Golden Sage Runic Formation

The Golden Sage Runic Formation used beast cores as its power source. For this reason, it didn't need a cultivator to activate it using their energies.

After the initial grand display of light around the formation, the golden light dimmed down and the hexagonal cage stopped rotating. The shape became illusory, and without further delay, Yaan walked straight inside.

All of the resources used in the formation's construction, as well as the formation links and everything from before, could no longer be seen. After Yaan retrieved the mythril posts, there were no remaining signs of the crude setup of this formation.

Someone inexperienced in formations would only possess the ability to see the end result, the golden hexagonal cage, within which there was a single glowing rune positioned on the ground. Only a higher level cultivator with excellent detection methods, or another formations master might be able to see through the intricacies of the formation, allowing them to locate the various resources and connections that were used to set it up.

This was the mystique of formations. A completed formation would always amount to far more than the sum of its components!

Yaan sat down atop the glowing rune in the centre of the hexagonal cage. There were two circles, one on either side of this rune, which he placed his palms onto. After taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focussed.

Within his Sea of Consciousness, the grey Psyche Power surged towards a single point. The power crashed into this central point, compressing together and quickly gathering, before eventually branching out and forming a Psyche Power avatar.

Yaan exhaled after forming the strongest Psyche Power avatar that he could muster; this was the first step.

At most, one half of his Psyche Power could be diverted into forming a Psyche Power avatar, it was impossible to form an avatar with more than this amount. Right now, this powerful avatar stretched out one hand, causing the remaining half of Yaan's Psyche Power to surge once again. The grey power gathered together before slowly forming into the shape of a rune…

This rune was identical to the rune below Yaan within the formation!

The moment this rune finally took form within his Sea of Consciousness, a shocking change took place. The rune below Yaan within the formation lit up with a splendid golden light, illuminating the entire formation, but mostly gathering on Yaan himself.

The golden light felt totally harmless as it passed through his body, but it seemed to shine through him on a more ethereal level…shockingly, this golden light actually entered his Sea of Consciousness!

The moment the golden light entered the sea, it began burning everything in sight. Whilst the sea and its three components of wisdom, knowledge and sentience were not damaged, they were all afflicted with such a horrendous pain that Yaan actually twitched due to the shock, inadvertently removing his hands from the formation surface and cancelling the activation of the formation!

Yaan stared forwards blankly for a moment, until he realised what had happened.

"Even though I was prepared for the pain, it reached such a height instantly, it was too shocking! I actually flinched and messed up the activation…"

With a sigh, Yaan began again.

This time, when the golden light stormed into his Sea of Consciousness, he was prepared and did not pull away. Even so, the feeling of having his very mind itself burned was absolutely horrendous, it was a type of pain that Yaan had never experienced before, hence his shock from earlier.

As the golden light filled the Sea of Consciousness, it became apparent that it was being drawn towards the rune. Whilst the burning sensation afflicted the entire sea, including Yaan's Psyche Power and his avatar, the golden light affected the rune in a far more violent way.

HISSSS!

The golden light actually began to corrode away at the rune, rapidly causing it to shrink down in size. Yaan almost lost consciousness within seconds, all he could do was grit his teeth and force himself to hang on for one more second, then another second, then another…

Within half a minute, the rune was corroded down so thoroughly that it completely collapsed, causing the golden light to immediately dissipate from the sea at the same time that the formation was de-activated.

Yaan's face was extremely pale. His Psyche Power avatar collapsed, refilling his Sea of Consciousness with Psyche Power. This somewhat relieved the exhausted feeling in his mind, but the difficulty was that his Psyche Power had been depleted far too rapidly; usually, this rate of depletion should be impossible.

This was the usage of the Golden Sage Runic Formation, it rapidly depleted Psyche Power from the Sea of Consciousness using a golden burning power. It wasn't just the rapid depletion that tempered the Psyche Power and caused it to grow back stronger, but also the act of forcefully maintaining the rune within the sea under the intense corroding light. Like this, both the mind as well as the Psyche Power itself would be cultivated in a rather unique style.

Using the reverse grey mist vortex, Yaan was able to accelerate the recovery of his mind, but this acceleration was nothing overly shocking, the grey mist vortex was more suited to tempering the body compared to the mind after all.

A single usage of this new formation didn't show significant results, but that was to be expected. After recovering his mental strength, Yaan once again placed his palms upon the two circles within the formation and closed his eyes.

This time, when the golden light shone throughout his Sea of Consciousness, Yaan was prepared. This did not make it any easier to endure the pain of course, but because he knew what to expect and had some experience with enduring through the complete process, he was able to train more efficiently, holding on for longer as he maintained the stability of the rune within his Sea of Consciousness for a slightly longer period of time.

