Exploring Immortality Cultivation-Chapter 1049 - 132: Infiltrating the Heavenly Book Tower (Part 1)

Wang Qi casually suppressed the unconscious Cultivator, then stained him with the Heart Demon Curse. Next, relying on the Heart Demon Great Curse Memory, without using any mana, he manipulated his Virtual Form Cultivation Method to search the enemy's soul and traced the natural connection within to find the separated fragment of the soul power.

This is the method used by Ancient Method Sects to control their disciples, the Soul Lamp.

They separate a wisp of the soul and ignite the Soul Lamp. As long as the disciple harbors treacherous thoughts, the Sect can use the Soul Lamp to cast a spell and kill them from afar.

Using the Heart Demon Curse, Wang Qi reversed the connection and also corroded the Soul Lamp of this disciple in the Heavenly Book Tower.

After putting the opponent into the pocket meant for holding people, Wang Qi draped the robe of the Heavenly Book Tower disciple over himself and took out the tokens and scrolls-type magic artifacts from the opponent. Typically, the token-type artifacts signify identity and are used for recognizing friend from foe, while the scroll-type artifacts represent the Heavenly Book Tower, which may have special features. Wang Qi used the Supreme Heart Demon Curse to corrode these artifacts too and instantly understood their entire structure and functions.

"This disciple is called Zhou Zijing..." Wang Qi nodded, then looked around: "An Outer Disciple from Tianying Academy. Not bad."

Being an Outer Disciple means having a certain degree of freedom, not like ordinary miscellaneous work needing to work constantly under supervisors and stewards, and not like Inner Sect Disciples who have some mentors' attention.

Despite not resembling Zhou Zijing at all in appearance. But in such a large Heavenly Book Tower with hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, who could possibly remember each disciple's name and appearance one by one?

As long as Wang Qi consciously avoided the areas around Yingtian Academy where identity verification is needed, he could wander without obstruction.

Moreover, he had just quietly twisted the verification system core based on the Soul Lamp using the Heart Demon Curse. In the view of the arrays and magic artifacts in the Heavenly Book Tower, he was Zhou Zijing.

Wang Qi shook his clothes, felt the surroundings slightly, then voluntarily removed all disguises.

He roughly sensed the presence of two Unification Stage Cultivators in the Heavenly Book Tower. According to the information, there should be one more Unification Stage Cultivator; however, it seems they were taken out by Holy Emperor Venerable for inspection.

He now needs to spend some effort to find out the location of the undercover agents.

Wang Qi quickly walked towards Copper Bell Academy, one of the seven academies in the Heavenly Book Tower.

Copper Bell Academy, "Copper Bell" sounds similar to "same" and "center," advocating conformity and moderation. Originally, the academy had a Copper Bell magic artifact for suppression and heritage, but that bell was left on the mainland when Holy Emperor Venerable moved to Spirit Phoenix Island, and now it's in the Guardian Room [museum] of Jiongli Immortal City in the Immortal Alliance.

There are many such incidents. Many magic artifacts are inconvenient to carry, and at the end of the battle between Ancient and Modern Methods, when the entire group of Ancient Method Practitioners evacuated the mainland, they left these artifacts in Shenzhou. Then those artifacts mostly didn't suit Modern Cultivators, so the Modern Immortal Path only collected ones with historical and cultural value.

Nowadays, Copper Bell Academy's layout is slightly smaller than its old appearance on the mainland, and at its entrance, there's a hollow bell frame, seemingly reminding future generations not to forget the great shame of the Sect.

Wang Qi bypassed this historically significant bell frame and walked into the Copper Bell Academy. Upon entering, a peculiar heavy feeling sparked sense. The ground of this academy surprisingly was cast with well-tempered copper, mixed with Spirit Iron. The ground still slightly trembled, as if resonating with the voices of ancient sages.

The cultivators here cultivate mostly gold-type techniques, yet the gold-type techniques of the Heavenly Book Tower are not like others that strive for profit and speed but embody the enduring, substantial nature of metal. Many cultivators held copper sheets threaded together as scrolls, reciting the spells inscribed on them.

The ambience of the Heavenly Book Tower is considered comparatively open within the Ancient Method; many spells are free. Wang Qi naturally walked deeper into Copper Bell Academy and went before an open bookshelf, taking unaidedly a scroll of spells.

This was a Magic Art of Treasure Refining teaching how to harvest Geng Metal artifacts to forge heavy broadswords, an introductory path to artifact cultivation within the Ancient Method.

Wang Qi glanced at it, memorized its contents, then diverted part of his consciousness to analyze it. Subsequently, he held the scroll effortlessly while walking at a leisurely pace.

At this point, the bustling atmosphere within the main hall classroom of Copper Bell Academy caught his attention. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Numerous low-level cultivators neatly sat within the classroom. Before them were small low tables. On the small low tables was a hard-bristled Spirit Pen and a Xuanwu inkstone, inside which was pure black ink. However, instead of paper, what lay before these disciples were small whiteboards, about an inch thick and square. All the disciples of the Heavenly Book Tower exerted their spirit, dipped in the thick ink, and wielded the brush on the whiteboard. Their Spiritual Power and Heart Power fully harmonized with this small brush, sketching numerous Talismans. Soon, each whiteboard was filled. Upon lightly tapping the board, the characters on it transformed into little ink dragons flying up to the rafters, circling thrice before disappearing.

