Gateway of Immortality-Chapter 872: Fruitless

Inside the cave dwelling, Qin Sang layered barrier after barrier, then set up a defensive array before he felt at ease.

He sat cross-legged before his external incarnation, cut open his fingertip, and forced out drops of his blood and essence to perform the blood feeding.

After swallowing the blood and essence, the incarnation’s face flushed red, and its aura surged sharply before slowly stabilizing.

Qin Sang opened his eyes, considered for a moment, then as before forced out several more drops of blood, sending them into the incarnation’s body to be refined. Afterward, he sealed the cave dwelling and slipped away quietly.

***

Several months later, Qin Sang returned to that sea region. He went first to the lightning island.

The island was lush with vegetation. Where the Kui Dragon’s blood had splattered, the plants grew even more vigorously. The traces of battle had long since been covered up.

Qin Sang appeared before a mountain, gazing far and wide, recalling the scene from that day. The Kui Dragon had descended from the clouds, and those people had rushed to its aid not long after it had been attacked. This meant their cave dwellings could not be too far away.

To guard against the chance that Black Snake Mountain’s people had not left, Qin Sang acted with great caution.

He spent more than half a month scouring nearly every island nearby, yet to his surprise, he found nothing. Even an island with a spirit vein did not exist.

Unwilling to give up, Qin Sang ordered the Sky-Eyed Butterfly to keep its eyes open at all times while he searched even more carefully. The result was the same. It was as if the mysterious people had appeared out of thin air.

"Did they come through a teleportation array? Or were their concealment arrays so formidable that even the Sky-Eyed Butterfly was deceived?" Qin Sang was puzzled.

Qin Sang widened the scope of his search, diving beneath the waves to look for submerged islands, yet still found nothing. Nor was there any sign of Black Snake Mountain’s activity.

Helpless, Qin Sang could only withdraw for now. He would wait until the Demonic Sea was calm again, then hunt down disciples of Black Snake Mountain, avenging himself while also seeking information.

Having made up his mind, Qin Sang left that sea region and returned to Landou Island.

***

In the market, his external incarnation was fully focused on cultivation. Its progress was astonishing; it had already broken through to the seventh stage of the Qi Refining Realm.

"Even faster than when I relied on a Soul Pill back then..." Qin Sang shook his head and did not remain idle. He turned to his own tasks.

Beams of brilliant light poured into every corner of the cave dwelling until the place was nearly full, leaving the incarnation pushed into a corner to cultivate.

Qin Sang’s fingers moved swiftly, guiding the lights into position. In a blink, a grand array took shape. Then, turning his palm, three jade boxes appeared.

He had gathered enough high-grade spirit stones. Now he could refine the remaining black iron columns into banner poles.

A trace of expectation flickered in Qin Sang’s eyes. Once the poles were completed, he would have prepared everything needed to refine the Yan Luo Banner of Ten Directions. When Seven-Kill Hall opened again, he would possess a top-grade astra.

Moreover, his skills in artifact refinement would advance greatly through the forging of these banner poles.

The black iron columns held extremely intricate barriers. Even if he managed to understand only a small fraction, it would be enough to rival the famed artifact refinement masters.

The three high-grade spirit stones were laid out in a row.

With the array complete, Qin Sang added another layer of isolation barriers, then placed one of the columns at the center and inserted a spirit stone.

This was his second attempt, and his skill had clearly improved. He drew more power out of the spirit stone with greater efficiency.

Soon, the pillar began to melt. Qin Sang’s expression tightened as he flicked out a jade bottle that contained the essence souls of demonic beasts.

Thanks to the improvement in his craft, the process went smoothly. Before long, a banner pole was gradually formed.

Then came the second, the third...

As the refinement continued, the column grew smaller and smaller, until at last only a lump remained, which he refined into the final pole.

"Condense!" Qin Sang gave a low shout. A shimmer of light swept across the pole, and it solidified into form.

At his side now lay fourteen completed poles. With the last one, the count reached fifteen.

Joy touched his face. He pulled them into his palm to inspect, but just then a crisp crack rang out. He looked and saw that the spirit stone at the array's center had shattered. Its spiritual power had been completely exhausted.

As he expected, this was the third stone being consumed, just enough to sustain the refinement of the pillar.

"Fifteen poles at last..." Qin Sang muttered.

Qin Sang gathered them together and discovered that their energies were still connected, as though they were a single whole. This was because he had split the column in a clever way, without breaking the barriers within. Not that he had not wanted to but he could not.

Even Founder Kuiyin himself had failed. After brooding for a hundred years, and because the black iron column had already been broken in two, he had come upon this method by chance.

"A pity the other Yan Luo Banners have vanished. If all the poles could be gathered, perhaps the column could be restored. Such an item could never have been forged by an ordinary cultivator. Even Founder Kuiyin could not unravel the barriers within, so most likely it is an ancient treasure left behind by some mighty figure. If it were fully restored, who knows what kind of power it would unleash? Using it merely to refine the Yan Luo Banner of Ten Directions, even as a top-grade astra, is really beneath it..." Qin Sang murmured to himself.

Kuiyin Sect claimed that five of the banners had been destroyed when Founder Kuiyin failed his tribulation. But Qin Sang doubted it. Such a column was extraordinary; heavenly tribulations of a Spiritual Infant should not have been able to erase the poles. More likely, they had simply been lost.

Now, Kuiyin Sect had already perished for more than a century.

When he had left the Small Cold Domain, war between the Tianxing Alliance and Sin Abyss was on the brink. What had become of them now he could not tell. Even if he returned, the hope of finding the missing poles was slim.

"Forget it. No need to indulge in wild thoughts. A top-grade astra is already something beyond most cultivators’ dreams. Even if it is not an ultimate treasure left behind by an ancient powerhouse, true spiritual treasures said to surpass astras are rarer than rare. With my current strength, I could not possibly wield one anyway. I would only be able to look at it."

Shaking off his thoughts, Qin Sang checked the banner poles again, then carefully stored them away. Afterward, he calmed his mind, sitting in meditation to digest the insights he had gained during the refinement.

The barriers within the column were vast and mysterious, filling him with a sense of his own smallness.

Comprehension would take time. It was certainly not something to achieve in a single day.

By noon the next day, Qin Sang opened his eyes from meditation. Excitement and puzzlement flickered together in his gaze. He had barely grasped a shallow layer. After pondering a moment, he stepped out of the cave dwelling.

He rented a shop in the market town, hung up a sign for artifact refinement, and settled there.

His plan was to temper his body with star essence while practicing refinement, gradually probing the secrets of the column's barriers, and at the same time build connections with local cultivators in order to gather intelligence on Landou Sect. His external incarnation could also cultivate quietly without distraction.

The shop soon opened. Qin Sang hired someone to watch over it, while he frequently went back and forth between the shop and his cave dwelling.

Thanks to his exquisite craftsmanship, even without using the Devilish Flames of Nine Hells, the artifacts he refined outshone those of others. His reputation spread quickly.