Elven cultivators

Inside the quiet room, the light from the light source stone was constant and gentle, illuminating the runes on the four walls with a faint glow.

Anton sat cross-legged on the futon, his eyes gently closed, his whole being like a frozen statue, calm and composed.

Deep within his dantian, the nascent soul, whose appearance was identical to that of Anton, sat cross-legged. Its entire body was clear as if cast from crystal, its eyebrows and eyes were lowered, and its face held a tranquil expression that was almost devoid of joy or sorrow.

Three beams of spiritual light surrounded the nascent soul, like three silver fish swimming in deep water, silently circling around it.

Those are the sword pellet, the Heaven-Turning Seal, and the Nine Dragons Divine Fire Cover.

Nourished by the Nascent Soul's magical power, the three spiritual artifacts each concealed their outward sharpness, leaving only a faint halo flowing slowly along the contours of the artifacts.

Among them, the spiritual light of the sword pellet is the most solid.

The Heaven-Turning Seal and the Nine Dragons Divine Fire Cover are slightly weaker.

Anton's divine sense gently swept over the three spiritual artifacts, examining their condition one by one.

Since absorbing the essence of the Saintly Stormwing Dragon in the Eternal Night Islands and advancing to a Spiritual Weapon in one fell swoop, the growth rate of Sword Pill has slowed down considerably.

This is also the weakness of the Soul Devouring Path.

In the early stages, progress is extremely rapid, and it can be said that one is devouring and climbing all the way. However, once there is a lack of targets to devour, the speed of improvement will slow down suddenly, and one can only rely on daily nurturing to slowly improve.

Even now, the sword pellet is still far from being a mid-grade spiritual weapon.

If even the Sword Pill is like this, then the Heaven-Turning Seal and the Nine Dragons Divine Fire Cover, which were upgraded to spiritual weapons even later, are even more so.

Anton estimated that, with the current method of gradual nurturing, even the most advanced sword pill would not be able to reach the threshold of a mid-grade spiritual weapon for at least two or three hundred years.

That being said, Anton was well aware that it was normal for a breakthrough in the grade of a spiritual artifact to take hundreds or even thousands of years.

Therefore, in the cultivation world, only sects that have been passed down for thousands or tens of thousands of years often possess mid- to high-grade spiritual artifacts.

Unless suitable rare and precious materials can be found to further refine and strengthen the spiritual weapon, it is possible to shorten the advancement time.

However, such rare materials are extremely difficult to find on the Dawn Continent. Even with the Silver Moon Clan's current resources and channels, collecting them would not be easy.

Unless the Scourge erupts.

In Anton's memory, the Abyss, a place where the dead have been banished since ancient times, contains a wealth of treasures left behind from that era.

The artifact embryos, fragments, and even complete divine weapons left behind after the fall of those ancient powerful beings mostly retain a considerable amount of spirituality in the special environment of the Netherworld.

Once you get your hands on a few pieces, refining a few high-grade spiritual artifacts shouldn't be a problem.

Putting aside his distracting thoughts, Anton brought his mind back to the matter at hand.

I definitely need to continue to comprehend the Purple Heaven Divine Thunder.

However, it's time to put swordsmanship and supernatural abilities on the agenda.

The only sword technique he has mastered is "One Sword Transforms into Myriad Laws," which is the core method of the Sword Transformation Way and the foundation of his current sword system.

Having mastered the four high-level divine abilities in succession, his next step is to integrate the power of the laws of the four divine abilities—Haoyi Three Yang Qi, Taixuan One Qi Five Elements Great Hand, Taixuan Yuanhan True Qi, and Zixiao Divine Thunder—into the sword light one by one.

If successful, his swordsmanship will undoubtedly experience a qualitative leap in power.

As for the new sword techniques...

Anton fell into deep thought.

There are four sword techniques that he has his eye on.

The ultimate sword path encompasses the concepts of "heaven and earth are adjacent" and "near yet far apart," while the killing sword path emphasizes "a single thought can extinguish the sword" and "severing the spiritual connection."

After a moment's thought, Anton first ruled out the concepts of "close as heaven and earth" and "near yet far apart."

What he lacks now is a decisive, killer move.

No need for complicated changes or maneuvering; the goal is simply to penetrate all defenses in the most straightforward way.

Therefore, the supernatural powers of the Killing Sword Path are more in line with his needs at this stage.

Of the two supernatural abilities of the Killing Sword Path, the Severing Spiritual Energy can sever all spiritual energy within a certain range in one strike, leaving no room for illusions, clones, or concealment, and it is particularly adept at breaking through unorthodox methods.

The One Thought Sword is said to kill an enemy in a single thought. It does not rely on external objects or distance. The moment the sword is drawn, life and death are decided. All the unpredictable methods are useless in front of it.

The former focuses more on restraint and countermeasure, while the latter goes straight to the source and is the true killing sword.

Without hesitation, Anton decisively chose the One Thought to Annihilate the Sword.

"With this supernatural power, I will have another killing move besides the true form of the sword pellet."

Having decided on the direction of his supernatural powers, Anton turned his attention to another matter.

The Six Ding and Six Jia guardian deities were undoubtedly a very powerful reliance for him when he was still in the Golden Core stage.

The twelve divine generals joined forces to form an array, comparable to a Nascent Soul cultivator.

However, as he achieved the Nascent Soul stage, the strength of the Six Ding and Six Jia Guardian Generals could no longer keep up with his level.

