Chương 379: Rune Archon Nexus

Long Feng woke up early the next day after a deep and satisfying sleep. It had been a while since he slept so well, and it surprisingly made him feel healthier than before, loosening his tense muscles. He cleaned himself and quickly settled down to continue healing his injuries. His main priority was to return to his peak condition, before anything else. He still had some of the healing pills and treasures he purchased from the outer peak, so he used them and continued the time consuming process of healing.

From morning till night and night till morning, he didn't pause to take a breath. In the blink of an eye, five days passed. He had recovered by nearly another ten percent and he estimated that he would be fully healed in just about a week or two. That was significantly shorter than he originally thought. As more time passed, the month came to an end. Long Feng was already ninety percent healed, and the remaining injuries would even heal by themselves in time.

"Phew..." he opened his eyes and breathed out some foul energy before examining his body carefully.

"I've more or less recovered. I can begin to focus on stabilizing my foundation…" he suddenly paused and thought of something else.

"I still have other ways to get stronger. If I can temper my body till it reaches the level of deities, then I'll lose a great flaw that restricts my fighting abilities!" His weak body had always contributed to his inability to engage in close combat battles with other deities. A single direct hit would be enough to nearly end the battle. But he had long since thought of walking along the body tempering path. With a sufficiently strong body, been deities would be forced to retreat from nothing but his fists.

"I'll need lots of previous resources to reach the deity level with my body. But if I succeed, the advantages would far outweigh the cost. Right now, if I had the body of a deity, then I'll might be able to fight evenly with Qiu Yushi even without raising my cultivation." Body tempering path was a path that demanded a great deal of resources, because the body was rather special. It had the potential for great power, but normal means wouldn't be able to push it to those stages. Only extreme method could do it.

And such methods would more often than not leave a great deal of hidden injuries that could affect the cultivator's future and life. The saying of pushing one's body too far and leading to it's collapse was true.

"While I stabilize my cultivation, I'll temper my body at the same time. My soul power will have to wait for now… I can't divide my focus into three." He decided finally. Before that though, he thought it would be good to step out for a while. While he was at it, he would check out the Myriad Techniques Hall. He certainly wouldn't be going for the cultivation manual. Though it was extremely tempting, he was under very strict orders to never cultivate any manual. The reason was a mystery even now.

Deep in his heart, Long Feng knew that at some point, he would find himself in a disadvantage due to his lack of a manual. His cultivation speed wouldn't be amazing, his energy wouldn't possess any unique properties, similar to Zhou Zheng's Earth Stabilizing true essence, and he would even find his combat power beginning to fall. But there was nothing he could do about all that. Wu Kong had been extremely serious when he gave the order, and somehow, Long Feng had a feeling that it was best not to go against it.

Later that day, he finally left his cave for the first time in a while. The sunlight made him feel warm as he took out his token and found the direction to the Myriad Techniques Hall. Along the way, he walked at normal speed, taking note of everything he saw. The disciples he passed by were all between the early and mid stage deity realms, but he naturally didn't dare to think he was an opponent of any of them. After nearly two hours, he finally arrived at the towering palace that was the Myriad Techniques Hall.

An old man was seated before the entrance, snoring away without care for anything. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Long Feng glanced at the old man as he walked past him and tried to enter the palace, only to be blocked by an invisible barrier. Frowning, he tried to get in a few more times and failed before he realized that he was doing it wrong. Taking out his token, he stood before the sleeping old man and pushed it over.

A few seconds later, the old man nodded lazily, still snoring like it was the last thing in the world.

"Newbie, you have three hours. A low earth grade manual and two peak mortal grade techniques…" a voice resounded in Long Feng's mind, leaving him speechless. Was this old man asleep or was he just too lazy to even move his mouth? Whichever it was, Long Feng didn't care. He mouthed a thank you and walked into the palace again. This time, there was no obstruction.

After he walked in, he seemed to have walked through a formless portal, finding himself in an endless hall filled with countless floating jades of different colors. As he looked around in awe, a detailed information appeared in his token.

"I see… the bronze jades represent mortal grade techniques and manuals, the silver represents earth grade and the gold represent heaven grades!" Looking around, there were over a dozen gold colored jades at a glance, representing at least dozens of heaven grade techniques and manuals! Long Feng couldn't help but gulp heavily at this. Could even a two star force possess such a rich heritage of techniques? Any heaven grade technique or manual was invaluable, enough to cause a bloodshed outside. Here?

They were placed on display. With sufficient heaven runes, one could even purchase them.

"Amazing… there are hundreds of earth grade techniques and manuals alone!" Recalling that he only had three hours, Long Feng quit wasting time and began to grab the jades floating close to him and sending his soul power into them. The information of the technique or manual would instantly appear in his mind, including everything he needed to know about it. Long Feng quickly noticed something.

