Chapter 514: Treasured Case
After briefly observing the trio of Acquired Immortal Treasures, Han Li stowed them away, then made a beckoning motion toward a case on the ground that was about a foot in size, and it slowly drifted over to him.
On each side of the case was a sealed mechanism, upon which was plastered a silver talisman.
Han Li inspected the talismans briefly to find that they were a Azure Dragon Wood Trapping Talisman, a White Tiger Radiant Metal Talisman, a Vermilion Bird Fire Raising Talisman, and a Xuanwu Water Barring Talisman. Furthermore, all four of the talismans were of the highest possible quality.
Whatever's in this case had to have been held in extremely high regard by Feng Tiandu if he was willing to seal it with a Four Symbols Talismanic Array, Han Li thought to himself.
With that in mind, he made a hand seal and began unraveling the array.
The Four Symbols Talismanic Array was quite troublesome to deal with as the powers of the Four Symbols supported one another, so the talismans couldn't be removed one after another. Instead, all of them had to be removed at once. Otherwise, there was a very good chance that whatever was inside the case would be destroyed on the spot.
Hence, the best way to unravel such an array was to have four people with similar cultivation bases working together to remove all four talismans at the same time.
However, Han Li chose a much simpler and more direct approach, which was to encompass the case within the golden ripples released by his Mantra Treasured Axis, then remove all four talismans in rapid succession before they had a chance to react.
After successfully removing the four talismans, the mechanisms on the case instantly sprang open, and Han Li lifted its lid before setting it aside.
Even after the lid was removed, not even the slightest hint of spiritual power fluctuations emerged from within the case.
Han Li peered into the case to find that there was a waxy yellow scripture and a palm-sized black jade badge inside, placed around which were a series of black nails that were arranged in an orderly fashion.
The first thing that Han Li did was pull out the ancient scripture, and he discovered that it was quite smooth to the touch, indicating that it had been fashioned out of the hide of a certain type of beast.
On the cover of the ancient scripture was inscribed the words "Illusory Dawn Treasured Scripture".
This title was rather familiar to Han Li, and after some contemplation, he realized where he had heard of it before.
Back when he was searching for a time-attribute cultivation art in the Transient Guild, someone had once mentioned to him there existed a time-attribute cultivation art in the Dawn Fall Sect, and it was precisely this Illusory Dawn Treasured Scripture.
When it came to time-attribute cultivation arts, Han Li had only ever come into contact with the Mantra Axis Scripture, so he was unable to reference other cultivation arts of the same attribute to deepen his understanding of the laws of time.
Hence, this Illusory Dawn Treasured Scripture could provide him with a valuable learning experience.
All of a sudden, a thought occurred to Han Li, and he hurriedly summoned his Mantra Treasured Axis, then directed the gaze of his Eye of Truth upon the ancient scripture.
A beam of golden light shot out of the Eye of Truth before shining upon the yellow scripture, and a burst of golden light flashed momentarily over the surface of the scripture before immediately fading away again.
A hint of disappointment appeared in Han Li's eyes upon seeing this, and he stowed away both the scripture and his Mantra Treasured Axis.
Looks like this scripture is different from that stone plaque in the Blaze Dragon Dao. Both contain records of time-attribute cultivation arts, but this scripture doesn't appear to be imbued with any time law powers...
With his immense spiritual sense, it didn't take Han Li very long at all to read through the entirety of the Illusory Dawn Treasured Scripture, and he was very pleased to discover that even though this was also a time-attribute cultivation art, it was completely different from his Mantra Axis Scripture. In particular, it mentioned that once one attained an Illusory Dawn Sand Domain, they would be able to influence the power of time within a certain area.
However, it seemed that neither Feng Tiandu nor Qi Tianxiao had been able to make much progress in this cultivation art. At the very least, neither of them were able to use this cultivation art in battle.
Han Li wanted nothing more than to begin studying this cultivation art extensively right away, but doing so would require centuries, perhaps even millennia of seclusion, a luxury that he absolutely couldn't afford, given the current circumstances.
With that in mind, he could only suppress these urges and stow the Illusory Dawn Treasured Scripture away to be examined some other time.
After that, Han Li picked up the black badge from the case.
The badge was extremely smooth, and it appeared to have a transparent exterior, but its center was as dark as ink, resembling a drop of ink frozen in an ice crystal.
Just like an ink droplet, the black center of the badge was still able to flow slightly.
This appeared to be a badge that represented Feng Tiandu's status as the grand elder of the Dawn Fall Sect, and after the close call with Gongshu Jiu's badge, Han Li decided to set up a layer of restrictions, and only after that did he attempt to inject his immortal spiritual power into the badge.
However, no matter what he tried, the black badge remained completely unmoved, and it was as if it were truly nothing more than an ordinary badge.
In the end, Han Li wasn't able to uncover what purpose the badge could serve, and he could only give up on the endeavor.
