Chapter 772: Talisman Grandmasters?! Two of them?!
The ascension of the world might have failed, but after the fusion of the Azure Origin World and the Azure Spiritual World, the various factions also poured in world origin and origin essence from the Manyu Continent.
Throughout the process, a huge amount of world origin was also scattered throughout the world. A large amount of resources was thus produced in the Azure Ascension World.
The appearance of the metal essence crystal vein was probably because of some mythical transformation of the island that had undergone due to the interaction with 3 different world origins.
Experts of the Azure Ascension World knew how to refine essence crystals. All they had to do was to concentrate the world origin produced by their Holy Lands or Elysiums in order to form essence crystals. After it was produced, experts could use those crystals to carry out trades. They knew how to produce those crystals, but they didn’t know how essence crystals were formed naturally.
Of course, that didn’t mean that they didn’t know the value of such crystals. It was just that before they knew the exact use of those crystals, the crystals would only be useful to certain cultivators. They wouldn’t be as versatile as those produced by Holy Lands or Elysiums.
It was why Dou Zhong said what he did earlier. They would drain out the metal spiritual qi before using it as an ordinary essence crystal.
That wasn’t actually a joke no matter how silly it seemed to Shang Xia. It was an idea most experts had and even Yan Ming was full of expectations as she listened to the conversation between them.
Shang Xia was afraid that he would have to use a lot of time to explain things to them, and due to the differences in their understanding of how cultivation worked, it might be even more difficult to understand what he was talking about. No matter what, it would turn into a debate and it might even cause one side to question their knowledge of cultivation. It wasn’t something Shang Xia was willing to see, and he no longer harped on the matter.
He shook his head and chuckled bitterly before changing the topic. “Brother Dou, didn’t you say that there were some sightings of essence crystals like that with strange elemental qi within? Do you know what other types there are?”
Dou Zhong didn’t think that Shang Xia would ask something like that and he had to think about it for some time. After a little while, he replied, “I have been roaming the oceans these years and the most common types of essence crystals I have seen are Water Essence Crystals. There are some that were born from the crazy winds, and they were called Wind Essence Crystals. I even heard of some Lightning Essence Crystals that were born during intense lightning storms. There should be other strange essence crystals appearing, but I haven’t been able to verify the authenticity of those claims.”
Shang Xia nodded slightly in response and he reached for the Fire and Water Essence Crystals in his sleeves. “I obtained these from the Tianya Pavilion.”
He spoke about his experience there briefly before he continued, “Even though I reached an agreement with Pavilion Master Yu Yu such that we would be able to deal with essence crystals of these types, I would need to trouble Brother Dou and Lady Yan to pay attention to these special crystals. Fire and Water Essence Crystals aren’t the only ones to note. Try to obtain as many different types as you can and as many of them as possible. Now that we have discovered the Metal Essence Crystal Vein, we have to protect it with everything we have!”
Dou Zhong and Yan Ming saw how serious Shang Xia was treating the matter and they immediately agreed to send out a portion of disciples under them to protect or mine the Metal Essence Crystal Vein.
When the matter had been settled, Dou Zhong asked again, “Brother Shang, are these special essence crystals useful? What do you need them for?”
Shang Xia hesitated slightly before giving a short explanation. “I do have some uses for them, but I would need to carry out some experiments before I can be sure of my conjecture. I’ll tell you then and I will have to trouble you to understand my actions.”
After all, Shang Xia was already a Martial Dipper Realm expert. Anything he needed to verify himself had to be something related to the core of the institution. Even though he didn’t go into an in-depth explanation, Dou Zhong and Yan Ming could understand his reasoning.
Because of the matter with the Metal Essence Crystal, Shang Xia stayed at the Eastern You Island for several more days and discussed matters of cultivation with Dou Zhong and Yan Ming.
Even though it was a discussion, Dou Zhong and Yan Ming obviously asked Shang Xia for pointers for a majority of the time.
Shang Xia didn’t plan to hide anything either as he taught them everything they wanted to know to the best of his abilities.
Even though their understanding of the dao path clashed, Shang Xia’s cultivation had always been higher than theirs. From his point of view, he was more than capable of giving them some fresh suggestions.
After some time, Shang Xia also discovered that despite their cultivation level being similar in the second layer of the Martial Extermination Realm and Yan Ming having the support of the institution and her grandmother, a peak existence in the Martial Extermination Realm, Dou Zhong’s foundations were actually better than hers!
There were times when resources couldn’t make up for talent!
After their discussion, Shang Xia could basically be sure that Dou Zhong was merely missing extermination origins that suited him. He could also tell that Dou Zhong probably wouldn’t meet any sort of bottleneck all the way up to the fourth element of the Martial Extermination Realm!
During their ‘discussion’, they actually brought up a request and hoped that Shang Xia could help them obtain rank three talisman seals through the Talisman Hall.
