Sage of Humanity

During the day, Lu Ye had cultivated his 21st orifice to its capacity, and all it took to get closer to reaching Spirit Stream Level 3 was to break through the barrier of the 22nd orifice.

He did not consume the Barrier-breaking Fruit, although that thing had marvellous effects on breaking the spiritual orifice barriers.

According to Lu Ye's estimate, the Barrier-breaking Fruit must be quite precious. He had consumed it last time because he was in a hurry to advance to Spirit Stream Level 1. Now, having plenty of Spirit-Nurturing Pills, he could achieve the same goal by simply spending more time, so naturally, Lu Ye would not waste them.

He planned to save these two spirit fruits until the right moment to use them, so they would yield the greatest benefit.

Now, the spirit force within his body was incomparable to what it was at the beginning, which made breaking through the spiritual orifice barrier much easier.

In less than two hours, the barrier of the 22nd orifice was broken, and a trickle of spirit force flowed into it.

Lu Ye continued to cultivate for a while, completely digesting the pill energy before stopping.

It had been three days since his last inspection of the Talent Tree and the spirit runes on the leaves. Tonight, Lu Ye planned to check the third burning leaf to see what kind of spirit runes it held.

Despite having prepared himself mentally, he still felt somewhat hesitant when the time came, mainly because the experience was rather unpleasant.

But it was an experience that had to be faced sooner or later. Better to get it over with quickly, Lu Ye steeled himself and focused his mind, "looking" towards the Talent Tree within his Root Spiritual Orifice.

The burning leaf rapidly enlarged, the intricate patterns on the leaf instantly blocking Lu Ye's vision and thoughts, bringing back that feeling of being hit hard with a hammer.

His mind was pried open as a vast amount of incomprehensible information poured in, and then was furiously stirred...

After a long while, Lu Ye finally opened his eyes, taking deep breaths. Big Tiger raised his head, and Yiyi stood by the bed, looking at him with worry.

Thankfully, having gone through such an experience three days ago, Yiyi was rather unfazed.

Lu Ye immersed his mind to check the new information that appeared in his sea of consciousness.

Gathering Spirit!

This was the name of the spirit runes carried on the third leaf.

Was the first rune offensive, the second defensive, and now the third one supportive?

The purpose of this rune was evident from its name; it was used to gather spiritual energy. Lu Ye stimulated his spirit force, constructing this rune in the palm of his hand. When the intricate and complex pattern of the spirit runes emerged, the spiritual energy in the room began to converge toward his palm, which then induced more of nature's spiritual energy to flow in from outside.

Lu Ye waited a moment and found that the nature's spiritual energy in the room did not seem to change much. It was probably because the spirit rune he constructed was not large enough or sustained long enough.

If he were to construct a rune that could cover the entire room, or even the entire mercantile union, then the effect of gathering nature's spiritual energy would likely be outstanding.

But never mind whether his spirit force could support such a massive rune, even if he actually did that, it would still be meaningless.

His body was not good at absorbing and expelling spiritual energy, so no matter how dense the outside spiritual energy was, it was not very useful to him.

Rubbish!

Lu Ye thought with a secret sneer, feeling somewhat disappointed.

Sharpness and Defense had provided him significant help in battle, and he had been very much looking forward to this third rune, but the result turned out to be such a seemingly useless one.

However, when comparing the Sharpness and Protective spirit runes, the energy consumption of the Gathering Spirit rune is very small. To cast the same volume of a single rune, the Gathering Spirit only consumes one-tenth of what the Protective rune does, and moreover, it seems that it can be maintained for a long time.

Both the Sharpness and Protective runes last for only a short duration, so if Lu Ye wants to use them during combat, he must seize the right moment. They can be maintained for a longer period, but doing so would increase the consumption of spirit force.

But the Gathering Spirit rune is different, as it gathers nature's spiritual energy and replenishes itself at the same time. Thus, once it is established, unless Lu Ye actively disperses it, it will continue indefinitely.

Thinking about it this way, this thing is not entirely useless. If a sufficiently large Gathering Spirit rune could be constructed at a big sect's residence, the spiritual energy in that place would become increasingly rich.

Yiyi watched this scene with some shock from the side.

Three days ago, she had personally witnessed Lu Ye casually create an unintelligible spirit rune, and now she saw him do it again, yet these two were completely different runes.

Yiyi wasn't clear about the use of the spirit rune from three days ago, but this time, the purpose of the rune was obviously to gather nature's spiritual energy.

Who exactly is this guy? His cultivation isn't high, but his research into spirit runes is so thorough. She knew that this would take a great deal of time and effort.

From this, it looked like he indeed had some relationship with a bigwig from a big sect...

It has to be said that the more Yiyi thought about it, the more her thoughts strayed. She was smart enough not to ask about things she shouldn't, and this reassured Lu Ye. Otherwise, he would have to consider whether to continue their cooperative relationship.

On the other side, Lu Ye had already dispersed the Gathering Spirit rune and began to take off his shirt, then drew his long knife and started to swing it, forcing Big Tiger to cower in a corner to avoid being accidentally wounded...

Strike after strike, Lu Ye hacked earnestly.

A night passed and when the sky brightened, Lu Ye went from the third floor to the first floor of the grand hall and found a manager in the mercantile union to trade two pieces of origin magnetic ore.

He still had fourteen pieces of ore, all fairly large in size, with the largest being as big as a washbasin. He didn't trade too much to avoid running into someone like Liew Ruyin again.

After all, on his journey, he would encounter many branches of the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. Selling off the mineral ores bit by bit would reduce some risks.

When he had left Qingyun Marketplace Three, if it hadn't been for the urgent need to buy a ten-part map, he wouldn't have risked selling a dozen pieces of origin magnetic ore like that; it was too easy to draw unwanted attention.

For the two pieces of ore, he got 103 Spirit Stones. This time he didn't purchase any Spirit-Nurturing Pills but saved the Spirit Stones instead.

At the moment, he had enough Spirit-Nurturing Pills to last him until he reached Spirit Stream Level 3, and then some, so there was no need to continue stockpiling them.

As for saving the Spirit Stones... it was because he needed to accumulate a large amount of them for another purpose.

He had just left the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union when a skinny-faced male cultivator approached, greeting him with a beaming smile, "Fellow Daoist, please wait!"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Lu Ye frowned at him, and Big Tiger stepped forward, issuing a menacing growl.

The male cultivator's smile suddenly stiffened, and he hastily retreated two steps, "Fellow Daoist, please don't be angry. I have no ill intentions; I simply wish to discuss a business proposition with you."

Lu Ye assessed the spirit light emanating from the man, confirming that he was only at Spirit Stream Level 2, and moreover, judging by the purity of his spirit light, which was below average, it was clear that this guy wasn't very strong.

Seeing Lu Ye and Big Tiger both staring at him, the male cultivator felt his scalp tingling and forced a smile, "I really just want to talk business."

"Make way!" Lu Ye said indifferently, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife as he led Big Tiger straight forward. The man quickly got out of the way, still not giving up, probably guessing that Lu Ye wouldn't do anything to him right there. He followed Lu Ye and said, "Fellow Daoist, I have a set of Cultivation Techniques that can aid in cultivation.

If used, it can at least double the efficiency of your cultivation. It's most suitable for someone with your level of cultivation. Are you interested?"