The Elven Cultivator

Chapter 318: Chapter 291: A New Storm Has Arrived

”What about the Holy Dragon Mountain Range?” Anton asked.

Eleanor shook her head. ”The five great powers have sealed all passages around the Holy Dragon Mountain Range. Our spies on the periphery can’t get close. There’s no news coming out yet.”

Hearing this, Anton didn’t press the matter.

’Judging from Ignatius’s evasive reaction last time, the five great powers are more than likely on the brink of internal conflict.’

’Those negotiations, which are still supposedly ongoing, are probably just a fig leaf to maintain appearances.’

’The real distribution of benefits is never settled by just sitting at a table.’

’It probably won’t be long before the five great powers start making moves to fight for ownership of the Holy Dragon Mountain Range.’

However, events unfolded even more rapidly than Anton had anticipated.

Just over a month later, the situation at the Holy Dragon Mountain Range had changed once again.

Chenxi Calendar, year 9404. The second year after the fall of the Dragon Race.

The peace and tranquility many had anticipated never arrived. In its place came new turmoil.

Over the ownership of the Holy Dragon Mountain Range, the five great powers brazenly went to war, attacking one another.

In an instant, the Holy Dragon Mountain Range was once again plunged into blood and fire.

When the news spread, it shook the entire Dawn Continent.

Many had never expected that so soon after the fall of the Dragon Race, the five great powers would tear off all pretenses and turn on each other.

The continent, which had only just found peace, was once again thrown into a state of roiling undercurrents.

The only saving grace was that the five great powers were still exercising a degree of restraint.

Perhaps they had expended too much strength in the previous Dragon Slaying War, or perhaps they hadn’t yet reached the point of wanting to fight to the death. The five great powers all kept the scale of the war within certain limits, not going all out.

The best proof of this was that neither the allied races nor the Vassal Races of the five great powers had joined the war.

The battlefield was also confined to the vicinity of the Holy Dragon Mountain Range and did not spread outward.

But even so, the war triggered significant effects across the continent.

While the five great powers were focused on the Holy Dragon Mountain Range, unable to pay attention elsewhere, the other major powers began targeting resource points across the land.

They cast aside their scruples and, as if by common consent, bared their vicious fangs.

In just two or three short months, news of conflicts breaking out arrived from all over the continent.

Conflicts large and small spread like wildfire.

But everyone understood one fact: the brief period of peace after the fall of the Dragon Race was over. A greater storm had arrived.

When the news reached the Taichu Spirit Realm, the upper echelons of the Silver Moon Race grew even more impressed with and admiring of Anton.

Facts had proven the Clan Leader’s judgment correct once again.

But when Anton heard the news, he merely sighed before throwing himself back into his work.

...

「North of Taichu City, beneath the Eternal Tree.」

Near the central trunk, an area had been cordoned off by an Array.

Outsiders could not enter, nor could they see what was happening inside.

They couldn’t even sense any aura from within.

And in the center of the area enveloped by the Array, a tall tower had risen at some unknown time.

The body of the tower was a pale cyan, constructed from massive blocks of Spirit Jade. The jade had a gentle luster, and its surface was covered in intricate, flowing runes.

The tower was nine zhang tall and had three stories.

The bottom story was square, with a Cyan Jade pillar standing at each of its four corners. The pillars were engraved with countless wind patterns, the lines flowing like unfurling clouds, exuding an indescribable artistic conception.

The middle story narrowed into an octagon, and each of its walls was inlaid with a fist-sized Wind Element core.

The top story was the most exquisite: a hexagonal pavilion.

In the center of the pavilion hung a dove’s egg-sized Wind Elemental Origin Crystal, held by six silver chains as thin as strands of hair, slowly rotating in mid-air.

The crystal’s light was as gentle as the moon, yet it possessed an ineffable spiritual agility.

The entire tower was enveloped in an extremely faint cyan glow, almost imperceptible unless one looked closely.

This was the Elemental Resonance Tower.

From the time he acquired the technology from the Heart of the Mountains to now, Anton had spent over three months in total to finally complete the construction of this tower.

Standing before the tower, looking up at the structure that had cost him so much effort, a satisfied smile appeared on Anton’s face.

Next was to set up the Elemental Guidance Array and the Elemental Anchoring Array.

The difficulty of setting up these two Arrays was much lower than that of building the Elemental Resonance Tower.

After all, with his experience from setting up the Mountain Protection Array, the field of Arrays was no longer an obstacle for him.

Even so, by the time the two Arrays were completely finished, another three months had passed.

Standing beneath the Eternal Tree, Anton performed one last check of all the array patterns and rune circuits.

Everything was ready.

He took a deep breath, raised a hand, and pressed it against the core Array Hub on the bottom story of the resonance tower, continuously pouring his Magical Power into it.

HUM!

The body of the tower trembled slightly.

The Wind Element cores embedded in the walls of the middle story lit up simultaneously. A pale cyan light flowed out from them like water, climbing up the tower’s surface along its patterns.

