The Elven Cultivator

Returning to the Silver Moon Forest, Anton was in a rather good mood.

With the Fallen Dragon Association’s resource channels, he might soon be able to find the primary materials for the Essence Condensation Pill and a Divine Soul Magical Artifact.

He didn’t expect to gather all the main ingredients for the Essence Condensation Pill in one go.

But even acquiring one or two of them would save him a great deal of effort.

As for the Divine Soul Magical Artifact, he hadn’t yet decided which type to refine; that would depend on the primary materials he obtained.

Once he successfully refined a Divine Soul Magical Artifact, he could begin exploring the Dark Nether Realm.

’I need to make some preparations in advance.’

Anton turned and went to his talisman-crafting room.

This was a room he had recently set up, dedicated to drawing Talismans.

The main reason he’d gone to the trouble of creating this room was an idea he’d had a long time ago.

During the final battle that destroyed the Molten Spike Tribe, Anton had used a large number of Talismans to strengthen his forces. It was then that he’d had the idea to modify Talismans and Spirit Stones so that Elves, not just him, could use Spirit Stones to activate and use Talismans.

After that, Anton had spent a considerable amount of time researching this topic.

For convenience, he even specially modified a room for talisman crafting.

Anton’s initial plan was to design a ’spirit-conducting medium’.

The specific method was to grind Spirit Stones into powder, mix it with special Spiritual Ink, and then use this mixture to draw the Talismans.

The moment the Talisman was formed, the energy from the Spirit Stone powder would be ’locked’ within the Rune’s structure.

The user would only need to touch the Rune with their Spiritual Power to trigger the energy release, with no need to inject their own energy.

The technical difficulty of this method was relatively low, and Anton could easily accomplish it at his current level.

The problem was that the consumption of Spirit Stones during the process would increase dramatically. The final cost of a Talisman made this way would be more than ten times that of a normal one, almost rivaling a Magic Scroll.

And that didn’t even account for the time and effort Anton spent drawing the Talisman.

If that was the case, it would be better to just have the Elves use Magic Scrolls directly.

At least that would save a significant amount of labor costs.

Left with no choice, Anton had to abandon this method and try a different approach, intending to design the Spirit Stone as an ’external battery’ for the Talisman.

Following this line of thought, his solution was to design a ’Talisman base’—a specially refined Array Disc base with an inlaid Spirit Stone slot and a miniature energy conversion Array.

This way, one would only need to insert a Talisman and press a trigger point on the base to automatically draw energy from the Spirit Stone, inject it into the Talisman, and activate it.

The idea was somewhat like a game cartridge slot that came with its own power source.

Because the Array Disc base could be used repeatedly, the amortized cost per Talisman was far lower than the first method.

However, a new problem arose: it wasn’t easy to carry and use.

With Anton’s current skill in Arrays and Artifact Refining, the smallest he could make the Array Disc was about the size of two palms.

While not exactly bulky, it wasn’t very convenient to carry around.

More importantly, the Array Disc could only hold one pre-inserted Talisman at a time. After using it, or to switch to a different Talisman, one would have to take out the Array Disc and insert a new one.

Originally, one of the biggest advantages of both Magic Scrolls and Talismans was their instant usability.

If one had to manually change the Talisman before use, its practicality would undoubtedly be greatly diminished.

Battles are unpredictable; there’s no time for such fiddly actions.

In light of this, Anton subsequently rejected this method as well.

However, he felt the concept was worth saving for future improvements. Perhaps it could be developed into a permanent, reusable Talisman or a portable, miniature Array.

He could give it a try once his skills in Arrays and talisman drawing improved.

After two consecutive failures, Anton completely gave up on modifying the Talismans themselves. Instead, he shifted his focus to the Spirit Stones, beginning to improve their inherent ”triggerability.”

He attempted to inscribe miniature Sensing Array Runes inside the Spirit Stones.

When a user’s Spiritual Power touched the Spirit Stone, the Array Runes would amplify the signal, automatically activating the release of the Spirit Stone’s internal energy and directly channeling it into the connected Talisman.

This way, just as one could manipulate the magic energy within a Magic Stone using Spiritual Power, a user could now also manipulate the True Essence within a Spirit Stone using their Spiritual Power.

Moreover, this method didn’t have the drawbacks of the previous two approaches.

The cost was low, and it was convenient to carry.

The only problem was that inscribing Array Runes inside a small Spirit Stone without damaging the material itself required an extremely high level of skill in Runes.

Anton tried many times, wasting quite a few Spirit Stones before he finally succeeded.

’Inscribing Spirit Stones is delicate work, and it takes no less time and effort than Alchemy. Thankfully, practice makes perfect. As I get more skilled, it will take less time.’

Anton looked at the dozens of Sensing Spirit Stones piled in the corner and sighed to himself.

Another benefit was that the True Essence contained in a single Low Grade Spirit Stone was enough to activate several hundred Talismans.

If he took the time to refine a batch, it would be enough to last the Clan for a long time.

Otherwise, if war were to break out and the demand for Talismans surged, refining the Sensing Spirit Stones alone would keep him too busy to do anything else.

In fact, always preparing for potential crises, the Silver Moon Clan had been quietly stockpiling strategic resources over the years, including various potions, Rune Equipment, and Yellow Turban Warriors.

And with Anton’s development of the Sensing Spirit Stone, he believed that Talismans and Sensing Spirit Stones would soon be added to the list of stockpiled strategic resources.

Arriving at the long table, Anton began to draw Talismans.

