Chapter 514: The Eight-Treasure Casket

After a brief inspection, Han Li put away the three immortal artifacts—the black bone blade, the long inkstone, and the paperweight—and then beckoned with his hand.

From the ground, a foot-long eight-treasure casket floated up gently and landed before him.

The casket was sealed on all four sides by mechanical locks, each covered with a silver talisman.

After examining them for a moment, Han Li recognized the four talismans as the "Azure Dragon Wood-Binding Talisman," "White Tiger Metal-Scorching Talisman," "Vermilion Bird Fire-Raising Talisman," and "Black Tortoise Water-Repelling Talisman." Both in grade and appearance, they were among the finest of restrictive talismans.

"To use a Four Symbols talisman array to seal this casket—what could be inside that made Feng Tiandu, that old zombie, treasure it so?" Han Li muttered to himself in confusion.

As he spoke, he formed hand seals, and golden light radiated from his body as he began to break the Four Symbols talisman array.

The reason the Four Symbols talisman array was difficult to break was that the powers of the four symbols complemented each other, acting as mutual pillars. Thus, they could not be broken one by one but had to be undone simultaneously; otherwise, the contents of the casket would likely be destroyed.

Hence, the best method to break it was to have four cultivators of similar cultivation levels exert force at the same time and break it together.

Han Li, however, did not do this. His method was simpler and more brutal: he directly summoned the Truthful Speech Wheel to envelop the casket, and before the four talismans could trigger a chain reaction, he removed them one by one in an instant.

After successfully removing the four talismans, the mechanical locks on all four sides of the eight-treasure casket sprang open with a click.

Han Li grabbed the lid of the casket with both hands, lifted it, and set it aside.

As the lid opened, no radiant light or soaring treasure aura appeared from within the casket; in fact, there was not even a trace of spiritual power fluctuation.

He leaned in and saw that inside the casket lay a wax-yellow ancient book and a palm-sized black jade token, surrounded by neatly arranged black nails.

He first took out the wax-yellow ancient book. As his hand brushed over it, he felt a slight slipperiness, as if it were made from the skin of some beast, and it still retained a trace of warmth.

On the cover of the ancient book were four large characters: "幻辰宝典" (Illusory Time Classic).

Seeing this name, Han Li raised an eyebrow, feeling a sense of familiarity.

After pondering for a while, he suddenly understood.

Back when he was searching for time-related techniques through the Everlasting Alliance, he had heard that the Fuling Sect possessed a technique capable of cultivating time laws, and it was precisely this classic.

Regarding time techniques, Han Li had only ever encountered the "True Speech Wheel Sutra," so he had no way to deepen his understanding of time laws by cross-referencing with other techniques.

The appearance of the "Illusory Time Classic" now gave him the opportunity to do so.

A strange glint flashed in Han Li's eyes. Suddenly recalling something, he quickly formed hand seals and summoned the Truthful Speech Wheel.

On the wheel, the giant eyeball slowly turned, and a golden beam shot out, striking the wax-yellow ancient book.

The surface of the ancient book flickered with golden light for a moment, then faded away, leaving no further reaction.

Seeing this, Han Li's face showed a trace of disappointment. He withdrew his hand seals and retracted the Truthful Speech Wheel into his body, muttering to himself:

"It seems this item is different from the stone tablet in the Candle Dragon Sect. Though both record time techniques, this one does not contain the power of time laws..."

With his powerful divine sense, after about the time it takes to eat a meal, Han Li had flipped through the entire "Illusory Time Classic."

To his surprise, he found that although this technique also expounded on the power of time laws and the path to enlightenment, both its cultivation method and description were vastly different from the "True Speech Wheel Sutra." In particular, it mentioned the "Illusory Time Sand Realm," which, once cultivated, seemed capable of influencing the power of time in a certain area.

However, from what he could see, both Feng Tiandu and Qi Yunxiao seemed to have very limited cultivation of this technique, at least unable to use it in combat.

Although Han Li wished he could immediately immerse himself in this technique and study it thoroughly, such an endeavor would require centuries or millennia of seclusion, which was utterly inadvisable under the current circumstances.

He suppressed his thoughts, put away the "Illusory Time Classic," and decided to explore it thoroughly when he had time later.

Taking a deep breath, Han Li picked up the black jade token and examined it.

The token was smooth, with a transparent luster on the surface, but inside it was as dark as ink, looking like a drop of ink frozen in ice crystal, not yet fully solidified, with strands of ink-like wisps flowing within.

On the surface of the token, the four characters "乾天伏凌" (Qiantian Fuling) were embossed, whether they held another meaning or represented Feng Tiandu's status as the grand elder was unclear.

Mindful of the lesson from Gongshu Jiu's token, Han Li first set up a protective array around himself before channeling his immortal spiritual power into the token to see if he could activate it.

However, no matter how he tried, the black token remained completely still, as if lifeless.

After several attempts without success, Han Li had to give up.

Apart from these two items, the eight-treasure casket contained only a number of black iron nails, which upon counting totaled eighty-one.

