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Half a step into the Void Refining Realm…
Just imagining such a far-off notion was enough to have any number of cultivators drooling, as such a level of power was enough for one to rule over a mid-rank Kingdom!
Even the King of the Fire Nation only possessed a cultivation base in the Half-Step Soul Transformation Realm, which meant that in terms of status, Azmodeus, who was capable of assisting Half-Step Void Refining Realm Experts, had already surpassed the king of the very kingdom he resided in…
And that was with just one of his professions, for if all three of them were thrown into the mix, then let's just say that he would acquire a status so large that the entire world would be after his head, aiming to obtain his talent by force.
However, that was an eventuality that would never happen, as the stealth Trait had ingrained a certain level of caution into the very atoms that made up his existence.
Which was to say that he would keep his ludicrous accolades to himself, at least until he was confident enough to protect his life from all those who wanted to take it away from him.
Nonetheless, even with all of this being said, he was looking to make his achievements reach above and beyond, as inside the core of what he had discerned to be a Peak-Earth Rank Formation Rune, there was another inlaid area of notice.
That area was inside a layer of space that lay over the top of the Formation—a Space Array to be exact.
And with this new discovery, the absolute rank of this formation was once again thrown into the air, as there was no way an Earth-Rank Formation Rune Stele would possess the ability to conjure up an additional exterior layer of space, utilizing the functions of an extremely high-level Heaven-Ranked Array.
This was all to say that the overall rank of this Formation Rune Array had already surpassed what each individual aspect could dictate.
Azmodeus had no clue what the exact rank of this convolution of elements was, but what he did know was that it was made by an expert who might very well be at the absolute peak of the world's power hierarchy.
And it was on this note that he became even more confused about how the Evil Cultivator had obtained such an unbelievably mysterious thing...
Was I wrong in my original speculations…? Was the Evil Cultivator not the one who set up this Formation Rune Array…?
He brooded over the subject for a few minutes before realizing that there was another plausible reason for the Alchemy furnace being sealed from the outside.
"The Evil Cultivator is already dead… And not only that, but someone… or something got a hold of the Cultivation Furnace…"
After understanding this, even more mysteries popped up in his mind.
Was it the Righteous Faction…? Or maybe it was some other force that had enmity with the Evil Cultivator…?
It could also very well be some unknown and unrelated person who saw the Evil Cultivator pass by and took it upon himself to take his possessions after killing him.
But that just doesn't make any sense… If the Evil Cultivator was killed and his items looted, then why would the Pill Cauldron become sealed…?
Every question only brought up ten more, as nothing was making any sense. And as much as he wanted to head out there and check what was going on for himself, the reason why he stayed here for such a long period of time delayed that option from coming to pass.
After all, a couple years ago, he had tried to break out of the Alchemy Furnace by force, but such rash actions got him absolutely nowhere, as this Formation Rune Array was beyond sturdy!
Not a single ripple passed through it even with his full power attacks directed toward the formation...
And although his strength had increased by leaps and bounds since that point, he doubted whether it would make a single difference in the face of the impeccable defense of the Formation Rune Array.
Furthermore, every single time that he thought he could make it through all the various aspects closing off the outside world from him, yet another barrier seemingly appeared out of thin air, stopping him from ever hoping to make it outside of the Pill Cauldron…
First it was the Formation, then it was the rune, and then the Array…
He didn't know how many obstacles would appear in his way, but in the end, it was only working to hone his skill, as he could now conjure up formation scrolls from miscellaneous materials using his comprehensions in Alchemy's Essence with ease.
At this point in time, he had even started to develop his very own techniques called 'Formation's Essence' and 'Rune's Essence', which were just different applicable uses of the principals that were used to make up 'Alchemy's Essence'.
And the best part of all three of these techniques was that all materials used in the process of concocting pills, rolling Formation Scrolls, and engraving Rune Stones could be reused an almost unlimited number of times!
This wasn't normally possible in the beginning, when he was just using Alchemy's Essence, but when he developed the Formation's Essence and Rune's Essence Techniques as well, he was able to apply a loophole that allowed him to use each of the techniques in rotation.
To put it in a different way, he was recycling materials from one recycling station before bringing said recycled materials to a different recycling station and repeating that process indefinitely.
This way of doing things was not all good, as every successfully created project was immediately recycled into another form, but it wasn't like Azmodeus had any use for anything that he could currently obtain from most Formations and Runes, while only the high-level pills he concocted were able to give him anything of value inside the Evil Cultivator's pill cauldron.
Said pills were also one of the only ways he had to increase his Cultivation, while the other way was the Qi Gathering Formation that he had set up on the edge of the cauldron's interior over a year ago.
It was through this Qi Gathering Formation that he was able to obtain a constant supply of Qi from a slight flaw in the Formation's diagram.
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