Chapter 509 - 463: Big and Small Ruyi, Flashy but Impractical

On the Third Layer of the True Understanding Tower, Array Prohibitions flowed as the secluded chamber blazed with fiery light. Chu Mu sat cross-legged on the floor, forming hand seals and casting a series of Techniques upon the Ancient Tower, which was already enveloped in Crimson True Flame.

This process had been ongoing for nearly three months.

Ever since returning from the ambush, he had used his injuries as an excuse to temporarily set aside all trivial matters. He had also spent all the Merit Points he had accumulated over several years, exchanging them for the Spiritual Materials and Objects he required.

Adding the numerous Spiritual Materials he had gathered over several years on the islands, he began further Refining the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower as soon as his injuries had partially healed after a short period of rest.

The reason why that Profound Snake, who called himself Mo Bai, had been able to completely disregard the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower was undoubtedly clear.

The fundamental reason was that strange Void Realm. The power of its Spatial Attribute had completely crushed the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower, which was still just a prototype.

Secondly, because the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower was incomplete, it was difficult to fully unleash the Mighty Power of the Nine Dragon Divine Flame.

He had long been aware of these flaws, but a scarcity of resources had made it difficult to further refine the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower.

During his years on the Demon Suppression Islands, he had amassed a large surplus of High Tier, rare Spiritual Materials from repairing Soldier Puppets. He had also acquired the Celestial Cyan Amethyst, a Spatial Spiritual Object with the Big and Small Ruyi property.

As his fame grew, he also leveraged his Pill and Artifact Creation Skills to gather a massive amount of resources.

With all this, although the Sword Intent Supreme Treasure was still just a concept, he had already completed the Blade Battle Puppet and had been nurturing it for a long time.

The continued Refining of the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower had also been proceeding intermittently.

The Big and Small Ruyi property involved power on a spatial level. His original plan had been to methodically fill in the foundation of the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower, bit by bit. Once it was completely reinforced, he would then forge the Big and Small Ruyi property into it, causing the treasure to undergo a further transformation.

However, his recent encounter had clearly shattered his plans, leaving him no room for a slow and leisurely pace.

As a dense flurry of Techniques descended, various rare Fire Attribute Spiritual Materials were condensed into Spirit Essence. This essence was then smelted into the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower with each Technique, causing the crimson glow to intensify and the coiling dragon patterns to grow ever clearer.

At the same time, the fist-sized, sharply-angled Celestial Cyan Amethyst rippled like water. Guided by the Techniques, it began to merge, bit by bit, into the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower.

Several days passed in the blink of an eye. Not until the end of the ninety-ninth day did the blazing fire in the secluded chamber finally begin to subside.

The Ancient Tower hovered in the air as Chu Mu remained seated.

After this further round of Refining, the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower's exterior remained unchanged, but its core had undoubtedly undergone a near-complete transformation.

'An Upper Grade Treasure...'

Chu Mu pursed his lips, apparently having anticipated this outcome.

The original Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower had been refined using Fiery Sun Fire Essence and Fusang Wood as its main components. 'This so-called prototype, before being forged with the Big and Small Ruyi property, was nothing more than a crude framework.'

'It required a massive amount of rare Fire Attribute Spiritual Materials to fill out this crude frame, bringing the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower to the threshold where the Big and Small Ruyi property could be integrated.'

Without a doubt, every infusion of Spiritual Material Essence represented a stage of growth for the tower.

This was why he had been so insistent on Refining the Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower methodically, step by step.

Each cycle of filling, Refining, and subsequent nurturing to solidify its foundation was the best way to maximize the treasure's growth.

But this time, this hasty, results-driven Refining, while allowing the treasure to complete the transformation he had envisioned, was just like with Cultivation. A rushed breakthrough inevitably required a long period of stabilization afterward.

The same, of course, applied to this treasure.

Chu Mu briefly sensed the tower's transformation. As his thoughts churned, he waved his hand. The Ancient Tower shot out and hovered in the air. With a single thought, the tower, originally just a few inches tall, instantly shot upward and expanded.

From inches, to feet, to several meters high. The tower's growth finally halted just shy of the chamber's ceiling.

'It hasn't reached its limit…'

Chu Mu sensed as much. He extended his right hand, and the tower, as if summoned, shrank rapidly. Returning to its original exquisite form, it shot into his palm and hovered there. Coiling crimson flames and faint, crisscrossing golden dragon patterns made it quite an eye-catching sight.

He examined the treasure, its changes crystal clear within his perception.

The so-called Big and Small Ruyi property, of course, was not merely about changing size at will.

The prerequisite for the Big and Small Ruyi property was that the Magical Treasure itself had to reach a threshold of qualitative transformation before it could even be integrated.

This was no ordinary increase in the Magical Treasure's Grade or quality. It was a qualitative transformation that affected every aspect of the treasure, including its potential, Mighty Power, and quality—everything was encompassed within this change.

This was the fundamental difference, the vast gap, between a treasure with the Big and Small Ruyi property and an ordinary Magical Treasure.

Ordinary Magical Treasures, even ordinary Lifebound Treasures, are created using common refining methods and require only a handful of Spiritual Materials.

A treasure with the Big and Small Ruyi property, however, required vast quantities of Spiritual Materials to be smelted into Spirit Essence. The treasure was then forged from this pure Spirit Essence itself!

