medicinal pills, a power that came from outside the body of the Cultivator

For example, totems could be used to break through from Qi Condensation to Foundation Establishment, and then to Core Formation. This realization gave Meng Hao quite a bit of enlightenment.

Meng Hao had long since had the feeling that he could break through from the mid Perfect Core Formation stage to the late stage. The feeling only grew more intense. Eventually, he realized that in order to break through to late Core Formation, he would need to allow the Heavenly Tribulation to bear down on him in full. After transcending it, he would then be able to enter late Core Formation.

However, once that happened, he had little confidence regarding the Nascent Soul stage. The Nascent Soul stage was a huge step that few Cultivators were ever actually able to take.

Throughout the years, many Cultivators could reach the late Core Formation stage. However, few were able to break through to Nascent Soul. It might seem like there were a lot of Nascent Soul Cultivators, but that had more to do with their vastly extended lifespan. Few members of any particular generation would ever actually break through.

One of the most critical factors for Meng Hao was the fact that he was missing the section of the Sublime Spirit Scripture that had to do with the Gold Core. Without the proper technique, it would be difficult to achieve a Perfect Nascent Soul.