448: Deducing the spiritual root model, exposing

Xiao Zhuo carefully filtered out all parts related to extracting Immortal Qi from the 1,746 runes he had already comprehended, and began to try combining them again and again.

His mind was split in two, on one side relying on his own Comprehension Ability for deduction, and on the other side mobilizing the panel in his mind for deduction, running both lines in parallel, constantly verifying, colliding, and reconstructing.

The first step in combining Spiritual Roots was to lay the Foundation of the Spiritual Root.

The strength of a Spiritual Root primarily depended on its speed in devouring external energy.

The faster the intake and expulsion, the deeper the potential, and the wider the path of the Dao.

This step took him a full three days.

His own wisdom and the panel's deductions intertwined and superimposed, ultimately condensing into seven profound rune structures, each with its own mystery.

The efficiency of each structure in devouring energy was about three times stronger than the High Grade Spiritual Roots he knew—but their Foundations were different, like seven diverging paths, each pointing to a completely different distant future.

Xiao Zhuo did not hesitate, choosing these seven base plates, and continued to deduce the second step: refinement.

Energy entering the body still needed purification.

The Spiritual Qi and Immortal Qi in the world were not flawless; they contained impurities and turbidity.

The Spiritual Root was like a furnace, needing to remove the dross and extract the most fundamental power.

The more thorough the refinement, the purer and stronger the true essence, magical power, and even Immortal power converted in the future would be.

He continued to build upon each base plate.

Four to nine different refinement structures gradually emerged, and as light and shadow flowed around him, runes flickered like intersecting star orbits, with dozens of light and shadow figures floating out.

Next was attribute attachment.

Bearing the insights of the Dao Principle of Freedom governing wan fa (myriad laws), Xiao Zhuo did not need to force compatibility with all things.

He directly chose the Dao of Space-Time, which he was most familiar with, as the core.

Although he had not yet obtained complete Spiritual Root Runes with time and space attributes, he had already comprehended many runes involving the mysteries of space-time.

Based on this, he repeatedly combined, tested, and reconstructed, gradually building a ethereal yet powerful attribute structure—time like silk, space like warp, interwoven into a faintly fluctuating phantom.

The final step was enhancement.

Among the 1,700 runes, a third were of the enhancement type.

Some tempered the Physical Body, some condensed the Divine Soul, some harmonized Qi and blood, or some connected meridians—the project was vast, far exceeding the first three steps.

According to Xiao Zhuo's conjecture, this step was related to the secret of the Saint realm, involving the fundamental principle of 'the Physical Body bearing the world.'

Divine Soul, Physical Body, and world, when the three are unified, that is the path to heaven.

The structure he ultimately chose did not pursue comprehensive enhancement, but focused on tempering the Divine Soul and improving control—everything was in preparation for the future integration of the world into his Physical Body.

Xiao Zhuo was completely immersed in the deduction, unaware of the passage of time.

A year had passed in closed-door cultivation.

Fortunately, the inn he stayed in allowed long-term rentals, and he had no particular demands for external things, so he did not move.

But he did not know that—

The death of the City Lord of South Wind City, the destruction of the Di Kun Sect, and the loss of the Immortal Formation diagram had already stirred up enormous waves.

The Ninth Prince of the Great Feng Emperor Dynasty, Feng Changge, was exceptionally enraged.

He dispatched a Quasi-Immortal and several Mahayana and Undergoing Tribulation powerhouses supporting him to the Southern Region, searching heaven and earth, vowing to find Xiao Zhuo.

However, after several months of searching, they found nothing.

And what was even more pressing was—the Great Feng Emperor's ascension to Immortalhood was approaching, and Feng Changge had little time left for his arrangements.

That Formation diagram was obtained by him at great cost from an Immortal who lived in seclusion in a secret place in the Southern Region.

The Immortal Formation guarding Wind Capital was made by this Shortened name.

If he obtained the Formation diagram, he could secretly make arrangements and quietly take control of the Fengdu Great Formation.

By then, even if the Great Feng Emperor favored the First Prince, Feng Ziyi, he would still be able to turn the tide.

Under the Immortal Dynasty, the imperial throne was like a dog.

The power to establish the heir had long been stripped by the Immortal Dynasty; the succession to the imperial throne depended solely on the outcome of the succession struggle.

