Chapter 245 Dao Rune
Wu Long sat in the room as he started slowly circulating the Chaos Refining Body Tempering Art.
Luo Mingyu was in the room with him as she watched the lightning arcs dance on the charred skin of his arm and attempted to comprehend the laws contained within and the Heavenly Dao that governed them. Neither she nor Wu Long had any hopes of her succeeding, but it was still beneficial for her nonetheless.
Wu Long first refined the Spiritual Qi in the air around him, not daring to start directly with the destructive lightning in his arm. Like starting an alchemy process one first needed to heat the cauldron, what he did was adjust his body, smoothening out the process of the technique and getting it to run almost automatically by inertia. He then took a strand of lightning that was dancing on the surface and slowly drew it in the cycle.
A jolt of pain went through his body as sparks flew around him. What he was attempting, was something only a maniac would try since the lightning of the Heavenly Punishment contained the Law of Annihilation, one of the supreme laws that governed the mortality of even inanimate objects, as even stones perished at some point turning into dust and then that dust was reduced to particles that could not be discerned.
Yet, the technique he was using slowly started grinding down that very energy, and refine it to temper his body. But what he was most interested in was not body tempering. He only used a tiny portion of the energy to temper his body to withstand the backlash of the most daring attempt he was going to make.
Close to half a day of time passed as he finally refined the first small strand that he extracted. Beads of sweat were dripping down his forehead from concentration and effort, as well as the torturous process of tempering his body using such a deadly and unruly power.
He then extracted a second strand that danced around his arm, and proceeded to refine it. It took him half the time that he required to refine the first one, and the third strand required even less. Luo Mingyu watched as the amount of lightning arcs dancing on top of his charred arm gradually decreased while her realm rose to the first level of Foundation Building she was able to consolidate a lot of her experiences from before as well as ponder on the Daos contained in that lightning.
As his body was gradually becoming more and more powerful he finally decided to make a first attempt with one of the smaller arcs of lightning remaining on his arm. He started refining it but instead of completely grinding it into energy he attempted to refine it to his own use. However, the first attempt turned out in failure as it simply became energy that tempered his body again.
He made a second attempt, and then a third one. On his fourth attempt, he succeeded in refining a tiny mass of lighting energy that he could control as it listened to his Spiritual Qi.
"...!"
'I... Did I succeed? ..."
His eyes filled with joy as this would be a phenomenal achievement, one that was likely unprecedented even in the long history of the cultivation world.
But his joy quickly subsided, turning into disappointment as he understood that what he got was a normal charge of lightning, and not the one that contained the Dao of Annihilation. And even more so, this was a single charge, that he had no way of increasing or replenishing since his Spiritual Qi was not of lightning attribute and even if it was, elemental attributes of Spiritual Qi only awakened in higher Greater Realms than the Nine Mortal Realms.
So while he could make one discharge of normal lightning, which in itself was quite an incredible achievement given his current realm and disposition, it would be spent once he used it.
"Once again"
He was not discouraged and remained steadfast as he tried again. However, no matter which method he tried to convert the lightning into his own, the best results were on the level of his 'success' from before, and the worst resulted in burns and other injuries.
As he used up all of the smaller lightning charges that were on his arm, he was out of material to practice and experiment with. The main charge that he sealed within his arm was too strong to experiment with as he hoped to find a method before he got to it. If done incorrectly, that charge would instantly turn him into dust so he gave up on the thought as his intuition told him that he would not succeed, and he did not even have a valid theory to test so going in blind hoping for the best was just asking for death and nothing else.
Wu Long believed in luck as he was by normal standards quite lucky, but while he did believe in it he never relied on it as that was a sure way to end up where one did not want to end up.
He went into this experiment prepared to fail yet hoping for success so he was not fazed by the small failures along the way. And even though he ultimately failed he gained valuable experience and was able to significantly temper his body.
"Mingyu, it is going to be slightly dangerous"
He said, and she nodded, standing up to leave the room as hundreds and hundreds of talismans flew out of his healthy hand and were placed all over the room, eventually making it look like a cave where something ancient was sealed in as talismans were plastered over talismans. Powerful formations activated and Wu Long concentrated again.
He took a deep breath and started refining the main charge for the body tempering. His skin turned red and a smell of burning skin was seeping out as steam came out of him, along with sparks of electricity jumping on his skin from time to time.
The lightning contained both a Yin and Yang charge so he siphoned the Yang charge to Golden Yang Dragon Body as he circulated it alongside the Chaos Refining Body Tempering Art, and used the destructiveness of the rest of the lightning to temper his body as well as convert the Yin charge into pure Natural Yin energy and increase his cultivation.
After two full days, his cultivation rose to the third level of the Qi Manifestation Realm and his Golden Yang Dragon Body finally reached the first stage of completion. As it was his self-created technique, he was constantly adjusting and amending it, so he did not know exactly how many stages of completion could be achieved, but the highest he achieved in his past life was the 91st stage.
He then started retroactively refining the energy that damaged his body, which took another day of effort. And though his arm outwardly looked better and better, it would take a lot of effort to restore it completely.
As he was refining that final lightning a flash of comprehension went through his eyes as an image of a symbol appeared in his mind for a moment.
"... runes..."
He whispered as he understood both what he saw in Nie Changsheng's Soul Sea beneath the mirror-like surface, and what he saw in a flash of enlightenment just now was the runes of Heavenly Daos. He brushed off the thoughts of the prince's soul as it was an important moment of enlightenment as he tried to comprehend the rune of lightning.
"I see, so I was going about it the wrong way the whole time"
He exhaled as he finished refining the energy and the moment of inspiration ended. He sighed slightly vexed at how he overlooked a different approach but at the same time, a delighted and decisive expression appeared in his eyes as he found a clue to what he initially intended to do.
"How was it?"
Ye Ling asked as he came out of the room, sighing as she saw that all the damage outside was gone. There was likely residual damage in his arm but he would be able to heal that over time so she was able to concentrate on his goal.
He wryly smiled and shook his head and she sighed, half-saddened for him but also half-relieved that he was not hurt by the backlash of trying something so audacious.
"But I got a clue"
"A clue?"
Luo Mingyu, who was also disheartened about the failure looked up at him with interest.
"Yes, you see, I went about it the wrong way, if I refine the lightning even if I would be able to preserve the Dao of Annihilation while gaining control over it, it will be only that, a one-time use item"
Wu Long excitedly said as they came inside and new formations he set up activated while his beauties sat around him.
"So how do you gain control over lightning that you can... produce?"
"By extracting a Lighting Rune"
"Rune? Isn't that just a concept?"
"I thought so too, but I actually saw one, so I am now sure of it, if I could extract a lightning rune I would be able to conjure my own Annihilation Lighting. Though, I would of course need to first think of a way to extract it, as well as find a way to utilize it after"
Wu Long excitedly said, and Ye Ling shook her head with a smile at the ambitiousness of this plan.
"Don't you then need to find another Heavenly Punishment? I am fairly sure those don't just randomly fall every other day"
Wei Lan asked and Wu Long nodded with a smile.
"Yes, but I think if I start not with a Heavenly Punishment Rune but the Heavenly Tribulation, or even normal lightning..."
"You're really crazy... haa~ how did I fall for such a crazy guy?"
Wei Lan shook her head as the others laughed as they sympathized a little with how she felt.
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