The moment the contract ceremony began, Qi Ping knew which talent he had shared.
Golden Stone Body!
A long while later, when Qi Ping awoke again, his mind was filled with many new insights regarding the Golden Stone Body.
Because the contracting process had taken quite some time, by the time he opened his eyes, the little Stone Spirit had already fallen asleep beside him.
This fondness for sleep was even more intense than the little spirit fox’s.
Seeing that the little Stone Spirit was sleeping soundly, Qi Ping didn’t disturb it. Instead, he placed some spirit stones and ores beside it.
While Stone Spirits were in deep slumber, they could autonomously absorb surrounding spirit stones and ore elements.
Sure enough, not long after Qi Ping placed the spirit stones and ores next to the little Stone Spirit, wisps of spiritual energy and ore essence began to be drawn into its body.
Perhaps it was because the little Stone Spirit could sense no danger, or perhaps it was due to the animal companion contract allowing it to sense Qi Ping’s presence, the minor disturbances from the outside world didn’t wake it up.
The little spirit fox, however, was very curious about the little Stone Spirit’s existence and circled around it for a long time.
A talking stone was quite a novelty in its eyes.
It seemed the stone was asleep now, and it didn’t feel right to disturb it. It decided to wait until the stone woke up before playing with it.
But how could it know that unless something extraordinary happened or Qi Ping actively sought it out, the little Stone Spirit absolutely would not wake up, regardless of any major external commotion, as long as it didn’t sense danger.
After giving the little spirit fox a few pats, Qi Ping returned to contemplating the talent he had just shared.
Although the Golden Stone Body talent had been shared with him, he was still far from being familiar with it.
This was the perfect time to deepen his understanding of it.
Since there was no spiritual energy left on the territory to cultivate spirit herbs, Qi Ping didn’t need to tend to them for the time being. So he spent two consecutive days sensing and testing the Golden Stone Body talent.
It was only after two days that Qi Ping concluded this session of contemplation.
“What a terrifying Metal elemental talent!”
After thoroughly understanding the [Golden Stone Body] talent, Qi Ping was completely awestruck by its power!
First, in terms of affinity and control over Metal elemental spiritual energy, the Golden Stone Body even surpassed Ya Ya’s Yang Fire Body!
Qi Ping estimated that Ya Ya would need to undergo another bloodline transformation to catch up to the little Stone Spirit in this aspect.
Qi Ping couldn’t help but sigh that the Stone Spirit, as an exceptionally rare innate creature, indeed possessed incredibly powerful talents. Contracting one was truly a stroke of luck for him.
However, the power of the [Golden Stone Body] went far beyond that.
With a mere thought from Qi Ping, chunks of stone and metal weapons instantly floated in the air around him, performing various precise and complex maneuvers under his control.
“This ability to manipulate metallic objects is frighteningly strong!”
Qi Ping felt that if a sword cultivator acquired this talent, their combat ability would likely skyrocket to a whole new level.
With this ability, not only could they enhance the power of their flying swords and greatly improve their swordsmanship control, but they could also disrupt enemy weapon attacks.
Even a slight interference could have a fatal impact on the battle.
At the same time, the appearance of the Stone Spirit and the [Golden Stone Body] talent gave Qi Ping some viable ideas regarding his own life-bound magical instrument.
He had considered acquiring his own magical instrument before.
After all, for a cultivator, not having a life-bound magical instrument was somewhat inexcusable.
However, powerful magical instruments were hard to come by, and ordinary ones wouldn’t be of much help to him. Most importantly, Qi Ping didn’t have a powerful method for using magical instruments; using some ordinary ones was less effective than using his own fists.
But now, things were different!
“What if I use the accompanying ores that the Stone Spirit will produce later as raw materials, refine them into thousands upon thousands of metal scales, and then assemble them into a special kind of Ore Scale Armor.”
“This Ore Scale Armor could, under my control, provide full-body defense, or it could layer defenses on specific body parts under attack!”
“Moreover, defense wouldn’t be the only function of this special magical instrument. I could also manipulate the ore scales like flying swords, splitting them into thousands of attacks!”
“My soul’s strength and the [Golden Stone Body] can absolutely support me in performing these high-difficulty defensive and offensive maneuvers!”
“Finally, I could also inscribe defensive formations and attack formations onto these hard, special ore scales, allowing the Ore Scale Armor to form special defensive or offensive grand formations at any time!”
“As for upgrading the ore scales, as long as the Stone Spirit has enough spiritual energy and metal ores, it can produce more accompanying ores. Then, by combining basic refining and smelting techniques, I can refine them into metal scales suitable for inscribing formations. There’s no need to create a fully formed magical instrument; just ensuring the quality is high enough would suffice…”
Basic refining and smelting techniques wouldn’t be hard for Qi Ping to acquire. Meng Yan was a master of artifact refining. Qi Ping would just need to find a moment to mention it to him.
“Not bad, not bad at all. With the Stone Spirit around, it’s like I have a special magical instrument that can be continuously upgraded and refined!”
“If I can gather all Five Elemental talents in the future, refining them into a Five Elements magical instrument might also be possible!”
This magical instrument Qi Ping conceived could attack, defend, be upgraded, and incorporate formations—perfectly matching his needs and talent characteristics.
Once this magical instrument was fully activated for defense or offense, Qi Ping could hardly imagine how powerful it would become.
However, powerful as it might be, it would only suit Qi Ping himself. After all, ordinary cultivators wouldn’t be able to handle such a peculiar magical instrument, and Qi Ping wouldn’t be able to buy one even if he wanted to.
“I never expected that contracting this Stone Spirit wouldn’t just give me a Metal elemental talent, but also solve the magical instrument problem I’ve been worrying about!”
Qi Ping was extremely satisfied with this outcome.
But after familiarizing himself with this newly contracted talent, Qi Ping ran into another problem: he was out of spiritual energy!
Currently, the entire spiritual land was barely maintained by the Star Spirit Wood (Spirit Gathering Art). Qi Ping had no means to continue cultivating, grow spirit herbs, or nurture his animal companions.
If it weren’t for the excellent spiritual energy gathering effect of the Star Spirit Wood (Spirit Gathering Art), Qi Ping’s territory would probably be in a deficit.
“It seems acquiring a Spirit Vein Essence and contracting more spirit trees is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, for the time being, I’ll only be able to focus on comprehending laws and studying formations…”
“But how am I supposed to get a Spirit Vein Essence?”
Facing this problem, Qi Ping was quite troubled. After thinking for a while, he finally decided to try multiple approaches.
He sent messages to Meng Yan and Red Carp from the Yunshan Family, expressing his interest in acquiring a Spirit Vein Essence.
Now that Qi Ping had [Nature’s Perception] as a basic tool for seeking good fortune and avoiding danger, these endeavors came with a bit more security.
Still feeling it wasn’t safe enough, Qi Ping turned his attention to the black market.
However, this black market Qi Ping was eyeing wasn’t an ordinary one. It was an extremely mysterious organization within the cultivation world.
It was said that one could find anything they desired there, but the entry and transaction thresholds were extremely high…
