Chương 113: Qi Condensation Stage 6

I ended up spending another week practicing the technique until I finally managed to weave my first stable rune in the air. The pattern for the Vine Whip hovered there between my hands and it was glowing with a bright crimson light.

"Alright, now for the easy part," I mumbled while getting ready to transfer it onto my skin. I was only doing this part for show since I didn't want to show up to the elder's lab with nothing to show for all my hard work.

"You need to remember, Master," Azure warned me, "transferring it like this isn't like physical inscription because you have to keep your focus perfect the entire time, if you lose your concentration for even a second, the whole rune is going to collapse on you." Yggy sent me a wave of encouragement through our bond while I very carefully pushed the floating energy pattern against the back of my right hand.

The rune flared up and my heart dropped because I thought it was going to fade away and turn to dust like it did with that poor plant before. But then the crimson lines sank right into my skin and settled down into this dark red mark that looked like a regular tattoo from the physical inscription. I let out a massive breath that I forgot I was holding in.

"It actually worked!"

"It certainly did, Master," Azure agreed.

"And since you have mastered the technique, now you can go ahead and inscribe all the patterns straight into your inner world." A huge smile grew on my face when I thought about all the possibilities for that. I could set up a whole dedicated section in my inner world just for my runes. I would start it off with my Fundamental Rune and keep adding more and more to it.

"But first things first..." I brought my hands together and started gathering up more energy to weave another pattern.

"I should probably inscribe a few more of these so the elder doesn't get suspicious about what I'm doing."

"Master," Azure called out after I finished locking another rune into my skin, "Elder Molric is going to be surprised when he sees how much progress you made." I let out a soft laugh while I watched the new pattern settle down perfectly.

"Yeah, I'm counting on that happening, although knowing him, he is probably going to use it as proof that his crazy teaching methods are better than the academy's standardized ones." I could feel Yggy's amusement rippling right through our bond about that. Before I headed back to the lab though, I had one more thing I needed to take care of. I spent weeks practicing how to weave energy, so it was finally time to make some permanent upgrades to my whole setup.

I was completely done with wasting time inscribing runes over and over again at the start of every single loop so I was going to build something that would actually last.

"Are you ready, Master?" Azure asked me when I closed my eyes.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I answered him and let my consciousness sink all the way inward. That familiar feeling of leaving my physical body washed right over me and I appeared in my inner world in my spiritual form. My domain stretched out everywhere around me with the mountains standing tall up in the northwest and the garden region sitting in the northeast while the training zones took up the southern quadrants. Right in the center of everything stood the Genesis Seed looking proud and ancient.

"We need to pick the location for this very carefully," Azure said while appearing next to me.

"These runes are going to need to be protected, but we also need to be able to access them easily." I gave a nod and floated straight over toward the Genesis Seed.

"I was thinking right here in the central area, it is close enough so we get the Seed's stabilizing influence, but there is still plenty of space to build a proper runic array." The ground around the massive tree was clear and it only had the root system spreading out in all directions.

"That is an excellent choice," Azure agreed. I looked around the open space and started mentally mapping out exactly where I wanted to put each rune.

"The Fundamental Rune needs to go right in the center of the array and then we can arrange all the other ones around it in a perfectly balanced pattern."

"Master," Azure said with a thoughtful tone, "we need to consider the power requirements since the runes need a constant supply of red sun energy to keep their forms stable. Maybe we could try creating a direct connection right to your red sun?" I looked straight up at the giant crimson orb that was doing its eternal orbit above us.

"That... could actually work perfectly, instead of me having to constantly channel my own energy to keep the runes active we could just set up a permanent feed line." I couldn't help but grin about it. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"The theory for it seems sound," Azure nodded his head.

"We should test it out carefully, so let's start with just the Fundamental Rune and make sure the connection is stable before we start adding any of the others."

"You got it." I brought my hands up and started gathering the crimson energy together. The power responded to my will, and it flowed perfectly into the familiar tree pattern of my Fundamental Rune. The silvery design hovered in the air in front of me but instead of trying to press it into something to inscribe it, I focused my mind on building a connection to the red sun up above us.

A thin stream of energy reached all the way down from the celestial body and it flowed into the rune exactly like water rushing through a pipe. The effect happened instantly and the rune's glow steadied out since it was being powered by that constant energy feed. I could feel all that refined power flowing right into my spiritual form exactly like it did when I had it physically inscribed on my real body.

