Cultivation: I Can Solidify Equipment Attributes

Outside Nanyuan District, the sea breeze, carrying the briny, fishy scent of water vapor, rushed to greet him.

Li Yuan left the sea-facing stone chamber, his figure melting into the night as he skimmed along the undulating waves toward the open sea. The permanent affix of "Swift Water Evasion" allowed him to move across the surface almost without a splash, as silent as a ghost.

Thirty li out, in a safe stretch of sea, was the united fleet-island, formed from dozens of merchant ships chained together.

After traveling for about ten li, Li Yuan’s figure suddenly paused over the sea.

"Traceless Concealment" kept his aura firmly suppressed to the level of Late-stage Foundation Establishment, but an extremely faint, unusual sensation came from the surface of his body.

Earlier, when he bought the miniature Spirit Vein on the seabed, that Loose Cultivator had used the opportunity of exchanging Spirit Stones to secretly place an aura mark on him. The mark was incredibly insidious and deeply hidden, normally lying dormant like a dead thing.

At this moment, the mark began to stir.

The Spiritual Power frequency deep within the mark began to vibrate faintly, continuously sending a signal in a certain direction.

Li Yuan hovered in mid-air, the perceptive web of his Dark Evil Insight instantly spreading outward.

Three breaths later, he caught an extremely tyrannical yet slightly disordered aura rapidly approaching from the southeast, deep within the sea.

Early-stage Golden Core.

The frequency of this Golden Core aura shared the same source as the mark on his body, but it was far vaster and more violent. Beside that Golden Core aura was another fluctuation at the Late-stage Foundation Establishment—the very same Loose Cultivator who had sold him the Spirit Vein.

Li Yuan did not continue onward, nor did he try to erase the mark on his body.

He tapped the surface of the water lightly with his toe, his figure slowly descending onto a black reef breaking the surface. He stood with his hands behind his back, waiting quietly.

A moment later, the sea to the southeast churned violently.

A column of water shot into the sky, and two figures rode the waves, stopping ten zhang away from the reef.

The person on the left was the Loose Cultivator in the dark blue sharkskin tunic. He was currently half a step behind, respectfully pointing at Li Yuan and murmuring something.

On the right was a middle-aged Cultivator in a dark red robe.

Early-stage Golden Core.

This Golden Core Cultivator’s face was an unnatural, deathly pale. A large, dark bloodstain marred the left side of his robes, and the seawater at the edge of the stain was evaporated into wisps of white mist by Demonic Qi. His aura was unstable, and the circulation of his Spiritual Power revealed a faint weakness, as if he was running on fumes.

Li Yuan’s gaze swept over the two men.

The technique used for the mark was somewhat similar to that of the Evil Slaying Sect, but these two acted without any of the discipline of a Sect. They were more like rogue Loose Cultivators, affiliated with a Demon Sect system and engaging in robbery and murder in lawless lands.

The Golden Core Cultivator sized up Li Yuan. After sensing the Late-stage Foundation Establishment aura on him, he fell silent for a moment, his Divine Sense sweeping over Li Yuan repeatedly to confirm the aura was genuine.

"A fat sheep from the mainland. You’ve got some nerve." The Golden Core Cultivator’s voice was exceptionally grating in the sea wind.

"A Golden Core engaging in highway robbery?" Li Yuan looked at the two men ten zhang away, his voice calm.

"I fought a Tier Three Sea Demon to the death in the deep sea a few days ago and sustained some injuries. I’m in urgent need of a large quantity of High Tier pills to recover. I heard from my subordinate here that you’re quite the big spender, casually dropping a few hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones on useless miniature Spirit Veins."

The Golden Core Cultivator took a step forward, his ferocious pressure bearing down on the reef.

A distance of ten zhang was nothing in the eyes of a Golden Core Cultivator, a gap that could be crossed in an instant. He didn’t take a Late-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator seriously at all, even if he was injured.

Li Yuan looked at him, not saying another word.

A thought flashed through his mind.

The perfected Teleportation Skill activated.

There were no hand seals, no pre-emptive gathering of Spiritual Power, not even the slightest discernible ripple in the surrounding space.

Li Yuan’s figure vanished directly from the reef.

The Golden Core Cultivator’s pupils contracted violently, the hairs on the back of his neck instantly standing on end.

He activated his protective True Essence almost instinctively. A dark red Demon Qi Shield erupted around his body, forming what should have been an indestructible barrier.

But it was too late.

Li Yuan appeared out of thin air behind the Golden Core Cultivator, less than a foot separating them.

The immense and suffocatingly pure spiritual pressure of a Late-stage Golden Core was completely and unreservedly unleashed at that moment. A deep, dark-purple Middle Grade Golden Core spun wildly in his Dantian, and the terrifying aura, like a ten-thousand-zhang mountain, instantly crushed his opponent’s will to resist.

The Golden Core Cultivator’s expression froze completely. Under that pressure, his heart seemed to skip a beat. He wanted to turn his head, but his neck was too stiff to move.

