Jade Talisman Meditation Method

Crafting talismans was Luo Hong's specialty, but Initial High Grade spells involved too many Silver Runes and were far more profound. He had no hope of comprehending them in the short term.

Of the remaining spells, spirit beasts, and secret arts, he had Dan Zhu's egg on the spirit beast side, which likewise could not improve Luo Hong's combat strength anytime soon.

The secret arts were in an especially awkward position. Though he had never truly reversed the Spirit Flood Dragon Secret Markings, Luo Hong knew very well just how dense the energy of that thing in his Dantian was. He had been nurturing it for nearly a month, yet its size had barely grown.

Unless it was a genuine life-or-death crisis, Luo Hong was absolutely unwilling to use it.

He could not use his trump card in every battle. What Luo Hong needed was a means to improve his conventional combat strength.

Spells became his final choice!

When it came to spell cultivation, Luo Hong's spiritual sense was twice as strong as that of an ordinary Qi Refining Stage Cultivator, thanks to the fusion of his soul after transmigrating and the gains from his enlightenment. Thus, he possessed a tremendous advantage when using spells with high demands on magic power control, allowing him to learn the Initial Mid-Grade Spirit Art—Minor Rain Cloud Technique—within a year.

Conversely, because of Luo Hong's Grand Dantian Plan, he had deliberately controlled his Mana Purity, causing his spells to be nearly fifty percent weaker than those of Cultivators with Second-grade Spirit Roots at the same level.

Fortunately, there were many external factors that could be used to increase a spell's power.

First, the Spiritual Qi attribute of the surrounding environment.

When casting Water Element Spells, the greater the concentration of Water Element Spiritual Qi in the surroundings, the greater the spell's power. It could generally be increased by thirty to fifty percent.

Second, the mutual generation and restraint of the Five Elements.

Water was the foundation of Luo Hong's cultivation, so metal was its best support.

Water sank but did not cohere. Yet as long as metal was added, it could form a whole. When metal and water complemented each other, their power multiplied.

Third, special constitutions.

This was the external factor with the greatest impact on spell power. Even if Li Huayuan, with his Three Yang Body, were at the same Level 10 Qi Refining as Luo Hong, the Small Fireball he hurled would still be roughly twice as powerful as Luo Hong's.

Moreover, as their cultivation improved, this gap would continue to widen.

The difference was that Luo Hong conjured ordinary spirit fire, while Li Huayuan conjured the more powerful Three Yang Fire.

Constitutional factors were the hardest to change, but that also meant they were the most decisive.

Anyone with even a little combat experience, or guidance from an elder, would consciously make use of the first two points.

Therefore, if one wished to truly widen the gap from other Cultivators, the key still lay in those enviable Dharma Bodies.

They were all carbon-based organisms, all living beings made of flesh and blood. Why were some lucky people so special?

Luo Hong had been unable to explain this before.

Until a few days ago, when he obtained the Azure Water Pearl.

Among top-grade Magic Artifacts, the support-type Azure Water Pearl ranked at the very bottom because its only function was amplifying spell power.

Originally, Luo Hong thought that the Azure Water Crocodile Spirit Soul within the Azure Water Pearl amplified his spells after he cast them.

However, he was completely wrong.

When Luo Hong activated the Azure Water Pearl, the Azure Water Crocodile's Spirit Soul appeared directly in his Niwan Palace. This was naturally not Body Seizure. The refined Azure Water Crocodile Spirit Soul had no consciousness at all; it simply lay obediently beside the ball of light that was Luo Hong's soul, and Luo Hong had absolute control over it.

At first, Luo Hong merely felt that his knowledge had been lacking. After his surprise faded, he did not care much about it and cast a Water Bullet Technique to test the exact extent of its amplification.

Yet the instant his magic power flowed through his meridians, three previously nonexistent Incomplete Silver Runes appeared, changing the water bullet Luo Hong had condensed.

"So that was what the power of that trace of Primordial Heavy Water meant."

Feeling the water bullet's weight, more than double what it had been before, Luo Hong sank into thought.

Primordial Heavy Water was a rare spiritual material, mostly used in Water Element magic treasures refined by Core Formation Stage Cultivators. Its value was roughly equal to Water Essence.

