Cultivation: I Can Solidify Equipment Attributes

The night was black as ink. Outside the western wall of the Mist Forest Marketplace, the only sound was the rustle of wind through the leaves.

Inside the stone house, Li Yuan sat cross-legged on a meditation mat. His four Divine Sense Lines were spread out as usual.

Just past Midnight, the Divine Sense Line in his mind responsible for monitoring the external Array twitched slightly. At a node of the Breath-Sensing Array on the marketplace’s west side, a Sensing Stone buried beneath the soil glowed with an extremely faint red light, which then quickly extinguished.

The warning lasted only three breaths.

This wasn’t a Demon Beast stumbling into the net. A Demon Beast’s Spiritual Power fluctuations are coarse and continuous; the Array would alarm incessantly the moment one touched the Breath-Sensing Array. Only a Cultivator could manage such a precise maneuver—touching the very edge of the warning threshold before immediately retracting.

Moreover, this was the third night in a row that the same thing had happened.

Li Yuan did not get up. He redirected the Divine Sense Line responsible for monitoring the Spirit Vein and sent it creeping silently forward, following the underground tributary of the Spirit Vein west of the marketplace.

His Divine Sense crossed the Array’s boundary, extending outward for about a li.

At the edge of the forest, in a patch of shade, the Spirit Vein relayed three sets of heavily suppressed meridian fluctuations.

Three Foundation Establishment Stage Demon Cultivators.

They didn’t venture deep, merely lingering for a moment at the edge of the Breath-Sensing Array’s detection range to test its sensitivity. After confirming the Array was undisturbed, the three presences quickly retreated, vanishing into the depths of the Ghost Mist Forest.

Li Yuan retracted his Divine Sense Line.

Early the next morning, Li Yuan reported his findings from the previous night to the management office.

After Chen Yi finished listening, he slammed his palm on the solid wood desk before him, sending the jade slips on top of it CLATTERING.

"Where are all these Demon Cultivators coming from?" Chen Yi’s brow was tightly furrowed.

"We killed a fair number of them before. The Sect did another sweep just a few days ago, but their numbers don’t seem to be dropping at all."

"I’ll report this to the Sect immediately and request they send people over to stand guard and investigate."

Chen Yi took a deep breath, tossed a Token into a drawer, and shook his head.

"News from the front lines: last night, the encampments of three more cultivator families were overrun by Demon Cultivators. Even their great arrays were chewed to pieces. Now, all the Loose Cultivators and small families are fleeing to the rear."

Chen Yi paused, then looked up at Li Yuan.

"A little less than half are crowding in our direction, but most fled to Yunyang Marketplace. They’re overwhelmed too, so the Sect is preparing to expand outward. They want to ask you to go and help set up the peripheral Defensive Arrays."

"But this won’t be decided so quickly. The Array Materials and personnel aren’t in place yet, so there’s no rush."

Li Yuan just nodded, indicating that he understood.

Leaving the management office, Li Yuan headed back along the crowded street.

He scanned the stalls as he walked, eventually stopping before a remote stall run by a Loose Cultivator on the east side. His eyes landed on a dust-covered manual.

*Muddy Evil Skill*, a Tier One Evil Qi Cultivation Technique.

The Cultivation Technique was extremely crude, barely capable of guiding Evil Qi into the body, so it was completely ignored. Li Yuan tossed down ten Low Grade Spirit Stones and tucked the jade slip into his sleeve.

That night, the doors and windows of the stone house were tightly shut.

Li Yuan sat cross-legged on the floor. He read through the skill carefully once, committing the circulation path of the Muddy Evil Skill to memory.

’My understanding of Evil Qi is already quite profound.’

He spent less than an hour guiding a faint wisp of Evil Qi through his body.

The Evil Qi in his meridians flowed smoothly along the technique’s path, completing three Grand Circulations.

[Muddy Evil Skill: Proficient (0/200)]

Without any hindrance, the Tier One Cultivation Technique immediately jumped to the Proficient level that same night.

Li Yuan then fully focused his mind and began to circulate the Concentrating Soul-Invoking Skill with all his might.