With that, all that remained in the case were the black nails, of which there were quite a few, 81, to be exact.
Han Li picked out one of the nails at random and inspected it closely for a moment to find that it was riddled with all types of patterns, including some type of ancient beast and many peculiar runes, clearly indicating that this was no ordinary nail.
On top of that, there were wisps of black mist that resembled viscous ink swirling around the nail, further lending it a sense of mystique.
After picking up the black nail, Han Li noticed that there seemed to be a black metal slab embedded into the bottom of the case, and it was riddled with inscriptions of different depths.
Only after fishing the metal slab out of the box did he discover that it was an array plate that was riddled with spirit patterns, and on the lower left corner was a line of text that read: "Dawn Fall Heavenly Array."
Han Li was holding the array plate in one hand and the black jade badge in the other, and he took a glance down at the 81 black nails as he murmured to himself, "This seems to be some type of protective array..."
With that in mind, he stroked a finger over the array plate to find that there was an indentation on its back that was identical in shape and size to the black badge in his hand.
He immediately placed the badge into the indentation, and it fit inside perfectly with a faint crack.
A burst of black light instantly surged over the array plate, while the inky substance within the badge flew out from within before roaming over the surface of the badge.
Specks of dark golden light emerged over certain parts of the badge in the wake of the flowing ink, and an elated look appeared in Han Li's eyes as he hurriedly refined both the array plate and the badge together.
After that, he set them down onto the ground, then picked up one of the black nails before gently placing its tip down onto one of the specks of dark golden light.
As soon as the nail began to approach the array plate, the latter abruptly released a burst of powerful suction force that caused the nail to slip out of Han Li's hand before nailing itself into the speck of golden light.
Immediately thereafter, a thunderous rumbling sound rang out in the forest not far away, and Han Li turned to that direction to find that a black pillar of light that was several thousand feet tall had erupted out of the ground there.
There appeared to be a powerful beast coiled around the pillar of light, and it was constantly releasing bursts of faint black qi.
Han Li's eyes immediately lit up upon seeing this, and he continued to place more of the black nails down onto the array plate.
One nail after another was set down onto the array plate, while more and more pillars of black light rose up over the island.
After the final pillar of black light emerged, the black mist swirling around all of the pillars of light instantly spread outward to fuse together, quickly forming a black light barrier that encompassed the entire island.
Immediately thereafter, all of the pillars of black light that had appeared on the island gradually became more and more transparent, until they vanished out of sight entirely.
Before long, the light barrier encompassing the entire island also faded away, and it was as if nothing had ever happened.
However, a miniature version of the island had already appeared on the array plate in front of Han Li, indicating that it was under the protection of the array.
After observing the array plate for a moment, he rose to his feet, then flew out of the island.
As he passed through the light barrier, he clearly felt a burst of spiritual power fluctuations sweeping over his body, but as the one who had activated the array, the light barrier naturally posed no obstacle to him.
Looking into the island from the outside, it didn't appear to be any different, and it was impossible to tell that it was enshrouded within an array. No spiritual power fluctuations could be detected, but as soon as Han Li activated his Brightsight Spirit Eyes, the entire array instantly became as clear as day to him.
He flew all the way to around 10,000 feet away from the island, then clenched a hand into a tight fist and channeled his immortal spiritual power before throwing a punch at the island.
A resounding boom rang out as the entire space shuddered violently, and a giant fist projection hat was over 1,000 feet in size emerged before hurtling directly toward the island.
As soon as the fist projection came into contact with the light barrier, the latter was immediately revealed.
Radiant black light emerged over its surface as a series of inky-black dragons flew out of the 81 pillars of black light, drawing upon the power of the array as they converged toward the spot on the light barrier that had been struck by the fist projection.
An indentation that was several hundred feet deep was compressed into the black light barrier, and it looked as if it could collapse at any moment, but Han Li could sense that it was still far from reaching its limits.
Han Li gave a slight nod of approval upon seeing this.
Even though he hadn't unleashed that punch with his full power, it was still an extremely formidable blow, and the average True Immortal Stage protective array would've most likely already been completely razed to the ground at this point.
By Han Li's estimates, the defensive prowess of this array was slightly inferior to that of the array that the Northern Glacial Immortal Palace had set up in the Blaze Dragon Dao to trap Baili Yan.
Even so, this was already a very remarkable protective treasure.
Generally speaking, the protective array employed by a sect would always be set up in an area with an abundance of spiritual qi, and specially refined array plates and array flags also had to be set up to further bolster the array.
With those measures in place, the power of the array would be maximized, but it would also be permanently set in place without any possibility of being moved. It would be very difficult for someone on the outside to break the array, but the array could easily fall prey to internal sabotage.
In contrast, this array was a portable one that could be activated using just an array plate, so it was not only very convenient, but also quite difficult to damage.
With this array plate in his possession, setting up cave abodes was going to be far less of a hassle in the future.
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