"Ding! Subject's Spiritual Power has reached the critical threshold!"
Accompanying the Chip's alert was the bloated, swollen feeling within his sea of consciousness. Only then did Lei Lin realize that not only had his Spiritual Power reading reached 399, but his sea of consciousness was now completely filled with dark Spiritual Power crystals laced with veins of fire-red.
At the center of the sea of consciousness, Lei Lin's three-layered Spiritual Power core crystal blazed with dazzling radiance.
"Burning bloodline experiments are always most effective on the first attempt — the returns diminish after that!" Feeling the bloodline power still surging through his body, Lei Lin made his resolve. "Chip, begin the Morning Star ascension!"
"Task established! Full monitoring of subject's data initiated. Morning Star deduction sequence commenced — Mass Point construction simulation beginning…"
Vast streams of data flowed before Lei Lin's eyes, comprising disciplinary knowledge related to Mass Point construction. These were the closely guarded secrets of the Morning Star rank. Had Lei Lin not killed a clone of the King of Blue Mountain, he never could have obtained them so easily.
"Serpent Woman's Bone Joint!"
Lei Lin turned his gaze to the other bloodline artifact — his greatest harvest from the Quicksand Ancient Fortress. Had he used it back then, he could have vaulted straight past the thresholds of liquefaction and crystallization, advancing in one leap to the peak of the Third Rank!
But Lei Lin was a man who could resist temptation. He had forcibly suppressed his impulse, instead using only the faint radiation emitted by the finger bone to slowly mature his own bloodline.
The Serpent Woman's Bone Joint could have propelled his growth by leaps and bounds at the time, but when weighed against the boost it would provide for breaking through to Morning Star — which was more important? Was there even anything left to consider?
Boom! The milky-white finger bone exploded into a cloud of ash, and a streak of luminous light shot directly into Lei Lin's forehead.
BOOM! The moment the Serpent Woman's Bone Joint entered his body, horrifying changes erupted.
Within Lei Lin's sea of consciousness, a tremendous compressive force descended, and massive quantities of Spiritual Power crystals began automatically condensing toward the core crystal at the center.
The terrifying pressure bore down upon the Spiritual Power core, turning Lei Lin's face white and sending his entire body into convulsions.
A Wizard's Spiritual Power core was, in truth, the dwelling place of the soul's essence. Should it suffer any damage, the Wizard would face immediate catastrophe.
Under the crushing pressure of the vast Spiritual Power crystals, Lei Lin's core began emitting faint creaking sounds — a clear sign that it was reaching its limit.
"Begin construction of the fourth-layer innate spell runes!" Lei Lin's eyes burned red as he issued the command.
"Task established. Commencing auxiliary operations — engaging the atomic microscope!" the Chip responded faithfully.
Lei Lin's own Spiritual Power core was divided into three layers in total. On the outermost surface were two First Rank innate spell runes — the Scale of Komoyin and the Petrifying Eye. On the layer inside that sat the Second Rank innate spell rune — the Gall of Deadly Poison. Innermost of all was the third nested crystal, bearing the Third Rank innate spell rune — Fear Suppression!
These three layers of runes were exquisitely beautiful, radiating a blood-red luster, and they faintly combined into a single arcane Wizard sigil — lacking only the final point at its very center.
And now, at the center of the third-layer crystal, the fourth-layer crystal was slowly beginning to materialize.
Because Spiritual Power cores all possessed a nested structure, the deeper the layer, the smaller the crystal — and the finer the runes inscribed upon it, the greater the difficulty of engraving.
By the time it reached the fourth-layer core crystal, it was merely a quarter the size of the first-layer crystal, yet it required the inscription of Fourth Rank spell runes — without a single error. The demands this placed on a Wizard's Spiritual Power control were, quite simply, at an absolutely monstrous level.
"No wonder those Wizards attempting to advance to the Fourth Rank always fail. Even with the Chip's assistance, this is just too difficult…"
With the Chip's assistance, Leylin, who had activated the Atomic Microscope, immediately began inscribing the innate talent runes recorded in the fourth layer of the Eye of Comoin onto the fourth-layer core crystal.
This was a choice every warlock had to make, and only in high-rank Meditation Methods could one find such perfectly interlocking innate talent spell templates.
The inscription techniques of the spiritual world were infinitely more precise than micro-carving, with far greater difficulty requirements as well. By the time Leylin completed the final stroke, he was on the verge of collapse.
With the Sea of Consciousness unstable and terrifying compressive forces raging around him, completing the meticulous carving of a Fourth Rank innate talent spell rune to perfection was an enormous challenge for Leylin.
Hummm!!!
Once the innate talent spell was completed, the entire Sea of Consciousness trembled.
The Spiritual Power core crystal at the center of the Sea of Consciousness suddenly radiated boundless light, the four layers of intricate runes combining in perfect arrangement, like an exquisite work of art.
And when the very central point was filled in, the entire core crystal shuddered violently, as if it had become tens of thousands of times more solid in an instant. The previous feeling that it might collapse under the pressure vanished completely.
"This rune?" Leylin gazed at the strange symbol formed by all of his innate talent spells — the rune that represented every last one of his current achievements — and hurriedly ordered the Chip to record it.
Perfection! The first feeling upon seeing this rune was sheer perfection!