Elven cultivators

The night was as dark as ink, and the moonlight as smooth as water.

In the quiet room of the treehouse, Anton sat cross-legged, his eyes gently closed, his breathing long and soft.

He calmed his mind and focused all his attention on the Tanzhong acupoint.

This place is the central hub of the body's Qi Sea, connecting the Heavenly Court above and the Dantian below, making it the most suitable place to nurture sword Qi.

In the path of sword cultivation, intention is of paramount importance.

Without a clear vision, the sword cannot be forged.

So-called sword energy is not something fabricated out of thin air, but rather it is the result of using intention to control energy, infusing the intangible sword intent into true essence, giving it the sharpness and ferocity of a sword, and thus transforming it into sword energy.

Anton closed his eyes and focused his mind, and the outline of a sword gradually appeared in his mind.

The sword was as clear as autumn water, with a long and slender blade and a thin edge like a cicada's wing. Five-colored light flowed faintly along the spine of the sword.

This is the sword shape he visualized.

It was neither any sword he had ever seen, nor the black steel sword he had ever used, but rather his purest understanding and imagination of the concept of "sword".

Sharp, fierce, and invincible.

The sword energy is the seed of the sword pellet. Whether this step is taken steadily or not directly affects the quality of the sword pellet in the future.

Therefore, he dared not slack off in the slightest.

Taking a deep breath, Anton's mind stirred slightly, and a wisp of primordial true essence instantly separated from his dantian and flowed into his acupoint.

Following that, he repeatedly compressed and condensed that wisp of true essence in his Tanzhong acupoint, while gradually infusing it with the sword intent he had visualized.

This process is not difficult, but it is extremely mentally taxing.

After an unknown amount of time, when the last wisp of sword intent merged into the true essence and became one with it, the true essence suddenly changed, transforming into an extremely miniature sword that floated quietly.

The sword is completely transparent, almost invisible, yet it contains a chillingly sharp aura.

"It's done!"

Anton slowly opened his eyes, a hint of joy flashing in them.

The sword energy has been formed. The next step is to continuously nourish it with true essence and infuse it with sword intent to make it grow stronger until it reaches its limit.

The stronger the sword energy, the higher the quality of the sword pellet seed, and the greater the potential of the final product.

This process will take a lot of time, but Anton has plenty of patience.

After all, we haven't acquired the right materials yet.

Besides serving as a seed for sword pellets, this wisp of sword energy can also be used against enemies.

It is even one of the most powerful attack methods in the hands of many aspiring sword cultivators who have not yet mastered the sword pellet.

Because the Tanzhong acupoint is also known as Zhongting, this sword energy is also called the Zhongting Sword.

Anton got up and left the quiet room, going to the backyard.

In the corner of the courtyard stood a stone figure, its body covered in a set of runic scale armor.

This is a humanoid target that Anton specially placed in the courtyard, which he uses to practice and test his magical skills and martial arts techniques.

His gaze fell on the target, and he suddenly opened his mouth. In an instant, a pure white sword aura shot out, like a white rainbow piercing the sun, straight through the target. Its momentum did not diminish, and it continued to fly backward, leaving a small pit in the ground with a thud.

Seeing this, Anton smiled with satisfaction.

Although the Sword of the Central Court is only in its rudimentary form and has not yet undergone a long period of nurturing and growth, its sharpness already far surpasses that of ordinary spells.

It can easily pierce even faint-light level magical items, its power is self-evident.

"Not bad, now we have another trump card."

Anton withdrew his sword energy and returned to his quiet room in a cheerful mood, where he opened the Great Dao Jade Slip to examine it.

After successfully establishing his foundation, the original Dragon Essence Pill had become much less effective for him, so he had to find a new pill to aid his cultivation.

After searching for the past few days, Anton has found a target.

Guiyuan Dan (Return to Origin Pill).

A type of elixir that can rapidly enhance one's true essence.

Like Peiyuan Dan, Guiyuan Dan also has countless variations of its formula, an absurd number.

