A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Immortal Realm

Chapter 922: Constructing a Star Boat

That night, Han Li and Gu Qianxun emerged from their campsite before making their way to the entrance of the canyon together.

"Have City Lord E and Mistress Liu Hua gone to meet with City Lord Sha Xin?" Han Li suddenly asked.

"That's right, they left together not long after we set up camp," Gu Qianxun replied.

"It looks like this is where they're planning to make a move," Han Li mused.

"The environment here is quite special, and the spatial storm is far weaker here than elsewhere," Gu Qianxun replied with a nod.

As soon as her voice trailed off, a burst of thunderous rumbling suddenly rang out from within the valley.

The two of them cast their eyes into the canyon in unison upon seeing this, and they were greeted by the sight of bursts of crimson flames rising up from the ground alongside gusts of howling blue winds.

The two clashed to create a reaction similar to that of pouring water into bubbling oil, generating gusts of fierce white winds that swept through the air in all directions.

The gusts of white wind were forced upward by the rock faces on either side of the narrow canyon, scattering much of the spatial storm above the canyon.

"With the spatial storm weakened by these winds, there's a chance that we could pass over the canyon, but it's still only a very slim one. In any case, with our physical constitutions, forcing our way through will most likely only lead to death," Han Li said with tightly furrowed brows.

"There's no need to be too concerned. I'm sure City Lord E must've made some preparations prior to bringing us here, so he won't just send us to our deaths. After his meeting with City Lord Sha Xin, we should have a relatively safe way to cross the abyss," Gu Qianxun said with a smile.

"In that case, I'll mind my own business," Han Li replied with a smile of his own.

He cast his gaze through the scattered spatial storm, and he spotted a glowing white landmass on the other side of the black abyss.

Are those the Great Ruins?

The night quickly passed by, and the next morning, Han Li and the others had only just emerged from their tents when they were summoned to a clearing.

"I'm sure all of you have already witnessed the perils presented by the black abyss. It would be far too difficult to try and cross it with our powers alone, and that's why our two cities have decided to work together. Collaboration between our two cities is vital to crossing the abyss, so restrain yourselves and do not get into any conflicts with the Puppet City cultivators until we enter the Great Ruins," E Kuai declared in an authoritative voice.

Everyone was still rather unwilling to work with the Puppet City cultivators, but no one raised any objections.

"May I ask how we're going to be crossing the black abyss, City Lord E?" Sun Tu asked.

Everyone else also turned to E Kuai to hear his answer. Even though much of the spatial storm above the abyss had been scattered, it was still extremely dangerous.

"Rest assured, I've already decided on a course of action with Fellow Daoist Daoist Liu Hua and City Lord Sha Xin," E Kuai replied with a faint smile.

Mistress Liu Hua took that as his cue to step forward, and he said, "As I'm sure all of you have already witnessed, the main sources of danger in the black abyss is the tremendous suction force that it's releasing, and the spatial storm above it.

“Thankfully, the special environment here has significantly weakened the spatial storm, and after some discussion with City Lord E and City Lord Sha Xin, we've designed a Star Falcon Flying Boat that incorporates my expertise in starpower restrictions and Puppet City's puppetry acumen, and that should be enough to get us across the black abyss."

"The body of the Star Falcon Flying Boat will be crafted by the Puppet City cultivators, while we'll be responsible for engraving the restrictions on it. From here onward, all of you are to follow Fellow Daoist Liu Hua's instructions," E Kuai ordered, and all of the Profound City cultivators gave a collective affirmative response.

After that, E Kuai discussed something briefly with Mistress Liu Hua, then gathered the other four city lords together for a separate meeting.

Meanwhile, the Puppet City cultivators had begun their work, clearing out a large area that was going to serve as their workspace for the construction of the flying boat.

At the same time, Mistress Liu Hua began delegating tasks to everyone.

He picked out three or four of the Profound City cultivators as he declared, "A special type of star fluid is required for the inscription of the restrictions. You will be responsible for mixing this star fluid, here are the ingredients and instructions."

Mistress Liu Hua then picked out a few more cultivators before issuing another instruction.

Before long, all but four of the Profound City cultivators had been assigned different tasks, and out of the four that remained, two of them were Han Li and Xuanyuan Xing. They were joined by a tall and thin yellow-haired young man from White Rock City, and a short and stocky man from Profound City.

Han Li wasn't familiar with those two, all he knew were their names from the Five City Martial Gathering. The one from White Rock City was called Lü Gang, while the name of the Profound City cultivator was Liang Fa.

"What should we do, Senior Liu Hua?" Han Li asked.

"I can tell that all of you possess tremendous spiritual sense. Your task will be the most important one of all, and that's to help me engrave the restrictions onto the flying boat," Mistress Liu Hua declared, and Han Li was quite elated to hear this.

