World of Cultivation

He hated gossip very much right now. It had clearly just been cutting the Cold Magnet, but it had spread to becoming processing the Cold Magnet and caused a calamity for him. Zuo Mo grimaced inside. Without breaking into the stage of ningmai, to process rare materials like Cold Magnet and Inky Black Lotus seeds was like a delusion.

Even with the Three-Turn fire formation, he would not be able to process the fourth-grade Inky Black Lotus seed. He closed his eyes, carefully inspecting any change in the Inky Black Lotus seed inside the Stalagmite fire. He quickly was disappointed. Shrouded by the Stalagmite fire, there was nothing happening on the outer coat of the Inky Black Lotus seed.

Taking a deep breath, Zuo Mo’s fingers started to flick, smoothly flowing and creating countless afterimages.

For the first time, the red-robed male had a shocked expression. The public saw the spectacle, the experts the technique. This string of finger movements was not some complicated finger motions but it was extremely quick, reaching the stage of “Fingers Evolving Into Shadows”. The “Fingers Evolving Into Shadows” referred to the fact that fast fingers would create dense afterimages, which would be so dense that they would stop for a while in the air, but since the finger movements would not have stopped, before the old afterimages would disappear, new afterimages would form, creating a series of connected afterimages. This was “Fingers Evolving Into Shadows.”

Before reaching the stage of jindan, finger motions were an extremely useful technique. Everyone would know it but the skill would vary. Unless people cultivated the body, there wouldn’t be much of a difference in the strength, flexibility and power of the fingers. In other words, ningmai xiuzhe would have an advantage in terms of ling power but not in finger motions.

Unless there were specialized techniques for finger motions, the only way to increase skill was to keep practicing.

The cultivation of this zombie-like youth was extremely average but his finger movements were amazing.

Not just the red-robed male. The other two were also shocked. They exchanged a look, seeing the joy in each other’s eyes. Just this string of finger movements was enough for their confidence in Zuo Mo to increase.

Zuo Mo’s mind was blank, his concentration completely gathered. In his eyes, there was only that milky-white Stalagmite fire, and the Inky Black Lotus seed inside the fire.

His fingers became faster. Hiss, it was like an invisible hand had pushed the spitting Stalagmite fire, a string of white fire flying out of the Stalagmite fire. The Stalagmite fire was like a ball of thread and this fire thread was the beginning of the thread. White thread was continuously pull out of the fire.

The white fire thread continued to grow longer, the other end always connected to the Stalagmite fire. The fire thread started to dance around the Inky Black Lotus seed.

The ball of Stalagmite fire quickly became smaller. When the last bit of flame turned to become part of the fire thread, the Inky Black Lotus seed was exposed to the air. The white thread of fire was like a nimble white snake, swimming around the Inky Black Lotus seed floating in the air.

Zuo Mo’s finger movements suddenly changed. It had been lightning fast before. Now it was as though weights had been ties to his fingers, extremely slow and heavy.

The white fire thread broke in the middle, creating two threads. The two threads of fire were like two little white snakes, swimming around the Inky Black Lotus seed. The speed at which the two fire threads moved was twice as fast as before. Strangely, the two fire threads created two intersecting circles but would never touch each other.

One-Turn fire-formation!

The Inky Black Lotus seed inside the fire formation was like a rock, with no signs of movement.

There was no change in Zuo Mo’s eyes. His ten fingers continued to change.

Two divided into four! Four threads of fire that were smaller than before formed for even smaller criss-crossing fire rings.

Two-Turn fire formation!

The Inky Black Lotus seed was slightly vibrating.

Zuo Mo nervously stared at the Inky Black Lotus seed in the middle of the fire formation, not daring to slip up the tiniest bit. He was not surprised at the situation in front of him.

The change in his finger movements became even slower. Opposite that, the speed that the ling power circuited through his body sped up.

Eight threads of fire circled around the Inky Black Lotus seed at astonishing speed, creating a white cage of fire.

Three-Turn fire formation.

Compared to the previous time that he cut the Cold Magnet, Zuo Mo’s control of the Three-Turn fire formation was much better than before. After listening to Pu Yao’s advice, Zuo Mo had started to consciously practice his control of ling power. Since he had many opportunities to practice everyday, he had progressed quickly. The Three-Turn fire formation that he had struggled with so much previously was now controlled with ease.

Inside the fire formation, the Inky Black Lotus seed was trembling fiercely as though it would jump out of the fire formation at any second!

All the people were holding their breath as they stared with serious expressions at the white cage of fire suspended in the air. They all knew what was happening next was the most important step. The coldness of the fire formation had reached an astonishing depth. Eight times the usual temperature of the Stalagmite fire! Cold fire was cold, hot fires were hot, but as long as they were fire, they all had one attribute “melt”! The melting ability of cold fires would increase the colder it became, the melting ability of the hot fires would become stronger the higher the temperature.

The Three-Turn fire formation cause the coldness of the Stalagmite fire to be eight times its usual, and its melting ability had also increased by eight times!

Under the eight-times melting ability, the previously unaffected Inky Black Lotus seed finally had a slight change. Small pits started to form on its coat. This was a sign that it was finally melting but if it was only at this intensity, to process this Inky Black Lotus seed, it would take years.

Using the yao seed, Zuo Mo’s consciousness was extremely cooperative. No one noticed that his body was soft and relaxed as it never had been before. The more relaxed the body, the better the effect of the mo matrix, and the faster the rate that ling power would be absorbed.

