Chapter 190
Daoist Xuanhe casually divulged a stream of techniques she was hearing for the first time.
He explained that even the same formation glyph could produce different effects depending on the depth of its inscription and the order in which its strokes were drawn.
Half a day passed in the blink of an eye while they worked on a single stake.
Baek Cheong listened obediently, etching each detail into her memory.
After some time had passed,
Daoist Xuanhe suddenly raised a finger.
Spiritual qi gathered at his fingertip, and a thin ray of light flowed into the air.
The ray of light slowly intertwined, drawing a single formation glyph.
“How does this glyph look to your eyes?”
Baek Cheong stared at the glyph revealed in the air and inwardly flinched.
It was far too familiar.
It consisted of only a few strokes, and its purpose and principles were obvious without even having to examine it.
‘That’s a glyph for opening a waterway.’
It was the most basic of basics for directing energy in one direction.
But it would be disastrous if she simply recited what she knew.
She narrowed her eyes and pretended to be puzzled.
“I can vaguely... I think I see something flickering. But it isn’t clear.”
Daoist Xuanhe’s eyes immediately widened.
“Hoho, you say it’s flickering?”
Delight colored his hand as he scattered the formation glyph in surprise.
He then nodded with satisfaction.
“As expected, you’re a child with extraordinary intuition. To discern the flow of a formation glyph, even vaguely... You’re a prodigy who will surely surpass me one day.”
Baek Cheong lowered her head demurely, but inwardly she was puzzled.
At first glance, it sounded like an ordinary compliment from someone fond of her.
Yet the more she turned it over in her mind, the more something seemed to bother her.
Cultivators were generally a proud bunch.
It was rare for one to humble himself while praising someone else.
Besides, there was something else that troubled her.
The man standing before her was the sect master of a renowned sect.
Yet he had left his sect unattended and settled down in the junior Baek Clan.
He was even personally teaching formations to a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator.
‘There must be some reason I don’t know about.’
Yet no matter how much she racked her brain, nothing came to mind.
She had no good way to probe him indirectly, either.
He was a great cultivator whose realm and knowledge were far above hers.
There had to be some reason behind even the smallest action taken by someone of his stature.
Baek Cheong decided to abandon her pointless speculation.
‘Digging too deeply will only give me a headache.’
Even without deliberately investigating, she would eventually learn whatever she needed to know.
With that thought, she steeled herself and focused on the lesson again.
Daoist Xuanhe excitedly pointed out the formation glyphs and explained the techniques for using them.
She was still being held captive, but the lessons themselves were worthwhile.
Pretending to be reluctant, she continued learning how to use the formation glyphs.
***
Baek Cheong left her quarters and moved into her private cave abode.
Even if Daoist Xuanhe kept her captive during the day, the rest of the time was entirely hers.
More importantly, in the cave abode, nothing she did would attract anyone else’s attention.
As soon as she settled into the cave abode, she took out her deferred tasks one by one.
The most labor-intensive was the Yunryeong Bead.
It only grew little by little if she diligently fed it clouds, so she went out to the courtyard from time to time to feed it clouds from around the cave abode.
While she was at it, she also began refining it.
Whether it was a magical treasure or a natural spirit object, it could only be fully wielded after refinement.
The Yunryeong Bead was still only halfway refined, so finishing the process would take considerable effort.
Since she was at it, she also began refining the spatial magical treasure her uncle had given her.
Yet the refinement of the spatial magical treasure finished as soon as she touched it.
It seemed that, despite being a supreme-grade second-grade item, it was fairly ordinary compared to the Yunryeong Bead.
‘What’s going on?’
Baekju, on the other hand, was taking even longer to refine than the Yunryeong Bead.
No matter how much spiritual qi she poured into it, it merely slipped away without seeping in.
The fist-sized white crystal orb remained an inscrutable object.
‘Is it because it came from another lower realm?’
Since it was impossible even to gauge its origins, its slow refinement seemed understandable.
At this rate, it looked like it would take a full year to make Baekju her natal magical treasure.
Even so, she had no trouble wielding Baekju before finishing its refinement.
Although she couldn’t draw out its full power, she could still use most of its abilities.
‘Should I stretch my limbs for the first time in a while?’
Baek Cheong gripped Baekju and recalled the Ice Dragon Lock.
Although it was merely a first-grade spell,
of all the spells she had learned, the Ice Dragon Lock was also the strongest in terms of raw power.
She infused Baekju with spiritual qi and cast the Ice Dragon Lock.
The crystal orb took on a blue glow and trembled.
Just as before, one ice dragon multiplied into two.
Up to this point, it was a sight she had seen many times.
But when she saw the enlarged ice dragons, her eyes widened.
Their bodies had grown enormously.
The ice worms and snakes that had been no bigger than her forearms during the Qi Refining stage were nowhere to be seen.
From head to tail, each one was large enough to pass for a small wyrm.
