Sage of Humanity

Giant Armor's great talent must not be wasted.

Hearing Lu Ye's question, Giant Armor grinned foolishly and pointed at his abdomen, humming, "Store it up!"

"What do you mean?"

Giant Armor scratched his head, not quite sure how to explain, so he chose not to. Instead, he punched himself in the abdomen and then spat out an object.

It was a round, earthy yellow bead.

This bizarre scene left Lu Ye dumbfounded.

Inside Giant Armor's stomach was an inexplicable round bead!

"What is this?"

Giant Armor casually tossed the bead over, and Lu Ye hurriedly caught it and examined it closely. A term he had once heard from Second Senior Sister suddenly popped into his head.

Demonic pill!

It was said that when demon beasts reached the Cloud River Realm, a demonic pill would form inside their bodies—the source of their power, highly valuable. Many demonic pills could be used in Alchemy, Artifact Refining, or even to set up formations.

The thing in his hand resembled a demonic pill.

Was Giant Armor a demon beast?

But Giant Armor was clearly a person, not even a demon cultivator, for he lacked the characteristics of one. If this wasn't a demonic pill, then what was it?

Upon closer inspection, one could see that the surface of the bead was not smooth, but had small rhombohedral protrusions forming a thin film that entirely enveloped the bead.

Lu Ye couldn't figure out what it was, but when he slightly stimulated his spirit force, his face changed drastically the next moment.

Within the bead, he detected a vast and pure force of spirit energy being stored. If such spirit energy were to burst out suddenly, the consequences were unimaginable.

Lu Ye quickly retracted his spirit force, to avoid any accidents.

It was certain that this bead was extremely important to Giant Armor, but he had directly thrown it to him, showing his trust, which touched Lu Ye slightly.

Recalling what Giant Armor had said earlier, Lu Ye suddenly realized, "Can you store the spirit force you gain from cultivation inside this?"

"Hmm," Giant Armor nodded.

"Can it be used when needed?"

"Hmm."

Lu Ye exhaled lightly, inwardly exclaiming at the significance.

He had seen objects that could store spirit energy before; a spirit runes technique called spirit energy storage could do so, and any Spiritual Artifact used for weapon control must have a spirit energy storage restriction, otherwise, continuous control wouldn't be possible.

However, the tremendous amount of spirit energy stored in this bead inside Giant Armor's stomach was incomparable to any spirit energy storage restriction.

No wonder Giant Armor had been cultivating continuously without a Heaven Rank technique. With this bead, the spirit energy he cultivated wouldn't go to waste and could be entirely stored within it.

When needed, the spirit energy could be released from the bead.

In other words, in terms of sustaining spirit energy, Giant Armor surpassed all cultivators at the Spirit Stream Realm, even those at Level 9 who had converted to Heaven Rank techniques.

Giant Armor's cultivation had been stuck for two or three years now; it was hard to imagine how vast the spirit energy stored inside the bead had become over such a long time.

Thinking about this, Lu Ye realized another thing: Giant Armor's cultivation progress might be blocked due to the lack of a Heaven Rank technique, but his cultivation advancement wouldn't stop. With the right technique, he could rapidly open new spiritual orifices using the spirit energy stored within himself, thus advancing to a new realm.

Looking at Giant Armor, Lu Ye's emotions fluctuated, wondering where the hell Sima Yang had found Giant Armor from.

Such talent should not be missed by the Righteous Blood Sect.

After toying with it for a while longer, unable to decipher the bead's mystery, Lu Ye handed it back.

This bead was no demonic pill, yet its value, compared to regular demonic pills, was far greater. If someone with intentions saw it, there's no telling what they might plot.

"Don't casually show this to others in the future. Didn't Sima Yang ever tell you that?"

"He did," Giant Armor responded. He opened his mouth and swallowed the bead back down, seemingly reminded of the deceased Sima Yang, and was engulfed by a wave of sadness, bowing his head.

Lu Ye took out a large piece of beast meat.

Giant Armor took it, and his sadness vanished instantly...

A day later, in the small courtyard, Lu Ye's hands covered the ground, his spirit force ceaselessly stimulated. Patches of spirit light kept flickering, and intricate and complex patterns appeared intermittently where the spirit light converged.

As he continued, the patterns kept expanding and spreading, covering an area several meters around.

After a moment, all the spirit light suddenly disappeared as if it had never existed, but with careful perception, one could detect an anomaly in the spirit force within that area.

"Lu Ye, is this a formation?" Yiyi, who had been standing by and watching, recognized what it was.

"Yes." Lu Ye stood up, took out a thick tome from his storage sack, looked through it, and nodded in satisfaction. After a long period of study, he had finally reaped some rewards. Now he understood a bit about array setup and was able to set up some simple formations using his own spirit force.

Of course, such formations were not very useful because they lacked a stable carrier, such as array banners or array bases, which made them easy to destroy.

