Chapter 294: Hundred Attempts Yet No Gains
"The formation core can be mass-produced on a large scale."
"However, due to the special nature of the soul, each activation of the formation core in the Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation requires a Formation Master to personally guide it. Moreover, to ensure the accuracy of the formation, it needs to be debugged and calibrated by the Formation Master periodically."
"And this is also the reason why you are here for this training."
Suddenly, Ji Hongdao produced a golden sphere in his hand, which was the item distributed along with the clothing to everyone earlier.
"This is the Soul Gathering Pearl, made of Yin Soul Jade. As the name suggests, it has the effect of collecting and imprisoning souls."
"Do you see the golden light inside?"
"Those are the souls of the Five Elders Association's cultivators that we have captured!"
As Ji Hongdao spoke, the faces of the cultivators present changed color one after another.
Through the live demonstration of soul extraction just now, everyone learned that the golden light in the souls of the Five Elders Association's cultivators was a trace of the 'Soul Contract.'
But in the soul of each cultivator, the percentage of golden light was only a tiny fraction.
How many souls would it take to condense such a solid golden light?
Thousands? Or tens of thousands?
The more they thought about it, the more horrified they felt.
Some of the talented formation cultivators had been immersed in the study of formations since they started cultivation and rarely encountered such a cruel side of the cultivation world.
At this moment, they couldn't help but look pale and panicked.
Ji Hongdao said in a deep voice, "What? Scared? Do you think we are too cruel?"
"But you should know that just in the battle of Tianling Province, the number of fallen cultivators from the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance was a hundred or even a thousand times more than the number of souls in your Soul Gathering Pearls!"
"Not to mention the wars of various sizes that have occurred sporadically over thousands of years."
"Being merciful to the enemy is true cruelty."
Ji Hongdao looked deeply at the many young cultivators present and nodded his head, no longer continuing to delve into this topic.
He continued to introduce the Soul Gathering Pearl.
"What you need to do is to constantly observe and interact with these souls up close, and comprehend the traces of the Soul Contract."
"In the end, you need to reach a level where you can distinguish the differences without relying on external forces."
"This way, when you are building the Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation, you will have the ability to debug and calibrate the formation core."
"The process of this comprehension consumes souls, so it would be best to achieve this before the souls in the Soul Gathering Pearls are depleted."
"Otherwise..."
Ji Hongdao's tone turned cold, "We will deem that you are not capable of building the Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation. Not only will you be expelled from this Huan Yu Courtyard, but we will also charge the training fee to your recommender."
With these words, the faces of the cultivators all looked grim.
If they couldn't meet the requirements and were expelled like this, it was not just a matter of losing face.
They were afraid that their future would be completely ruined, and they would have no chance with the path of formations from then on.
The talented youths who were recommended here couldn't help but feel immense pressure.
"But rest assured. To reduce your difficulty, we have already processed the souls of the Five Elders Association's cultivators with special methods."
"The vast majority of memories in the souls have been completely erased."
"A pure soul without memories and emotions is much easier to comprehend."
"As long as you're not useless trash who came here just to waste time, there shouldn't be any problem."
With a change in tone, Ji Hongdao encouraged the young talents once again.
Finally, he set the learning schedule for everyone for the next period of time.
During the day, the cultivators would follow Ji Hongdao to learn how to construct the Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation.
At night, they would return to their respective courtyards to comprehend the Soul Contract.
Every month, there would be an assessment to check everyone's learning progress.
...
In this way, Li Fan began his training schedule in Huan Yu Courtyard.
The Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation was worthy of being a formation that the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance had placed high hopes on and were hoping to turn the tide with.
It was extraordinarily complex and intricate.
Just the outer structure of the formation consisted of 36 million minor formations.
Each minor formation was composed of various different subunits.
Even the simplest minor formation comprised over ten thousand different subunits.
To fully grasp the structure of the Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation was no easy task, even for these talented individuals selected from various provinces.
However, Li Fan had the assistance of the 'Divine Transformation Dao' secret technique.
Everything he learned, saw, and even thought was meticulously recorded in the blue Dao Transformation Stone in his sea of consciousness.
He could access and review it at any time, corroborating any knowledge.
Li Fan's mastery of the Tianxuan Spirit Lock Formation advanced by leaps and bounds.
Among the talented individuals, he was at the forefront.
In stark contrast, Li Fan's ability to sense the Soul Contract was lacking.
When about a quarter of the golden color in the Soul Gathering Pearl was depleted, Li Fan had made almost no progress compared to the beginning.
However, Li Fan remained relaxed, without any pressure.
Threats like being expelled from the Tianyu Province and demanding fees from his recommender didn't faze him.
If nothing unexpected happened, Zhang Zhiliang would have already returned to the heavens by then.
So Li Fan remained calm and continued to comprehend at his own pace.
Time passed slowly like this.
On this day, Li Fan once again extracted a soul from the Soul Gathering Pearl and was about to comprehend it.
Two vast streams of cultivation suddenly surged from within him.
Like rushing rivers, they flowed endlessly.
In just a moment, they had filled half of the third Karmic Body.
Furthermore, the cultivation feedback continued to increase.
Li Fan felt delighted and faintly sensed, "Did Ye Feipeng and Xiao Heng both break through to the Golden Core realm?"
Subconsciously, he wanted to unleash the Formless Killing Intent to check the situation over there.
But it was too far away to know what had happened to the two of them.
This made Li Fan feel somewhat uncomfortable and uneasy.
"From the quantity of feedback cultivation, both of them are at least Three Law Golden Core cultivators."
"Such a wonderful scene, yet I cannot witness it. It's a bit regrettable."
"It seems I need to find a way to upgrade my Formless Killing Intent."
Calming down the faint joy in his heart, Li Fan's spiritual consciousness skillfully entered the blank soul in his hand.
It felt like entering a vast space that stretched endlessly in all directions.
Li Fan traversed here, trying to find the traces of the golden Soul Contract.
But just like before, he found nothing.
The Soul Contract was deeply hidden within the soul, like a drop of water blending into the ocean, extremely difficult to detect.
Forcibly extracting the soul to observe it was akin to boiling the ocean, forcing the Soul Contract to appear.
Violently extracting a soul was no different from killing.
It was impossible to use this method to identify on a large scale.
The only way was to enter the soul with spiritual consciousness and make close contact to comprehend the existence of the Soul Contract.