Chapter 116: Dragonsearch Invocation (1/2)

“There’s a Fusang Purewood here?! No way!” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up with excitement and he almost jumped for joy.

“Eh? Why are you….” Qing Han was thoroughly confused by his friend’s reaction. What was so exciting about a tree?

“The Fusang Purewood is a divine wood that’s also of the fire attribute, right?” Lu Yun found the description of the tree in Aoxue’s memories. Though the dragon princess hadn’t personally set eyes on a specimen, the North Sea Dragon Palace’s libraries had contained records of it.

The tree in question was one of the most potent spirit trees anywhere in the world and had been sought after by countless ancient immortals. Any formation that used it in its nexus was rumored to be able to slay even peerless immortals.

In the ancient legends, the very sun and stars were born beneath the Fusang Purewood. It was equal parts fire and wood.

“Yeah, I guess,” Qing Han replied, still rather muddled.

“Perfect!” Lu Yun grinned with glee. “I wanted to head down south to Crimson Province to look for Fireplume Wood, so this being here saves me some time. In fact, this is the most optimal choice!”

“What do you want to use it for? To refine a treasure?” Qing Han blinked.

“No, I want to refine some pills.” Lu Yun looked into his friend’s eyes. “Pills made from the tree may be able to cure your poison.”

His last statement stunned the imperial envoy; Qing Han had absolutely no idea what to say.

“We need a bit more time to figure things out, though. Yuying and the others have only deduced that we need a fire-and-wood divine wood for the antidote and to extend your lifespan. I’d imagine a number of other things are necessary as well to cure the rimesnake poison in you,” Lu Yun mused, but then brightened. “Still, the Fusang Purewood is the main ingredient. I’m sure the others will be found in due time!”

“Are you sure? What about—” Qing Han was interrupted with a hand wave and a confident smile.

“It’s just a formation,” Lu Yun exclaimed. “There’s no formation in the world I can’t break!”

The formation in front of them both beguiled and killed; its phantasms hid a bevy of lethal pitfalls under any painted scene.

……

“To seek a dragon of mountains coiled,

Those deathly cliffs with mysteries roiled.

I come to seek treasures unspoiled,

Let all danger be thusly foiled,” Lu Yun chanted.

Hum.

As soon as he spoke those words, a hazy light appeared all around his body. The image of a spinning taiji appeared overhead, ringed by the eight trigrams.

The Dragonsearch Invocation, his sect’s ace in the hole!

His sect spanned several thousand years of Chinese history. There were other tomb-raiding sects, but his was the strongest and most competent. Although one of their forebears had garnered the enmity of a bloodcorpse and caused the sect’s decline, it had nevertheless remained superior during Lu Yun’s life on earth.

The sect owed its success fundamentally to this invocation, which performed superbly when it came to searching for, navigating through, and judging feng shui layouts.

Tomb raiders were limited by their knowledge. When they came upon a layout they didn’t recognize, there wasn’t much they could do about it. His sect, on the other hand, could use the Dragonsearch Invocation to figure out the weaknesses in layouts they were utterly ignorant about, then leverage the weak spots to unravel the arrangement.

Generally speaking, the invocation required a luopan to use. Here, Lu Yun made up for the missing tool by using his unique qi to mimic one.

As soon as he finished chanting, Lu Yun noticed his qi circulating in a distinctive way. A shadow of the compass he’d lost had manifested above his head.

Woah, it really works!

His heart pounded with elation and eagerness. He’d just wanted to experiment whether his qi would be able to form a feng shui compass under the influence of the Dragonsearch Invocation. His attempt had succeeded!

The young man forced himself to calm down as his body trembled with power. He continued murmuring under his breath, “All feng shui layouts and formations beneath the sun are tied to one potential, two principles, three essentials, four divisions, five elements, six directions, seven stars, eight trigrams, nine sectors, and ten orientations!”