Chapter 327 Seventy-two Transformations, Artificial Inkstone

On the white jade chessboard, Zhou Tiege, who had descended from the air, stretched out his hand and signaled Hao Ren and Zhou Tieyi to step back slightly.

After the two of them retreated to a safe distance, the space inside the entire white jade chessboard began to shake slightly, and the sound of trickling water was like dripping water from an underground river, from the tiny dripping sound at the beginning to the rushing sound of water rushing and converging.

During this process, Zhou Tieyi could clearly feel that a hole was forcibly opened in the space inside the white jade chessboard. This hole was surrounded by the Yellow Spring of Life and Death, and the turbid Yellow Spring water poured in for no reason. Even the third-grade white jade chessboard could not stop it.

The turbid Yellow River swirled rapidly, enveloping a fifty-liang black stone in front of it. After the black stone was submerged in the Yellow Spring, the outline of the huge snake head behind Zhou Tiege appeared, with black and white intertwined in its yellow vertical pupils, like a giant python biting its tail. The unserious sense of death and silence swallowed everything as the black and white colors devoured everything. Even the turbulent Yellow Spring itself slowed down. After a moment, the Yellow Spring dried up and everything fell silent, leaving only the originally 'dead' black stone.

"All right."

The shadow of the giant python behind Zhou Tiege dissipated, and his spirit body showed obvious fatigue. The silence around him was broken, and Hao Ren asked in confusion, "Can we go forward?"

Zhou Tiege nodded solemnly, "But be careful when facing that inkstone. It has come alive, and now devouring life is its instinct."

Zhou Tieyi took a few steps forward. He had been watching the entire change with his real vision, but since it involved the power of the Nine Ancient Gods, he couldn't see the entire process of the change. He looked at Tao Du Weng and said, "Try to separate a piece of flesh and blood."

Taoduweng absorbed a large amount of flesh and blood, and had long since transformed from a pure tree to a half-animal, half-plant state. Many of its characteristics even amazed Zhou Tieyi.

Taodu Weng stretched out a branch, on which red blood vessels gathered, and the green veins faded, and soon it turned into a ball of beating flesh and blood. Then the branch broke and fell from the air onto the ink stone.

A hint of dark color was transmitted from the ink stone to the mass of flesh and blood, and then it expanded at a speed visible to the naked eye, wrapping around the entire mass of flesh and blood. In just ten breaths, this mass of flesh and blood, which was still beating and full of vitality, was solidified in death, and then melted away bit by bit and was completely swallowed up by the ink stone.

Hao Ren looked surprised. This ghostly and evil scene was consistent with his previous understanding of Shinto. In a dark and enclosed environment where no light could be seen, evil gods gathered together and created one disaster after another that could destroy the world.

It's just that in previous stories, he never thought of himself as the evil protagonist.

Zhou Tiege had obviously anticipated this. He said in a deep voice, "I can give life to dead things, but the purpose of these revived lives is to devour more lives. They cannot communicate and cannot be controlled."

Zhou Tieyi was not surprised by this. He smiled and took a step forward. "I think it's just right to be here. If the life you gave me had consciousness, I would still have to worry about moral issues."

He stretched out his hand, and a mysterious aura gathered behind him, turning into five-colored clouds. After a moment, the five-colored clouds gathered, and the misty emptiness was given a concrete form, turning into the shape of a large tripod. Dragon seals stood out from the five colors, a total of seventy-two. The dragon seals intertwined with each other, evolving into myriad changes, encompassing the mystery of the Five Emperors' rotation, turning into a magnificent Taoist scripture, imprinted on the large tripod.

His voice was majestic and heavy, "Ding Gu."

This was the first time he showed his talent for growing spirits. Zhou Tiege and Hao Ren also looked surprised. With Zhou Tieyi's talent and the Qilin blood spirit, people all over the world were actually very curious about what Zhou Tieyi's talent for growing spirits was.

The big cauldron contained the ink stone, but in Zhou Tieyi's eyes, it contained the process in which Zhou Tiege used his talent to give the ink stone complete life.

In this process, legal principles were intertwined, and illusory dragon seals appeared one after another. It was not known whether it was because he also had the blood of the Emperor of Life and Death, so when these dragon seals appeared, Zhou Tieyi understood the whole process very well. New dragon seals emerged one after another, a total of twelve, which were connected to Zhou Tieyi's original seventy-two Taoist scriptures, but they did not blend with the core seventy-two Taoist scriptures, but were promoted to form a new row of Taoist scriptures below.

