High Martial: I Grind Professions

Chapter 409: Chapter 249: Refining Blue Star

Under the guidance of the three Venerables, Li Wen once again stepped into the deepest, most secret forbidden grounds of the Fire Hall.

The enormous Crystal Stone, which emitted a mysterious, ethereal glow and seemed to contain the origin of a world, still floated silently above the altar.

Venerable Ye Qin solemnly retrieved an ancient tome from his storage Dharma Artifact and carefully handed it to Li Wen. The book was bound in the tanned hide of some unknown beast and radiated an ancient, weathered aura.

The cover of the ancient tome bore no words, only a series of arcane and complex patterns.

”Junior Brother Li, this is the master compendium of the Secret Technique left behind by the Ancestral Master for refining Blue Star’s control core.”

Venerable Ye Qin’s voice was low and solemn.

”The refining process cannot be accomplished overnight. It requires you to merge your Primordial Spirit imprint, your comprehension of the Laws, and even your Origin Power,

to gradually fuse and resonate with this core and the origin will of Blue Star as a whole.

According to the ancient records and our own speculations, this process may take several months.”

Li Wen accepted the ancient tome. It felt slightly heavy in his hands, and a strange fluctuation traveled from its pages to his fingertips.

He nodded, his gaze sharp yet calm.

”Senior Brother Ye, rest assured. I will do my utmost and will not fail the trust you’ve placed in me.”

”Good! We will await your good news!”

The three Venerables gave Li Wen another deep look.

Their eyes were filled with unprecedented trust and expectation. Then, without lingering, their figures silently withdrew from the forbidden chamber.

The heavy stone door closed without a sound, and a powerful restrictive light flared up, completely sealing off the area.

Inside the forbidden grounds, only Li Wen and the enormous Crystal Stone that represented Blue Star’s very lifeblood remained.

Li Wen sat cross-legged on the cushion opposite the Crystal Stone and slowly opened the ancient tome in his hands.

His level 19 Scholar class granted him Extraordinary comprehension, deductive ability, and knowledge integration skills.

The ancient and obscure runes on the tome, the complex diagrams of energy flow, and the arcane Secret Techniques for Primordial Spirit resonance were like intricate instruments being disassembled and reassembled before his very eyes.

His mind worked at high speed, combining his own understanding of space, energy, particles, and even the strings of law.

He quickly analyzed every step and every key node of the refining process.

A little over ten minutes later, Li Wen closed the ancient tome.

All the refining methods, steps, key points, as well as potential obstacles and their countermeasures,

were now seared into the depths of his mind with absolute clarity, leaving no room for hesitation.

’Let’s begin.’

Li Wen’s gaze hardened, and he hesitated no longer.

He slowly closed his eyes and formed a strange and ancient Dharma Seal with his hands in front of him.

Potent and pure Venerable-Level power surged from his Dantian, circulating along specific meridian pathways and emitting a faint, purplish-gold halo.

At the same time, his vast Spiritual Power, having reached the eighth layer of the Primordial Spirit, erupted from the sea of consciousness between his brows like a tangible silver radiance.

It condensed into an incredibly solid beam of light, which he projected with precision onto the enormous Crystal Stone before him.

VMMMM—!

The Crystal Stone seemed to be instantly activated. Its ethereal glow intensified dramatically as countless fine runes emerged and flowed across its surface.

A torrent of will, so vast it was unimaginable and seemed to carry the profound history of the entire planet,

surged back along the beam of Spiritual Power and poured into Li Wen’s sea of consciousness with a deafening roar.

BOOM!

The world of Li Wen’s sea of consciousness felt as if a star had been thrown into it.

A violent ringing and an indescribable, bursting pain struck him instantly.

Countless jumbled fragments of information—the pulse of the ley lines, the ocean tides, the shifting of continents, the faint auras of billions of living beings...

...all crashed against the barrier of his Primordial Spirit like a raging tide.

His body jolted and his face paled slightly, but his gaze remained incredibly firm.

His powerful Primordial Spirit constructed a sturdy dam, while the terrifying information-processing capability granted by his level 19 Scholar ability began to operate on overload.

