“The four-winged geoduck’s underwater dragon palace.”
Duanmu Xingling’s eyes lit up as she hurriedly said, “Then what are we waiting for, let’s set off now. The Four-Winged Earth Dragon is an existence comparable to that of a Saint, dominating the Heavenly Demon Ridge for hundreds of years, the amount of treasures it has amassed is definitely quite astonishing. If we obtain its treasures, our cultivation will definitely soar.”
“No way! There’s still a bit more waiting to do.”
“The Tongming River is full of crises, and the Underwater Dragon Palace is even a forbidden place that hasn’t been opened for five hundred years, so we need at least three months to make the preliminary preparations.” Zhang Ruochen said.
Huang Yichen also nodded and said, “My current martial cultivation has reached the middle extreme position of the Earth Extreme Realm, so if I want to go to the Underwater Dragon Palace, I have to allow my cultivation to, well, break through another realm. Three months should be enough time!”
Duanmu Xingling sighed, “Alright! It’s true that I need to prepare more, and I also need to continue to raise my cultivation.”
Huang Yichen said, “There are only three of us now as well, we’re still three short, who are you going to let join in?”
Zhang Ruochen’s eyes narrowed as he said, “In order to join in, one must be strong, moreover, the martial cultivation must not exceed the Heavenly Extremity Realm, I do have three candidates, I will take the time to go and talk to them.”
“Alright! Since that’s the case, we’ll split up and prepare. Three months from now, head to Tong Ming River and break into the underwater Dragon Palace.” Yellow Smokey said.
The reason why Zhang Ruochen planned to wait until three months before going to the Water Bottom Dragon Palace was actually because he wanted to take advantage of this period of time to cultivate the fifth palm of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm to its grand completion, so that he would be one point stronger.
After separating from Huang Yichen and Duanmu Xingling, Zhang Ruochen first went to the Merit Tower and exchanged four bottles of Third Grade Healing Pills and twenty Body Tempering and Tendon Refining Pills, spending a total of twenty-two thousand Merit Points.
Afterwards, he went to Tong Sheng Mountain once again and entered the Earth Grade Gravity Cultivation Chamber to continue cultivating the “Nine Stacks of Elephant Power” and at the same time quenching his physical body.
In his last cultivation, he had refined ten Bone Quenching and Tendon Refining Pills, causing Zhang Ruochen’s physical body strength to reach the middle stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm from the early stage of the Heavenly Extremity Realm.
This time, Zhang Ruochen exchanged twenty Bone Quenching and Tendon Refining Pills, which was to raise the strength of his fleshly body, once again, by one level.
The Martial Dao, originally, was to cultivate the physical body and techniques.
While the techniques were important, the physical body was equally important.
After the strength of his physical body was increased, Zhang Ruochen decided to challenge the even more brutal cultivation environment, entering the Earth Grade Cultivation Chamber and walking straight to the deepest part.
Under thirty times gravity, he cultivated palm techniques.
The gravity was increased by ten times, and the pressure increased by another large amount. An ordinary person would not be able to survive under such an environment.
“Boom boom!”
In the Gravity Cultivation Chamber, the sound of palms constantly resounded. A new round of gruelling cultivation began!
Half a month later, Zhang Ruochen walked out of the cultivation chamber.
The Palm Technique, once again, was upgraded.
One could strike eight palms at once, exploding eight times the power of the palm technique, just one step short of the Palm Technique’s Grand Completion.
At the same time, because of refining twenty Bone Tempering and Tendon Refining Pills, Zhang Ruochen’s physical body, too, had significantly improved. Of course it hadn’t reached the kind of strength of a late stage Heavenly Extreme Realm martial artist.
After reaching the Heavenly Extremity Realm, the span of the realm would become larger and larger, and the effect of the pills on the enhancement of the physical body would become smaller and smaller.
According to Zhang Ruochen’s prediction, he would need to refine at least ten more Bone Quenching and Tendon Refining Pills before the strength of his physical body could be raised to the level of the late Heavenly Extreme Realm.