Innate magical power [living death].

In addition to this new Taoist scripture, Zhou Tiege and Hao Ren also saw another row of Taoist scriptures above the [Living and Dead] talent and below the seventy-two Taoist scriptures of [Ding Gu].

The number of characters in the Dragon Chapter of this Taoist scripture is even more than that of [Living and Dead], a total of thirty-six!

After a moment, the cauldron disappeared and Zhou Tieyi smiled.

Zhou Tiege and Hao Ren saw that the ink stone in front of them had not changed. They knew that Zhou Tieyi would not use his talent for no reason, and he must have his own reasons. Zhou Tiege was hesitant to speak, not knowing whether he should ask his brother what he had done.

Zhou Tieyi took the initiative to explain with a smile, "This is my talent [Ding Gu]. When the other party fully displays a talent or magical power, I can copy this talent and magical power. Of course, there are limitations. For example, the talent and magical power I copied is based on the power displayed by the other party. It is difficult to surpass the original. It is limited by my ability to comprehend. Only when I comprehend it can I copy it."

"Brother's [Resurrection] talent should only be a part of your Hades Serpent talent, right?"

When asked, Zhou Tiege nodded. His talent came from the blood essence of the Nine Ancient Gods. Theoretically, he could continue to evolve and eventually reach the level of the Emperor of Life and Death, one of the Nine Ancient Gods. But he was afraid that if he only reached the third level, he would be completely swallowed up by the will of the Emperor of Life and Death.

Therefore, the Zhou family members are more likely to "follow their hearts" regarding their talents. They use whatever power they can get and will never actively explore it.

For example, he himself, in addition to [Living Death], also possesses the two talents of [Opening the River] and [Deadly Poison], both of which are included in the core talent of [Yellow Spring].

"In addition to the limitation of understanding, my talent [Ding Gu] can only copy a limited number of other people's talents."

Hao Ren subconsciously swallowed his non-existent saliva.

After seeing Zhou Tiege's talent in cultivating spirits, he was already astounded, but when compared with Zhou Tieyi, the gap between the two seemed obvious.

As long as one can understand it, one can copy it. Moreover, from Zhou Tieyi's perspective, the innate magical power that allows him to copy is definitely not an ordinary thing. Didn't he see that Zhou Tiege's [Live and Die] talent can only be ranked in the second row!

He said cautiously in a slightly relaxed tone, "Your Excellency, you are not going to say that there are only seventy-two talents that you can copy, right?"

Zhou Tieyi sighed with his hands behind his back, "The heroes of the world are as numerous as crucian carp crossing the river, and their innate magical powers are as dazzling as the stars, which is too much to take in. It's a pity that I can only use 72 transformations. It really makes me sigh!"

Hao Ren was no longer able to describe it in words. He could imagine what kind of monster Zhou Tieyi's enemies would face in the future.

Although warriors and military strategists are good at frontal combat, they are not good at transformation. For example, once a warrior's combat skills and talents are known by others, they will always be cracked. Zhou Tieyi's spiritual talent allows him to have 72 kinds of transformations, and each of them is a top-level talent. These talents are intertwined, which almost means that Zhou Tieyi has no shortcomings.

After showing off a little in front of Hao Ren and his brother, Zhou Tieyi's gaze returned to the ink stone. The talent of [Ding Gu] cannot be hidden. As long as he uses it more, everyone will make corresponding guesses.

However, the stronger the talent of [Ding Gu] is, the more he can hide the other half of his talent [Innovation].

Zhou Tieyi looked at Tao Duweng, "Can you now devour this inkstone and purify the essence and spirit in it?"

Tao Du Weng first shook the branches slightly, "Father God, although this inkstone has 'life', it was born from the ultimate death, and it still contains a trace of death. The harm it causes to me is as great as the harm caused by a disordered spirit."

However, although Tao Du Weng said this, his expression was full of pride.

Zhou Tieyi immediately understood that Tao Du Weng had a solution, but he just wanted to be praised like a child, so he smiled and said, "You have a solution."

Tao Du Weng immediately said, "Father God has a wise eye."

In the void behind him, tree roots intertwined and gathered together, and after a moment they formed a peach tree.

This is Tao Du Weng's unique talent. Compared with humans, he has a natural advantage in making use of his clones. He also has the ability to grow rapidly granted by the authority of [Flesh and Blood]. Under the premise of sufficient flesh and blood, he can produce a large number of offspring in a short period of time, and even remove the restrictions on the offspring and give them consciousness.

