The Elven Cultivator

Five days later, Dragon City finally launched another offensive.

On the plain, Dragon City’s army remained a vast, dark mass.

But a closer look revealed their formations were much sparser than before.

The gaps between their phalanxes had widened, and the suffocating pressure from their dense formations in the first battle was gone.

The changes to the Vassal Legion at the vanguard were the most striking.

Their numbers had been nearly halved, barely numbering over thirty thousand at most.

The stone-skinned Giant Demons that once served as a vanguard, advancing like mobile fortress walls, were now reduced to a few scattered squads dispersed across the front line.

Filling the gaps were more hunched, poorly equipped Ratmen and swamp frogmen.

These hastily assembled soldiers lacked even standardized weapons. It was obvious they were cannon fodder meant to pad out the front lines.

Dragon City must have urgently conscripted some Vassal Armies from who-knows-where just to scrape these numbers together.

Otherwise, given the attrition rate of the last battle, the Vassal Army would have been hard-pressed to even muster twenty thousand troops.

The Golem Legion following behind had been reduced to a pitiful two hundred-odd units.

Moreover, they were all Steel Golems, without exception.

The surfaces of these Steel Golems still bore unpolished welding marks; they were likely makeshift units that Dragon City’s artisans had worked day and night over the past five days to cobble together.

The formations of the Radiant Flame Legion, however, remained outwardly disciplined.

But upon closer inspection, the spacing between the Dragon Race soldiers had clearly widened, making their ranks seem much thinner.

The grim, oppressive feeling they once projected—that of an advancing iron wall—had faded considerably.

Even so, as the members of the Fallen Dragon Association watched this army slowly deploy across the plain through the Water Curtain, they still felt a heavy pressure.

They suddenly found it hard to imagine the terrifying pressure the Silver Moon Race must have endured five days ago, facing Dragon City’s army at its full strength.

A low horn blast echoed from the Water Curtain as Dragon City’s army began its assault.

As before, the Vassal Legion formed the vanguard.

The Ratmen and swamp frogmen were herded to the very front. They cowered, glancing back from time to time at the gleaming sword points of the Radiant Flame Legion, only shuffling forward under the threat of death.

The army’s advance was noticeably slower than before. Their death-defying aura was completely gone.

The Radiant Flame Legion followed them onto the battlefield, but their attack lacked intensity.

The Dragon Race soldiers no longer charged forward valiantly as they did before. Instead, they kept a relatively safe distance, relying more on their rear-line Casters and the Magic Scrolls in their hands to cast Magic.

After watching for a moment, the group before the Water Curtain began to understand what was happening.

”Dragon City isn’t planning on a real fight,” Cedric said, frowning. ”They’re likely just trying to exhaust the Array’s energy and our constructs.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Dragon City was clearly trying to use its Vassal Army, Golems, and Scrolls to wear down the Array’s energy, the Oak Guards, and the Five Camp Divine Soldiers.

They didn’t expect to break the defensive line with these attacks. They were just trying to bleed the Silver Moon Race dry, continuously and at the lowest possible cost.

This was a war of attrition, aimed at overwhelming their opponents with sheer resources.

When it came to a contest of resources, Kresol Dragon City—having ruled the Eldron Plain for millennia and accumulated countless riches—had absolute confidence.

Having seen through their plan, the Great Elder remained composed. He didn’t order a stronger counterattack, merely instructing the front lines to maintain their current defensive posture and steadily meet each of Dragon City’s probing attacks.

Neither overextending nor showing weakness.

The other Elves were just as composed, showing no signs of anxiety.

Dragon City wanted a war of attrition, and so did they.

With the aid of the Spirit Gathering Array and potions, the Warriors of the Forest Guard were growing stronger each day.

Though the stores of Talismans and Sensing Spirit Stones were being consumed at a high rate, the Enchanters were working day and night to replenish them.

But most importantly, Anton was in seclusion.

The longer this dragged on, the greater the chance he would achieve a breakthrough.

Once Anton emerged from his seclusion having advanced to the Legend realm, the scales of this war would tip completely.

Time was on their side.

The battle raged for over two hours before a low horn blast signaled a retreat. Dragon City’s army receded like a gray tide, leaving the plain outside the forest littered with corpses and shattered armor.

From start to finish, the High Tier combatants on both sides seemed to have reached a tacit understanding, as none made a move.

Both sides understood that once a battle between those at the Gold level broke out, it would signify the war’s final, decisive phase.

It was not yet that time.

The image on the Water Curtain gradually faded to stillness.

The Great Elder retracted his gaze and turned to the members of the Fallen Dragon Association. ”It seems we’ll have to impose on you to stay here for a while.”

Sieg laughed heartily. ”You’re too kind, Great Elder. The environment in the Silver Moon Forest is so wonderful, I’d love nothing more than to stay a bit longer.”

The others all laughed and voiced their agreement.

You couldn’t find an environment with such a high concentration of elemental energy anywhere outside the Silver Moon Forest.

A single day of cultivation here was worth ten days, or even half a month, outside. They were more than happy to stay.

...

