Tempered Immortal - Chapter 26

Not so long ago, Lin Xuan had already reached the fourth layer of Spirit Gathering and could already use spirit tools. But a long time ago, from when he acquired them from Zhang Yu and Zhou Yan, he was already paying attention to spirit tools. Asking others about them would arouse suspicion, and of course, Lin Xuan would certainly not do something so stupid. So he quietly researched by consulting many books.

The second and third floors of the library is closed off to lower levelled disciples. The books on the first floor, to cultivators, were mostly trash, since there were no cultivation techniques. But the first floor had a lot of books on introductory knowledge on a variety of subjects.

The higher the grade of spirit tool, the greater the power, but was also harder to grasp. They would not only consume more spiritual power but also require much more advanced skills.

After understanding this, Lin Xuan decided to start practising with the golden rope. For beginners, it was best to start practising with a low-grade spirit tool, but Lin Xuan did not have one, so he could only start with the second best, and start practising with the mid grade golden rope.

To use spirit tools, one had to first learn telekinesis. This is a basic spell in the world of cultivation, and even before acquiring the ocean of blue stars, Lin Xuan had already worked really hard to learn and practice this skill. But his cultivation back then was too low, and it was extremely difficult to learn.

But things were different now. Lin Xuan’s current cultivation, compared to back then, could be said to be world’s apart. With plenty of spiritual power, the previously difficult telekinesis was easily learned by Lin Xuan using very little time.

After preparing everything, Lin Xuan took out the golden rope from his storage bracelet.

Looking closer, it looked just like an ordinary golden rope on the surface. Lin Xuan held a section of it and injected his spiritual power into it.

Suddenly, the golden rope emitted a brilliant light and grew to be several meters long. Although he had seen Zhou Yan use it before, but it was still his first time experiencing it, and Lin Xuan was simply speechless with admiration at its power.

But just injecting spiritual power was only the first step, the second was to let the spiritual sense leave the body, attach to the spirit tool, and take control and manipulate the tool.

This was the basic principle of telekinesis and also the reason that the fourth layer of Spirit Gathering was required to use spirit tools.

Because spiritual sense was proportional to one’s cultivation, before achieving the fourth layer, one’s spiritual sense would be too weak, and simply could not control and manipulate spirit tools.

Lin Xuan’s expression became serious, after taking a deep breath, with a wave of his left hand, he threw out the golden rope.

At the same time, he collected his spiritual sense and attached it to the spirit tool. After the golden rope left his palm, just as it was beginning to fall, it started to crookedly fly up, and even though it was not flying elegantly at all, instead looking like a drunk, but it has indeed been controlled by Lin Xuan.

Lin Xuan’s face showed a sliver of delight, but his mind did not fluctuate, and he continued to carefully exercise his spiritual sense, practising manipulating the spirit tool.

……

In the blink of an eye, half an hour passed.

The golden rope was back to its original shape. Lin Xuan was covered in sweat, lying on his bed. He didn’t want to move even a finger, his spiritual power was almost exhausted. No wonder spirit tools were so powerful, it consumed simply too much spiritual power. Even though someone at the fourth layer of Spirit Gathering was able to manipulate them, but if they wanted to wilfully operate them as they liked, they would need to be at least in the fifth layer. And only at the sixth layer would one have enough spiritual power to support them.

But this first time practising, was much easier than he imagined. According to what was recorded in the books, manipulating spirit tools for the first time, even with the easiest low-grade spirit tool, the failure rate was very high. It was very difficult to move spirit tools with spiritual sense for the first time, but Lin Xuan accomplished it and even did it with a more difficult mid grade spirit tool.

This was, of course, not because Lin Xuan was a genius at manipulating spirit tools. He was only an ordinary person with no spiritual roots. The reason why he was successful was because Lin Xuan’s spiritual sense, compared to people with the same cultivation, was much greater.

Simply put, in the disciples with the fourth layer of Spirit Gathering, Lin Xuan had the strongest spiritual sense. He far surpassed his peers, and the only reason was this: he put in much more effort than the others.

Others only performed three perfect cycles of spiritual power a day, but Lin Xuan cultivated by circulating his spiritual power through his Eight Extraordinary Meridians in nine perfect cycles a day, which also exercised his spiritual sense.

In addition, to purifying pills, especially the mid grade Essence Purification Pills, required him to place his spiritual sense into the pill and control the blue stars. This, of course, was an even more strenuous exercise for his spiritual sense.

Because Lin Xuan worked harder than others, it was no surprise that his spiritual sense was greater than others, and since spiritual sense was the foundation of manipulating spirit tools, therefore Lin Xuan succeeded fairly easily.

Although he was too tired to move, Lin Xuan’s mind had not been idle. Summarizing his experiences after cultivation was a habit and he came to the above conclusions.

Practising with spirit tools was very toilsome, but Lin Xuan would not give up, the road of cultivation was filled with thistles and thorns, it required tenacity. The power of spirit tools also attracted him, as long as he perseveres, he will definitely master them one day.

But Lin Xuan also saw his own shortcomings. Although he had a cultivation of the fourth layer, which is very good compared to his peers who entered the sect at the same time, but using this little amount of spiritual power to control spirit tools, he could only manage with great effort. The spiritual power in his body would be drained after at most half an hour.

If he met an enemy and fought a prolonged battle, he would be finished. How could he mend this shortcoming?

After acquiring the ocean of blue stars, his cultivation had improved by leaps and bounds. But not only did he not get carried away by his achievements, he also frequently contemplated his shortcomings.

The cultivation world was very cruel; it followed the law of the jungle, the strong eat the weak. Only if you were good at finding your own shortcomings, and fixing them in a timely manner, would you be able to live a good life.

The easiest way was to become stronger, if one’s cultivation rises, one’s spiritual power will also naturally increase, and the longer one can control spirit tools.

But this kind of method was not practical, cultivation would become increasingly difficult, to break into the fifth layer and arrive at the latter layers of Spirit Gathering, would still require a few more months. What should he do in this time then?

Even though it was not likely to encounter danger in the sect, but it is always wise to play it safe. Lin Xuan loved to consider the issue beforehand, this was “in fair weather, prepare for foul”.

Looks like it was time to learn some spells.