Like this, Yaan settled into a new routine, one where he was fully and whole heartedly devoted to cultivating his Psyche Power within the Golden Sage Runic Formation.

Whilst Yaan had also been cultivating his Psyche Power previously by studying formations and by training within the Grey Mist Pressure Chamber, this was actually the first time that he actively pursued the cultivation of his Psyche Power as his primary objective, using a proper Psyche Power cultivation technique.

That said, whilst this was a 'proper' Psyche Power cultivation method, it's not like there was actually any sort of standard method used for Psyche Power cultivation; Psyche Power cultivation was highly coveted, but it was not common at all, and practically nobody ever cultivated the mind as their primary cultivation path.

The majority of Yaan's time was actually spent on recovering his mental energy. The reverse grey mist vortex assisted with this, but it still took him an hour or so to recover his mental energy to a level where he could continue cultivating after each usage of the Golden Sage Runic Formation.

After three months of cultivating in this way, Yaan was finally satisfied with his progress.

When he started, he was able to form 120 psyche avatars. Now, he could manifest 200 psyche avatars within his Sea of Consciousness!

Whilst this wasn't an enormous improvement when considering that he was still in the relatively early stages of the Hundred Sage Grade Sea of Consciousness, it was much better than before. In fact, Yaan would definitely choose to continue cultivating like this if he could maintain this rate of improvement, but this was not possible.

This rapid improvement was only possible due to him cultivating this new technique for the first time, putting his mind through these cycles of erosion that it had not experienced before now. It was only natural that, after cultivating with a proper psyche cultivation method for the first time, Yaan's improvement would be rapid. That said, his rate of progress had already dropped to one third of what it was during the last half month, whilst it would certainly continue to decline further if he continued to cultivate with this formation.

Regardless, Yaan was satisfied. He still possessed the Hundred Sage Grade Sea of Consciousness, but the number of psyche avatars that he could manifest was now 200, twice as many as the bare minimum.

This situation would be much better compared to attempting the Vital Qi Core formation with the weakest of Hundred Sage Grade seas.

The most important point was that right now, time was not a luxury that Yaan could afford. He had been within the Grey Mist Pressure Chamber for almost two and a half years now…meaning he had a little over six months to finish this mad dash of cultivation towards the Vital Qi Core Realm!

Rushing cultivation was not something that any cultivator would want to do, but what other choice did Yaan have?

And so, he was forced to move on.

As Yaan sat within the Grey Mist Pressure Chamber, he prepared to begin the burning of his blood.

'Burning the blood' referred to a process wherein a being's blood essence was burned away for whatever reason. Blood essence was a limited resource for any cultivator, once it was burned, it would not recover itself naturally, it would need to be re-cultivated from scratch.

The burning of blood essence could be used to provide a cultivator with a burst of power in the midst of battle, but it was also a method that was noted in various cultivation techniques. In the Fiend Transformation Technique, burning blood essence had a very important purpose - it triggered the development of the Progressive Blood Constitution!

Yaan did not yet possess the Progressive Blood Constitution, not even at the lowest Iron Rank. He could have attained this long ago, since it was possible to develop this constitution quite reliably by burning a certain amount of blood essence in a rapid burst.

However, doing this would reduce his total blood essence. More blood essence could then be cultivated, but it was easier to cultivate blood essence when your blood essence was already high in quantity. The more blood essence Yaan possessed, the more rapidly he would be able to accumulate more.

There was another point. Immediately following the development of the Progressive Blood Constitution, the blood would enter a highly volatile state. Usually, a cultivator would spend this time stabilising their blood flow, but Yaan intended to use this volatile state to help facilitate further improvement of the constitution!

For these reasons, he decided to hold off until now to develop this constitution…

But now that his blood was one half blood essence, he had a high degree of confidence that he could develop the Progressive Blood Constitution, and build it up to Obsidian Rank in one go!

Actually, this was possible with only one third blood essence, but Yaan wanted to improve his chances of success. Since he needed to continually cultivate his body within the Grey Mist Pressure Chamber in order to improve his other constitutions, it made the most sense to leave this step until last.

Yaan took a deep breath. Within his eyes, a determined fire burned strongly. He knew that once he started, he could not stop…once he started, he needed to succeed!

Whilst failing to succeed here would not result in his immediate death, it would all but guarantee that he would fail to form his Vital Qi Core in time for the upcoming three year deadline!

To the side, the Immortal Ancestor watched Yaan calmly, his expression still remaining unchanged. From start to finish, the only matter that caused him to show any emotion at all, was when Yaan displayed his incomplete pseudo-domain. It seemed that nothing else even warranted a change in expression.

With all of his preparations completed, Yaan began.