"The connection looks to be stable," Azure pointed out.

"The rune is holding its form and there is minimal energy loss." Seeing how well that worked out, I felt encouraged and started weaving the Worldroot Conduit pattern next to my Fundamental Rune, and I very carefully guided the two of them together until they merged perfectly to create a complex, harmonious structure. I felt the change happen almost immediately when wood essence started materializing out of thin air all around the combined runes and it spread outward in gentle waves.

The Genesis Seed reacted right away and started hungrily soaking up all the wood essence like a sponge drinking up water. A huge ripple of power shot through my inner world and the outer boundaries pushed themselves further outward.

"That is fascinating," Azure commented.

"The Worldroot Conduit seems to be generating elemental essence like how we used those treasures to create water and earth essence before." I gave a nod while pulling up my status to check the numbers. Cultivation: Qi Condensation Stage 6 Inner World: Radius of 120 meters Soul Essence: 105 Spiritual Essence: 63 Physical Essence: 33 The numbers looked encouraging since I was firmly sitting in the early stages of Qi Condensation 6 now and my spiritual essence had recovered.

Even though I couldn't actually regenerate my spiritual essence in this world without using the Tri-Essence Harmony technique to convert soul essence over, it was still great knowing I had access to my full power even if it had limited uses. The most important part though was that I could actually feel my connection to the wood element getting stronger.

The essence that the runes were pumping out wasn't just making my inner world bigger, it was actively boosting my natural affinity for all my plant-based techniques.

"Should we keep going with the rest of them?" Azure asked me. I cracked my spiritual knuckles which was probably something I didn't actually need to do, but it felt appropriate for the moment.

"Yeah, it is time to get to work." I spent the next couple of hours weaving runes and integrating them into the array. I did the Titan's Crest with its interlocking triangles that formed a hexagon, and then the Blink Step with its overlapping crescents that made you think of movement, and I finished it off with the Aegis Mark to create that shield pattern of interconnected shapes.

I connected every single one of them directly to the red sun's energy feed so they could stay active without draining my own personal reserves at all. The elemental runes were next in line, so I wove the Vine Whip, the Explosive Seed, and the Woodweave Seal, and I made sure their patterns harmonized perfectly with the wood essence that the Worldroot Conduit was generating.

"Don't forget about the Flight Rune," Azure reminded me. I shot a glance over at where the blue sun was safely hidden underneath the Genesis Seed's thick canopy.

"We wouldn't need it if we could restore the proper orbit for it," I mumbled.

"But I guess we should probably use it for now until we can figure out a way to hide its presence from all the elders." I wove the Flight Rune under my hands and even though it was a total staple for Skybound practitioners at Rank 2, I preferred having a good backup method that didn't rely on their cultivation system.

"Master," Azure said when I finally finished connecting the last rune into the array, "I think we should test out the array right now before we leave since experimenting in here is going to be less dangerous than doing it out in the physical world."

"That's a good point." I started channeling my energy through every single rune in a sequence, so I could check how they responded. The Titan's Crest fired up smoothly and sent strength-enhancing power right through my spiritual form, while the Blink Step's acceleration felt clean and precise, and the Aegis Mark's barrier just snapped perfectly into place without fluctuating at all. The elemental runes honestly performed better than their physical counterparts did.

The vines materialized instantly the second I commanded them, and the Explosive Seed rune popped out its volatile projectiles without wasting any energy whatsoever. The Woodweave Seal was the best part though because it created these patches of healing fibers that were superior to anything I could ever manage out in the physical world.

"Everything seems to be functioning at an optimal level," Azure confirmed.

"The energy feed coming from the red sun is stable and the wood essence generation is remaining constant."

"Yeah, but the more important thing is that I can finally practice all my new techniques in here and I don't have to worry about accidentally killing myself while doing it."

"You have your own private training place now Master," Azure gave me a smile. I took a couple steps back so I could admire everything we managed to achieve. The array of runic patterns hovered suspended around the plateau and every single one of them was glowing with this steady crimson light while they pulled their power from the red sun above. It looked beautiful in a deadly way, but right now, it was incomplete. I had left some space for when I learned more runes.

After all, I never got the chance to learn Elder Molric's more interesting runes back in the last loop, this time around, I fully intended to learn every single thing that mad genius had to teach me.