The trump card that once allowed him to easily contend with experts at the Saint Realm level is now unlikely to play a decisive role in higher-level confrontations.

He plans to leave all the Six Ding and Six Jia guardian deities behind to guard the Primordial Spirit Realm, serving as a trump card in the clan's defense system.

Unfortunately, the collection of the Ancient Golem Core has not been going smoothly.

Over the years, the clan has spent a great deal of manpower and resources in various parts of the continent and the Underdark, but has only found two ancient golem cores. Anton used them to forge two new guardian deities, who are stationed on the Eternal Night Islands to guard the remaining dragons.

If they can find enough ancient golem cores to forge thousands of guardian deities, the Silver Moon Clan can instantly become the strongest force on the continent.

However, this goal is clearly not easy to achieve.

Since the path of winning by sheer quantity is not feasible, then we must refine Dao soldiers of a higher level.

Anton had long had this in mind.

Those are heavenly soldiers and generals!

The Daoist lineage recorded in the Great Dao Jade Slip does not include any divine background of being conferred an official title by the Heavenly Court.

The "heaven" in "heavenly soldiers and generals" refers to the laws of heaven and earth themselves.

They are classified as the top branches of "Heretical Incarnation" and "Dharma with Primordial Spirit," which are top-level techniques that only cultivators above the Nascent Soul stage can access.

The methods for creating celestial soldiers and generals are completely different from those for creating guardian deities.

The creation of guardian deities is more like the "borrowing" and "sealing" of the power of laws.

The creation of celestial soldiers and generals is a process of "formation" and "transformation".

Among these, the Dao Embryo is the most crucial element.

The refiner must use their complete understanding of a certain law, the unique aura above the head of a Nascent Soul cultivator as a furnace, and their own essence and divine consciousness as fuel, to repeatedly temper, compress, and purify it, ultimately condensing it into a Dao Seal.

After that, guided by the cultivator's own cultivation, the power of the laws is gradually drawn from the void and slowly injected into the Dao Seal, allowing it to slowly germinate and grow like a seed under the nourishment of spiritual light, until it condenses into a complete Dao Embryo.

This process allows no room for haste and requires almost endless patience and mental discipline.

Secondly, there is the Dao body.

The refiner used their divine sense as a brush to draw a large complex array composed of thousands of high-level talismans on the surface of the Dao soldier's body, making the Dao body able to bear all the power of the laws contained in the Dao embryo.

Compared to the Dao embryo, this step is much simpler.

The main challenge lies in the nesting and guidance of the array diagrams, rather than the quality of the materials.

In fact, the requirements for materials for celestial soldiers and generals are not as demanding as those for guardian deities. Instead, they place higher demands on the craftsman's skill and cultivation in crafting celestial weapons.

This is undoubtedly good news for Anton.

After all, gathering materials had always been a major headache for him on the Dawn Continent.

It is worth mentioning that the heavenly soldiers and generals are further divided into two levels: heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals.

A celestial soldier, upon its initial formation, possesses combat power comparable to that of a Nascent Soul cultivator.

The Heavenly Generals are on an even higher level, comparable to cultivators at the Dharma Body Realm.

If we can gather forty-eight heavenly soldiers and one heavenly general to set up the Big Dipper Formation, we might not be without the power to fight even against a Nascent Soul cultivator.

In addition, the refiner can also delegate the authority to summon heavenly soldiers and generals to lower-level cultivators, enabling them to use their own magic power as a guide to summon a projection weaker than the original body, or directly summon the original body to descend.

This method is exactly the same as the legendary story of cultivators summoning heavenly soldiers and generals.

Anton speculated that perhaps the sect that first created the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals technique was called the Heavenly Court.

When disciples of the sect fought, they would casually summon a celestial soldier or general, crafted by a senior member of the sect, to assist them. Over time, this evolved into a legend of the Heavenly Court.

Anton did not delve further into these distant speculations.

He got up and left the meditation room, heading towards the weapon-refining room, ready to study how to refine heavenly weapons.

However, halfway there, Anton received a telepathic message from Eleanor.

So he turned around and went to Tianyuan Hall again.

"This is the information about the spirit weapon that the disciples just reported. The situation is a bit special, and I think you should take a look."

Upon meeting, Eleanor handed her a file.

Anton took it and glanced at it, raising his eyebrows slightly.

"Do you know where those wolves came from?" Anton put down the file and looked up at Eleanor.

"I don't know." Eleanor shook her head. "The intelligence agency has reviewed all the records about monsters and strange beasts, but none of them match this pack of wolves. They seem to have appeared out of thin air. We've never seen anything like them in any region before."

Anton seemed to be deep in thought upon hearing this.

A group of powerful magical beasts of unknown origin, and the spirit weapon guarded by them... This doesn't seem like a coincidence at all.

He sensed something unusual, but there were too few clues to make any definitive judgment.

Eleanor asked, "Should we send someone over to check?"

After a moment's thought, Anton shook his head and said, "No need, I'll go myself."

After all, it involves legendary-level monsters, the number of which is currently unknown. It might be dangerous for other clan leaders to rush to investigate.

It would be safer for him to handle it personally.

Whether it's a spirit weapon or a wolf pack, both are worth investigating.

"Won't there be any danger?" Eleanor asked hesitantly.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," Anton said with a calm smile.

It wasn't that he was complacent. Before the cataclysm of the undead broke out and before the gods were even in sight, the only way to pose a threat to his life would be for any of the five major powers to send out their full force of saints.

Even if he were to encounter such a situation, he was confident he could extricate himself.