He mainly focused on various Clear Heart Talismans, Peaceful Spirit Talismans, and Exorcism Talismans.

These Talismans could either dispel negative mental states and clarify one’s Spirit, calm spiritual fluctuations and stabilize the Divine Soul, or protect the user from the harm of malevolent, sinister forces.

They were perfect for defending against the mental attacks of Mind Flayers.

It was best to accumulate a batch of these Talismans before exploring the Dark Nether Realm.

About half an hour later, Anton put away the finished Talismans and went to the artifact refining room, looking at the half-finished bodies placed on the stone platform.

The Yellow Turban Warriors had played a crucial role in the battle that annihilated the Molten Spike Tribe, showing Anton just how practical and powerful Daoist Soldiers could be.

After that, he began to study the corresponding legacy knowledge and planned to start refining High Tier Daoist Soldiers.

He had just been too busy before. It wasn’t until he had finished refining the Sword Pill and mastered the Star-Net Sword Scripture that he had the spare time to put his plans into practice.

Over the years, he had made some progress.

The goal Anton had chosen was the Five Camp Divine Soldiers.

They were the backbone of the Daoist guardian Divine Soldier system, ranked between the Yellow Turban Warriors and the Six Ding and Six Jia Generals.

They were divided into five camps—east, south, west, north, and center—encompassing all Five Elements. They could form the Five Elements Grand Array and were the main Daoist Soldiers used by sects for defending their mountains or conquering territory.

The East Camp consisted of the Cyan Dragon Soldiers.

These Divine Soldiers possessed vigorous life force and strong endurance, recovered extremely quickly from injuries, and excelled at encirclement, attrition, and protracted warfare.

The South Camp consisted of the Vermilion Bird Soldiers.

They had the strongest attack power and high burst damage but weak defenses, excelling at frontal assaults.

The West Camp consisted of the White Tiger Soldiers.

Unrivaled in sharpness, they had the strongest individual combat strength and excelled at surprise attacks, decapitation strikes, and breaking through formations.

The North Camp consisted of the Black Tortoise Soldiers.

They had the strongest defense. They were slow but extremely difficult to defeat, excelling at defense and positional warfare.

The Center Camp consisted of the Yellow Dragon Soldiers.

Their offense and defense were balanced, giving them the strongest overall capabilities, and they excelled at handling all kinds of combat situations.

When all five camps were assembled, they could form the Five Elements Grand Array, combining their powers to annihilate enemies far stronger than themselves.

A single Five Camp Divine Soldier only had the combat power of the Late Stage of Qi Refining.

But once all five camps were gathered in large numbers, they could even slay a Golden Core Cultivator.

Of course, to achieve that, each camp would need at least ten thousand Divine Soldiers, led by a Divine General, and supported by the Five Elements Grand Array. Only then would there be a chance of success.

And even then, they could at best deal with a Golden Core Cultivator who had only recently advanced and whose Golden Core was of low quality.

But even so, it was enough to prove the power of the Five Camp Divine Soldiers.

Considering he would likely have to face Dragon City and explore the Dark Nether Realm in the future, Anton felt that refining some Five Camp Divine Soldiers would be a good idea.

The Five Camp Divine Soldiers corresponded to the Five Elements, and refining them required materials of different elemental attributes.

Fortunately, Anton had previously obtained a large quantity of materials from the Flame Trade Association, which would now come in handy.

Gathering his thoughts, Anton went to the stone platform and devoted himself to the refining process.

...

Time passed quickly. In between cultivating and studying the Five Camp Divine Soldiers, Anton continued to periodically attack the military outposts of the Dragon Tooth defensive line. News of ’Canglan’s’ return spread rapidly across the Eldron Plain, causing a huge uproar.

Infuriated, Dragon City unhesitatingly dispatched troops from all sides to hunt him down.

Often, no sooner had Anton attacked a military outpost than Dragon City’s reinforcements would arrive.

Fortunately, his attacks were clean and decisive, and he always managed to withdraw before the reinforcements arrived.

On one occasion, Anton had already fled four or five kilometers away when he suddenly felt a tyrannical aura lock onto him and rapidly fly in his direction.

Seeing this, Anton made a split-second decision and immediately used Light Splitting and Reunification. His sword light split into four, carrying him away at full speed. It took him considerable effort to shake off the Golden Peak pursuer behind him.

This confirmed for him that unless his pursuer had awakened a speed-related Power of Law, not even a Golden Peak expert could catch him when he was fleeing at full power using Sword Escape.

’A Sword Cultivator’s Sword Escape truly is formidable!’

After realizing this, Anton’s actions became even more audacious.

In just three short months, he destroyed six military outposts in succession, further elevating Canglan’s fearsome reputation.

Meanwhile, Kresol Dragon City’s bounty on Canglan increased again and again.

It had now reached a staggering one hundred thousand Gold Coins, a figure that made countless jaws drop.

To put it in perspective, even Bishui Port, the commercial hub of the Eldron Plain, probably didn’t collect that much in taxes in an entire year.

Such an unprecedented bounty showed just how much Kresol Dragon City hated Canglan.

If not for the overwhelming power Canglan had displayed—having killed more Golden Tier members of the Dragon Race than one could count on two hands—countless Adventurers and Mercenaries would have long since tried to assassinate him.

While the outside world was in an uproar over these events, Scott finally sent a message via a Sound Transmission Talisman, saying he had a lead on the materials and asking to meet.

Anton gladly agreed.

To avoid Dragon City’s eyes and ears, the two agreed to meet at North Wind Camp.