Like the most sophisticated sieve and processor, it rapidly filtered, categorized, and comprehended this surging flow of planetary information.

The first step was to endure and perform a preliminary analysis.

Li Wen was like a reef in the center of an information storm, standing firm and unmoving.

The power of his Primordial Spirit repeatedly sorted through the incoming torrent, attempting to establish an initial connection with the vast and vague planetary will.

The process was filled with intense energy impacts and clashes of will; every second was like walking on a knife’s edge.

Time passed, bit by bit.

One day, two days, three days... The power of Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit was like the most tenacious of roots,

slowly but firmly taking root and spreading throughout the complex network of energy within the Crystal Stone.

He began to cautiously inject the power of his Primordial Spirit into the Crystal Stone’s energy circulation system.

Every attempt at fusion provoked a violent reaction from the Crystal Stone—sometimes a repulsive energy blast, other times the creation of a new resonance node that needed to be understood.

It was a task that required immense patience, a dual game of both will and energy.

Li Wen was completely immersed in the refining process, oblivious to the passage of time.

He mobilized all the powers of rational analysis and deduction from his Scholar ability, constantly adjusting the rhythm and intensity of the fusion.

His aura would at times become as profound and immense as an abyss, and at others, grow exceedingly faint, as if he had merged completely with the surrounding space.

A month slipped by quietly amid this silent yet harrowing refinement.

「August 15, Year 246 of the Galactic Calendar. The night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.」

「The forbidden grounds of the Fire Hall, the Crystal Stone Space.」

The Li Wen of this moment was like a completely different person from a month ago.

His cross-legged posture remained upright, but his entire aura had undergone a profound and mysterious change.

He was no longer fighting against the Crystal Stone, nor was he forcefully merging with it.

Instead, he had seemingly become a part of the Crystal Stone, the very core of this space.

His body emanated an indescribable fluctuation—gentle, yet boundlessly vast.

It was like the pulse of Mother Earth, resonating in perfect harmony with the ethereal glow of the enormous Crystal Stone on the altar.

Finally, as the bright, full moon outside reached its zenith, its clear light bathing the land,

VMMMM—!!!

The Crystal Stone suddenly erupted with an unprecedentedly brilliant light.

It was no longer just a single ethereal glow, but a myriad of colors that contained mountains and rivers, flora and fauna, oceans and deserts, clouds and stars.

The entire forbidden chamber was illuminated like a dreamlike wonderland.

At the same time, the seated Li Wen snapped his eyes open.

Within the depths of his pupils, stars seemed to be born and die, and mountains and rivers seemed to turn upside down!

An indescribable sense of control instantly filled his body and mind.

’It’s done!’

Refinement, complete!

The very instant the refinement was complete, Li Wen’s perception of Blue Star underwent an earth-shattering change.

Before, relying on his eighth-layer Primordial Spirit to roughly scan Blue Star, his range was already considerable.

But it was like looking through a thick sheet of frosted glass; the details were unclear.

But now, this perception was so clear, so natural, so... omnipresent.

He didn’t need to intentionally ”look”; the entire outline of Blue Star presented itself with perfect clarity in his ”mind’s eye.”

It wasn’t sight, yet it surpassed sight.

Mountains, plains, oceans, cities, forests... the rise and fall of every landform was perfectly clear to him.

He could even clearly perceive the surging flow of every major river,

the breathing of every large forest, and the pulse of every active volcano deep underground.

The auras of billions of people in the Human Race were like the stars in the night sky—faint, yet shining clearly, each with its own unique life rhythm.

It felt as if the entire Blue Star had become a part of his body.

Or to be more precise, the will of his Primordial Spirit had covered, permeated, and become the master of Blue Star’s will.

With a single thought, he could perceive a speck of dust falling thousands of miles away.

’So this is... the feeling of control.’ A surge of heroic pride and a heavy sense of responsibility washed over Li Wen.

But at this moment, the first clear awareness this sense of control brought him was one of boundless rage and icy killing intent.