However, all things progress from easy to difficult. Today's success represented Lu Ye's entry into the path of array cultivation.

"Giant Armor." Lu Ye called out.

"Ah." Giant Armor, who was watching the excitement, turned his head to look over.

"Step on it and try, but don't activate your spirit force."

Although the formation had been set up, it was fragile. If Giant Armor activated even a bit of his spirit force, he would break the formation.

This was the same principle as when Lu Ye initially built the Spirit Energy Gathering Spirit Runes in his own spiritual orifice; the directly constructed runes would collapse under the impact of spirit force.

Later, he found a way to modify the Spirit Energy Gathering Spirit Runes into a small funnel, which then stabilized.

"Oh." Giant Armor obeyed, taking a step forward.

"Slow down!" Lu Ye quickly shouted, fearing his formation would collapse the moment that foot hit it.

Giant Armor's raised foot hovered in mid-air and landed very slowly. He also cautiously watched Lu Ye's reaction and only moved his other foot after seeing Lu Ye nod.

It was clearly a bit difficult for him; after taking a few steps, he almost had a cramp.

After a good moment, he reached the center of the formation. Instantly, the already invisible formation patterns lit up, spirit force surged within the area covered by the formation, and a slash formed from the convergence of spirit force attacked Giant Armor.

Remembering Lu Ye's instruction not to activate his spirit force, Giant Armor stood there, enduring the hit.

Then he scratched his butt, wearing an innocent expression.

"Pfft…" Yiyi almost burst into laughter because the power of that slash was simply pitiful, weaker than a Level 5 cultivator's Golden Arc Slash.

After triggering that slash, the entire formation violently shattered, turning into specks of light that vanished into thin air.

Lu Ye showed a thoughtful look. With his current mastery of array formation, this outcome was not unexpected. Creating this formation involved several spirit runes, with the core being the spirit arc capable of unleashing that slash.

Lu Ye could construct not only the spirit runes he obtained from the Talent Tree but had also learned many others from books; however, since their construction took a long time and was unstable, they were ineffective in combat.

They could only be used during array setup.

Yiyi thought the formation was weak, though she didn't say it aloud, she probably thought so.

But if those proficient in array paths and array cultivation were to see it, they would certainly be highly appreciative.

Because Lu Ye set up this formation without any physical carrier, relying purely on his spirit force in one continuous process, any slight error in easing could lead to complete failure.

If constructing a spirit rune could be likened to writing a character with a pen, then setting up a formation was like writing an entire article without stopping the ink flow, and ensuring no errors in the strokes.

This posed a great test to a cultivator's control over their spirit force.

For Lu Ye to achieve such a result on his first attempt at setting up a formation was already extremely impressive. If he were to create array banners and array bases as cores for his formations, it would simplify the process and significantly increase the power.

In a strict sense, array cultivators also qualify as a branch of spirit runes masters.

However, the spirit runes learned by array cultivators are primarily for array setup, and there are many spirit runes in the world. Ordinary cultivators, even if they devote their whole lives, cannot master all spirit runes; they can only focus on certain areas.

Array cultivators' runes are tailored for arrays, battle runes masters focus on combat, and rune tattoo masters are more for assistance; each has different focuses and learns different spirit runes. Then there are Artifact Refiners who craft Spiritual Artifacts, also studying some spirit runes mainly used in fabricating Spiritual Artifacts, as every artifact is engraved with various spirit runes forming its restrictions.

Even a master of spirit runes like Madam Yun doesn't master everything.

Lu Ye had never crafted array banners or bases, which required special materials and tools, and he wasn't equipped to do so currently. It would not be too late to delve deeper once he returned to the Righteous Blood Sect.

Lu Ye currently focused primarily on formations, specifically on array destruction.

Therefore, it didn't matter how he set up formations; he just wanted to familiarize himself with their structures, which would facilitate his efforts to break others' formations.

After glaring briefly at Yiyi, Lu Ye returned indoors and continued his cultivation, studying the tome. The more he studied, the more he sensed the vast depth of the Path of Spirit Runes.

Initially, Lu Ye thought that having the Talent Tree would allow him to manipulate various spirit runes at will and easily become a spirit runes master; now he knew he was mistaken. The Talent Tree indeed offered many conveniences, but relying solely on the Talent Tree would make him at best a second-rate spirit runes master in the future; reaching a first-rate or top-level would be absolutely impossible.

There were many things the Talent Tree could not provide.

As days passed, Lu Ye occasionally went out to set up new formations, familiarizing himself with his tools, drawing conclusions from failures, and enhancing his mastery through success.
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The speed of setting up formations increased progressively. The only regret he had was not having an existing formation to study how to break it, which would have to depend on his visit to the Surreptitious Palace, hoping Gu Canyang would not regret inviting him.