Anton selected a formula that used dragon blood as the main ingredient.

Unlike the Dragon Essence Pill, the Returning Origin Pill has higher requirements for the quality of materials. No matter how much ordinary lizardman blood is refined and purified, it cannot meet the standard. Only purified dragon lizardman blood can be used.

Fortunately, the clan had captured several silver-rank dragon lizardmen in the battle a few days ago, which came in handy.

"Looks like we'll have to capture more dragon lizard people in the future."

Anton pondered to himself.

The speed of condensing true essence is much slower than refining spiritual energy.

Without external assistance, relying solely on one's own cultivation, the speed at which one's true energy grows is incredibly slow.

Fortunately, he has a steady supply of Riftdragon meat from the mining area for cultivating the Blood Food Body Refinement Method, and he will soon be able to use the Returning Origin Pill, which will definitely boost his cultivation efficiency significantly.

"There's also a spirit-gathering array."

Anton has read a lot about formations these days and has gained a basic understanding of them.

Simply put, the essence of a formation is to use array patterns to simulate the laws governing the operation of heaven and earth.

The more powerful the formation, the more power of heaven and earth it can draw upon, and the stronger its power becomes.

In general, there are four essential elements to a formation: the formation diagram, the formation base, the formation core, and the power source.

The array diagram refers to the blueprint of the array, which is the unification of the array patterns and determines the array structure. It is equivalent to the design blueprint of a magic weapon and the formula of an elixir.

The array base refers to the physical foundation that supports the array, including mountains and rivers, earth veins and spiritual springs, star positions, and so on.

The "array eye" refers to the core hub of the array, which is usually a array plate or array flag crafted by the array setter.

Finally, there is the power source, which provides the energy needed for the formation to operate.

In the world of cultivation, the power source for formations is usually spirit stones.

Of course, some formations can also absorb the energy of heaven and earth on their own. As long as the formation base and the formation core remain intact, they can continue to operate.

"The array diagram of the Spirit Gathering Array is easy to solve; there are various variant array diagrams in the Great Dao Jade Slip."

"The array base is not a problem either. The requirements for the array base are very low. As long as it is not a spiritually deprived area, the array can be set up."

"As for the array eye, we'll use the array plate as the core hub. Luckily, there's still a large amount of Frost Pattern Silver in the warehouse, which can be used as the main material to refine the array plate."

The Spirit Gathering Array Plate is at most a talisman-level artifact, which is a piece of cake for Anton, who has many years of experience in crafting talisman equipment.

"As for the power source..."

Anton looked thoughtful.

Due to its unique nature, the Spirit Gathering Array requires a power source to provide energy to maintain its operation and cannot absorb energy from heaven and earth on its own.

However, spirit stones do not exist on the Dawn Continent, so we can only look for other similar energy crystals as a power source.

For example, magic stones, magic crystals, and elemental crystals, etc.

Among them, the magic stone is a natural energy crystal formed deep underground through tens of thousands of years of geological movement and element deposition.

Each magic stone contains pure and stable elemental energy, which can be directly used by spellcasters, alchemists, and craftsmen to quickly restore magic power, create magical items, or set up magic arrays, making it a precious strategic resource.

Magic crystals can be seen as artificially created magic stones.

It is an artificial energy crystal formed by the caster infusing their own magic power into natural jade, and then compressing, solidifying and sealing it through special alchemy techniques.

Due to limitations in the manufacturer's skills, the quality of magic crystals often varies greatly.

A good magic crystal is comparable to the highest grade magic stone.

Inferior magic crystals, whether in terms of energy density, purity, or stability, are less than half that of lower-grade magic stones.

As for elemental crystallization, it refers to the formation of crystals with stable physical forms after pure elemental energy is highly concentrated and solidified under specific conditions.

For example, Life Source Crystal is actually a type of element crystallization.

In addition, there are Thunder Soul Crystal, Flame Heart Blood Amber, Wind-Sounding Stone, and Earth Vein Crystal Marrow, etc.