So it isn't that Curios of Heaven and Earth can’t raise the charge progress. Their effect is simply too minuscule.
It took over ten of them to raise it by a single percent.
Still, with the sheer number of these, I should be able to unlock another anchor point.
A flicker of satisfaction crossed Li Fan's mind as his hands continued moving without pause.
Soon, the absorption of all 3762 damaged Curios of Heaven and Earth was complete, and he finally unlocked the fourth anchor point of Return to Truth.
The anchor charging progress then reset to zero percent once more.
A pity...
As the charging progress had accumulated, the number of Curios required had gradually grown. From over ten for one percent, to over twenty, then over thirty.
By the time he began working on the fifth anchor point, even after absorbing all the remaining damaged Curios in one go, he couldn't raise the progress by even a single percent.
It seems higher-grade items are needed to unlock the fifth anchor. Li Fan mused to himself.
He already roughly knew what would be required next.
Curios of heaven and earth were aggregations of heaven and earth’s laws. Damaged Curios, and even ordinary Curios of Man, could no longer satisfy Return to Truth's appetite.
The solution, then, was obvious: find their superior replacements—either Curios of Earth, Curios of Heaven, or perhaps he could try using the Golden Cores condensed by cultivators.
He might test the effect of absorbing the Deepsea Pearl, a Curio of Earth, in a future life. But Curios of Heaven were far too rare to be considered.
He had previously tried purchasing some Golden Core fragments, but Return to Truth remained utterly indifferent to these inferior products. Complete Golden Cores were simply not for sale in the Tianxuan Mirror.
In short, for the foreseeable future, Li Fan could forget about unlocking any additional anchor points.
This fourth anchor point must be set at a crucial time point.
After pondering for a while, Li Fan emerged from the secret chamber.
Instead of immediately throwing himself back into work, he first used the Tianxuan Mirror at the outpost to search for information regarding the ruins of the Chaoyuan Sect.
Talk about it was still kept within small circles, but there were clear indications that it was on the verge of becoming a widespread sensation.
Not long ago, a deeply unsettling event broke out in the ruins of the Chaoyuan Sect, a place that had seen almost no visitors for years.
Blood rained from the sky. And the drifting phantoms that occasionally appeared there underwent a chilling change.
From the outside, these figures had always resembled ordinary people from thousands of years past. Yet, in the blink of an eye, they would waver and shift into something else entirely: their features erased, their pallid faces beading continuously with drops of blood.
The ghastly state would last only a few breaths before passing, leaving onlookers to wonder if they had imagined it.
But sharp-eyed cultivators noticed the transformations were happening more and more frequently. And each time, the faceless, bleeding visages lingered a little longer before fading.
As if that weren't enough, another development had gripped the handful of cultivators stationed outside the ruins with dread: the domain of the Chaoyuan Sect ruins appeared to be spreading.
From the outside, nothing looked different. And yet it was as though the ruins were quietly consuming the surrounding space, encroaching on it without a sound.
Everyone knew that crossing into the Chaoyuan Sect's boundaries came with the risk of being absorbed and turned into one of those phantoms. If this ruin kept expanding without end...
The cultivators sensed something was amiss and hurriedly reported it to the Myriad Immortals Alliance.
To everyone's surprise, before the cultivators dispatched by the Alliance could arrive, a beam of sword light ignited within the Chaoyuan Sect ruins.
The entire world seemed illuminated by it; even the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array that shrouded Jiushan Province was faintly disturbed by this sword light.
Ripples spread across the sky's curtain. When the light faded and people reopened their eyes, they were stunned to discover that the Chaoyuan Sect ruins were gradually collapsing, turning illusory.
By the time the Myriad Immortals Alliance envoy arrived belatedly less than half a day later, the Chaoyuan Sect ruins had vanished completely.
Yet three figures—two men and one teenage girl—materialized out of thin air, flying out from the ruins' depths.
Seeing this, the Alliance envoy naturally moved to intercept them and demand an explanation.
Who could have guessed that upon hearing the envoy's self-introduction, the expressions of the young girl and one of the men changed. Without a word, they turned and fled.
Both were at the Nascent Soul realm, and their flight speed was astonishingly swift. The Alliance envoy sought to stop them but was blocked by the remaining male cultivator.
Whatever he said made the envoy's expression turn extremely grim, but he ultimately gave no chase. The two conversed further before vanishing together from the sight of the onlookers.
They left behind only the baffled crowd of spectators and the Thousand Li Swamp, restored to its former appearance.
When these people compared notes afterward, they suddenly remembered: those three cultivators who had flown out of the ruins were precisely the same trio who had barged into the Chaoyuan Sect a decade ago.
One of them was notably famous: Shuo Feng, the biological son of Immortal Venerable Feixue, who gave himself the alias "I Am Invincible."
Yet, compared to him, the cultivators were more intrigued by the other two, whose identities were unknown.
A decade ago, those two had been at the Foundation Establishment realm. But after a single journey into the Chaoyuan Sect, they had actually reached the Nascent Soul realm! The Chaoyuan Sect ruins truly held great opportunities!
Upon learning of this, the cultivators who had lingered outside the Chaoyuan Sect for over a decade but never dared to enter all clutched their wrists in regret and lamented bitterly. At the same time, their curiosity about what had transpired within the ruins grew even stronger.
Unfortunately, the identities of those two cultivators remained completely unknown. Still, given that they were associated with the notoriously aloof Shuo Feng, their status was surely anything but simple. So the cultivators could only speculate.
That sword light that cleaved the Chaoyuan Sect must have been Shuo Feng's divine ability. Li Fan mused to himself, recalling the seemingly ordinary wooden sword Shuo Feng had wielded back then.
It seems it’s not just Su Xiaomei and Zhang Haobo who reaped tremendous gains within the ruins, but this I Am Invincible as well. A pity they are now at the Nascent Soul realm. If I try to maintain an air of mystery, I might be seen through. Otherwise, I could have used the Senior Skull persona to inquire directly.
Hmm, Xiao Heng is still at the Golden Core realm. Perhaps there's a chance to sound him out.
Having temporarily resolved his doubts, Li Fan threw himself back into backbreaking labor.
Before leaving, he habitually glanced at the golden leaderboard and couldn't help but feel his eyelid twitch. In just that brief delay, his rank had slipped from ninth place to fifteenth.
Is there a need to fight so hard? Li Fan murmured, shaking his head slightly before gathering the resting cultivators once more.
The high-intensity work of array construction began anew.
One year later, Anchor Year 36 arrived.
As the perimeter of countless array units was successfully closed, the inner structure of the Spirit-Locking Array was finally complete.
Now came the most critical phase: the construction of its central core structure.