After half a month of cultivation, Zhang Ruochen had completely stabilised the breakthrough realm and could control the increased strength as he wished. Even if he didn’t use the Spatial Domain, he didn’t have to worry about his breath leaking out.
“Swish!”
Zhang Ruochen’s body flashed and directly disappeared from the Tong Sheng Mountain, and before long, he was standing outside the gate of the Cultivation Secret Mansion, as if he had appeared out of thin air.
“The speed seems to have increased a bit more, with the fastest burst speed reaching two hundred and ninety-three metres per second, even if we compare it to those martial artists ranked in the top ten of the Earth Ranking, it’s probably not too far off!”
There was an indescribable feeling of pleasure with every cultivation improvement, as long as one’s strength was progressing, it meant that one’s efforts were not in vain.
Returning to the Secret Mansion of Cultivation, Zhang Ruochen prepared to recuperate for a while before going to the Tong Sheng Mountain to cultivate palm techniques.
Anyone who stayed under tens of times of gravity for a long period of time would not be able to cope with it, and Zhang Ruochen did not want to injure himself and leave behind hidden dangers because of cultivating palm techniques.
To cultivate, one needed to progress gradually.
Taking advantage of this time, Zhang Ruochen entered the inner space of the Space-Time Crystal Stone and began to study the Space-Time Mysterious Code.
Picking up the Silver-coloured paper of the Space-Time Secret Codex that was placed on the stone platform, he slowly flipped through it, and with Zhang Ruochen’s current realm, he was already able to flip through to the sixth page.
As for the seventh page, no matter what method Zhang Ruochen used, he was unable to flip through it.
According to the records of the Space-Time Secret Codex, Zhang Ruochen could now start cultivating the “Time Seal”.
Time was much harder to control than space, and there were many uncertainties. Zhang Ruochen did not intend to cultivate the “Time Seal” for the time being, and it would not be too late to wait until the Heavenly Extremity Realm, when his cultivation was much stronger, to start researching it again.
Right now, his main focus should be on the study of spatial inscriptions.
Because of the time, Zhang Ruochen had only learnt twelve types of spatial inscriptions until now.
Zhang Ruochen planned to start learning a defensive intermediate spatial inscription pattern, the Zeus Shape Inscription Pattern.
Intermediate level inscriptions were more than ten times harder than basic inscriptions, and were so delicate and complex that a slight lack of mental energy would result in a failure to inscribe them, leading to a lost cause.
Generally speaking, only martial artists whose spiritual power had reached the 30th rank could inscribe an intermediate level inscription successfully.
The intermediate inscriptions of the spatial system were even more difficult, and one would need to raise their spiritual power to at least the thirty-fifth rank before they could inscribe them successfully.
Of course, the power of intermediate level inscriptions far exceeded that of basic inscriptions.
For example, a basic “force” inscription could only increase the weight of a battle weapon by a hundred jin.
An intermediate force inscription would be able to increase the weight of a soldier by a thousand jin.
In the martial arts world, what was the most important thing?
Of course, saving one’s life is the most important.
Just like the Black Market Heavenly Extreme Realm martial artists who fought with Zhang Ruochen back then, almost all of them had protective treasures, and once they encountered a death crisis, the protective treasures would form a defence and save their master’s life.
The body protection treasures sold in the martial market were almost all from the hands of master refiners, very rare and expensive.
Buying a protective treasure would cost at least 10 million silver coins, almost half of the wealth of an early Heavenly Extreme Realm martial artist. Moreover, most of them were only one-time protective effects and could not be used for a second time.
Zhang Ruochen researched defensive intermediate space inscriptions, naturally he also wanted to refine a body protection treasure.
Intermediate level inscriptions were much more difficult to carve than Zhang Ruochen had imagined, it took half a month and 10,000 pieces of spirit paper were used up before that one intermediate level inscription was completely burnt out.
“Finally, the first step has been completed, a big step forward from success.”
In addition to that one Intermediate Spatial Inscription, Zhang Ruochen had also learnt three Basic Spatial Inscriptions of the Defensive Lineage.
With his current mental strength, the basic spatial inscriptions could be said to be at his fingertips, and he could easily carve them successfully.
