The Black King had departed.
Three days after his meeting with Luo Chen, he left quietly, carrying a map Luo Chen had drawn for him.
His destination: Purple Spirit Island, deep within the Demon Sea.
Because he had to smooth out the formations and nurture the magic treasure, Luo Chen could not free himself in the short term. Not wishing to delay the matter, he could only dispatch someone else on his behalf.
Logically speaking, Tianxuan would have been more suitable.
She possessed a humanoid form, was of avian kind, and after practicing the Ninety Thousand Li spell, her escape speed was far swifter.
However, within the boundless sea, formidable demon beasts were beyond count, and perils lurked at every turn. In contrast, sheer flight speed was not as dependable as absolute strength.
The Black King was now infinitely close to the late-Tier 3 stage. With his innate demonic art combined with the two mid-grade magic treasure flying daggers Luo Chen had bestowed upon him, his combat power was exceptionally formidable.
He was well-qualified to traverse the depths of the Demon Sea!
Moreover, Tianxuan had managed daily trivialities for Luo Chen over the years, frequently liaising with the Zhang family and the Myriad Immortals Association. If she suddenly departed, Luo Chen would have to attend to every matter himself, which would prove exceedingly troublesome.
After brief deliberation, Luo Chen made the decision to have the Black King go to Purple Spirit Island to investigate the Purple Monkey Flower.
The Purple Monkey Flower—one of the three major Tier 4 primary ingredients of the Nascent Soul Formation Pill!
Nowadays, its name was obscure in the cultivation world.
Yet in ancient times, it had been quite a renowned poisonous flower.
The fragrance exuded where it grew could bewilder the souls of living beings, and the plant would even feed upon them!
And what this poisonous flower loved bewitching most were ape- and monkey-type demon beasts whose intellect was only half-awakened. It could thereby "corral" such beasts as food while also having them serve as its guardians, protecting it from being plucked and swallowed by other formidable demon beasts.
Toward this spiritual herb, human cultivators, after suffering numerous setbacks, gradually discovered its uses.
Using this flower in medicine, crafting incense, or even cultivating poison arts yielded immense benefits.
Regrettably, after the ancient war between humans and demons, traces of the Purple Monkey Flower grew increasingly scarce.
People of later generations never associated it with the primary ingredients of the Nascent Soul Formation Pill.
Azure Pill Valley's Nascent Soul Formation Pill formula had originated from Han Zhan.
And Han Zhan's acquisition of that formula traced back to an ancient cultivator's seated-death cave dwelling.
Ever since obtaining the Soul Nourishing Wood for Han Zhan at Lengguang Island, Luo Chen had received the complete Nascent Soul Formation Pill formula from him.
Previously, he had thought of relying on extensive trial and error along with the system's assistance to deduce the complete pill formula, never expecting the eventual outcome to be so convenient.
Having obtained the formula, Luo Chen naturally could not let it sit idle.
Even though he had been quite busy over these years, he always squeezed out some time to study it closely.
In his view, this Nascent Soul Formation Pill formula truly exhibited an ancient style.
The numerous supplementary ingredients triumphed through sheer quantity.
As for the three major primary ingredients: the Divine Iris protected the physical body, the Five Elements Lotus Platform guided the qi, and the Purple Monkey Flower drew forth the spirit—perfectly aligning with the core essence of the Nascent Soul formation method Luo Chen had comprehended.
Essence, qi, and spirit—the three treasures united as one.
Judging by this straightforward, domineering style, it placed exceptionally high demands on the consumer's foundation, but Luo Chen was thoroughly satisfied.
His own foundation was already extraordinary—even terrifying.
Had it been another Nascent Soul Formation Pill, he might have harbored doubts, but with this formula, he decided without hesitation to concoct it.
Cultivators of this world all took pursuing the Dao, ascending, and attaining longevity and enduring vision as their ultimate goals.
Leading to this goal were thousands upon thousands of paths.
Even from the very start of Qi Refinement, the road branched continuously.
Diverse spiritual roots, various constitutions, numerous attributes, countless races.
The spiritual medicines for Foundation Establishment were myriad, the methods of Core Formation fell into separate schools, and the methods of Nascent Soul formation were still exotic and varied from person to person.
And the Nascent Soul Formation Pill crafted from this formula was undoubtedly the one that suited Luo Chen best, sparing him the trouble of wasting effort seeking other auxiliary resources for conceiving a nascent soul.