Li Yuan formed a blade with the fingers of his right hand and swung it forward flatly.

A perfected Void-Rending Slash.

There was no grand display, only a gray rift, as thin as a hair and with edges as smooth as a mirror, that silently sliced through space.

Before this rift, the Demon Qi Shield was cut open as easily as a sheet of paper, without so much as a spark from the clash of Spiritual Power.

The gray rift passed through the Golden Core Cultivator’s neck.

An extremely fine line of blood appeared. The Golden Core Cultivator’s eyes were filled with disbelief and utter terror. The next instant, his head shot into the sky on a fountain of gushing blood, and his headless body, now out of control, plummeted toward the sea.

The entire process happened too quickly. Less than half a breath passed from the moment Li Yuan vanished to the moment the Golden Core Cultivator was decapitated.

The Late-stage Foundation Establishment Loose Cultivator at the side hadn’t even processed what had just happened.

When he saw the once-lofty Golden Core patriarch instantly become a headless corpse, a chill shot down his spine, his legs went weak, and an extreme cold rushed from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

"Se... Senior..." The Loose Cultivator choked out a broken syllable, turning to burn his blood essence for a desperate escape.

Li Yuan didn’t even glance at him, casually flicking a finger with his left hand.

A wisp of Demonic Qi shot through the air.

The force from the finger flick hit the Loose Cultivator in the back. The man’s body stiffened abruptly in mid-air, and the life force within him was instantly extinguished by the corrosion of the Demonic Qi.

Li Yuan reached out and grabbed, and two storage bags fell into his hand. Then, he flicked a crimson flame from his fingertip, which instantly incinerated the corpses and bloodstains on the sea’s surface, leaving not a single trace behind.

The wind and waves continued as before, as if the one-sided slaughter had never happened.

Li Yuan landed back on the reef, sat down cross-legged, wiped the Spiritual Marks from the storage bags, and began to take inventory.

There was nothing of value in the Foundation Establishment Loose Cultivator’s bag—just a few hundred Low Grade Spirit Stones and some assorted Spiritual Materials from the sea.

The Golden Core Cultivator’s storage bag was far more bountiful.

There were over two thousand Mid-grade Spirit Stones, a few bottles of peak Tier Two pills for suppressing injuries, and a large amount of materials harvested from Sea Demons. Judging by the quality, there was indeed an Inner Core and tendons from a Tier Three Sea Demon.

Li Yuan moved the Spirit Stones and materials into his personal dimension.

While rummaging at the bottom of the storage bag, his fingers touched a cold, metallic object.

Within a three-chi radius, his affix perception triggered instantly.

A blue light flared in his vision.

Li Yuan took the object out and placed it in his palm.

It was a shuttle-shaped Magical Artifact about half a chi long. The entire body was forged from some unknown Deep Sea Cold Iron, its surface covered in complex and intricate Spirit Patterns. It was sharp at both ends with a hollowed-out middle, where a wisp of pure Spiritual Qi could be seen faintly circulating within.

[Detectable Equippable Item: Vein-Stripping Spirit Shuttle (Intact)]

[Equipment Affix Preview: Vein Extraction and Cultivation (Blue)]

[Effect: Can be used to quickly and actively strip a Spirit Vein, extracting it completely without damaging its structure. After extraction, it can be nourished by consuming the user’s own Spiritual Power to slowly raise the Spirit Vein’s grade.]

[Permanence Condition: Successfully use this artifact to completely strip five Spirit Veins of different elemental attributes (0/5).]

’A blue affix.’

Li Yuan’s gaze flickered. This was precisely the kind of support-type Magical Artifact he desperately needed right now.

And with this Vein-Stripping Spirit Shuttle, he could, as if unraveling silk from a cocoon, extract the Spirit Veins from the seabed completely intact and place them directly into his personal dimension or integrate them into his own body’s circulation.

More importantly was its second effect: consuming Spiritual Power to raise a Spirit Vein’s grade.

This meant that the miniature and small Spirit Veins in his body were not static; they could be nourished over time and gradually grow into medium or even large-sized Spirit Veins.

’The permanence condition requires stripping five Spirit Veins of different elemental attributes,’ Li Yuan calculated internally.

The condition was demanding. Unclaimed miniature Spirit Veins were abundant in Shuizhou, but almost all of them were of the Water Element.

Li Yuan stood up and completely cleansed all traces from the reef.

In the distance, thirty li away across the sea, the halo of a vast expanse of lights flickered in the mist. That was the united fleet-island where the merchant ships had gathered, the location of this small trade fair.

Li Yuan retracted his aura, once again suppressing it to the Late-stage Foundation Establishment. The "Illusory Face" disguise slightly altered his facial contours, making him appear more ordinary.

With a light tap of his toe on the reef, he transformed into a stream of azure Escape Light and sped away, skimming the surface of the sea toward the brightly lit fleet-island.