Chapter 780: Patrolling the Vast Sea of Stars
Obviously, they couldn’t possibly fly around aimlessly along the asteroid belt.
Before entering the region, the 5 of them came up with a rough plan. All of them would be within 1000 or so miles from each other before traveling through the region.
With their abilities, they would be able to gather up quickly in case anything happened.
The moment their battle formation was formed, they would be able to fight against even a fifth element Martial Dipper Realm expert from the Spirit Abundance World.
Of course, if they ran into a supreme existence like Kou Chongxue, they could only blame their luck and accept their fate of being annihilated.
Fortunately, those existences wouldn’t dare to appear so close to the Azure Ascension World. The moment they were detected by the existences in the Sixth Order of the Primary Realm, they would basically be considered massive treasure troves.
Even though Pang Jingyun said that the Sixth Order existences could only extend their influence 60000 miles away from the Beyond Heavens Pavilion, anyone who believed it would be an absolute idiot.
It didn’t matter if it was because of their battle formation or because of Shang Xia’s cultivation being the lowest among them all. He was located in the center as they made their rounds to ensure that they would be able to form the battle formation with the quickest speed the moment anyone ran into trouble.
Now that they had arrived, none of them would be foolish enough to just stroll about without doing anything else.
Before Shang Xia left, Shang Bo instructed him that the asteroid belt was a region where resources were abundant.
As they looked for traces of foreign experts, they could locate several chunks of rocks that possessed certain value and make a marking on them so that they could be used in the future.
It was why the 5 of them chose to split up in the first place. It wasn’t just to increase the efficiency of their search. It was also so that they could look for resources freely.
The asteroids flying around were of different sizes and most of them would possess some type of mineral reserve. The quality also differed greatly. Most of them contained ordinary resources and even if they could be considered resources that could assist in cultivation, they would be considered low to mid-grade treasures at best. There wasn’t a need to care about usefulness to Martial Dipper Realm experts like Shang Xia. They might not even catch the eye of Martial Extermination Realm experts.
Even so, Shang Xia spread his divine will out carefully and examined every chunk of rock no matter the size. Any time he noticed one with resources that could be used by the Tongyou Institution, he would mark them out.
Even though there were very little chunks that he found useful, there were tons of them flying around. If they were all added up, they would be pretty valuable.
Of course, they would occasionally discover asteroids that had been marked by other factions. They were clearly left behind by experts who patrolled the area in the past.
Those markings had been generally agreed on by the great factions of the Azure Ascension World. They were made extremely discreetly, and if one didn’t inspect it carefully, even Martial Dipper Realm experts would find it difficult to notice them.
The asteroid belt contained stray chunks of rocks flying around and even though they had a predetermined path, Shang Xia and the others chose to enter the belt from another direction. Even so, they ran into pieces that already contained markings.
No matter how precious the resources are on the marked asteroids, Shang Xia and the others wouldn’t convert them since others already chose it.
Obviously, the cultivators who made the markings would come back for them in the future.
Martial Dipper Realm experts naturally wouldn’t be involved with the retrieval of those low to mid-grade resources.
Shang Xia couldn’t help but think back to the Three Unity Island where the various factions were comparing their spatial transport. All of them seemed to be upgrading their means of transport. Perhaps, retrieving resources from the depths of space was their true goal all along.
In the future, methods to transport their lower-level members into space were probably going to be very important.
Moreover, those asteroids that were marked played a special role. They seemed to possess some means of monitoring the region around them.
The moment anyone destroyed the markings or the asteroid itself, those who placed them would immediately learn of it.
The person who did it would definitely be discovered...
The vast sea of stars might not possess much energy one could use to cultivate, and the heaven and earth qi was thin beyond imagination. Under such circumstances, no one would wish to waste their dipper qi. After all, they would only be able to restore their inner qi by refining essence crystals.
With their current abilities, those patrolling the area would need mid-grade essence crystals at least if they wished to recover some energy. Low-grade essence crystals were basically useless to them at that point.
In order to prevent accidents from happening, everyone would usually travel through space for 3 days before taking 1 day to restore their energy. It would ensure that they started to recover after expending 20 percent of their energy so that they would be able to deal with any unexpected encounters.
The mid-grade essence crystals they brought with them would obviously be expanded at a rapid rate.
What Pang Jingyun and the others didn’t know was that Shang Xia wasn’t actually using much inner qi when traveling across space.
If everyone would use 20 to 30 percent of their inner qi after 3 days, Shang Xia would barely spend 10 to 20 percent of his dipper qi.
The reason was simple. After Shang Xia could change the alignment of his Five Element Dipper Qi, he was able to reduce the expenditure to the minimum even in such nasty environments.
Shang Xia would be able to spend half a day on his cultivation when everyone was using the time to recover their inner qi. He could even use it to think about other matters.
One couldn’t underestimate the half a day he had to do his own thing. With the extra time he had, Shang Xia managed to complete the refinement of his fourth batch of fate dipper essence in the first year of their patrol.
At that point, he managed to refine a total of 40 fate dipper essences!
If they were to compare a single Origin Dipper to 10 strands of fate dipper essences, Shang Xia could be said to have refined 4 Origin Dippers!
Throughout the year, he also managed to catch up on his cultivation. Even though he only had half a day to do so every time, he managed to think of another cultivation method based on Chu Jia’s suggestion back then.
It was for him to use the elemental essence crystals of the Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth Elements to supplement his cultivation. He would activate them at the same time and turn it into something like the Five Element Formation they laid down on the floating island in order to cultivate.
The only difference was that he wasn’t laying down a formation. Instead, his body would act as the activated formation to absorb all the energy those essence crystals contained!
That way, he wouldn’t need to make use of mid-grade essence crystals. All he would need are low-grade elemental essence crystals. Not only would he be able to restore his inner qi, he would also be able to increase his cultivation!
Without a doubt, that allowed Shang Xia to save an astronomical number of essence crystals!
Of course, if Shang Xia managed to get his hands on mid-grade elemental essence crystals, his cultivation efficiency would shoot through the roof.
Naturally, the way he was cultivating and recovering had its downsides. He was the only one who could do something like that.
Moreover, the number of elemental essence crystals produced in the Azure Ascension World was far from their essence crystal production.
During the process of using those crystals for cultivation, Shagn Xia discovered something interesting. After he activated those elemental essence crystals with his Five Element Dipper Qi, heaven and earth qi would gather around him.
The heaven and earth qi around him might be thin, but that was precisely why it was extremely obvious!
With his sharp senses, Shang Xia discovered that he had already confirmed something Chu Jia had been thinking about. It was something related to the Five Element Formation but he was stuck patrolling the Azure Ascension World for several years and would be unable to inform her of it. If he informed her of it after he returned, she would very likely be able to come up with a whole new Five Element Formation! In fact, it would probably be called the Five Element Qi Gathering Formation!
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