In the days that followed, Dragon City’s attacks became as predictable as the Tide, surging forward at the same time each day.

Every day at high noon, as the sun reached its zenith, the gray torrent would appear at the edge of the plain, surging toward the Silver Moon Forest to the sound of dull horns.

The two sides clashed repeatedly in a back-and-forth struggle among the trees.

After just over two hours, Dragon City would sound the retreat and withdraw to its camp on the plain.

The next day, the exact same offensive would play out once more.

The war devolved into a grim and brutal stalemate.

The Elf Race quickly adapted to the rhythm.

The Elves used the lulls in fighting to recover and continue their cultivation.

In the evenings, after Dragon City had withdrawn, they would repair their defenses and tally their spoils.

Materials salvaged from the battlefield were immediately put into production, converted into resources for the next day’s fight.

Both sides were waiting.

Dragon City was waiting for the Silver Moon Race’s Array to run out of energy, for their supplies to run dry, or for their forces to be completely wiped out.

They were confident in their superior reserves, believing that if they kept up this constant pressure, the Silver Moon Race would eventually break.

The Silver Moon Race, in turn, was waiting for Anton to emerge from seclusion.

Every Elf believed that when that miracle-working figure returned from the Dark Nether Realm, the long and arduous war would finally reach its true turning point.

The eyes of the many powers of the Eldron Plain were also fixed upon this forest.

They used various methods to spy on every clash, analyzing the casualties and attrition on both sides and speculating on the war’s ultimate outcome.

Everyone was waiting for the moment the war would finally be decided.

...

「Dark Nether Realm. Deep within the city-state.」

In a hastily prepared meditation chamber.

Anton sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, his eyes gently closed, resembling an ancient stone statue that had been seated there for eons.

Within his Dantian’s Qi Sea, his primordial True Essence was no longer the slowly swirling, five-colored cloud of light it had once been.

It had transformed into a vast, five-colored ocean of pure, liquefied True Essence.

The five radiances—red, cyan, black, white, and yellow—flowed slowly through the seawater, at times blending, at times separating, like an aurora silently streaming through the deep ocean.

The ocean’s surface was perfectly calm, without a single ripple, yet it radiated a feeling of saturation, as if about to overflow.

Every drop of liquefied True Essence was condensed to its absolute limit, as if a single additional wisp would cause the entire ocean to burst its banks.

Peak of Foundation Establishment!

Anton could clearly feel that his physical body, Divine Soul, and True Essence had all reached the absolute limit of his current realm.

The only path forward was to begin Solidifying the Pill.

Only by perfectly fusing his essence, qi, and spirit, condensing his life’s Cultivation Level and vital essence into one, transforming liquid into crystal, could he step through the gate to a higher realm.

’I’ve finally reached this step.’

Anton opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

’Now that all preparations are complete, I can finally attempt the breakthrough.’

Without hesitation, he flipped his hand over to produce a Condensation Pill and put it directly into his mouth.

The Pill dissolved the moment it entered his mouth. A warm medicinal power surged down his throat like a torrent from a broken dam, but instead of flowing into his Qi Sea, it instantly permeated his organs, limbs, and bones.

The next moment, five distinct energies branched off from the medicinal power. They churned violently within him, forcibly expelling the source essence hidden deep in his flesh. Like a hundred rivers flowing to the sea, this essence converged on his Dantian’s Qi Sea and crashed into the supersaturated, five-colored True Essence.

His True Essence, already condensed into a liquid, finally surpassed its critical point after absorbing the five streams of source essence and his body’s entire life essence.

It began to collapse inward.

Like a dying star, it collapsed in on itself after exhausting all its fuel.

All of his True Essence, life essence, and source essence frantically converged and compressed toward a single point.

The volume of the sea of True Essence shrank at a visible rate, going from filling his entire Qi Sea to occupying half of it, then shrinking further to the size of a fist.

And as its volume decreased, its density increased at a terrifying rate.

At the same time, two other powers that had lain dormant within the pill’s energy finally stirred.

The Yang Attribute energy descended from above while the Yin Attribute energy rose from below.

The two currents of energy, one hot and one cold, acted like a pair of giant millstones. They clamped down on the wildly collapsing crystal of True Essence, exerting terrifying pressure as they began to spin, grinding, crushing, and reshaping the crude crystal bit by bit.

With every rotation, impurities were stripped away and vaporized, dissipating from the Qi Sea as tiny, seven-colored motes of light.

With every rotation, the remaining essence grew more condensed, its structure inching closer to perfection.

Under the grinding of the yin-yang millstones, the crystal gradually shrank from the size of a fist to a walnut, and from a walnut to a longan.

Its shape transformed from a chaotic mass into a smooth, regular sphere, its surface beginning to manifest fine, intricate patterns.

These patterns weren’t etched on, but emerged naturally during the Solidifying Pill process, aligning with the profound principles of heaven and earth in an exceptionally mystical way.

The entire process was incredibly slow, yet unyieldingly steady.

But as this process neared its conclusion, in the final moments before the Golden Core was fully formed, the true test would arrive.

The Heart Demon Tribulation!