Watching the others slowly turn to ash, Qin Tian said coldly, "This piece of heterogeneous source is the price of your lives! If you want to live in this world, being weak isn't a problem. Being blind to whom you're dealing with is."
"After all, no one knows what towering figure the ant before you might become one day."
Take the Feathered Divine Dynasty, for instance. Who could have imagined that a little girl born with a worthless physique would become a peerless ruthless figure, a supreme empress, and wipe out the flourishing Feathered Divine Dynasty with a single slap!
Then there was the Ji Family of Desolate Antiquity. Judging by their behavior in the original story, if not for a good ancestor and a good daughter, Ye Fan probably would have wiped them out long ago once he reached full mastery.
Drops of blood seeped into the earth, staining the underground veins red.
Under Qin Tian's control, their souls, blood, and bones all merged into the Sacred Formation, staining one corner of its array marks crimson and bringing about a few minuscule changes in the formation.
Blood Sacrifice Formation-this was a method Qin Tian had mastered without a teacher.
Qin Tian picked up the bloodstained heterogeneous source from the ground, turned, and left.
Mining source was dangerous to begin with. As for casualties? They could hardly have been more normal.
When they dug out this piece of heterogeneous source, baleful energy had surged from the underground veins and buried them all.
That was an excellent explanation.
Similar incidents happened often. Opportunity and danger went hand in hand, and Qin Tian believed everyone else would accept this explanation as well.
The people outside heard the screams coming from the tunnel, but none dared approach. When Qin Tian emerged, they all lowered their heads, keeping a respectful distance.
Time trickled past.
Qin Tian gradually unraveled the Sacred Formation beneath his feet, which sealed off the vital essence of the underground veins. Its complexity filled him with admiration. He knew he could not construct such a magnificent formation himself.
But destruction was always easier than creation.
This Sacred Formation was like a precision machine. Breaking just one or two crucial components could disrupt its operation and drastically weaken it. A slight alteration to some of its array marks could send the formation toward the opposite extreme.
For example, turning interception and accumulation into destruction and release.
And so, while learning, Qin Tian used his source-mining shifts to slack off and secretly modify the Sacred Formation.
With a Sacred Formation as his teaching material, putting theory into practice allowed Qin Tian's mastery of the Formation Dao to grow rapidly.
Just like that, three months soon passed.
At last, the day Qin Tian had been waiting for arrived.
That day.
Radiance shot skyward from the Profound Jade Platform in a breathtaking spectacle, and a Domain Gate gradually emerged amid the endless light.
A tall old man stepped out of the Domain Gate, dressed in brocade robes. Dazzling primordial sacred light enveloped his entire body, obscuring his face.
"We respectfully welcome the Grand Elder!" The mine administrators, who had been waiting well in advance, bowed in unison.
"Mm."
The man addressed as the Grand Elder nodded, ignoring their attempts to fawn over him.
The mine overseer sidled up shamelessly. "My lord, this is this year's source."
"Two million jin in total. The little extra is a token of my sincerity."
The Grand Elder opened the Storage Bag and looked inside. A hint of a smile appeared on his previously stiff face. He patted the mine overseer's shoulder and said:
"Good. Very good!"
The Source Mine overseer hurriedly flattered him. "Thank you for your praise, Grand Elder. Might this humble one have the honor of serving you as your loyal hound and steed?"
The Yaoguang Great Power weighed the Storage Bag in his hand, made a show of deliberating for a while, then said, "Very well. Since you are so sincere, I shall take you as my named disciple."
"Thank you, Master!" The overseer was overjoyed. Guarding a Source Mine was a lucrative posting.
But it also kept him far from the center of power in the Yaoguang Holy Land. And not everyone was willing to stay in a desolate place like the Northern Region.
The overseer was one of them. He wanted to forge connections and get himself transferred away from the Source Mine.
This Grand Elder before him was an excellent choice. A Great Power held an exceptionally high position even within the Yaoguang Holy Land.
The overseer asked tentatively, "Your disciple has prepared a welcoming banquet for you. Would you care to attend?"
