The star mist in the Magnetic Essence Cave had thickened further.
Han Li sat cross-legged on a blue jade cushion, star power condensing into a fine needle at his fingertips as he embroidered the final strand of formation patterns onto a Star-Magnetic Dragon-Trapping Flag.
The flag's surface was fashioned from star-patterned steel and gleamed with a cold metallic luster. The Star-Magnetic Prison Cage patterns on the previous thirty-five flags could already barely trap a nascent soul middle stage cultivator. Yet on this thirty-sixth flag, a wisp of black vapor always lingered at the center. No matter how he channeled his star power, he could not complete the patterns.
"Another failure," Han Li murmured. The star needle at his fingertips trembled slightly, leaving a faint scratch on the flag. This was already his seventh attempt-since he had begun refining the Star-Magnetic Dragon-Trapping Flags three months earlier, the first six had all been ruined by magnetic essence conflict during the fusion of their formation patterns. The star-patterned steel and Magnetic Essence Beast sinews he had wasted would have been enough to forge another ten ordinary formation flags.
The Magnetic Essence Griffin beside him opened his eyes, a trace of concern flashing beneath his golden feathers. He gently pecked the back of Han Li's hand and gave a low rumble in his throat, as though reminding him to rest.
"It's nothing." Han Li rubbed his brow and took out the jade slip containing the incomplete diagram of the Star-Magnetic Grand Formation that Ling Yuling had given him. Before the Twin Saints fell, this jade slip had been copied from the formation's central nexus. It recorded the damaged patterns of its three principal formations: the Heaven-Imprisoning Formation, the Earth-Locking Formation, and the Dragon-Trapping Formation. The Dragon-Trapping patterns shared the same origin as the Star-Magnetic