Han Li picked up one nail and examined it closely. He found that the finger-long nail was densely engraved with various patterns, including strange beasts and peculiar runes, clearly not an ordinary item.

Moreover, around the nail, there seemed to be wisps of ink-like black mist swirling, appearing mysterious.

After taking out all the nails, Han Li noticed that at the bottom of the eight-treasure casket, there seemed to be a black iron plate embedded, crisscrossed with grooves of varying depths.

When he took out the iron plate, he saw that it was densely covered with spiritual patterns, revealing it to be a formation plate of no mean grade. In its lower left corner, there was also a string of raised characters: "乾天伏凌，阵守八方" (Qiantian Fuling, Array Guards the Eight Directions).

"This... could it be a mountain-protecting grand formation?" Han Li muttered to himself, holding the formation plate in one hand and the token in the other, glancing at the eighty-one black iron nails on the ground.

Thinking this, he turned the formation plate over and found a recessed groove on its back, whose outline and size matched exactly with the black token in his hand.

With a thought, he placed the token into the groove.

With a soft click,

the token fit perfectly into the groove. Immediately, black light flowed from it, and the ink-like substance inside surged out like a swimming dragon, roaming across the surface of the formation plate.

Wherever the ink dragon passed on the formation plate, at the intersections of the crisscrossing lines, dark golden light dots lit up.

Seeing this, a hint of joy flashed in Han Li's eyes. He quickly refined the formation plate and the token together.

Then he placed it on the ground, connecting it to the island's mountain body, and picked up a black iron nail, placing it over one of the dark golden light dots on the formation plate.

As soon as the nail touched the formation plate, it was pulled by a strong attractive force, suddenly挣脱 from Han Li's hand, and with a "clang," embedded itself into that dark golden light dot.

Almost simultaneously, a thunderous roar came from the dense forest not far to the east of the island.

Looking up, Han Li saw a pitch-black pillar of light over a hundred zhang tall rising from the ground, pointing straight into the sky.

On it seemed to coil a strange beast, with faint black qi continuously flowing out from its surface.

"Just as I thought..." Han Li rejoiced inwardly and continued picking up nails and placing them on the formation plate.

With a series of "clangs," one black iron nail after another fell onto the formation plate, and on the island, black pillars of light rose one after another.

When the last black pillar of light rose into the sky, the black mist surrounding the pillars dispersed, merging with each other, and soon formed a pale black light barrier that enveloped the entire island.

Then, the black pillars of light that had appeared across the island began to fade, gradually becoming transparent until they vanished into the void.

Soon after, the light barrier covering the island also disappeared, as if nothing had happened.

However, on the formation plate before Han Li, an island protected by the formation had already appeared.

After watching for a while, he stood up, and with a flicker, flew out of the island.

When passing through the light barrier, Han Li could clearly feel a sensation of being swept by spiritual power fluctuations, but since he had refined the formation, he was naturally unaffected.

From outside the island, the entire island showed no change; there was no sign of a formation covering it, nor any spiritual power fluctuations. However, when Han Li examined it with his Bright Clarity Spirit Eye, the protective formation was fully revealed.

He flew a thousand zhang away from the island, raised one hand into a fist, mobilized his immortal spiritual power, and punched toward the island.

With a thunderous boom!

The entire void trembled violently. A giant fist shadow, a hundred zhang in size, materialized out of thin air, compressing the world's energy and rolling like ocean waves toward the three-colored island.

As soon as the two made contact, the previously invisible formation barrier immediately appeared.

Black light blazed on it, and ink-like dragons continuously rose from the eighty-one black pillars of light, converging at the point of impact, channeling the formation's power to resist.

Above the island, thunderous roars echoed incessantly. The black light barrier was pressed into a depression dozens of zhang deep, appearing precarious but never showing signs of collapse.

Seeing this, Han Li nodded to himself.

Although this punch was not his full strength, it was powered by his solid mid-stage Golden Immortal cultivation, and its power was considerable. If it had been the protective formation of an ordinary True Immortal-level sect, the formation plate's roots would have already collapsed.

According to Han Li's estimation, the defensive limit of this "Qiantian Fuling" formation was slightly inferior to the formation set up in the Candle Dragon Sect by the Northern Cold Immortal Palace when they dealt with Baili Yan back then.

Nevertheless, this treasure was still impressive.

Generally, a sect-protecting grand formation required selecting mountain roots with abundant spiritual energy at various locations within the sect as formation foundations, and specially refined formation flags and pillars to stabilize it, ensuring the formation's power.

However, although such formations were powerful, they were static and immovable, difficult to breach from the outside but easy to sabotage from within by damaging the formation's feet and pivot.

This Qiantian Fuling formation, activated solely by a formation plate, was a mobile formation that could be taken away at any time. It was not only very convenient but also less susceptible to damage.

After this test, Han Li even vaguely felt that this item might be a simplified version of the Fuling Sect's true protective grand formation, which naturally pleased him greatly.

In the future, if he were to establish a cave dwelling elsewhere, having this treasure on hand would save him a lot of trouble.