Over these years, Luo Chen had intermittently gathered all the supplementary ingredients required for the Nascent Soul Formation Pill; he now lacked only the three primary ingredients.
"I have one stalk of Divine Iris. Though the quantity is insufficient, inquiries through the Demon Hunting Department's intelligence network revealed that Divine Iris is often traded within the Canghai Alliance. After all, the territory held by the Canghai Alliance was once the most fertile land in the Northern Sea outside of the Arctic Yama Heavens, boasting the greatest number of Nascent Soul cultivators."
"Once my cultivation reaches fruition, a trip to the Canghai Alliance will be inevitable, whether I go myself or send someone."
"And now, I have news of the Purple Monkey Flower..."
A look of hope surfaced in Luo Chen's eyes.
According to the records in miscellaneous books, the entirety of Purple Spirit Island was blanketed in a purple toxic miasma; at such a scale, a large quantity of Purple Monkey Flowers must surely grow there.
If he could control this island, Luo Chen would no longer need to worry about his quota of Purple Monkey Flowers.
"I hope the Black King can bring me good news!"
Luo Chen murmured under his breath, though he lacked much confidence deep down.
So many years had passed, and so many major events had unfolded in the Northern Sea over this period—including earth-shattering campaigns such as the demon coalition attacking the Yuan Demon Sect. Who knew if Purple Spirit Island even still existed?
Sending the Black King on this journey served to scout the way for him in advance while avoiding potential "dangers."
"Pity that the Five Elements Lotus Platform alone has had no relevant news for all these years. Even records predating ancient times contain precious little about it."
"The rare mentions merely state: 'Belonging to the Five Qi, the essence of the Five Elements.'"
Amidst the hope in his eyes, Luo Chen could not help feeling a touch of dejection.
Presently, although he was said to possess the cultivation speed of a Heavenly Spiritual Root, he was, after all, not a true Heavenly Spiritual Root possessor.
Rumor had it that when those with Heavenly Spiritual Roots advanced to Nascent Soul, they faced virtually no bottlenecks; they only needed to consider surviving the heavenly tribulation.
He, however, could not.
Therefore, he had to rely on external aids.
His search for medicines over the years was precisely to assemble those aids.
As for surviving the tribulation?
Luo Chen's gaze fell upon the gray cauldron before him, his spiritual eyes seemingly piercing through the cauldron's body to gaze upon what lay within.
"The Hunyuan Cauldron and the Xuanchen Armor are my preparations for surviving the tribulation!"
The former went without saying; as his lifebound magic treasure, it was destined to shoulder a great burden during the Nascent Soul tribulation.
And this Xuanchen Armor was the name Luo Chen had given to the defensive magic treasure within the cauldron.
The name originated from taking one character each from its previous owner, the Xuanyan Demon Emperor, and Luo Chen's own name.
Simple and clear.
Though Luo Chen prided himself on his mighty physique, he did not dare use his bare flesh to withstand tribulation lightning.
When the time came, the Hunyuan Cauldron would hold the front line, while the Xuanchen Armor would serve to protect his body.
With this two-pronged approach, he might be able to survive the Nascent Soul lightning tribulation.
"Perhaps..."
Luo Chen sighed and once again mobilized his divine sense and magic power, casting restriction after restriction into the Xuanchen Armor within the Hunyuan Cauldron.
...
Truth be told, this artifact forging had encountered far too many twists and turns.
If one compared it to bearing a child, obtaining the Demon Emperor's husk had been like finding a mate; frantically practicing the art of artifact forging afterward had been the preparation for pregnancy; and the special efficacy born of the Hunyuan Cauldron had allowed Luo Chen to strike true on his very first attempt.
Yet after going through all that trouble to conceive the treasure embryo, right at the final step, a difficult labor began!
What Luo Chen was doing now was akin to a failed natural birth requiring a forced cesarean section.
The basic restrictions he cast from time to time were virtually indistinguishable from sharp scalpels.
Fortunately, having studied formation arrays over these years, Luo Chen had gradually shored up his former shortcoming in restrictions.
From knowing only obscure restrictions at the very beginning, to mastering them, and then delving into other basic restrictions:
Mountain, water, wind, cloud, dark, light, void...
Unwittingly, he had gained a solid, thorough grasp of the basic restrictions required for formation arrays.
Even the spatial restriction, the hardest for ordinary formation masters to master, he had managed to glean an inkling of by peeking at the spatial restriction the Qingshuang Demon Emperor had set within the Hunyuan Cauldron.