Their size wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
As the two dragons coiled through the air, a chill instantly settled over the courtyard.
‘How did this happen?’
Baek Cheong sent the ice dragons flying upward with a dazed expression.
The ice dragons writhed as they soared high into the sky.
With their icy scales flashing as they rose, they looked just like wyrms ascending to Heaven.
‘Is it because I’ve reached Foundation Establishment?’
Baek Cheong swallowed dryly without realizing it.
This time, she set Baekju down and cast the Ice Dragon Lock with her bare hands.
Icy energy gathered at her fingertips, and a single ice dragon shot forth.
But it was different from the wyrms she had just seen.
Its size was closer to that of a large serpent than a wyrm.
Of course, it wasn’t weak, either.
Since it was cast with condensed spiritual qi after reaching Foundation Establishment, it carried considerable might.
Even so, it was clearly a level below what she had cast through Baekju.
‘Could it be?’
Only then did she belatedly realize one thing.
Originally, Baekju had merely doubled the spell.
But now it was copying the spell’s power in its entirety as well.
‘Can merely becoming a magical treasure make this much difference?’
Yet there was something even more astonishing.
Everything had happened while Baekju had not even been properly refined.
She couldn’t begin to imagine how powerful it would be after she finished refining it.
Besides, the Ice Dragon Lock she had just cast was only at Minor Mastery.
If she took it beyond Major Mastery and all the way to Great Perfection...
‘Perhaps...’
A scene she had witnessed at the Biyun Sect suddenly flashed through her mind.
It was the enormous dragon the sect master had created from clouds.
The cloud dragon had been so immense that it could wrap around an entire peak.
If she honed the Ice Dragon Lock to Great Perfection, it seemed it wouldn’t lose to that cloud dragon in size alone.
Of course, it wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded.
Those who had mastered a single spell to Great Perfection could be counted on one hand even in the cultivation world.
With enough practice, one could reach Major Mastery by making the spell second nature.
But Great Perfection was on an entirely different level.
It was a realm one could only reach after penetrating the principles of a spell as thoroughly as the person who had created it.
For that reason, no matter how long one worked at it, Great Perfection was not a realm just anyone could aspire to.
‘That might be worth trying, too.’
Even so, Baek Cheong decided to master the Ice Dragon Lock all the way to Great Perfection.
Now that she had tried it, its power was not bad, and more than anything, she liked it.
Since she was at it, she also infused Baekju with the Five-Element Shield and cast it.
Perhaps because she had switched to the Five Elements Art and achieved Five-Element Harmony, its defensive power had noticeably improved.
The translucent membrane surrounding her entire body had become much denser and thicker.
If she could bring even the Five-Element Shield to Great Perfection,
it seemed capable of comfortably blocking even a relatively weak third-grade spell.
Striking with the Ice Dragon Lock and defending with the Five-Element Shield would give her a better foundation than anything.
She decided to raise both spells all the way to Great Perfection.
‘Oh, right.’
While she was deep in thought, she suddenly remembered an item.
She had been so focused on raising her cultivation realm that she had completely forgotten the One-Star Sword.
The One-Star Sword she took out of the spatial magical treasure was still in its deep navy sheath.
When she drew the sword, the star patterns flowing along the blade shimmered faintly.
Since she had it in her hands again after so long, she decided to try the Meteor Slash.
She adjusted her grip and sent spiritual qi through it according to the sword formula.
She swung the sword forward, but for some reason, she fell backward.
“...Good thing no one was here.”
Baek Cheong quietly lifted the sword into the air.
Wielding a sword in one’s hand was the method of a body cultivator.
As a spell cultivator, she was better suited to sword-flying, controlling the sword with her divine sense.
The One-Star Sword rose into the air and performed the Meteor Slash according to her divine sense.
As the sword plunged down like a shooting star cleaving through the sky, it gouged a deep crater into the ground.
Its might was entirely different from the Meteor Slash she had cast during the Qi Refining stage.
She grew a little greedy at that point.
If the Meteor Slash was this powerful, perhaps the next one would be worth trying, too.
She had heard that only someone at the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment could withstand it, but...
‘If it doesn’t work, so be it.’
Prepared for failure, Baek Cheong infused the sword-flying technique with the sword path of Star River’s Single Line.
The One-Star Sword soared through the air, tracing a single line.
For an instant, she had the illusion that the sky itself had been sliced open.
The sword path extended far more smoothly than she had expected.
The sword intent she had only envisioned in her mind unfolded perfectly before her.
It was the sword intent she had vaguely grasped while studying the sword text.
Yet only after casting it herself did it finally sink into her small chest.
A sword in which a single line extending from a star could cut even through the sky.
As she relived the sword intent of Star River’s Single Line with her entire body, she realized something.
Why her master’s Daoist epithet was Pacheon (破天).
A sword that cleaved and cut through the sky.
The Daoist epithet Pacheon Sword Venerable had contained that sword intent in its entirety from the very beginning.