Mortal Mage

The thin clothes on Shi Manman's body fluttered in the wind, her jet-black hair began to turn white little by little from the roots, and wrinkles appeared on her haggard face.

"She is consuming her lifespan and forcing a breakthrough."

Hua Yu handed the soul lamp bottle in her hand to Zhang Mingxuan, and explained, "It is very likely that you will succeed in breaking through by consuming your life span, but after the breakthrough, your life span will decrease instead of increase."

"How many years can you live after the breakthrough?"

Zhang Mingxuan took the soul lamp bottle and stared at Shi Manman's face, his mind in a mess.

Zhang Mingxuan sympathized with Shi Manman's experience, but was also angry at her cruelty and envious of her decisiveness. Looking at his aging face, he could do nothing.

He seemed to understand why Shi Manman was trying so hard.

For a person who has no intention of living, nothing matters anymore.

“The life span of a Jindan is generally around 800 years. If the cultivation method is highly compatible with one’s own spiritual roots, the life span can reach 1,000 years, but it will not exceed 1,500 years at most. Judging from the speed at which her appearance is aging, she will not have more than a few decades left after the breakthrough. Even if one has a natural spiritual root, it will take at least 200 years for a Jindan to break through to the Yuanying stage. With the attributes of her Golden Wind spiritual root, if she wants to cross from the late Jindan stage to the Great Perfection stage and then break through to the Yuanying stage, it will take at least 600 years. This is equivalent to severing her own path to immortality. There is no way she will be able to cultivate to the Yuanying stage in the future.”

"Is there any other way?"

Zhang Mingxuan stared at Shi Manman's increasingly gray hair and aged face. The feeling of powerlessness made him feel sad.

Looking back on my experience of coming to this world, I have unknowingly shouldered too many missions and pressures along the way.

In addition to his success in the imperial examinations, which was the result of his hard work, he became the Emperor of Taicang, entered the Cuiyun Fairyland, took in children with earth and wood spiritual roots as his disciples, was poisoned and committed misconduct with his disciples, and was forced to combine their bodies to practice dual cultivation.

Everything was not what he wanted, he had no control over anything, and he seemed to be constantly being manipulated by the world.

He had originally planned to live peacefully in Beast Cloud Villa as an unknown junior. Even if he was mediocre and unlikely to achieve great things in this life, he was already very satisfied compared to the half-life he had spent on Lan Xing in his previous life.

But I unknowingly took on too many missions.

In his hand he held the soul lamp bottle containing the souls of Tumu Child and Huofen, with the mission of saving millions of people in Canglang Continent behind him. In his hand he also held the ring of Yun containing hundreds of thousands of spirit stones.

He had only been on the throne for half a year, and he couldn't understand why Xiyun was willing to put the ring full of spirit stones in his hand after just a one-night stand. Now, as she stared at the aging Shi Manman, she gradually understood.

Yuyun is the king of a country, the heir of the Dihuang Dynasty, and the expectation of all the people of Tianze. He promised to repair the teleportation array and save Canglang. Yuyun knew that he did not have this ability, so he gave this responsibility to him.

He wanted to resurrect Fen Yihe and Fen Zice and take them out to sea to find Taiye. He wanted to resurrect Hao Fen because Hao Fen's spirit had been in his mind, full of sadness and pain, and begging him for help.

He couldn't let Shi Manman die; she was his Taoist partner. Whether out of despair or chance, Shi Manman was forcing a breakthrough at the cost of destroying her immortal path in order to set up a teleportation array.

He couldn't be a useless spiritual root spurned by all the major sects. Since he had traveled to this world, he was destined not to be unknown and live a mediocre life.

"If you have enough spiritual energy during a breakthrough, it can assist you."

"Will the spirit gathering array work?"

Zhang Mingxuan shook out a diagram of the spirit gathering array from his storage ring and handed it to Hua Yu.

"Can!"

Hua Yu excitedly took the formation diagram, first held it in front of her and quickly scanned it, then whispered to Zhang Mingxuan in a tiny voice; "But... the spirit gathering formation requires earth-element spirit roots, I can't set it up." She blinked, and suddenly thought of something; "Husband, you have earth-element spirit roots, you can set it up yourself."

"it is good!"

Zhang Mingxuan poured out the spiritual stones in the ring. Although he didn't know how many were poured out, there were at least nearly a thousand. "How to channel the spiritual power?"