Luo Chen was even confident that, given the relevant materials for storage bags, he could try forging low-grade storage bags himself.
...
While Luo Chen awaited the magic treasure's emergence, the Black King, having spent over half a year, finally reached his destination.
In a deathly silent sea, no waves stirred and no sea breeze blew.
A single horn slowly surfaced from beneath the water, followed by a pair of massive pupils.
He looked up at the island veiled in purple toxic miasma in the midst of the waters, a look of wariness showing in his eyes.
"So this is Purple Spirit Island?"
"It cost this demon so much time and several fights to finally get here."
"Aside from looking a bit mysterious, it doesn't seem like anything special!"
The Black King muttered, yet his subsequent movements were not at all reckless.
His throat rippled, regurgitating an object from his stomach pouch.
Peering past his half-glimpsed sharp teeth, it was clearly a red pill.
He bit down, shattering the pill.
Instantly, a pungent, spicy flavor spread down his gut and surged through his entire body.
"My body is already immune to a hundred poisons, and with a detoxification pill personally refined by Master to protect me, this purple toxic miasma shouldn't pose any threat."
With a chuckle, the Black King shrank his form and swam toward the miasma-shrouded island.
Three days later.
A furious dragon's roar echoed from Purple Spirit Island.
The toxic miasma accumulated over many years churned wildly in the wake of that roar, billowing in all directions.
At the same time, a massive figure soared into the sky from Purple Spirit Island, flanked by swirling streaks of black and white that slashed out tens of zhang of colossal blade lights toward what lay behind.
The flood dragon appeared somewhat languid; stumbling through the air, he plunged headfirst into the ocean depths and fled into the distance without hesitation.
Behind him came the thunderous pounding of footsteps.
Moments later, more than a dozen purple figures burst out of the woods and the miasma, each exuding immense purple demonic qi.
They roared and pursued in fury.
Yet upon reaching the seashore, they could only halt in their tracks, raging powerlessly at the sea.
...
Inside the Alchemy and Forging Hall.
The white-robed, red-faced Daoist appeared somewhat gaunt, but his eyes shone with exceptional brilliance.
Gazing at the gray cauldron before him, he took a deep breath.
"Eighteen years since arriving at the Myriad Immortals Association—even if you were an immortal artifact, it would be time for you to emerge!"
Pressing his palms together, he slowly pushed forward.
Vast magic power surged in torrents, and the gray cauldron began to tremble violently.
The next instant.
A beam of spiritual light slowly floated up from the gray cauldron.
As the spiritual light dispersed, a suit of armor materialized before the Daoist's eyes.
Luo Chen did not hesitate to grasp the Xuanchen Armor in his hand, his divine sense sweeping across it.
The armor displayed a profound, pitch-black hue, its luster thoroughly restrained.
The plates were laid out like a tortoise shell, yet also resembled the cracked pattern of parched earth.
Yet as his divine sense swept through, the cracked patterns resonated in harmony, glowing with spiritual light as ambient spiritual qi surged uncontrollably toward them.
"The formation merges with the embryo; qi arises from the armor."
"The Two Instruments Six Jia Formation has fused seamlessly with the treasure embryo, with virtually no impurities remaining."
"The Xuanchen Armor is born, its grade... high!"
Carefully counting the complete formation lines upon it, Luo Chen ultimately concluded that the Xuanchen Armor ranked at the high grade.
This outcome was somewhat unexpected, yet entirely reasonable.
What was unexpected was that with Luo Chen's artifact forging skills, he had actually crafted a high-grade defensive magic treasure.
What was reasonable was that it should have been so all along!
The Demon Emperor's husk had served as the raw material, supplemented by a wealth of precious secondary materials, crafted using the Penglai Immortal Sect's refining method, and finally nurtured by the efficacy of the Hunyuan Cauldron.
If all this had yielded merely a low-grade defensive magic treasure, Luo Chen would have had nowhere to weep.
His lowest expectation had been a mid-grade magic treasure, but clearly, high grade was far more to his liking.
However, this was only a cursory glance; its exact prowess still required testing.
Without a second thought, Luo Chen beckoned to the Xuanchen Armor.
In an instant, spiritual light transformed and adhered to his body.
Within the Alchemy and Forging Hall, magic power surged.
In the blink of an eye, Luo Chen was no longer there.
Above Penghu Lake, an escape light shot straight into the sky, heading for the firmament.
Reaching the sky, Luo Chen formed an incantation gesture, and his frame immediately began to swell.