Zhang Ruochen decided to inscribe the defensive inscriptions on top of the spatial ring, turning the spatial ring into a defensive treasure.
Inscribing the first defensive spatial ring was the most crucial, so Zhang Ruochen appeared to be extra careful.
Nonetheless, Zhang Ruochen wasted seven jade rings before he succeeded in refining the first defence-based spatial ring.
This spatial ring was the most perfect spatial treasure that Zhang Ruochen was able to refine right now, possessing a storage space that was a hundred times more massive than all the previous spatial rings.
Moreover, it also had the function of recognising the owner, so even if the spatial ring was lost, another martial artist would not be able to open the spatial ring.
The most powerful thing was the defence power.
Zhang Ruochen had inscribed three intermediate defence line inscriptions and thirty-three basic defence line inscriptions inside the spatial ring, and just the power of the inscriptions was already comparable to a ninth rank True Martial Treasure.
According to Zhang Ruochen’s calculations, the spatial ring possessed three defensive effects, and could at the strongest block the full force of a Heavenly Extremity Realm Great Extremity Position martial artist.
In other words, only by wearing the Spatial Ring, Zhang Ruochen would be able to have at least three chances to escape as long as he didn’t encounter a Heavenly Extremity Realm Great Extremity Level powerhouse.
Spending another three days, Zhang Ruochen refined nine spatial treasures in one breath, which were three spatial rings, three spatial bracelets, and three spatial pendants.
Plus, the one spatial ring that he had refined at the very beginning, it was a total of ten spatial treasures.
That’s right.
The spatial ring that Zhang Ruochen had refined now was only considered a spatial treasure. Moreover, it was still the lowest grade spatial treasure.
The ones that were refined before could only be considered storage tools.
Zhang Ruochen took out the two spatial bracelets and three spatial rings that he had refined before and threw them on the ground as if they were a pile of scrap.
“To me, these spatial bracelets and spatial rings can only be considered as scrap, however, to other martial artists, they are priceless treasures. If I take them to the auction house of Sky Demon Martial City, they should be able to fetch a considerable price.”
To break into the Underwater Dragon Palace, there were many preparations to be made, and just the defensive spatial rings were not enough.
Zhang Ruochen happened to be planning to go to the auction house and auction some top-notch defensive and offensive treasures.
Saying that he would do it, Zhang Ruochen picked up the two spatial bracelets and three spatial rings on the ground and placed them in his arms, then, walked out of the cultivation mansion.
Before going to the auction house, Zhang Ruochen planned to seek help from Lei Jing first.
Therefore, he once again came to the Silver-robed Elder Pavilion.
Seeing Zhang Ruochen, Lei Jing was in an extremely good mood, yet he still held the stance of a master, saying rather arrogantly, “Zhang Ruochen, what is it that you have come to seek help from your master again?”
Zhang Ruochen clasped his hands, bowed and smiled, “Master Elder really has good eyesight, disciple indeed has something to ask for.”
Lei Jing gently raised his eyelids and rebuked, “What is it?”
“I want to ask Master Teacher to intervene and send a few items to the auction house in Sky Demon Martial City for auction.” Zhang Ruochen said.
Zhang Ruochen absolutely could not let outsiders know that the five spatial treasures were taken out for auction by him. It would only be best if Lei Jing stepped in, at least no one would dare to hit on Lei Jing’s idea.
Of course, Zhang Ruochen could also hide his identity and take the five spatial treasures and consign them to the auction house.
Only, the Heavenly Demon Martial City was not like the Yunwu County Kingdom, it was full of experts, and there were many Heavenly Extreme Realm Martial Myths among them. The slightest carelessness would expose Zhang Ruochen’s identity. At that time, it would instead be botched.
Lei Jing’s eyes glared as he said, ”You come to bother old me with such a small matter? It’s just a few items from the district, can’t you just send them to the auction house yourself?”
“It’s not too late for Master to take a look at these few auction items before making a decision.”
Zhang Ruochen took out the three spatial bracelets and two spatial rings and placed them in front of Lei Jing.
