In the third year after entering the sect, the total amount of spiritual power in Li Shiming's body doubled. He has reached the fifth level of Qi Refining, which makes him an intermediate level in the Qi Refining period.
And after practicing the 'Sword Demon Secret Book' for half a year, the third-grade metal has been completely absorbed by the body today.
Of course, although the third-grade metal was absorbed, it was still a long way from the first stage of the "Sword Demon Secret Book", which was the strongest stage of the Qi Refining Period.
However, his cultivation speed has reached 38.79. While the third-grade metal circulates in his body to strengthen his body, it also greatly increases the speed at which he absorbs and converts spiritual power.
His cultivation speed is no slower than that of ordinary dual spiritual roots, which is why he can be promoted to the fifth level of Qi Refining in just half a year.
The 'Vajra Body Protection Magical Skill' has been improved to the limit of the current realm. He feels that relying on his body alone, he can be compared with the Bronze Corpse at the seventh level of Qi Refining.
His body's defense is difficult to break even with a mid-grade offensive weapon.
In terms of offense, the first is the Bronze Corpse. In addition to the attack power of six mid-grade Gatling weapons, the Bronze Corpse itself has also raised its realm to the peak of the Bronze Corpse.
The bronze corpse is at the ninth level of Qi Refining, which is mainly due to the ghost environment formed by the 'Netherworld Ghost Realm Formation'.
Even though the bronze corpse had two more heads and four arms, it did not affect its improvement speed too much. The 'Netherworld Ghost Realm Formation' made of third-grade spiritual objects gave the bronze corpse too many benefits.
The second aspect is the 'Sword Controlling Technique'. He replaced it with a top-grade gold sword called the 'Broken Jade Sword'. The quality of the 'Broken Jade Sword' is definitely the best among the top-grade magical instruments.
If it is improved even a little bit, this 'Broken Jade Sword' can become a super-grade magical weapon.
With the 'Broken Jade Sword', and having practiced the 'Sword Controlling Technique' for half a year, his understanding of the 'Sword Controlling Technique' has deepened, greatly increasing the power of the 'Sword Controlling Technique'.
Of course, super-grade magical instruments are extremely rare in the Qi Refining Stage. The main reason is that too much spiritual power is required to drive super-grade magical instruments. Unless a cultivator in the Qi Refining Stage has reached the ninth level of Qi Refining, it is difficult to control them.
As for cultivators at the ninth level of Qi Refining, they are usually either working hard on their missions, trying to obtain merits or spirit stones in the most dangerous places in exchange for Foundation Establishment Pills, or they are in seclusion preparing for a forced breakthrough.
Anyway, in the three years that Li Shiming has been in the sect, he has rarely seen cultivators at the ninth level of Qi Refining.
Li Shiming's spiritual power was also strengthened. After his spiritual jade sword was upgraded to the fourth level of Qi Refining, its range and power were greatly improved.
The main spirit of the 'Soul Controlling and Soul Separation Technique' has transformed into a complete soul body after devouring a large number of souls half a year ago. If it were not in a virtual state, it would be almost the same as a real person.
The key point is that the 'Soul Controlling and Soul Separation Technique' has been truly practiced to perfection, which is something he had never thought of.
From then on, the main spirit no longer needed to devour souls. Every time after separating a soul, it only needed to absorb the energy between heaven and earth to recover on its own.
In just half a year, his strength improved greatly.
In terms of resources, in the previous transaction with Yun's Trading Company, he used a large amount of spirit stones to purchase various goods and formation knowledge, but he still had 190,000 spirit stones left.
This is when he increased his consumption, and the benefits brought by the small "Thousand Miles Mutual Vision" are extremely considerable.
In addition, he did not sell the more than 10,000 corpses of sea beasts through the Yun’s Trading Company. Instead, he used various identities to sell these sea beasts over a period of half a year.
These more than 10,000 sea beast corpses were the real source of profits, with a total profit of 2.4 million spirit stones.
After he inquired about the value of the sea beast's corpse, he knew that he could not trust the Yun Company too much for such profits.
It turned out that his caution was correct.
Li Shiming was of course aware of the Yun's Company's intentions. The Yun's Company had used 'Thousand Miles Mutual Vision' to gain commercial leadership, so they did not pay much attention to Li Shiming, the creator of 'Thousand Miles Mutual Vision'.
The key point is that Li Shiming's strength is too weak, and his status as a junior formation master has also increased with the power of the Yun's Trading Company, so some people do not take him seriously.
Fair cooperation is possible only when the strengths are similar.