"You have no skills to guide and mobilize your spiritual energy, so it wanders around your body at will. At present, you can only use brute force. I will teach you a set of basic spells for the Sword Sect's menial disciples, the 'Clearing Dust Spell'. This spell is originally used to clean the sect, but you can also use it to guide any spiritual energy to your fingertips."

"Um"

"Husband, probe your consciousness into the body. If you need to mobilize a certain attribute of spiritual power in the body, then direct your consciousness towards that kind of spiritual power. The earth attribute spiritual power in the body is floating in the form of yellow dust," Hua Yu continued softly to Zhang Mingxuan; "Husband, recite with me, the dust is flying, the wind is clean..."

Zhang Mingxuan’s spiritual consciousness probed into his internal organs, blood vessels and meridians.

Twelve colors of spiritual energy flow chaotically in it.

He casually directed his spiritual sense towards a floating ochre-colored starlight, and at the same time followed Hua Yu and whispered the mantra.

Then a dark yellow starlight flashed at the fingertips, and the earth-type spiritual power in the body seemed to be activated and began to flow slowly to the fingertips.

Zhang Mingxuan closed his eyes, tightly grasped a medium-grade spirit stone, and began to draw in the void in front of him.

Although this was his first time to personally arrange the formation, he had actually thought about it thousands of times.

The spirit gathering array was extremely simple for him.

Ten simple runes for amplifying spiritual power, three low-level runes for gathering spiritual power, and then connecting the runes with earth veins.

He held the spirit stone in his hand and wrote quickly in the space around Shi Manman.

"Give me another ten mid-grade spirit stones. This spirit gathering formation still has room for improvement."

"My husband is about to break through. I'm afraid it's too late."

Hua Yu reminded loudly.

Zhang Mingxuan suddenly opened his eyes.

Waves of air began to ripple around Shi Manman.

Zhang Mingxuan held the spirit stone in one hand and used the other hand to light a dark light and write another rune in the space.

Suddenly, thirteen blue lights flashed around Shi Manman, which was originally empty.

The spirit gathering array has been activated.

At the same time, a small pile of spirit stones underground began to emit strong blue starlight, which gathered towards Shi Manman like mist. At the same time, starlight flickered in the sea water outside the room, and that starlight also began to gather towards Shi Manman.

"This spirit gathering array is too low level."

Hua Yu excitedly watched the scattered spiritual power in the space converge on Shi Manman, and the waves of air emanating from Shi Manman's body became weaker and weaker, as if she was about to break through, but was still short of a little spiritual power.

Zhang Mingxuan closed his eyes again and scanned the array talisman in the room with his spiritual sense.

This spirit gathering formation does have a lot of room for improvement, but it's too late to improve it now.

Let's try overclocking. I don't believe that this rune has such a high limit.

Because Zhang Mingxuan optimized and simplified the formation diagram, no matter who mastered the formation diagram, they could set up it. Zhang Mingxuan mastered the method of developing the formation diagram.

The same principle applies to engraving runes on materials to activate magical tools. Anyone who understands formations can understand the principles of the formation diagram on the skull by taking a look at the wolf skull.

What Zhang Mingxuan mastered was the method of developing the formation diagram, rather than monopolizing the technology of setting up the formation.

But now, he can use his spiritual sense to draw formation runes in space. Although he doesn't know what more advanced runes look like, he can already see the details of the spiritual power within the existing runes.

Therefore, if there is enough time, he is confident that he can write the architecture, embed the automation program, design the functions, encapsulate and test the runes.

Although he can already design more advanced runes with his current level of cultivation.

But he needs a higher level of cultivation to set up a sophisticated formation.

In the past, he expected that high-level cultivators could understand this formation. Now he thinks he was too naive. High-level cultivators don’t care about the principles of this formation at all. They only need to know what kind of spiritual power is needed to deploy it, and that is enough to be able to activate the formation.

After all, most high-level formations can only be set up by those with earth-type spiritual roots.

As for the internal logic of the runes, no one cares.

This is also the main reason why the development of formation technology in the world of immortal cultivation has stagnated for tens of millions of years.

Others don’t know the reason, but Zhang Mingxuan now knows it clearly. In the logic of the formation, the earth-type veins are equivalent to copper wires, and the veins combed out by other spiritual roots are equivalent to iron wires. Although they can also comb out spiritual power veins, they are completely different from earth-type spiritual roots.

Therefore, only those with earth-type spiritual roots can set up high-level formations, which involves materials science and belongs to the laws of physics.

For example, on the blue planet, no one would use plastic as wire because it has no conductivity.