If he tried to grab a jade that was above the low earth grade, it would dodge his hand, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't grab it. It was even more so for the heaven grade jades. He could only stare at them, not touch them at all. Feeling frustrated, he settled for reading through the low grade jades and below. Perhaps he would find something that interested him. Long Feng's eyes were soon opened to a brand new world of skills, where hundreds of different abilities could be found.

Among the cultivation manuals, he found some that made his mouth water. There was a particular one that made his heart ache when he released it. It was called, The Earth Sword Forging Technique. And it sounded like a sword technique, but in reality, it was a cultivation manual. It was tailor made for sword cultivators, and it actually had the ability to grant a false earth sword body when cultivated to a certain level, greatly boosting the cultivators strength.

An earth sword body was inferior to a heaven sword body, and both were merely incomplete forms of the sword spirit body. But even then, ordinary sword cultivators would go to war for it. Even the lowest mortal sword body would grant an astonishing affinity to the sword! If someone like Yang Qian had the earth sword body, he would have already mastered major sword intent at his current level, and he would be stronger than even Bai Zijun, only inferior to Qiu Yushi.

A heaven sword body would make him superior even to Qiu Yushi, a refined early stage deity while as a normal early stage deity! Long Feng's throat went dry as he read through several unique manuals. His hands trembled as he held a certain jade and read through it.

"This… Sage Body refinement technique! Low earth grade manual that can compare to a mid grade, made specifically for body refiners." He felt like the jade was worth an entire mountain of spirit crystals as he held it, unwilling to let it go. According to the jade, at completion, the cultivator would gain a body that wouldn't lose at all to a peak deity!

Moreover, they would gain a special technique called the Sage body, where they would receive a temporary boost in strength, enough to compete with those monsters who had refined their cultivation twice! This was practically a treasure for someone who wanted to temper his body. Only heavens knew the amount of willpower it took for Long Feng to suppress his desire and let go of the jade, and he walked away without glancing at it a second time, afraid that he would be unable to leave.

"Damn… Master, you'd beat have a good reason for putting me through this struggle, otherwise I'd fight it out with you!" He thought, even though it was laughable. After going through enough manuals and techniques that his heart was aching with desire, Long Feng finally began to search for something he could take. Manuals were eliminated for obvious reasons, so he was left with martial techniques. After going through many different powerful techniques, none really caught his eye.

His firmament sword art was still the most powerful technique he had ever seen, making him think perhaps it was a heaven grade and even the legendary emperor grade technique. The same went for movement techniques. The Nine firmament steps was simply beyond everything here. Of course, he didn't know about the heaven grade techniques, as he couldn't touch them not to mention compare them. Just as he was about to give up, he found a unique technique that caught his eye.

"Rune Archon Nexus? What kind of technique is this?" He tried to read more, but the next line left him speechless.

"This is a secret technique uncovered by a past elder from the Barren lands. It requires extremely stringent conditions that are impossible to meet, making it impossible to cultivate. All who cultivated it ended up with crippled cultivation within months. Ranked as peak mortal grade by several seniors." This short introduction left him lost for words. First thing that surprised him was that this was a secret technique? He knew about secret techniques after spending some time in the outer peak.

Secret techniques were extremely powerful and unique techniques with extremely unusual abilities. Some of them could directly boost one's strength for a short time upon use, like granting a peak Imperial the power to fight a deity head on. More advanced ones were even more powerful than that. Most importantly, all secret techniques were agreed to be peak earth grade at least, no matter what, evidence of how unusual they were. This Rune Archon Nexus sounded like an extremely unique secret technique.

Unfortunately, it was apparently impossible to master. Everyone who had ever cultivated it all ended up crippled? That alone would stop anyone from touching it. Long Feng hesitated before he continued reading. The more he read about the requirements, the more a strange expression appeared on his face.

"Who created this skill?" He couldn't help but question. The jade itself didn't come with any warning or details about the technique. Everything about it seemed to be inscribed later on, gotten from all those who had ever attempted to cultivate it before, and apparently, it didn't end well. There was a single condition they all stated, and it was ridiculous to nearly all cultivators. It required a spirit core that could withstand a huge pressure without crumbling. That was already a huge red flag.

All spirit cores were extremely fragile, such that a slightly high force would destroy them. And the amount of pressure the technique was referring to was far from just 'slight'. That was the only thing they had managed to deduce from the secret technique after hundreds of years, leading them to simply keep it aside as a mortal grade. The part that left Long Feng speechless was that no one knew exactly what the technique could do, because no one ever passed the very threshold with their cultivations intact.

In short, it's abilities was a mystery, if at all it could actually do anything. Long Feng was intrigued by this technique. His firmament sword art was in reality, enough for him. He wasn't really planning to take any technique away from here. But now, he decided to take this one along. He wasn't fooling enough to cultivate it. He wouldn't have enough tears to shed if he ended up crippling his cultivation. But he wanted to study it and see exactly what made it so impossible.

It was rather reckless of him, but it was nothing new.