The peach tree stepped forward and embraced the strange ink stone in front of it. Then, under the gaze of everyone, the black ink stone infected the green and red trunk.

Let the originally evil and strange tree trunk be covered with a layer of deathly gray, and then flesh and blood and the power of life and death continue to intertwine. In this repetitive process, even the most chaotic and disordered spirit will be purified.

Zhou Tieyi thought for a moment, took out more ink stones, and threw them one by one at the flesh and blood tree of Tao Du Weng's offspring. Because the rules of life and death transformation were contained in it, the offspring peach tree was not like Tao Du Weng who was unable to tolerate the original ink stones, but swallowed them quickly. However, in the process of swallowing, the entire offspring transformed towards death.

When the flesh and blood decayed and the veins dried up, the Taodu Wengzi tree, which had fused with a large amount of inkstone, was completely carbonized and could no longer absorb the excess inkstone, forming a charred tree that looked like coal, but it contained a large amount of pure essence and spirit.

Zhou Tieyi approached the carbonized sub-plant and stretched out his hand to break off one of the branches. The essence and spirit in this branch no longer gave him a chaotic shocking feeling, but a natural "herb fragrance". Putting it next to him was like putting charcoal in an ordinary person's home, which could purify the surrounding air and slowly nourish the essence and spirit.

Except that it cannot be taken orally directly like peach and plum fruits, it is already one of the highest quality natural treasures.

Zhou Tieyi could even imagine what a sensation it would cause if he showed this artificial ink stone to the world!
This is something that even steam engines can't compare to!

No matter how beneficial the steam engine is to ordinary people, in the eyes of practitioners, at this stage it is only limited to changing the lives of ordinary people and will not cause any harm to them.

However, with the emergence of this artificial inkstone, the status of Mohists and Gongshuists will undergo a qualitative change.

The Mohist School, which was already the first echelon besides the three schools of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, underwent a qualitative change...

That is to have a ticket to become a saint! It is enough to change the situation in the world immediately!
Artificial inkstone cannot be shown now.

Zhou Tieyi thought about it for a moment.

The Emperor of Daxia has already begun to fear and control me, and may have even prepared a backup plan to deal with me.

He could compete with him on party affairs and political struggles, because these were set within the rules of Daxia, and he believed that they were the rules that were most beneficial to him.

The artificial ink stone in his hand is equivalent to the means to truly overturn the current chess game of Daxia.

If he wants to use it, he must wait until the strength of the Great Xia Emperor is further reduced, and his own strength is further improved to a higher level, so that he will not be easily crushed to death.

It would be best if he could use the artificial ink stone when the Great Xia Emperor was at the most critical moment and had to rely on himself, thus forming a perfect backstab.

Although it cannot be used for the time being, the preliminary experiments on the artificial inkstone can be slowly carried out, and Zhou Tieyi already has a good candidate.

Thinking of this, he waved his hand to dispel the spirits of Zhou Tiege and Hao Ren who had descended from afar.

After coming out of the white jade chessboard, the night passed quietly and the sky was already showing signs of a gray dawn. However, the air quality here in Taihang Mountains is poor. Even in the early morning, Zhou Tieyi could still feel a lingering smoke that made the light seem unclear.

After washing up with Bai Mei's help, the buffet outside the Golden Tower was still going on. The smell of morning cooking and the lively sounds of the crowd made the gray sky brighter. Zhou Tieyi stood on the pavilion, looking at the lively crowd below, and felt a bit like he was in his previous life.

However, he knew that the real lower-class people in this world were not those in the county town, and he still had a lot to do.

To create artificial graphite is to fundamentally improve the living conditions of tens of millions of people in the entire upstream and downstream of the graphite industry. With this confidence, he dares to say that he will truly change the graphite mining model of the entire Shantong Prefecture.

A great man in the past life proposed that science and technology are the primary productive forces.

It is equally useful in this world. Since I am blessed with such a high talent and so many opportunities, I should use my own practice as the technical core to change the backward productivity and production system of the entire world, rather than just limiting myself to the improvement of my personal strength. In that case, no matter how much I improve, it will only be a cycle of previous historical processes, and I will eventually be replaced by others and only fight for a temporary victory.

Only by improving the world with people can we achieve the true great way and fight for victory for all eternity.

(End of this chapter)