In but an instant, Zhang Yu had finished reading the Foresight Seal.
Yet he also discovered that gaining a rudimentary grasp of this seal was not difficult; a slight reading would suffice. But to attain profound mastery, the spiritual essence that needed to be invested was truly considerable.
Though this was a seal of perception, it involved all six seals of "eye, ear, mouth, nose, body, and mind." The spiritual essence needed to read this seal was enough to read eight or nine other seals, a result that surprised him somewhat.
If these were minor seals, that would amount to more than a hundred of them. For present-day mystic cultivators, that was enough to bring out the effects of around twenty great seals. This was likely the second reason so many cultivators had abandoned this seal.
However, the effects achievable through a rudimentary grasp of this seal and through profound mastery were entirely different. To call them worlds apart would not be an exaggeration.
The Foresight Seal magnified a cultivator's senses, beginning with the finest details: observing changes in an opponent's expression, aura, mental force, bodily movements, and so on, then predicting their next move and using that to defeat them.
But at the shallow level, all of this still required one to observe, distinguish, and judge for oneself.
For ordinary cultivators, their minds were utterly focused during battle, and they relied entirely on their usual accumulation and experience to react. Where would they find the leisure to analyze and judge further? Even if seals could help accelerate their thinking, that still consumed mental force.
This was far less convenient than an Observer. It required no distraction on one's own part and incurred little cost; it could observe others and oneself alike. Replacing it was only natural.
But once the