Every transfer of royal power was bound to be a bloodbath.

Now that his plan was disrupted, Feng Changge had to hastily change direction, trying to win over the various Sects under the imperial throne.

But it was too late—Sects with any strength had already taken sides, and the remaining ones were either stubborn or fence-sitters.

Without the Immortal Formation as a trump card, he could not move an inch.

All of this was caused by that mysterious person.

Feng Changge hated him to the bone, yet he did not even know who the other party was.

The only clue was that the Immortal had secretly hidden a positioning imprint in the jade slip that recorded the Formation diagram.

But this imprint had not been tracked for a long time.

He did not believe that the other party could decipher the Immortal Seal, only suspecting that the jade slip had been stored inside a Magical Artifact of space, or isolated by a secret art barrier.

To sense the imprint, one needed to hold a special Magical Artifact bestowed by the Immortal, and the range was limited to within a hundred li.

With his subordinates' powerhouses searching in the Southern Region without success, Feng Changge was almost disheartened.

On this day, he sat alone in the grand hall of Prince Yus Mansion, his expression gloomy, and took out a circular jade tablet that his subordinate had just delivered, injecting his magical power into it.

The jade tablet trembled slightly, sending out a circle of invisible ripples.

He had already given up hope, concentrating on how to deal with the chaos after his father's ascension to Immortalhood—

But the next moment, he suddenly froze.

The jade tablet in his hand suddenly burst into a brilliant blue light!

Streams of light intertwined in mid-air, revealing a meticulously detailed phantom of Fengdu City.

And in that scene, just four streets away from his Prince Yus Mansion, a blazing golden light was constantly flashing, dazzling beyond compare.

Feng Changge was first stunned, then his eyes erupted with almost frenzied joy.

The Immortal Formation diagram that he had sent all his experts to search for, but could not find... had been in Fengdu all along?

And so close to him!?

But the ecstasy lasted only a moment; he immediately suppressed his emotions, his face becoming extremely solemn.

Countless conjectures flashed through his mind.

The worst possibility—the Formation diagram had fallen into the hands of one of his brothers vying for the imperial throne.

If that were true, had the other party already made arrangements according to the diagram, and taken control of the Fengdu Great Formation?

Even if it had not fallen into enemy hands, being in Fengdu at this moment, he dared not act rashly.

Who knows how many eyes were firmly fixed on Prince Yus Mansion, and even his own powerhouses were constantly monitored.

To retrieve the Formation diagram, he must plan carefully before acting, and absolutely not alert the enemy.

He suddenly looked up and sternly shouted towards the door:

"Someone! Clean up all those rats outside the mansion!"

"And please invite my maternal grandfather and my fourteenth brother—to come to the mansion for a discussion!"

"Yes, Your Highness!" The guards outside the door responded sternly and left quickly.

Feng Changge slowly closed his fingers, his gaze falling once again on the light and shadow map in mid-air, staring at that golden light, his eyes filled with surging coldness, like congealed frost.

"No matter who you are... if you ruin my great plan, I will make you—pay the price."

After only a moment, more than a dozen hidden scouts outside Prince Yus Mansion were silently eliminated, their bodies completely taken away.

A little later, two figures, one after another, quietly entered the study of Prince Yus Mansion.

Meanwhile, inside the quiet room of the inn, Xiao Zhuo, who was immersed in Spiritual Root deduction, suddenly felt a jolt in his mind.

A sense of being spied upon from the ethereal realm, like an ice needle piercing his spiritual platform.

"Hmm?" He suddenly opened his eyes, frowning tightly, "How could I suddenly have this feeling?"

After a brief thought, he flipped his hand and took out a jade box.

Inside the opened box was the jade slip containing the Immortal Formation diagram.

At this moment, the jade slip was emitting an extremely subtle, almost imperceptible fluctuation.

An ordinary Body Integration Cultivator would absolutely not be able to sense it—but Xiao Zhuo's Divine Soul originated from his true self, its status already reaching that of a Quasi-Saint, and his spiritual perception was far beyond what cultivation level could limit.

Previously, with the jade slip's Formation not activated, he had not noticed it.

Now, he discovered that within the Formation diagram in the jade slip, an extremely hidden positioning imprint was embedded.

It was hidden within the rune Veins of the Formation diagram, as if it were one with it, but at this moment, it was quietly activated.