"No need!" The Yaoguang Great Power shook his head in refusal. "Let us begin immediately!"
"I still have urgent matters to attend to."
"As you command!" The overseer bowed respectfully.
"It's finally starting!" Qin Tian's legs trembled with excitement.
"I've waited so long for this day!"
"Losing a Great Power should leave the Yaoguang Holy Land aching for a long time."
Although later on, never mind Great Powers-even Saints would be worth less than dogs-in this era, Great Powers stood at the pinnacle of the Eastern Wasteland. They commanded the world with sweeping gestures, and a single thought could plunge the entire Eastern Wasteland into turmoil.
"Formation, arise!" The Yaoguang Great Power stood high in the sky. With a thought, he poured vast divine power into the great formation.
Array marks lit up one after another. Blinding divine light filled heaven and earth as the Sacred Formation began to awaken.
The Yaoguang Great Power constantly changed his hand seals, sending them into the Sacred Formation. Array marks flared to life one after another, and surging divine power seethed.
"Seal Heaven and Lock Earth, Cut Off the Veins and Seal the Mountains!"
Dazzling primordial sacred light erupted from the Yaoguang Great Power. Profound, unfathomable divine patterns circled him, reaching through heaven and stirring the earth. Like a Primordial God, his every breath seemed linked to the Sacred Formation.
A terrifying aura gushed forth, carrying the faint eruption of power beyond that of a Great Power.
"As expected of Master. With his cultivation, there can hardly be anyone in the entire Eastern Wasteland who can rival him!" The mine overseer watched with burning envy.
Within the crowd, Qin Tian gazed at the figure high in the sky, clearly sensing that Great Power's might.
"So this is a Great Power!"
"He could probably kill me with a single thought!" Qin Tian marveled, then his expression turned icy. "But even a Great Power must die today!"
"An ant shaking a tree, an insect slaying a dragon!"
"Today is the day!" Qin Tian slowly formed hand seals.
The next instant, everything changed!
In a heartbeat, heaven and earth overturned. The underground veins heaved, shaking the world.
A wisp of flame rose from the source vein.
Rumble!
Then it erupted, becoming an incomparably brilliant blaze, seething and destroying. The formation that had sealed the source vein was transformed into an instrument of destruction at that very moment.
Like an undying divine flame, the fire burned vital energy, suffused with destruction Great Dao laws. The Sacred Formation's foundations were destroying themselves.
A one-use Sacred Dao Formation should be enough to kill a Great Power, shouldn't it?
Qin Tian murmured inwardly.
His eyes were as deep as the sea. Silvery light reflected visions of the future as he drove his left eye's innate divine art-Future Sight-to its fullest, seizing the future timeline.
Standing in the present, he anchored the future, guiding it toward a timeline that favored him.
A head-sized piece of divine source exploded in his Bitter Sea. Vast life energy filled his body, as though his entire frame were immersed in an immortal spring. Its dazzling radiance gradually soaked into his flesh, constantly nourishing every inch of his body.
At once, the Life Spring at the center of his Bitter Sea gushed forth. His divine power source seethed, and the spring opening at the seabed widened many times over, pouring out an endless torrent, with streaks of rosy light bursting forth from time to time.
Divine power surged like a tide, rosy light filled the sky, and his Life Spring reached perfection. The life spring crystal became translucent, and a dazzling rainbow burst from it, hanging high above and spanning the heavens in incomparable splendor.
Divine source was incomparably precious. The divine substance within it could strengthen a person's innate foundation, making their future path of cultivation somewhat smoother.
Yet at this moment, Qin Tian used it as fuel for his temporal-spatial twin eyes, supplying them with divine energy so they could wield abilities beyond his current realm.
With the prepared plotting against the unsuspecting, every future step the Yaoguang Great Power took lay within Qin Tian's calculations.
"What's happening!" The Yaoguang Great Power was drenched in sweat, his hands constantly forming seals as he tried to wrest the Sacred Formation back under control.
But faced with a fully awakened Sacred Formation, how could a mere Great Power possibly shake it?
Before you continue