The effect of Zuo Mo controlling his ling power in the recent period of time was extremely evident. Forming the Three-Turn fire formation only took half of his ling power. Feeling the ling power coming from the ling replenishing formation, Zuo Mo released a small breath. He had never worked at the same time that he was using a ling replenishing formation. Based on what he saw, the situation was good.

There was a certain level of impurities in the ling power of the jingshi. This was not a problem for Zuo Mo. The mo matrix could automatically filter out the impurities from the ling power. The ling power passed on from the ling replenishing formation was a steady flow. The ling power inside Zuo Mo’s body quickly increased.

He closed his eyes, maintaining the Three-Turn fire formation, motionless as he waited for his ling power to be replenished to capacity. In the few times he had attempted the Four-Turn fire formation, the use of ling power was astonishing.

The red-robed male and his compatriots couldn’t help but be nervous at this time as well. They could naturally see that Zuo Mo was biding his time and gather his energy. It was like the calm before the storm. The calmer it got, the more suffocating it became.

The instant that the ling power in his body reached its maximum, Zuo Mo opened his eyes.

It was like there was a thousand catty weight on his fingers as they slowly moved! His weak shoulders shuddered in effort but the slowly moving fingers were strangely steady.

Everyone felt the white light brighten!

The cage of fire became even more dense like a white cocoon of fire! Sixteen threads of fire, with speeds almost undetectable by the naked eye, circled quickly around the Inky Black Lotus seed.

Four-Turn fire formation!

The ling power in Zuo Mo’s body furiously was used up. Just forming the Four-Turn fire formation, the full ling power had almost became empty. He couldn’t attend to anything else but furiously start to suck in the ling power from the ling replenishing formation. Large amounts of ling power started to stream towards Zuo Mo. He was like a thirsty traveller in the desert, greedily sucking every drop of ling power.

Under the power of melting multiplied by sixteen, the hard coat of the Inky Black Lotus seed finally started to melt!

All of Zuo Mo’s consciousness started to furiously move. Sixteen times the melting power. That required that he needed to be extremely precise with his ling power. Any slack in precision, once it was multiplied by sixteen, could cause the fire formation to collapse!

The three males and Li Ying Feng was so nervous they did not dare to breathe. Inside the store, there was a suffocating silence. These was no sound from the Four-Turn formation but the white fire cocoon would occasionally tremble lightly. Each tremble would cause the four people’s hearts to tremble. They knew that the tremble was Zuo Mo having problems controlling the Four-Turn fire formation and could not make it do as he wished easily.

No one could spare the attention to this point at the moment.

On their faces, other than nervousness, there was only shock! Deep shock!

A xiuzhe in the stage of zhuji was actually able to start a Four-Turn fire formation. If it spread out, it would shake all of Dong Fu, no, all of Sky Moon Jie! It was basically hard for a zhuji to complete a Three-Turn fire formation. A Four-Turn fire formation, that was basically impossible to complete.

But this extremely average-looking youth could actually form a Four-Turn fire formation. Looking at the dense white cocoon of fire, it was undoubtedly a Four-Turn fire formation!

They had come when they had heard the news of the Cold Magnet with an attitude to try. Truthfully, when they had saw Zuo Mo was only in zhuji, they had been very disappointed and still had a last hope to try, since ruining a fourth-grade Inky Black Lotus seed was not an easy thing to do! When Zuo Mo had taken this job in the end, they had wondered what method Zuo Mo would use, but no matter what, they had never thought that Zuo Mo would choose the Four-Turn fire formation!

Four-Turn was not a secret formation. It was extremely common. Many people understood it. Even if they understood, there were very few that could use it. The higher the level, the more the required control over ling power and cultivation would multiply.

This kind of increase could only be broken by increases in cultivation stages! To use the Three-Turn fire formation as an example, if some zhuji xiuzhe occasionally managed to complete it, then they definitely could not complete a Four-Turn fire formation. That was because the requirement it had for control of ling power and cultivation was double what a Three-Turn fire formation demanded. Only after breaking through to the stage of ningmai would a person fulfill the requirements.

Yet, something that they assumed could not happen was happening right in front of them.

The white fire cocoon occasionally trembled and became unsteady but it definitely was a Four-Turn fire formation!

The three’s eyes as they looked at Zuo Mo was like looking at a monster.

Zuo Mo did not know it. Right now, he did not have a bit of attention to spare for anything. His world was only this formation!

The little pits on the surface of the Inky Black Lotus seed started to grow larger and deeper, revealing the lotus seed underneath.

At this time, Zuo Mo did not dare to slack off even more. This was a glowing and adorable lotus seed, such a beautiful and tempting thing, but it contained terrifying poison. Just touching the tiniest bit, he would die.

Suppressing the terror inside, he tried to steady his ling power. He didn’t dare to think of the consequences of the smallest mistake right now.

Seeing the glowing and tender lotus seed, the three people back up even more, their expressions filled with wariness and terror.

The dangers of the Inky Black Lotus seed was infamous!

Translator Ramblings: I found the four-turn a bit misleading the first time around. But we get a really good description of it in this chapter. The Inky Black Lotus Seed is super-duper deadly. Zuo Mo’s increased spiritual power as a result of Pu Yao’s scripture is finally doing something amazing. This was like a reaction chapter.