In terms of quantity, quality, Mighty Power, and potential, the two were clearly not on the same level.

Thus, the qualitative transformation of a treasure with the Big and Small Ruyi property was naturally no ordinary change.

With this one round of Refining, every aspect of the treasure had improved by leaps and bounds.

Its jump from a Lower Grade Treasure to an Upper Grade Treasure was the most direct manifestation of this.

'If I face that Profound Snake again...'

As he assessed the tower, Chu Mu subconsciously replayed his Battle with the Profound Snake in his mind.

'If its Cultivation and techniques are only what it displayed last time, then suppressing it with the transformed Nine Dragon Prison Suppression Tower will be effortless!'

'Even with its marvelous Void Realm, it could no longer treat this tower as if it were nothing!'

Chu Mu's gaze was profound. The unease that had been weighing on his heart finally eased a little.

With a slight stir of his thoughts, the Ancient Tower floated slowly toward him. As it reached his abdomen over his Dantian, the solid tower suddenly twisted and warped, transforming from a physical object into an illusion that passed directly through his flesh.

When he perceived it again, the Ancient Tower was hovering within his Dantian. Searing True Flame, like an undying pyre, coiled around it, tempering and nurturing it.

Meanwhile, the sea of Magical Power in his Dantian surged like a tide, washing over the Ancient Tower in rhythmic waves.

Under this dual process of tempering and nurturing, the Spiritual Light around the Ancient Tower flickered faintly, seemingly undergoing some kind of subtle, imperceptible change.

Chu Mu observed this for a long time before slowly withdrawing his Divine Sense.

This was undoubtedly another benefit of the Big and Small Ruyi property.

An ordinary Lifebound Treasure, being a solid, physical object, obviously couldn't be brought into the Dantian for constant nurturing. It could only be carried on one's person or kept in a Storage Space.

To nurture one, a cultivator would have to set aside dedicated time to channel Magical Power externally to temper it—an extremely tedious process.

Chu Mu stood up. Just as he reached the door, a thought seemed to strike him. He extended his Divine Sense into his Storage Ring. After its re-refining, its Storage Space was nearly a hundred times larger than before and could truly be described as vast.

The massive Demon Corpse rested inside without making it feel crowded. All sorts of bottles, jars, and Jade Boxes of varying sizes were piled up like mountains—most of them his gains from the past several years.

Spiritual Materials, Spirit Medicine, Demon Pills, Elixirs…

They were almost too numerous to count!

Chu Mu swept his gaze over it all and couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction.

These resources were more than enough to support him in taking another solid step forward in the Golden Core Realm.

As his thoughts turned, Chu Mu waved his hand, and the enormous Demon Corpse appeared in the Secluded Meditation Chamber.

It was a good thing that when he designed this Secluded Meditation Chamber, he had taken the unique size of the local Demon Beasts into account. Otherwise, a normal seclusion chamber wouldn't have been able to accommodate such a massive Demon Corpse.

The Demon Corpse was perfectly intact. Its massive body was covered in shallow sword marks, their sharpness still palpable, yet not a single drop of blood had been drawn.

Its Defense was so terrifying, it was practically an impenetrable fortress in the Cultivation Immortal Realm!

'Meteor Mithril, Iron Essence, and Profound Star Stone…'

Chu Mu muttered to himself as he observed it. With each name he spoke, the fervor in his eyes grew, but that fervor was soon replaced by an inexpressible sense of regret.

'What a horrendous waste of priceless materials!'

An Artifact Refiner's instinct caused a wave of indignation to well up inside him.

Before, he had considered the puppet modification of this Demon Beast to be quite perfect and had been amazed by its Defense.

But now, he had only one feeling: waste!

This wasn't a perfect fusion of flesh and mechanical puppet; it was just a flashy, impractical monstrosity built from countless rare Spiritual Materials!

The few Spiritual Materials he could identify were each no less valuable than those required for that Tier Four Soldier Puppet.

Even the Spiritual Materials he couldn't yet identify were undoubtedly of high quality.

So many rare Spiritual Materials, including the Qianlan Ice Flame—which was extremely famous among the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Flames—had been piled onto a single Tier Three Demon Beast, and all it had created was a creature merely comparable to the Tier Three Perfection level…

With just a moment of thought, he could devise several methods of modification far more perfect than this one.

'If these Spiritual Materials were given to me, I could almost certainly design and refine a Puppet no weaker than that Tier Four Soldier Puppet.'

Judging by this flashy yet impractical refining method, the Artifact Refiner who modified this Demon Beast was probably on par with those ordinary Tier Three Refiners from Celestial Secret Island.

Chu Mu gave a self-deprecating laugh. 'So many Spiritual Materials and Objects that could be considered Supreme Treasures… if they were in the greater Cultivation Immortal Realm, who knows what kind of bloodbath they would incite.'

Back when the Chen Family repaired their Soldier Puppet, they invited nearly every qualified and available Artifact Refiner they could find, and only after a careful selection process did they finalize the repair plan.

Yet the Profound Serpent Race had used them to create such a flashy but impractical thing. One could only imagine that the Profound Serpent Race truly didn't care about such Spiritual Materials and Treasures.

It also suggested that the Profound Serpent Race likely had no shortage of such rare Spiritual Objects. What they lacked were the Artifact Refiners capable of turning them into something useful…

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