Of course, the Yun's Trading Company did not target him so blatantly, but there were some small moves in the trading company. They knew that Li Shiming had a huge sum of nearly 200,000 spirit stones in his hands.
If we don’t kill this cultivator who has huge sums of money but lacks the corresponding strength, who else can we kill?
In the underground space, not much equipment was added in the past six months. He devoted a lot of energy to cultivation and did not do much work on replicating technology.
This was due to the Yun Company. Ordering supplies became increasingly troublesome, which made him a little impatient.
He needed a new amulet that could protect himself from the backlash from the Yun Company, so he decided to complete the intermediate formation master assessment that Yin Shilan had mentioned many times.
In a sect, intermediate formation masters are already the backbone of formation masters, and Yin Shilan is an intermediate formation master.
Even if we don't count the relationship with Yin Shilan's father, his status in the sect is not low.
In addition, Li Shiming also needed a new business partner to order large quantities of supplies.
Li Shiming took out a new model of 'Thousand Miles Husbandry' from the machine, which he named 'Thousand Miles Husbandry Generation 2'.
He put the 'Thousand Miles Mutual Vision Generation 2' into his storage bag, turned around and left Eagle's Beak Island, flapping his wings behind him and flying towards the direction of Jiufeng.
His first target was Dui Feng. Before leaving, he sent an application for the intermediate formation master assessment to Lingji Pavilion.
Entering Lingji Pavilion, he saw two foundation-building uncles, one of whom was Uncle Zhuge whom he knew, and five cultivators in the late Qi Refining stage.
Those who can be in Lingji Pavilion are naturally formation masters.
"Greetings to my two uncles, and hello to my senior brothers!" Li Shiming stepped forward and bowed.
"Are you finally here for certification?" Uncle Zhuge asked with a smile.
There was something else in his words, which made Li Shiming wonder whether Yin Shilan had leaked some information to Uncle Zhuge.
In addition, certification is different from assessment. The assessment requires answering questions given by the sect, and you will be considered passed only after passing the test.
Certification is a formality and does not require an exam.
In fact, the reason why there are two foundation-building cultivators who are also high-level formation masters here is because they learned from Yin Shilan that Li Shiming has condensed the formation Starlight Sea.
This is a true potential of a high-level formation master. As long as Li Shiming is given enough time to grow, he will definitely become a high-level formation master.
The qualification of an intermediate formation master obtained through the assessment is only needed by formation masters who do not have a formation starlight sea. For formation masters who have a formation starlight sea, the assessment is simply meaningless.
"Uncle Zhuge, I'm here for the assessment!" Li Shiming explained softly.
"Show us the Sea of Stars. Senior Brother Chang is very busy with his work, but he still found time to come here!" Uncle Zhuge waved his hand and said without giving Li Shiming a chance to explain.
Well, Li Shiming knew that Yin Shilan had told others about the sea of starlight he had condensed, and he did not blame Yin Shilan.
Yin Shilan asked him to apply for the intermediate formation master more than once, hoping that he could complete tasks with Yin Shilan.
In addition, informing Dui Feng's several uncles about the condensation of the Starlight Sea formation will only benefit them and not harm them, and Dui Feng will increase its protection of Li Shiming.
Li Shiming's mind merged into the sea of starlight in his brain, and then a bright starlight appeared above his head.
The two uncles and five brothers present did not say a word, but quietly admired the brilliant starlight of the formation.
The sea of stars of every formation master is different. This is related to the formation knowledge system learned and the degree of one's own understanding of the formation.
The five senior brothers were less knowledgeable. They were all the sect’s intermediate formation masters, the kind that had passed the assessment but had not condensed a sea of starlight into their formation.
Their biggest goal is to one day condense a sea of starlight in the formation and have the opportunity to become a high-level formation master.
It is extremely difficult to condense a sea of starlight to form a formation. It not only requires a certain amount of knowledge about formations, but also requires sufficient perception.
Almost every formation master who possesses the Formation Starlight Sea has experienced a process of enlightenment. Enlightenment allows them to gain a deeper understanding of formation knowledge, thus transforming it into the Formation Starlight Sea.
The five brothers were called over by the two uncles just to have a chance to watch the formation of the starry sea, gain some experience, and increase the probability of condensing the formation of the starry sea.
There was a flash of admiration in the eyes of the two uncles. In the sea of starlight in Li Shiming's formation, every ray of starlight was extremely bright, which was a manifestation of his deep understanding of formation knowledge.
For a Starlight Sea formation that had only recently condensed, this kind of performance was a very rare talent.
"Li Shiming, Senior Brother Chang and I jointly certify you as an intermediate formation master!" Uncle Zhuge stood up solemnly, came to Li Shiming and announced.
