By now, he has begun designing the formation breaker. His attention is entirely focused on it, so he doesn't want any interruptions.
His cultivation is going along nicely too. The progress is slow, and it will take him ten years to advance to the second transformation of the golden core. But the progress is steady, and that's good enough for him.
His progress in terms of cultivation has to be good enough for him if only for the fact that he doesn't need to focus on it and can do other things to achieve it. But his progress is also fast, so he can't complain at all.
The average time it takes other golden core cultivators to complete one transformation of their golden core is 50 years. He is making that much progress in 10 years, which makes him 5 times faster, so he definitely can't complain.
As for his progress with the vessel sigil spells, that too is going well. He is making progress of 1% of learning every month, so it will take him a little over 8 years to learn just one of the vessel sigil techniques.
It took him ten years to complete the third mortal coil, but it will take him more than 8 years just to learn one technique. This might look slow, but it is blindingly fast.
The vessel sigil techniques are very difficult to learn because they are one large, elaborate spell framework. The best way to describe them is a fake golden core.
To learn the vessel sigil techniques is to construct a fake golden core complete with its own host mastery and foundation talent. So it is not just an empty fake core.
This fake core will be in the form of a sigil in the forehead and will serve as the vessel for storing external energy. The energy that will be stored will be dictated by the foundation talent that was used to forge the fake core, while the foundation talent will be dictated by the technique itself.
So on the surface, the vessel sigil techniques are similar. But they are only similar the way that foundations of the same types are similar. Their similarities end at the fact that every vessel sigil technique is a fake core.
In truth, the vessel sigil techniques are very different, just like the foundation of cultivators of the same sect will be different. This difference lies in the foundational talent that they possess.
For instance, the foundation talent of the lightning vessel sigil technique is the ability to capture and refine heavenly lightning from the sky, while the foundation talent of the wood vessel sigil technique is the ability to capture and refine pure life energy from plants.
These differences caused the entire framework of the vessel sigil techniques to be very different, very difficult to make, and very easy to mess up.
In his mind, the vessel sigil technique is a small pouch woven by a series of tiny threads into the shape of a lightning bolt.
The entire process of weaving the pouch is difficult because the network of threads is very complicated. But what makes it even more difficult is that the whole thing must be completed once without any mistake.
If there is a single mistake, he will have to start all over again. So even though this is just the learning phase, it brooks no imperfection.
For many people, this requirement is too difficult to meet. They might be hardworking and diligent, but only one mistake is required for their years of hard work to go to waste.
A single distraction can lead to a mistake that will unravel the whole vessel. This is probably the most important reason why many of the golden core cultivators have failed in learning the vessel sigil techniques.
He doesn't have to worry about making mistakes because the whole process of weaving the vessel is being carried out by his virtual minds.
His virtual minds are slow, but they don't get distracted. If it will take them a hundred years to complete something, they won't be distracted during that entire time unless he interrupts them.
They are focused and as accurate as a laser, so 8 years and 4 months is how much time it will take his virtual minds to weave the vessel in a single attempt at doing so. If he interrupts them, they will have to start all over again.
Once he is done with the lightning vessel sigil technique, he will move on to the wood vessel sigil technique. Finally, he will be able to learn the life and death lightning vessel sigil technique.
For rank 4 these are all the techniques that he will need. He doesn't need to learn more techniques or spells since he still has his rank 3 spells.
The difference between rank 3 spells and rank 4 spells is only that the power of rank 3 spells is fixed and based on their spell structure while the power of rank 4 spells depends on the power of the mind of the wielder.
So the difference is power based on the spell structure versus power based on the golden core cultivator. But rank 3 spells can be evolved into rank 4 spells by mastering them and tweaking them a little.
Rank 3 spells are already large and robust so they can withstand the amount of energy he possesses. Once he tweaks them to withstand the quality of energy that he can now output, they will be good enough to use at rank 4.
This tweaking will be very easy since he has mastered the spells completely. It is something that he can do at any time, but doesn't want to bother with now since he is so busy.
It can be said that he is doing very well. He is making progress in every aspect, and it is a wonderful feeling.
This wonderful feeling increased after he finished his first design of the formation breaker and began making prototypes of them.