Translator: AnubisTL
Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror.
A quintessential escape tool among magic artifacts. According to the Great Dao Library Pavilion's description, once refined, this artifact could be activated with a cultivator's mind, allowing them to transform into light and achieve extraordinary bursts of speed for short durations.
While in this luminous state, the user would become immune to most physical attacks and even penetrate weak energy barriers and non-corporeal obstacles.
However, the drawbacks were equally significant. First, the artifact possessed no offensive or defensive capabilities whatsoever. Second, its energy consumption was immense, draining nearly all of a cultivator's true essence and divine sense with each use.
Moreover, because the escape effectiveness scaled almost infinitely with the cultivator's cultivation level, the proportion of true essence and divine sense consumed remained constant regardless of the user's advancement.
This was a desperate escape trump card, not to be used lightly.
Furthermore, due to the extreme speed achieved in light form, cultivators below the nascent soul stage could only move in straight lines and struggled to control their landing points. This issue would only begin to alleviate after reaching the nascent soul stage.
Finally, the artifact was spiritually linked to the cultivator's mind. If the light form were forcibly shattered, the cultivator's divine soul would suffer severe damage.
For Jieming, however, these drawbacks were negligible.
After all, the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror compensated for his lack of escape methods. Moreover, if he ever needed to use the mirror, he wouldn't be relying on it to counterattack his enemies.
According to the demonstrations in the Great Dao Library Pavilion, even the most basic version of the mirror allowed cultivators to escape at near-light speed after transforming into light.
If an enemy could intercept him at that speed, he might as well quietly await death with his current strength, without worrying about damage to his divine soul.
Beyond these drawbacks, there was also the difficulty of refining the mirror.
Setting aside the complexity of the refining techniques, the materials required were exceedingly "cumbersome."
The primary materials needed to refine the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror were all conceptual materials.
The mirror's operational principle involved gathering, condensing, and manipulating the concept of light.
Its core concepts revolved around the speed, penetration, color, rhythm, creation, and destruction of light.
To refine these intangible concepts into a tangible artifact, and then allow the artifact to reciprocate by transforming the user into light of the same conceptual origin, required materials containing the purest essence of the "concept of light"—natural light itself.
The types of light needed for collection, roughly translated, were Morning Glow Light, Rainbow Light, Moonlight, Starlight, and Lightning Light.
Each of these five concepts of light represented a unique characteristic, corresponding to certain attributes of the Five Elements and aligning with the Five Aggregates names of magic artifacts.
They had to be captured and condensed directly from nature using specific cultivation techniques at precise times and locations.
Fortunately, while gathering these concepts was somewhat tedious, it was still preferable to refining artifacts that required materials nonexistent in the Wizard World.
"Refining this thing is truly difficult. Just mastering the true flame is a major hurdle."
Although the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror didn't require a cauldron, the process involved refining spirituality with true flame, condensing the instrument embryo with divine sense, infusing the concepts into the object, and only then forging a magic artifact connected to one's divine soul.
"True flame as the catalyst, divine sense as the craftsman, materials as the bones, concepts as the soul..." he murmured to himself.
These were both the core techniques of the Artifact Refinement Technique and its most fundamental methods.
In essence, the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror tested a cultivator's mastery of basic skills.
"First... let's try condensing the true flame."
The Wizard World also had fire magic, but it primarily involved summoning external fire elements, unlike the true flame of cultivators.
A cultivator's true flame was a manifestation of highly condensed true essence, essentially a high-purity energy containing the cultivator's own spiritual power. It could refine impurities from materials and stimulate their spirituality.
Jieming prepared for a long and arduous struggle. According to the Great Dao Library, ordinary cultivators often spent several years just to condense their first wisp of true flame.
Then...
"Wait, that's it? It's done?!"
Staring at the pale golden flame, no larger than a grain of rice, Jieming was dumbfounded. "Could I actually be a genius?!"
Though it had taken some time, Jieming had managed to condense his first wisp of true flame in less than a day.
Of course, calling himself a genius was just a joke. Jieming knew exactly why he had condensed the true flame so quickly.
"I never expected the fundamentals of alchemy and analysis art to be applicable to condensing true flame. What a bargain!"
Alchemy required manipulating mental power to analyze all things from the very beginning, while practicing the analysis art involved sensing energy fluctuations right from the start.
The combination of these two disciplines, coupled with the fact that both spells could be used on himself, had unconsciously given Jieming a level of control over his own power far surpassing that of ordinary cultivators.
Having resolved the true flame issue, the next step was to construct a vessel capable of containing the concept of light—the foundational instrument embryo.
Using specialized embryo refinement techniques, Jieming could condense a mental power-infused embryo connected to his spirit, serving as the prototype and conceptual vessel for a magic artifact.
This process involved integrating a portion of his true essence and divine sense into the materials, imbuing them with rudimentary spirituality and malleability.
After capturing the intangible concept of light, he would use a unique method to transform it into tangible forms like Light-Imbued Spirit Dew or Light-Condensed Crystal Sand, which would then be incorporated into the instrument embryo and refined through forging.
Typically, this stage marked the completion of a magic artifact's basic form. The cultivator's subsequent task would be continuous, day-and-night refinement over an extended period.
"Refining the instrument embryo and gathering the concept of light will take time. I also need to perfect the scouting eye and other rune-imbued magical artifacts... Oh, and I still need to study alchemy and potionology. It seems I'll be quite busy in the coming days."
Having listed his upcoming tasks, Jieming stretched languidly.
Although there was much to do, especially refining the Five Aggregates Rainbow Transformation Mirror, the greatest challenge wasn't the artifact forging itself, but the preliminary "light gathering" process.
Fortunately, time was ample. With five years until the Noren Workshop Academy Grand Test, he could afford to proceed at his own pace.
Looking out the window, Jieming was surprised to realize it was already dawn.
His mind suddenly recalled one of the mirror's materials: Morning Glow Light.
This light, belonging to the wood and fire elements, symbolized vitality and growth. It represented the speed and penetrating power of the first rays of sunlight piercing through darkness as all things awakened.
It needed to be collected at the first glimmer of dawn, when the lingering purple qi from the east had yet to dissipate (around the transition between Yin and Mao hours).
Gazing at the rising sun, Jieming instinctively activated his cultivation technique and extended his hand toward the morning light.
In the next moment, as he watched the luminous strand of light materialize in his palm, Jieming couldn't help but grin.
"A good omen."
(End of the Chapter)