Li Shiming took out the identity jade disc, and Uncle Zhuge updated the information on the identity jade disc.
"Li Shiming, your formation system contains very few sect formations. In the future, you will need to accumulate more knowledge about the sect formations. The sect's intermediate formation knowledge in this regard will be open to you and no longer requires exchange for good deeds!" Uncle Chang also stood up and nodded.
Li Shiming was delighted, as this would save a lot of good deeds.
He had a lot of spirit stones, but good deeds were really hard to come by. He only gained dozens or hundreds of good deeds for completing a mission. There were too many requirements for the missions he accepted, and they were not often available.
The knowledge of a low-level formation requires more than a hundred merits. Given the vast amount of knowledge a formation master needs, no amount of merit would be enough.
"Thank you, Uncle Master!" Li Shiming bowed and expressed his gratitude.
"The sect gives the best treatment to intermediate formation masters, two thousand spirit stones per month, and formation materials also worth two thousand spirit stones. But the sect also needs intermediate formation masters to serve the sect. You can no longer do things according to your heart like before!" Uncle Zhuge did not forget to remind.
Li Shiming's face fell. He had too many training projects, which took up a lot of his time.
Add to that some research work, and no matter how streamlined it is, the time each day is still very tight.
"You are not forced to do the work. The sect's formation needs to be maintained, and the nodes in the sea need to be inspected. You can't just let me do these jobs. All the intermediate formation masters in the sect must take on this job!" Uncle Zhuge was somewhat dissatisfied with Li Shiming's attitude and said angrily.
"Listen to my uncle-master. If there is any task, just tell me and I will definitely complete it!" Li Shiming knew he couldn't push it away, so he nodded in response.
He was very interested in the maintenance of the sect's formation.
Although he had studied the sect's formation, those studies were just superficial. He was not qualified to see the real core before.
Now that he can get in touch with the main body of the sect's formation, it will bring him a lot of new knowledge.
He is different from ordinary intermediate formation masters in the Qi Refining Stage. He has spiritual thoughts and IBMz15. He can almost perfectly copy the design drawings of the formations sensed by his spiritual thoughts.
Uncle Zhuge shook his head. If there weren't so few talented high-level formation masters in the sect, he could have given up on Li Shiming with such an attitude.
Li Shiming thought that this kind of training was necessary, but in fact, someone had guaranteed it, and he was indeed a genuine disciple of the Tianhai Sect.
He was born in Daxia, which was under the control of Tianhai Sect, and he officially joined the sect through the Ascension Conference.
Although he started practicing before entering the sect, all of this has been investigated and it was found that he had not even come into contact with independent practitioners. It was entirely a personal opportunity.
This kind of personal opportunity is the most important for cultivators, because every cultivator in the foundation-building stage has his own opportunity, otherwise it would be difficult to become a foundation-building cultivator.
"Also, you have the authority to call upon some functions of the sect's formation. Don't abuse this authority!" Uncle Zhuge gave one last instruction, then waved to him to indicate that he could leave.
Li Shiming bowed and exited the Lingji Pavilion. As soon as he left the Lingji Pavilion, he couldn't wait to take out his identity jade disc and check some of the functions that could be used to invoke the sect's formation.
Within the Jiufeng sect's formation, his authority had not changed much, except that he had gained temporary formation authority after receiving a maintenance task, which allowed him to enter the corresponding formation.
But within a thousand miles outside the sect's formation, his authority is very useful.
There are hundreds of nodes distributed outside the sect's formation. The existence of these nodes is the basis for the sect's formation to control a range of thousands of miles.
When necessary, he can mobilize nodes to provide protection for himself. The nodes usually store a large amount of energy. When foreign enemies invade, each node can be transformed into a solid fortress to resist and slow down the enemy's advance.
Under normal circumstances, the energy-supported formation of the nodes can completely help Li Shiming withstand the short-term attacks of the cultivators in the Foundation Establishment Stage, thus buying time for the sect's rescue.
This shows how much the sect values Li Shiming after he became a mid-level formation master.
Not to mention, there are 2,000 spirit stones and formation resources equivalent to 2,000 spirit stones to be collected every month, and there is also free formation knowledge learning. All of this is done in the hope that he can grow.
The sect’s philosophy of training formation masters and cultivators is different. Unless a cultivator reaches the foundation-building stage, the sect will not pay much attention to him.
But even if Li Shiming's strength is only at the Qi Refining Stage in the end, as long as he becomes a high-level formation master, he can serve the sect for more than a hundred years, allowing the sect to have time to wait for a new high-level formation master to appear.