One zhang, two zhang...
*Whoosh!*
A pair of wings unfurled from behind his back.
When his body finally reached nine zhang in height, Luo Chen halted the transformation.
Compared to before, this stature was slightly smaller, yet his power was far more condensed and formidable!
Through years of tempering his body and refining his cultivation methods, Luo Chen's path of body refinement had long since become worlds apart from how it had been in the beginning.
Luo Chen had no leisure to dwell on his current body refinement progress, directing his attention instead to the armor upon him.
The Xuanchen Armor clung seamlessly to his body without the slightest discomfort.
Such was the virtue of being custom-made!
Not only that, Luo Chen did not even feel any heaviness.
The Two Instruments Six Jia Formation, once assembled, naturally encompassed the effects of each individual array.
Evidently, this sensation of ethereal lightness stemmed from the Spirit-Attuning Cloud Armor Formation.
Luo Chen channeled his magic power into the Xuanchen Armor. In the next moment, a five-colored radiance emerged, enveloping him.
"The qi armor has indeed formed!"
A look of delight appeared on Luo Chen's face. Stirred by a sudden thought, he descended from the firmament back to the earth.
The roar of wind and thunder surged, throwing the cultivators of Penghu Lake into boundless panic.
The moment his feet touched the earth, a sensation of inexhaustible power welled up.
Even without Luo Chen continuing to inject magic power, the qi armor remained dazzling and resilient.
"This..."
Luo Chen had thought it a fluke earlier, but seeing it now, this high-grade Xuanchen Armor truly possessed such a wondrous property.
As long as his feet remained planted on the earth, it could automatically absorb nearby earth-attribute spiritual qi to sustain the qi armor indefinitely.
*I don't seem to have laid down any similar spirit-gathering formations, have I?*
Puzzled, Luo Chen touched the physical inner armor with his fingers.
After a brief thought, he roughly guessed the origin of this wonderful effect.
The Xuanyan Demon Emperor had started from a Ring-Headed Turtle, purifying his bloodline step by step until reaching the Nascent Soul stage and reverting to his ancestral form as a Black Tortoise.
And the Black Tortoise was an iconic representative among earth-attribute desolate beasts.
Having this trait was hardly surprising.
Luo Chen stood motionless, feeling the difference between being in the sky and on the earth.
Although it could still automatically absorb free-floating earth-attribute spiritual qi after leaving the ground, the intake plunged by nearly ninety percent.
From this, he reached a conclusion.
What it absorbed was likely not just spiritual qi, but also earth qi!
The most direct evidence was the land beneath his feet: originally lush with green grass and rich, black soil.
Yet as he stood there longer, the black soil beneath the grass turned increasingly ashen, accompanied by faint tremors deep within the earth veins, as though unable to bear the burden.
The earth could hardly bear its weight!
"This small island is threaded only by fractured Tier 1 spirit veins; it cannot withstand my extraction."
"But if I fight in a superior spiritual ground, I will practically stand undefeated."
Excitement gleamed in Luo Chen's eyes.
And this was merely the qi armor.
Next, it would be time to test its true defensive power.
Luo Chen looked up and glanced around. In the distance, streaks of light were flying toward him.
With his exceptional vision, he naturally saw that Tianxuan led the group, while the rest were cultivators of the Zhang family.
"This is one of my trump cards; it is not suited to be shown before others."
Luo Chen shrank his frame, returning to his normal posture, yet he did not remove the Xuanchen Armor.
Instead, with a thought, he altered its color and patterns.
In the blink of an eye, the moon-white Daoist robe he most commonly wore was draped over him.
"Truly compliant to my will."
Luo Chen chuckled softly. Sending a divine sense transmission to Tianxuan, he returned to the Star Constellation Hall.
Before long, Tianxuan entered the Star Constellation Hall.
Seeing Luo Chen smiling warmly and no longer confined to the Alchemy and Forging Hall, she instantly realized what had happened.
"Congratulations, Master! Joyous congratulations, Master!"
In an exceptionally buoyant mood, Luo Chen waved his hand at the bowing woman.
"Dispense with the formalities."
"Tell me, during my seclusion, has anything major occurred in the Myriad Immortals Association? And how are things on the Black King's side?"
Clearly, the latter was what Luo Chen cared about most!
Tianxuan's expression tightened, and she answered at once, "The Blood Hermit has returned to the Myriad Immortals Association!"
The Blood Hermit?
Luo Chen could not help but freeze in surprise.
Chapter 625