As the skill circulated, the mass of Divine Soul power in his mind, once like a clear spring, began to compress inward frantically. Every wisp of his Mental Power ground against the others, creating an intense, expanding pain.

This expanding pain lasted for four full hours.

When the last trace of Spiritual Power in his Dantian was drained away, transforming into spiritual nourishment and flowing into his mind, the hyper-compressed mass of Divine Soul power finally let out a clear, resonant HUM.

In that instant, the once-clear spring transformed, taking on a texture as viscous as mercury.

[Concentrating Soul-Invoking Skill: Great Success (0/3200)]

The moment he broke through, the phantom image of an item that had been sitting in his equipment slot suddenly lit up.

[Condition to make Divine Soul Guard (Green) permanent has been met]

[Proficiency in a Tier Two Divine Soul Skill has reached Great Success (Fulfilled)]

[Make permanent?]

"Yes."

[Divine Soul Guard (Green) has become a permanent trait.]

Along with the panel’s notification, the exhaustion Li Yuan felt from operating multiple Divine Sense Lines was completely drawn away.

Li Yuan didn’t pause. He took out two Soul Condensing Pills, consuming one and equipping the other.

[Equipped: Soul Condensing Pill (Intact)]

[Soul Condensing Boost (Green) is now in effect.]

[Condition to make Soul Condensing Boost (Green) permanent has been met.]

[Make permanent?]

"Yes."

[Soul Condensing Boost (Green) has become a permanent trait.]

Then, in the center of his vision, a deep azure light burst forth, swallowing all the text that was there before.

[Permanent traits eligible for compatible fusion have been detected.]

[Soul Light Tempering (Blue) + Divine Soul Guard (Green) + Soul Condensing Boost (Green)]

[Initiate fusion?]

Li Yuan’s consciousness stirred.

"Fuse."

The blue light spun violently on the panel, finally coalescing into four large words.

[Return to Soul Origin (Blue)]

[Effect: Increases base Divine Soul strength and control precision by twenty percent, up to a maximum of sixty percent; reduces Divine Soul consumption by twenty percent; increases natural Divine Soul recovery speed by thirty percent; provides an additional twenty percent increase to Divine Soul Condensation.]

The instant the fusion was complete,

Li Yuan felt as if a tightly drawn string deep within his mind had snapped. At that moment, the mass of Divine Soul power, viscous as mercury, completely broke free from its physical constraints.

Without any conscious effort, five Divine Sense Lines extended like tangible tentacles, spreading out through the cracks in the stone house.

Within a fifty-zhang radius, everything was reflected in his sea of consciousness in minute detail: the faint friction of insects burrowing in the dirt, the trembling of veins in the leaves as the night wind brushed past, and even the momentary pauses in the flow of Spiritual Power through the patrolling Cultivators’ meridians.

The precision of his control had leaped to a whole new level. If he were to use the [Divine Soul Manipulation Skill] to refine that batch of Tier Two Healing Pills now, he was certain there would be absolutely no deviation in controlling the heat.

The massive influx of information brought no sense of strain on his Divine Soul. [Return to Soul Origin] had reduced the mental cost of this ambient perception to a nearly negligible level.

Li Yuan withdrew his Divine Sense and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.

Just then, a communication jade slip on the corner of his table began to glow faintly.

Li Yuan reached out, picked it up, and sent his Divine Sense into it.

It was a message from Chen Yi.

In ten days, the Primordial Yang Sect would be pooling resources from several surrounding marketplaces to hold a massive, temporary trade fair in the rear. The Sect would not only release a large batch of scarce wartime supplies but would even bring out some rare Spiritual Objects that were normally never circulated, all to appease and win over the fleeing families and Loose Cultivators.

Li Yuan put down the jade slip.

「Ten days later.」

He glanced at the tall pile of pill vials and Magical Artifact materials in the corner of the stone house. ’My Spirit Stone reserves and Sect contributions are already quite substantial,’ he thought. ’This trade fair is the perfect opportunity to convert resources into crucial trump cards.’