Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 1547 - 820: Seal

The sealing runes on the bound Nascent Soul consist of Rule Power. It could be that the Half-step Great Power excels greatly in manipulating Rule Power, or perhaps the Half-step Great Power chose not to squander excessive Rule Power; either way, the Rule Power holding the Nascent Soul in place is exactly enough to maintain the seal.

From inside, shattering the sealing Rule Power proves impossible without aid from outside. Still, the Rule Power forming the seal remains finite. Through close examination, Li Shiming realized that over a few days, he could draw on the strength of his remaining four Nascent Souls to crack the seal open.

He remembered that finger strike from earlier and pondered its overwhelming force; it evoked the terror of an ant confronting a mighty dragon, a dread he seldom felt since reaching the Nascent Soul Realm.

Li Shiming's approach to dismantling the Rule Power in the sealing runes was simple: he kept flushing those runes repeatedly with the 'Five Elements Qi Absorption Array.'

While he labored to dissolve the sealing rune inside himself, his eyes shifted back to the jade compass.

He was certain the Half-step Great Power knew what was happening out there. Their current silence suggested they thought him powerless against them, or maybe they lurked in wait for him to draw near so they could capture him once more.

A smile crossed his face, and by now, his natal magical artifact IBMz15 had crafted an array of formations.

He pulled out the Buddha beads, letting them scatter into 108 separate ones, then with a flick of his wrist, sent the 108 beads soaring outward to encircle the jade compass.

Those Buddha beads never hit the earth, instead floating a meter off the ground while radiating a golden light, which triggered a unique spatial formation.

Li Shiming had planned it this way, fearing the Half-step Great Power would smash the Buddha beads during his setup.

So he acted with utmost speed in deploying the formation, igniting it right before the beads could land to take the Half-step Great Power by surprise.

With the formation now active, a bit of the tension inside him eased; facing a Half-step Great Power demanded such wariness, even if this one faced certain constraints, to avoid any sudden strikes back.

Setting up the formation successfully didn't signal the end. Li Shiming snapped his fingers, sending forth a barrage of spells that embedded themselves into the formation.

The beads started drawing inward; at first, little changed, but once they shrank to a specific point, the area surrounding the jade compass grew rigid and unyielding.

This space turned solid, transforming the region beyond the Grotto Heaven from normal emptiness into a dense, packed solidity thanks to the formation's influence.

IBMz15's design was a spatial formation meant to lock down the Grotto Heaven's entry and exit points, though here its power got amplified even further.

Li Shiming grasped Grotto Heavens deeply, owning two of his own; adding the Taichu branch's Taichu Cave Heaven, he effectively commanded three.

Half-Life Cave Heaven and Heavenly Person Cave Heaven served as his personal domains; IBMz15 had delved into Cave Heaven studies ages ago, figuring out their links to the outer world.

In particular, the Half-Life Cave Heaven bore strong resemblances to the one held by the Half-step Great Power up ahead, so sealing the spatial formation of Half-Life Cave Heaven mirrored trapping that forward Cave Heaven.

He kept unleashing spells, causing the formation to squeeze tighter and the space to harden even more.

His efforts halted only when the 108 Buddha beads had shrunk into a formation the size of a palm.

Even so, Li Shiming held back from nearing it personally; instead, he called forth a late-stage Golden Corpse from close by, then fished out a talisman pen and a vial of talismanic ink from his soul crystal ring, passing them over to the Golden Corpse.

As the late-stage Golden Corpse grasped the talisman pen and talismanic ink, Li Shiming's mind seized control of the Golden Corpse's form.

One had to admit, the Golden Corpse's physique offered flexibility and range much like a typical Great Cultivator's, free from the rigidity seen in standard Corpse Refining.

Beyond the inner Yin Cold Power that felt a tad unfamiliar, the corpse core stood in for the Nascent Soul.

Yet, drawing from his past shifts into a Corpse Refining form via his clone Li Yuanba—who could switch to that mode—the current sensation mirrored it closely.

Most notably in wielding Yin Cold Energy, where Li Yuanba boosted Yin Cold Power via Corpse Refining methods. Though he rarely practiced it, that prior knowledge now helped Li Shiming command Yin Cold Power smoothly in this instant.

The late-stage Golden Corpse advanced as Yin Cold Energy coursed through the talisman pen; it wavered at the start but steadied fully upon reaching the jade compass.

The Golden Corpse crouched down, its arm holding perfectly steady.

Without pause, it inscribed the long-planned space sealing runes onto the jade compass using the talisman pen.

The Half-step Great Power obviously grasped Li Shiming's aims and struggled to fight back from inside the Cave Heaven, yet the 108 Buddha beads' spatial formation kept the Cave Heaven pinned down.

This rendered them, for all their might, incapable of affecting the world outside from within the Cave Heaven, much less striking out.

At last, the Half-step Great Power ended their quiet, seeking to speak with Li Shiming.

"Li Shizhen, don’t push me to desperation, or I’ll forcefully employ three thousand years of cultivation to slay you!" Their voice lacked the volume one might expect.

Though echoing from within the Cave Heaven like a booming bell, the space sealing formation's power weakened it crossing over, turning it into a barely audible hum like a mosquito's whine.