While Zhang Mingxuan was thinking, he drew hundreds of runes in the house and overclocked the entire spirit gathering array.

At the same time, he left a trace of spiritual power on his fingertips, which allowed him to close the spirit gathering array at any time to prevent accidents.

"Boom"

"Boom!"

"Boom buzz"

Three waves of air exploded around Shi Manman, the spirit stones on the ground began to dim, and the spiritual energy in the space quickly gathered outside the spirit gathering array. After passing through the spirit gathering array, it was accurately rolled into her forehead.

Shi Manman's white hair began to turn black, and her life seemed to be going backwards. She gradually became younger from an old and terminally ill woman.

The skin begins to become crystal clear and supple, the face becomes more attractive, and the cheeks become healthy and rosy.

"boom!"

A gust of air accompanied by space ripples exploded on her body, destroying the defensive escape formation in the house and emitting a red light.

Fortunately, this defensive formation was able to block a full-strength attack from a mid-Nascent Soul stage, and the shock caused by a breakthrough from a late Golden Core stage was not a big deal.

This breakthrough alone caused all of Shi Manman's clothes to burst open, revealing her smooth and tender naked body to Hua Yu and Zhang Mingxuan.

"Perfect breakthrough, late Jindan stage!"

Hua Yu stared at Shi Manman in surprise.

Zhang Mingxuan actually set up a temporary formation and strengthened the force when Shi Manman was breaking through, gathering spiritual power that was almost equivalent to the Sword Sect's spiritual spring to help Shi Manman break through.

Lingquan is a hot spring above the top-grade spiritual vein.

Shi Manman's breakthrough this time is equivalent to a breakthrough in the spiritual spring.

Breaking through in the spiritual spring is a privilege that only the sect master and the chief disciple can enjoy.

Hua Yu slapped his palm towards his spiritual root and screamed "Wow", his face suddenly turned pale.

Shi Manman raised her eyelids and glared at Hua Yu at the same time as Zhang Mingxuan.

Hua Yu's pale face, with a forced smile on her lips, said to Zhang Mingxuan, "My dear, do you still remember the words my sister swore just now?"

She raised three white fingers and looked at Zhang Mingxuan affectionately; "I Hua Yu swear..."

"Don't!"

Zhang Mingxuan held down Hua Yu's jade hand; "You are stupid, why did you abandon your own skills and quit the Sword Sect?"

"She is not stupid at all. Your spirit gathering formation can at least help her break through to the Nascent Soul stage and make her swear an oath!"

Shi Manman floated down to the ground, bent her slender legs, picked up the yellow robe on the ground and put it on; "Don't stop her, let her swear."

"No need for that, right? She has abandoned her own skills and quit the Sword Sect."

"If I say use it, use it!"

Shi Manman took two steps to Zhang Mingxuan and stared at him with her eyelids pressed down. "Do you think a Taoist friend of mine who has lived for 920 years will harm you?" She took out a red pill from her storage bag and gave it to Hua Yu. "Recovery Pill, take it and swear an oath."

Hua Yu hurriedly raised her hand, grabbed the pill and put it to her lips, and her face immediately regained some color.

She took a deep breath, raised three fingers to the sky, stared at Zhang Mingxuan in a gentle tone, and swore, "Disciple... I, Hua Yu, swear to be Zhang Mingxuan's loyal Taoist partner and to embark on the infinite immortal journey with you."

Shi Manman glanced at Hua Yu, her tone gradually softening, "Do you want to stay with your husband or go to Canglang with me?"

"I want to be with my husband..."

Hua Yu lowered her voice to a very low level.

"You are a disciple of the Sword Sect, and I am afraid that you will bring trouble to my husband. You should go to Canglang with me. Staying beside my husband will only disrupt his chances. If my husband is in trouble, you and I can go and help him."

"Then why are you asking me..."

"I was just giving you a way out, but I didn't expect you to be so ungrateful."

Shi Manman wrapped the dragon robe tightly around her body, opened the storage ring that Zhang Mingxuan was holding in his hand, and looked at Zhang Mingxuan like a child; "Ring formula."

"The fallen flowers are all over the ground, thank you very much."

Zhang Mingxuan guessed with a high probability that Shi Manman didn't have many mid-grade spirit stones on her.

She wanted to use the spirit stones to set up a teleportation array.

Shi Manman's consciousness scanned in, and her pretty face showed surprise, and her tone was puzzled; "This is not a storage ring, but a fairyland storage ring?"