**Chapter 68: Treasure Forging**
After collecting all five light concept materials, Jie Ming promptly returned to his private lab at Noren Academy.
After extensive study, he was clear on the next steps.
The process boiled down to integrating these pure-concept spiritual dews and crystal sands into the treasure’s embryo.
First, he needed to condense the treasure’s foundation—the embryo.
The embryo wasn’t a pre-existing entity.
It was a phantom light conjured by a cultivator’s refined true essence and a trace of soul origin within their spiritual sea.
The embryo was the treasure’s prototype, the anchor for concepts, intimately tied to the cultivator’s mind, the key to transforming “formless and intangible” into “formed and tangible.”
According to the Great Dao Book Pavilion’s refining records, condensing a stable, concept-bearing semi-physical embryo in the upper dantian—or the wizard’s spiritual sea—was extremely challenging for late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators.
A mere late-stage Qi Refinement cultivator typically required special arrays to gather mental strength or costly elixirs to aid focus.Otherwise, it could take years, even decades, of daily visualization of specific technique patterns to refine the spiritual sea’s nebulous thoughts, gradually turning the intangible into tangible, the false into true.
This was a grueling process testing talent, patience, and resources.
Jie Ming prepared for a long endeavor, aiming to complete the treasure before heading to the frontlines.
…Or so he planned.
Sitting cross-legged in his cultivation chamber, he turned his consciousness inward, entering his spiritual sea.
A vast, familiar chaotic space appeared, his soul essence anchoring it, surrounded by nine towering Truth Runes.
These runes ceaselessly absorbed elemental forces from the outside, their high energy density forming vibrant vortexes around them.
Ignoring the familiar grandeur, Jie Ming projected his will into his soul essence.
Following the Great Dao Book Pavilion’s method, he guided the spiritual sea’s forces to form a phantom projection of the “Mirror.”
This required precise control and shaping of soul power, demanding intense mental focus.
Yet, as he began, he was surprised to find the process… far less difficult than expected.
It even felt oddly familiar.
His soul essence at the spiritual sea’s center opened its eyes, radiating bewilderment.
After a moment’s thought, Jie Ming beckoned, and two golden light clusters hovering “above” his spiritual sea swiftly descended.
He realized that condensing the embryo in the spiritual sea was strikingly similar to constructing “Truth Runes” or “Wizardry Models” in the wizard system.
Both Truth Runes and wizardry models involved building stable, functional mental structures from abstract theories, concepts, and rules within the spiritual sea.
Truth Runes were the most intricate, requiring wizards to use strong mental power to condense their understanding of world rules into empowered rune structures—a process aligning perfectly with cultivators’ need to “bear concepts” in a treasure embryo.
Though wizard Truth Runes were bolstered by unique rules, making them easier to form in the wizard system, Jie Ming’s countless experiences in constructing and analyzing complex mental structures gave him an edge far beyond his cultivator peers.
With this foundation, condensing the Mirror’s embryo was remarkably swift.
Stability and shaping issues that plagued ordinary cultivators were effortlessly resolved.
Most crucially, he could “cheat.”
Without hesitation, Jie Ming shifted to practicing the wizard meditation technique.
As he meditated, parts of the Truth Runes’ structures slowly emerged in his spiritual sea.
Normally, wizard apprentices could inscribe additional Truth Runes, but exceeding nine would be useless and even hinder advancement to first-tier wizard, so no sane apprentice would attempt it.
But Jie Ming wasn’t aiming for complete Truth Runes.
He sought the “components” generated during their construction.
Each Truth Rune comprised multiple structures, formed from complex geometric patterns.
Jie Ming’s task was simple: select the needed parts from these patterns and combine them.
In less than a month, he successfully condensed a palm-sized, semi-transparent mirror in his spiritual sea.
This was the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror’s embryo, formed purely from mental energy, emitting a faint glow, an extension of his soul.
With the embryo complete, the next step was the most critical and risky: integrating the five Light-Infused Spiritual Dews and Light-Condensed Crystal Sands into the embryo for conceptual fusion and forging.
Jie Ming retrieved the five precious materials from his storage ring: dawn, rainbow, moonlight, starlight, and thunder, each radiating unique light and aura.
Adjusting his state, he sat cross-legged, sinking his mind to draw the Mirror’s embryo to the focal point of his consciousness.
Carefully, he guided the first material—dawn’s Light-Condensed Crystal Sand—with his divine sense, slowly introducing it into the spiritual sea and the embryo.
*Hum…*
As the dawn crystal sand touched the phantom embryo, it erupted in dazzling golden-red light, its uncontainable force straining to break free.
The embryo trembled violently, fine cracks appearing on its surface, as if unable to withstand the concept’s impact.
Jie Ming remained calm, fully versed in the treasure-crafting process.
Unfazed, he knew this signified the embryo and concept merging, requiring repeated fracturing and reshaping to fully unite.
Of course, the cultivator needed to provide a little assistance.
Jie Ming summoned his true fire.
A wisp of pale golden flame rose from his dantian, guided by his divine sense into the spiritual sea, coiling around the Mirror’s embryo.
The true fire’s role wasn’t mere heating but refining and fusing.
Since the concepts were condensed with the cultivator’s true essence and mental energy, they shared a common origin with both the cultivator and the embryo.
The true fire activated this connection, serving as a bridge.
Simultaneously, Jie Ming’s potent mental energy, like invisible hands, guided the dawn concept through the Mirror, merging and settling it with true fire’s aid.
This process was immensely taxing on true essence and mental energy.
Maintaining true fire demanded vast true essence, while guiding the concept’s fusion tested mental strength and control to the utmost.