The former was characterized by its weight. A volume of Primordial Heavy Water was ten times heavier than an iron block of the same size. The latter was characterized by its extraordinary spirituality, increasing a magic treasure's magic power capacity.

Though both increased power, their focuses differed.

After testing it, the Azure Water Pearl's effect became obvious. It increased the weight of the spirit water Luo Hong conjured, thereby raising his spell power by around fifty percent. Its effect on defensive spells was even better.

However, those were secondary. What Luo Hong truly cared about now was why Incomplete Silver Runes had temporarily appeared in his meridians.

The only external factor was the Azure Water Crocodile Spirit Soul, so the answer had to lie within it.

Luo Hong immediately examined it thoroughly with unprecedented focus, and before long, he found those three Incomplete Silver Runes inside the Azure Water Crocodile Spirit Soul.

Their form of existence was extremely familiar, exactly like the few original Silver Runes in Luo Hong's soul.

This discovery made Luo Hong slap his forehead and cry out that he had overlooked something!

The initial six Silver Runes had been obtained after Luo Hong's enlightenment. He had originally thought they were a gift from the Heavenly Dao, but he had already figured out that the Heavenly Dao would never be so kind to Cultivators. Yet the Silver Runes were undeniably good things that pointed directly toward truth.

This meant that the six Silver Runes imprinted upon Luo Hong's soul were inevitable products of certain conditions being fulfilled during his enlightenment.

What had happened during that enlightenment? What had the Azure Water Crocodile done?

Considering the two questions together, Luo Hong reached a conclusion:

Time!

When spells were normally cast, Silver Runes flashed by in an instant. During enlightenment, however, the Silver Runes remained activated the entire time. This was equivalent to extending the time spiritual sense came into contact with activated Silver Runes by countless times.

Before reaching Level Five, Demon Beasts basically had no intelligence. Especially ferocious Demon Beasts like the Azure Water Crocodile, which acted entirely on instinct. The only thing worthy of praise about them was their long lifespan.

Thus, the final conclusion was:

If spiritual sense remained in contact with activated Silver Runes for a long time, the corresponding Silver Runes could be imprinted. And Silver Runes stored within one's spiritual sense could temporarily empower one's meridians.

Luo Hong could not possibly have been the first to discover this phenomenon, because among every cultivation school—Daoist, demonic, Buddhist, Confucian, and so on—there was a category of secret arts.

Meditation methods!

With that, the utterly idealistic phenomenon of staring at a painting or statue for decades and gaining all kinds of divine abilities now had a reasonable explanation.

The special constitutions of those lucky Cultivators were also clear now. Their meridians surely contained more Silver Runes than ordinary people's from birth. This might be due to ancestral reversion, skipped-generation inheritance, forbidden romances between humans and demons, or other reasons too terrifying to contemplate.

Now, through this phenomenon, Luo Hong had found a way to make his combat strength soar.

First, he completed the three Incomplete Silver Runes. Since he had previously used exhaustive methods to complete the Silver Runes on the Fourth-Grade Flood Dragon Bone, Luo Hong had accumulated considerable experience. He had completed this task several days ago.

Next, he used the method for refining Spirit Flood Dragon Secret Markings to construct a Water Bullet Technique circuit containing those three Silver Runes on a Jade Talisman Board.

Of course, this time Luo Hong used materials with the lowest power output. After all, he only needed to keep the Silver Runes activated.

Finally, as long as he ignored the water sphere slowly taking shape on the Jade Talisman Board, his spiritual sense could remain in continuous contact with those three Silver Runes.

This was Luo Hong's Jade Talisman Meditation Method.

Compared to other Cultivators who used classical meditation methods, this advancement was no less significant than leaping from passive evolution straight into active evolution.

Passive biological evolution required thousands upon thousands of years, while active evolution required only an injection of gene enhancement serum. At most, one would be back on their feet in a few days.

Thus, two days before the Minor Competition began, Luo Hong completed the soul imprints of those three Silver Runes.

After succeeding, Luo Hong became completely obsessed. Disregarding his agreement with Old Demon Han, he used the same method to make a Jade Talisman bearing Spirit Flood Dragon Secret Markings.

However, when the first Flood Dragon Bone Silver Rune imprinted itself into Luo Hong's soul, his Niwan Palace suddenly shook. He immediately spat out a mouthful of blood and fainted!

Everyone, toss in some recommendation votes to wake the protagonist up!