The moment the light touched the Wind Elemental Origin Crystal on the top story, the entire tower suddenly brightened several times over.

A cyan light shot up from the top of the tower, like a pillar holding up the heavens, piercing straight into the clouds.

Strangely, the top of the light pillar suddenly vanished into the void about two hundred meters above the ground, as if it had entered an invisible, formless space.

The surrounding air began to surge violently. The wind howled, and leaves rustled.

But all these phenomena were firmly locked within a thousand-meter radius by a restriction, not a single trace leaking out.

Anton stared unblinkingly at the top of the tower.

In the void, at the top of the pillar of light, a black fissure as thin as a strand of hair was slowly appearing.

At first, it was just an extremely faint trace, almost imperceptible without close, focused observation.

But under the continuous impact from the Elemental Resonance Tower, the fissure was expanding at a rate visible to the naked eye.

From the width of a hair to a fingertip, from a fingertip to an arm, from an arm to a torso...

When the fissure had expanded to about three meters long and a meter wide, Anton lightly tapped the Array Disc.

The Elemental Guidance Array activated.

The once chaotic and surging energies began to gather towards the fissure under the Array’s guidance, like an invisible hand pushing the fissure’s edges outward and holding them in place.

The fissure stopped trembling erratically and gradually stabilized, its edges becoming clear and smooth.

Immediately after, the Elemental Anchoring Array activated.

A faint golden halo emerged from the array patterns, covering the surface of the fissure like a thin membrane.

The halo seeped into every inch of the fissure’s edge, anchoring it firmly in the void.

The fissure was finally, completely stable.

Anton immediately focused his gaze on it.

Through that fissure, he finally glimpsed a corner of the Elemental Origin Plane of wind.

It was a boundless, cyan firmament.

There was no land, no oceans, no mountains or rivers—only a void that stretched from beneath one’s feet to the end of one’s sight.

Gales raged across the firmament, whipping up countless streams of cyan light that looked like Giant Dragons traversing the sky, churning and colliding in the void.

With every collision, fine crystals of Wind Element peeled away from the firmament, swept into the distance by the gales.

Those crystals flickered with fine motes of light in the wind, like stardust dancing across the sky, a sight of extraordinary beauty.

Just by looking at it, one could feel that the Power of Law from the Elemental Origin Plane of wind was so dense it was unnerving.

It was like standing at the edge of a bottomless abyss, looking down to see roiling magma below.

”As expected of an Elemental Origin Plane.”

Anton marveled to himself.

’Creatures below the Legendary Tier would probably be assimilated by the dense Power of Law the moment they stepped into an Elemental Origin Plane, becoming a part of the Elemental Power.’

’Many years later, they might be reborn as elemental spirits.’

’Of course, by then, they would no longer have their original consciousness or memories.’

After a moment of reflection, Anton gathered his thoughts. His figure flickered, and he was already at the hexagonal pavilion, where he sat down cross-legged beneath the fissure, closed his eyes to focus his mind, and began to operate his Cultivation Technique.

Wisps of pale cyan mist drifted out of the fissure, silently and tracelessly merging with the surrounding air.

That was the Power of Law overflowing from the Elemental Origin Plane of wind.

Formless, colorless, and odorless.

Ordinary beings were completely unable to perceive its existence and could only be influenced by it subconsciously over time.

Anton, however, could use his Divine Sense to capture this free-roaming Power of Law, draw it around himself, and begin to comprehend it.

The Law of the Wood Element and the Law of the Wind Element shared the same origin.

Both originated from the concept of ”generation and growth,” just expressed in different forms.

Wind governs movement; wood governs growth.

Movement and stillness, change and constancy—they seem to be opposites, but are in fact one and the same.

By leveraging the Power of Law from the Elemental Origin Plane of wind, Anton’s comprehension of the Law of the Wood Element was deepening at an unprecedented rate.

His Divine Sense sank into the seal pool inside his Golden Core. On the embryonic form of the True Seal that was slowly taking shape, a brand-new type of pattern was emerging.

It was a texture different from that of the Law of the Earth Element.

It wasn’t heavy and condensed like the veins of the earth, but rather more agile and ethereal.

Like the first sprout emerging from a withered branch in spring, or like the mist that suffuses a mountain forest after rain.

It exuded an endless, vibrant life force.

The patterns slowly spread through the seal pool, like a plant’s root system taking hold in the soil. With every inch they extended, Anton’s understanding of the Law of the Wood Element deepened.

Anton was immersed in this state of comprehension, completely unaware of the passage of time.

A month later, when he awoke from his meditative trance, a small portion of the integration of the Law of the Wood Element was already complete.

Seeing this, a joyful smile touched the corners of Anton’s lips.

’At this rate,’ he thought, ’in a year at most, I’ll be able to completely integrate the Law of the Wood Element into the embryonic True Seal.’

”Indeed, using an Elemental Origin Plane to comprehend a Law is the fastest shortcut.”