Chapter 1317: Deduction of the Variant Formation Talisman and Replicating the Star Robe

“True Immortal Shang, have you been cultivating in the Star Beast Nest the entire time?” Zhang Mingjie asked casually with the same smile on his face.

Shang Xia didn’t show the slightest change in expression as he laughed along, “Of course not. To enter the level of Returning to the Origin, I needed to return to my world. True Immortal Zhang, even though you haven’t reached this level, I believe you understand what is required to break through.”

“Oh...” Zhang Mingjie scratched his head and chuckled helplessly, “How can I forget something like that? I’ve embarrassed myself in front of True Immortal Shang...”

“...”

They exchanged more pleasantries before their topic returned to their cultivation.

Shang Xia might have reached the level of Returning to the Origin before Zhang Mingjie, but Zhang Mingjie was a high-level True Immortal of the Dachen Dynasty and his knowledge in cultivation wasn’t lacking.

Many of the questions they had were cleared up during their conversation and even when Zhang Mingjie decided to leave, both of them seemed a little reluctant to do so.

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

However... The person who benefited the most wasn’t Shang Xia or Zhang Mingjie. It was the second tier True Immortal, Chen Hui!

After the 2 of them left, Hai Yuanyuan poked her head out from one of the corners and ran over to Shang Xia. “Do you believe that they’re just here to pay you a visit and place an order for the next batch of talismans?”

Looking in the direction of the exit of the Star Beast Nest, Shang Xia didn’t bother turning his head to face her. “It’s just an excuse. They wanted to see if I was behind the theft of the world fragment.”

“Did they gain anything from it?” Hai Yuanyuan frowned.

“Doesn’t matter if they did. They will be suspicious nonetheless and it’s just how suspicious they are. I don’t really care if they think I’m the one who did it. I’m more curious about that person who followed Zhang Mingjie.”

“Curious about him?” Hai Yuanyuan tilted her head to the side and asked, “Is there something special about him?”

Shang Xia chuckled softly. “Well, his eyes are interesting.”

...

As the True Immortals left the Star Beast Nest, they didn’t converse with each other. Only after they left the chaotic space did Zhang Mingjie ask in a low voice, “How is it?”

A strange light flashed in Chen Hui’s eyes and he mumbled, “He should have only advanced to the level of Returning to the Origin after the Piercing Cloud Bandits were robbed.”

A frown appeared on Zhang Mingjie’s face and he mumbled to himself, “In that case, does that mean that he shouldn’t be the mysterious fifth tier True Immortal who appeared after the Piercing Cloud Bandits were robbed?”

Chen Hui shook his head in response. “It might not be him, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not someone from his world! I recall you saying that you once felt the aura of other high-level True Immortals in the Star Beast Nest.”

Zhang Mingjie nodded slowly. “We were merely trying our luck to see if we could find the culprit this time... No matter what, he’s someone who can create a Myriad Tinted Cloud Talisman with a fixed success rate. A pseudo rank seven Talisman Grandmaster like that is someone worthy of pulling to our side. It’s just that his timing is a little too coincidental...”

Chen Hui added, “Even if we can determine True Immortal Shang is the killer, or if those from his world are behind it, what can we do?! We can’t possibly go knocking on their doorstep, right?”

Zhang MIngjie laughed softly, but there seemed to be a strange light in his eyes.

Chen Hui might have trained in some sort of secret eye technique, but he didn’t notice the strange expression in Zhang Mingjie’s eyes.

Soon after, Chen Hui asked, “Duke Zhang, do you think His Majesty will succeed?”

Zhang Mingjue looked into the distance with a profound gaze and sighed, “His Majesty has always been unpredictable, but he never does anything he isn’t confident in. All we need to do is to follow his instructions.”

Chen Hui nodded at that, but he couldn’t help but feel a little worried. “I’m just afraid that our Dachen Dynasty will be targeted by everyone else if it happens.”

“That’s not something for you to worry about. Even if you’re not sure of what is going to happen, you should charge ahead without any fear! You’re not too far away from the level of External Unity, right?” Zhang Mingjie laughed in response.

...

Shang Xia tossed the matter of their arrival to the back of his mind and started to delve into crafting rank six talismans once they were gone.

Because of how often the 3 great powers of the Essence Xing World were commissioning talismans, he no longer lacked rank six talisman paper.

With his unusually high success rate, he quickly completed another batch of rank six talismans. There were 3 Myriad Tinted Cloud Talismans among them. When he was done, he started to research the principles behind them and attempted to combine the Variant Formation Talismans.

Ever since he started researching the Myriad Tinted Cloud Talisman, his deduction of the other Variant Formation Talismans in the series became a lot more smooth.

When he crafted them initially, Tong Yutang only gave him the inheritance to craft 1 of them. After his repeated experiments, he determined that there should be 7 Variant Formation Talismans in the series.

Originally, brute forcing the deduction and development process of a single Variant Formation Talisman already proved to be nearly impossible. However, Shang Xia obtained the Star Origin Lord Robe and managed to learn a few of the talismans that made it up. He already grasped how to make one of them, but with the other 2, the difficulty of coming up with the rest was greatly reduced.

Of course, since the Variant Formation Talismans were separated from a rank seven talisman, it was far more complicated than the Myriad Tinted Cloud Talisman. Even with a greatly improved speed of research, he wouldn’t be able to complete the talisman anytime soon. After all... A rank seven talisman most likely needed to be infused with Seventh Order energy...

It was more than likely the Seventh Order energy required to complete the talisman was drawn from the stars, but be it the Tongyou Institution or Shang Xia, either had the ability to do so.

Fortunately, Shang Xia was in no rush to complete the rank seven talisman. He wanted to complete the analysis of the 7 Variant Formation Talismans that made it up and replicate the Star Robes and their battle formation.

The difficulty of making Star Robes will fall greatly once he completed his analysis of the 7 Variant Formation Talismans. However, he was going to face some difficulty when choosing the material to make the robes. Regardless, he never thought that he and the Tongyou Institution would be the only ones coming up with ideas.

Crafting Star Robes was one thing, and the battle formation was another. In the end, they would have to rely on Feng Ziying to teach them even though it wouldn’t be that easy.

When Shang Xia completed the deduction of the fourth Variant Formation Talisman in the series and more than half of the fifth, he got an idea of the sixth. Before he could continue, a transmission from Kou Chongxue forced him to drop everything and return to the Spirit Luxuriant World.

The Spirit Tinkle World and Spirit Thistle World called for a meeting of high-level True Immortals of their worlds to discuss how they should approach their operation to the Essence Ping World.