He was very curious about this Star Falcon Flying Boat, and with such an important task assigned to him, he would be able to glean much of the intricacies involved in the crafting process.

"With all due respect, Senior Liu Hua, I don't even know the first thing about tool refinement. Restriction inscription is an extremely important task, one that I have no confidence of carrying out successfully. If something goes wrong in this process, the consequences could be catastrophic.

“I know of several of our fellow daoists who are adept in the art of tool refinement, so why don't I get them to help you instead?" Xuanyuan Xing suggested with a hesitant look on his face.

"Only those who possess immense spiritual sense can engrave my restrictions! Do you think this is a task that anybody could carry out? Aside from the four of you, only the four city lords meet the spiritual sense requirements, so if you don't want to do this, then get Chen Yang from your Green Goat City to replace you," Mistress Liu Hua harrumphed in a displeased manner.

"I have no intention of shirking my duties, Senior Liu Hua, I'm just worried that my incompetence will lead to detrimental outcomes," Xuanyuan Xing hurriedly said with a fearful expression.

Mistress Liu Hua was quite pleased by Xuanyuan Xing's panicked reaction, and the discontent on his face eased a little as he said, "Rest assured, I won't make you inscribe any of the most complex patterns, you'll only be responsible for some of the simpler work in the corners. With your spiritual sense and my guidance, all of you will be up to the task."

Xuanyuan Xing raised no further objections upon hearing this.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Mistress Liu Hua continued, "Having said that, your concerns are not completely unfounded. The process of creating restrictions in the Scalptia Spatial Domain is very different from the same process in the outside world, so you do need to master some technique in order to complete this task. Come over here and do some practice."

With that, he handed out a bone pen that was around the same thickness as a human finger and roughly half a foot in length to each of the four cultivators present.

The bone pen was very similar to the pens used for rune inscriptions, with a sharp tip that seemed to have been fashioned out of some type of scaled beast tooth, and a hair thin hole could be seen at the center of the tip.

On the other end of the pen was a transparent sac-like object, which was filled with some type of silver liquid that was giving off faint starpower fluctuations.

"These pens are called Star Wave Pens, and the liquid inside the star fluid that I just mentioned. Immortal spiritual power is inaccessible in the Scalptia Spatial Domain, so while engraving the restrictions, you'll need to inject your spiritual sense into the star fluid. These jade slips contain some simple star runes, you can try engraving them on these jade slabs first," Mistress Liu Hua said as he pulled out four jade slips and some white jade slabs for everyone.

Han Li's eyes lit up slightly as he injected his spiritual sense into the jade slip, and sure enough, there were some star runes inside, but all of them appeared to be quite complex and were very different from any of the runes that he had ever seen before.

"My star runes are going to be more difficult to engrave than the runes you'll find in the outside world, so listen carefully to my instructions," Mistress Liu Hua said, then began instructing Han Li and the others through voice transmission.

Only after more than two hours had passed did the lesson conclude, and despite the strange and unfamiliar nature of these star runes, Han Li was able to master the concepts quite quickly thanks to his stellar tool refinement foundation.

In contrast, the other three didn't have any tool refinement experience, so they were far slower learners than Han Li, but they were eventually able to get the hang of things as well.

Under Mistress Liu Hua's instructions, the four of them each picked up a jade slab and began practicing their inscriptions.

Han Li injected his spiritual sense into the Star Wave Pen to activate the star fluid inside, then commenced his inscription, and a stream of silver light flowed out of the tip of the pen onto the jade slab.

This was a process that was very taxing on one's spiritual sense, and the Star Wave Pen resembled a tiny vortex that was constantly absorbing his spiritual sense, but this amount of expenditure was still well within his means.

His expression was calm and focused, while the tip of his bone pen was gliding smoothly over the jade slab, and it didn't take long before a complete star rune had taken shape.

As soon as the final stroke was completed, the entire star rune instantly lit up, then dimmed once again. However, one could clearly sense a burst of invisible power coursing through it.

"Oh? That was quick. Looks like you must have some past tool refinement experience," Mistress Liu Hua said with a hint of surprise in his eyes.

"I have dabbled a little in the past," Han Li replied.

"This is quite well done. The distribution of starpower is very even, and there aren't any problems with it. You can begin attempting more complex runes now," Mistress Liu Hua said after assessing the star rune that Han Li had just inscribed.

Han Li nodded in response, then injected his spiritual sense into the jade slip once again to study the more complex runes.

The other three were far slower to pick up the craft then Han Li, and on average, each of them only successfully inscribed their first star rune after four or five attempts.

Mistress Liu Hua was forced to suppress his impatience to provide instructions to the three of them, and they improved very quickly.

As for Han Li, he was already racing along, and aside from some difficult bottlenecks, he required no instructions from Mistress Liu Hua in any other areas.