After observing for a while, Wang Qi discerned one of the methods. If the ink traces turned into little ink dragons and circled the rafters thrice, it indicated the Talismans were qualified. Conversely, if they disintegrated before circling thrice, it showed that the Talismans were unstable.

"Used for training disciples in talisman painting." Zhen Chan chuckled twice: "It's a good idea, it can save quite a bit of spirit paper and spirit ink. It seems even the Heavenly Book Tower was pressured by Shenzhou's Modern Cultivators to come up with something."

Talisman painting is not simply about completing the patterns. At the most basic level, it requires constant sensing of the spiritual power changes within the spirit ink to solidify the spell mechanism. Therefore, even practicing talisman painting requires consuming a great deal of spirit paper and spirit ink.

In Zhen Chan's eyes, that spirit ink is just ordinary smoke ink enhanced with substantial mana. And the whiteboard is clearly a reusable talisman painting tool.

It's obvious from a glance that this is an invention born from a lack of resources.

Wang Qi shook his head: "That may not be the case. Perhaps this person has other motives."

"I see that too." Zhen Chan sneered: "Quite a clever thought."

Talisman painting is also quite mentally exhausting. Spiritual sense wraps around the tip of the pen, with the spirit constantly sensing various changes in the spirit paper and spirit ink. A Qi Cultivation Stage Cultivator can only paint a few talismans a day.

Of course, high-level cultivators can casually condense countless symbols with a thought, but even just "a thought" requires "saving where possible."

The cultivator arranging this whiteboard and spirit ink is clearly leveraging these low-level disciples to constantly condense magic seals.

"Is this perhaps a breaking method by some Unification Stage Cultivator?" Wang Qi speculated: "Does he need so many cultivators to condense the seals for refining a certain magic artifact?"

A low-level cultivator can provide very limited seals in a day. However, there are thousands of low-level cultivators here, and they are continuously exhausting their spirit, helping the person arranging this tool condense seals.

Even though a Unification Stage Cultivator can achieve the yield of thousands of cultivators' daily labor with a single thought, he cannot spend every day doing nothing but condensing seals and refining magic artifacts. He also needs to cultivate himself.

"In my era, the Heavenly Book Tower didn't have such methods." Zhen Chan guessed: "While Holy Emperor Venerable has suppressed the development of Ancient Method Immortal Path, from the perspective of spell, cultivation methods, and techniques, the Ancient Method Cultivators on Spirit Phoenix Island have improved significantly over ten thousand years. This feeling wasn't clear in those marginalized sects of Luochen Sword Palace or Ruyi Daoist School before, but from the lackey near the Emperor's Extreme Split Sky Dao, it can be easily seen."

Wang Qi nodded. He was not surprised by this technology. For the Modern Immortal Path, this kind of group effort is commonplace.

This method of many people jointly refining a single magic artifact is not uncommon. The Ten Thousand Immortals Illusion Realm is a typical example. The more people use the Ten Thousand Immortals Illusion Realm, the more spiritual senses flow within it, the more terminals there are, and the stronger the Ten Thousand Immortals Illusion Realm itself becomes.

It's precisely due to Shenzhou's Modern Cultivators sacrificing their efforts day in and day out for hundreds of years in refining the Ten Thousand Immortals Illusion Realm that this reliance of the Immortal Alliance could evolve from the initial auxiliary function of the Ten Thousand Immortals True Mirror into the miracle illusion technique covering half the solar system.

And Wang Qi's Wanxiang Diagram and simplified Qiankun Diagram exist for this purpose.

This is the kind of method where "the more beneficiaries, the stronger the law itself becomes."

At this moment, several Foundation Establishment Cultivators couldn't persist anymore. A Core Formation Stage Cultivator glanced around and revealed a gentle smile: "Anyone else willing to give it a try?"

Many cultivators rushed over eagerly. Wang Qi suspected this Core Formation Stage Cultivator to be akin to a lecturer publicly teaching the talismanic technique. For these cultivators, teaching from a Core Formation Stage cultivator is rare and hard to come by. Wang Qi was curious. He cared about what talismans those cultivators were actually painting, so he squeezed through as well. His martial arts knowledge far surpassed anyone here, and his grasp of concepts such as space and movement was extremely proficient. In just a few steps, he naturally occupied a desk. When the Core Formation Stage cultivator began explaining the talisman, he started flipping through the samples of talisman paintings from the previous cultivators.

"Two sets of basic cloud seals, and another set exclusive to the Heavenly Book Tower... Hmm, probably connected to the Innate Saintly Virtue Method, but incomplete. There's also a miscellaneous one with signs of originality in style, likely transmitted by that little guy behind the scenes to fill a gap in a magic artifact or to reconcile conflicts between different laws. However, I don't know what exactly the other party is doing now, so it's hard to deduce their true intentions."

In this area, Wang Qi was far less professional than Zhen Chan. Therefore, he directly handed it over to Zhen Chan for identification.

After listening to Zhen Chan's assessment, Wang Qi nodded thoughtfully: "Hmm, that's enough."

To avoid standing out too much, Wang Qi patiently listened to the Core Formation Stage cultivator's lengthy explanation of talismanic techniques.