“We are extremely lacking in manpower at the moment and the production of talismans from the Talisman Hall can’t possibly all go to the Eastern You Island...”
“Even though most of the islands are closer to our You Continent, we are unable to occupy them due to our lack of low-level cultivators! Many of them have been taken by the experts of the Liao and Ji Continents...”
Even though talisman seals could only be created by Shang Xia, they felt that they had to make an application through the institution in order for them to be provided.
Of course, convincing the Talisman Hall to agree to their request was nothing more than a single order from Shang Xia.
At the end of the day, it was the production of the talisman seals that was the problem. They were hard to craft, and they required constant nourishment from an expert’s soul. It could be said that every rank three talisman seal would be bound to a cultivator of the Martial Intent Realm or higher.
Shang Xia could only promise them to craft the first talisman seal as soon as possible. They would have to wait sometime for the second one.
Several days later, the first batch of Metal Essence Crystals was harvested and sent back to the Eastern You Continent. Shang Xia brought the largest piece he could find back to the Tongyou City immediately.
Just as he left, he recalled that he should pay a visit to Yun Jing, who was in charge of matters regarding the eastern front of the You Continent.
He might be an expert in the Martial Dipper Realm and from an outsider’s point of view, he was considered an ancestor of the institution, but he had the demeanor of a junior disciple before Deputy Patriarch Yun Jing.
Several years had passed since their last meeting and Yun Jing’s cultivation was stagnant in the large completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm. From what Shang Xia could tell, other than her strengthened soul and accumulations of her dipper qi, she didn’t improve in any other aspects.
Shang Xia didn’t plan to dig deeper into the matter at the moment, but he knew that if Yun Jing were to attempt a breakthrough to the Martial Dipper Realm at that very moment, the entire Tongyou Institution would go all out to assist her. From Kou Chongxue down to every other Martial Extermination Realm cultivator, no one would oppose her desire to break through.
Actually, Kou Chongxue had already given her a suitable Origin Dipper in the past and everything was prepared for her advancement.
Yun Jing learned about everything above the Ocean of Three Crossroads some time ago. However, Shang Xia still recounted everything that happened after he met her. He then spoke about things that happened in the Tianya Pavilion. He didn’t hide anything he told Dou Zhong or Yan Ming either. He could tell Yun Jing everything that transpired without any reservations.
As for the cooperation with the Tianya Pavilion, Shang Xia had more than enough authority to establish their relationship but he still wanted to gain Yun Jing’s approval as she would be the one who would be in charge of matters then.
After returning to the Tongyou City, Shang Xia made a trip over to Hai Min’s courtyard and told her about how Hai Yuanyuan managed to comprehend her martial intent and enter the grand completion stage of the Martial Extremity Realm. He only returned to the Tongyou Institution the next day.
Since he became a Martial Dipper Realm Ancestor, he hadn’t been back to the Shang Clan much. He would spend most of his time in the Tongyou Paradise or the Talisman Hall. The last time he returned was because Shang Xi requested for his help to think about her second extermination origin.
...
When he finally returned to the institution, he took a trip over to the Talisman Hall. It was where his influence truly lay.
The moment he stepped foot into the Talisman Hall, he received 2 pieces of good news. After many failures, Lou Zizhang and Fan Yuanhui managed to craft a rank four talisman each. They might have used slightly less than a month, but it was still a rank four talisman nonetheless.
Rank four Talisman Grandmasters had finally matured! Moreover, 2 of them appeared at once.
They just stepped into the fourth rank and everyone could basically ignore their success rate.
Shang Xia summoned them the moment he heard the news and started to look through the talisman they made.
Lou Zizhang chose to craft the Space Shattering Golden Blade Talisman while Fan Yuanhui crafted a Thousand Yang Sword Talisman.
Back when Shang Xia left behind his inheritance in the Talisman Hall, those with the lowest difficulty of crafting were the Golden Sun Inferno Talisman, the Thousand Yang Sword Talisman, and the Space Shattering Golden Blade Talisman.
Shang Xia listened to their experience when they crafted the talismans and he asked several questions about the time they failed. In the end, he gave them a few possible suggestions.
He also instructed them to continue placing their attention on those talismans they crafted previously. Only when they reached a success rate of 30 percent should they attempt to craft other rank four talismans.
That could prevent unnecessary wastage while allowing them to gain enough experience while crafting talismans.
For many rank four Talisman Grandmasters of the Azure Ascension World, it would be amazing if they were able to master a talisman or two in their lives.
For individuals like Lou Zizhang and Fan Yuanhui, Shang Xia could tell that that was pretty much their limit. However, he wished to assist them in any way he can in order to raise their abilities to the best it could be.
After they left, Shang Xia summoned Ren Bainian, Ren Huan, and Shang Quan.
He brought out the essence blood he gathered after killing the rank five sea beast and asked, “Take a look at the bone, skin, and blood of the beast. Do you think you can use any of them?”
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