His ”gaze,” like the most precise of scanners, instantly pierced through the thick layers of the planet’s crust.

It shot toward the dark, filthy depths of the underground, a place unreachable by ordinary people.

A series of horrifying scenes were clearly reflected in his ”mind’s eye.”

A hundred kilometers beneath a certain large city.

In a large hall carved from massive rock, several Demon Kings of various forms, all exuding Marquis-Level demonic auras, were sitting in a circle.

Some of them restlessly scraped the stone floor with their sharp claws, creating a grating noise;

others lay about listlessly, staring blankly at the cold stone ceiling above.

”Damn it! This godforsaken place never sees the light of day! I’m so sick of this bland existence, my mouth’s gone tasteless!”

A Demon King with an alligator’s head and bone spikes on its back complained in a booming, muffled voice that echoed through the cavern.

”Just bear with it, Old Croc. Those Human Race powerhouses are searching real thoroughly out there,”

another Demon King that resembled a giant pangolin advised in a hoarse voice, its tone thick with apprehension.

”Bear with it? I’ve been bearing this for years! When will these shitty days ever end? How great were the old days, feasting on flesh and killing as we pleased!”

The alligator Demon King furiously smashed its fist into the ground, sending rock fragments flying.

”Soon, soon... Once the world projection fully descends, or when we find an opportunity... Hmph, then we’ll definitely create rivers of blood!”

A Snake Demon with triangular eyes and a sinister aura flicked its tongue, a venomous light glinting in its eyes.

...

Dozens of miles deep, somewhere beneath the Central Plains.

In a relatively spacious cave, several members of the Demon Race exuding Great Sun Realm demonic auras were drinking a viscous, foul-smelling blood wine.

One of them, a demon with wild boar tusks and a body covered in black bristles,

was holding what was clearly the half-roasted arm of a human child, tearing at it with large bites as grease and blood dripped from the corners of its mouth.

As it chewed, it mumbled indistinctly:

”Bah! Human flesh still tastes the best! Especially these tender-skinned little brats, their meat is so fresh and sweet!

Fucking hell, it’s a shame we can’t go out and hunt them openly like before!

Last time I couldn’t resist sneaking out to satisfy a craving. I’d just gnawed through half of one when I was almost cornered by a passing Marquis-level Human powerhouse. Lucky for me, I managed to burrow my way back in time, tsk!”

Hearing this, a rather gaunt Deer-Horned Demon with triangular eyes beside him gave a low word of caution, a flicker of fear in its eyes:

”Black-mane, you need to rein it in! It’s not like the old days! Those Human Race butchers like the Celestial Martial King and Li Wen are keeping a close watch! Next time you go out, you might not be so lucky to escape! Just bear with it!”

”Hmph! Afraid of a damn thing!” The wild boar demon called Black-mane casually tossed aside the limb, which had been gnawed down to the bone,

grabbed the wine jug for a large swig, and nonchalantly sprayed alcohol-laced breath:

”I’ll just be more careful! The timid starve while the bold feast to death! I just crave this taste, and not even the gods themselves can stop me!

Besides, would those high and mighty Human Race Venerables and Kings really keep an eye on such trivial matters every day? As long as we don’t make too much of a scene...”

’Trivial matters?’

When the Black-mane demon’s nonchalant, filthy words and the image of it chewing human flesh entered Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit perception with perfect clarity,

a terrifying killing intent—enough to freeze souls and incinerate the nine heavens—erupted from within his chest like a volcano that had lain dormant for ten thousand years.

His eyes instantly turned blood-red.

The figures of countless children being torn apart and devoured by the Demon Race seemed to flash before his eyes, and their desperate cries seemed to echo in his ears.

The heartwarming image of parents awaiting a family reunion formed the most glaring, most blood-soaked contrast with the vile faces of these cannibalistic demons deep underground.

”BEASTS! YOU DESERVE TO DIE!!!”

A low roar, suppressed to its absolute limit yet containing a world-destroying fury, burst from the depths of Li Wen’s throat.

He could not endure it for even another instant.

A monstrous, bone-chilling killing intent erupted from him like a tangible substance.