The five illusory symbols of the Five Elements on the Thunder Rune Pattern flashed, and streams of spiritual power split into five, flying towards them.
After absorbing this spiritual power, the Five Elements symbols solidified from illusory to real, as if coming alive, moving restlessly with full spirituality.
Soon, wisps of white, cyan, black, red, and yellow spiritual energy were stimulated by them and converged in the center of the Thunder Rune Pattern. The five-colored spiritual energies merged, gradually forming a stream of silver spiritual power.
This stream of silver spiritual power appeared much smaller than the previous streams, but it was clearly denser, even giving a liquid-like feel.
Although the quantity had decreased, the quality seemed to have greatly improved.
This silver spiritual power circled the Thunder Rune Pattern once before flowing into his Dantian.
Ning Fa was astonished. He thought for a moment, wanting to test the power of this silver spiritual power by casting a simple lightning-element spell.
To his disbelief, as soon as he raised his right hand, an egg-sized silver lightning ball appeared in his palm almost instantly.
The crackling hum sent shivers down his spine. Countless fine silver lightning threads danced erratically, their silver glow blinding, emitting a powerful pressure.
With a whoosh, it flew out at extreme speed, almost leaving a trail of afterimages.
A sturdy red sandalwood table placed in front of it instantly exploded into a pile of black ash. The silver lightning ball continued its momentum, blasting a hole about ten feet wide in the wall behind it. The entire wall was nearly penetrated, the edges of the opening scorched black.
Soft moonlight shone through the large hole, illuminating Ning Fa's stunned face.
After a long while, Ning Fa finally came to his senses, but his face was filled with disbelief.
He had just instantly cast the low-grade, first-tier lightning spell, the Thunderball Technique!
And how could its power be so immense?!
It was at least five times stronger than before.
What was going on?
He had only managed to grasp the Thunderball Technique to the Minor Accomplishment stage, still far from the Paragon stage required for instant casting.
In the cultivation world, cultivators had diverse combat methods. Besides the techniques and secret arts that came with their cultivation methods, there were also magical artifacts, spirit artifacts, treasures, talismans, and other items. In addition, there were the basic Five Elements spells passed down since ancient times that could be used against enemies.
The power of Five Elements spells was not weak; on the contrary, high-tier spells were quite powerful.
For example, a second-tier Five Elements spell would be difficult for even a Foundation Establishment cultivator to withstand easily.
As for third-tier spells, they could make even Core Formation cultivators change their expressions.
Despite this, very few people specifically cultivated Five Elements spells.
This was because Five Elements spells had a significant drawback in combat: the casting time was too long.
And in high-level cultivator battles, everything happened in an instant. A moment's lapse could directly lead to defeat.
Therefore, Five Elements spells were very impractical in combat, far inferior to external items like talismans, magical artifacts, spirit artifacts, and treasures.
However, this did not mean that the casting time for all Five Elements spells was slow. In reality, after mastering a Five Elements spell to a profound level, one could speed up the casting, even cast it instantly, and its power could also greatly increase.
Ancient texts recorded that in ancient times, Five Elements spells were very popular and were even the main means of combat for cultivators.
At that time, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was also extremely abundant, and it was easier for cultivators to master a spell to a profound level.
But with the decline of spiritual energy in the world, coupled with the rise of artifact refining and talismans, cultivators gradually abandoned using spells against enemies and instead focused their efforts on forging their own treasures.
In the current cultivation world, the mastery level of Five Elements spells is divided into Entry, Minor Accomplishment, Major Accomplishment, and Paragon stages.
The stage at which a spell could be cast instantly was the Paragon stage.
So the question now was, Ning Fa had only barely cultivated the Thunderball Technique to the Minor Accomplishment stage, so why could he cast it instantly? And why was its power so great?
This was clearly the performance one would expect from mastering the spell to the Paragon stage.
Just as Ning Fa was surprised, a strange scene occurred.
A ray of light suddenly appeared from the void, enveloping Ning Fa. Chants, like the sounds of the Great Dao, began to resonate.
As Ning Fa stood there, shocked and at a loss, a spiritual pattern mark shaped like a silver lightning ball appeared within the light, shimmering with a mysterious spiritual glow.
It then directly entered Ning Fa's forehead, giving him no time to dodge.
Ning Fa only felt a disturbance in his sea of consciousness. A spiritual pattern mark shaped like a silver lightning ball floated quietly above his sea of consciousness, emitting a faint glow.
Ning Fa's eyes widened in shock. A term suddenly appeared in his mind, and he blurted out, "Perfected Technique Seal!?"
Ning Fa stood stunned for a long time, his eyes filled with disbelief.
The so-called Perfected Technique Seal was a concept mentioned in some ancient texts.
Those ancient texts recorded that when a cultivator mastered a Five Elements spell to the Paragon stage, they might trigger the power of the Great Dao and obtain this Perfected Technique Seal.
The description of the Perfected Technique Seal in the ancient texts was very brief. It seemed that the Paragon stage of Five Elements spells was just a general term, and there were levels within it.
Only by obtaining this Perfected Technique Seal did it signify that one had truly mastered a Five Elements spell to its highest level.
Undoubtedly, cultivators who possessed a Perfected Technique Seal would have significantly greater power when casting the corresponding Five Elements spell compared to other cultivators who had mastered it to the Paragon stage.
For some reason, after the ancient times, even if later cultivators mastered Five Elements spells to the Paragon stage, very few were able to obtain the Perfected Technique Seal.
Some speculated that it was due to the decline of spiritual energy in the world, making it more difficult to trigger the power of the Great Dao.
This also directly led to the current cultivation world, where even Five Elements spells cultivated to the Paragon stage were somewhat weaker than what was recorded in ancient texts.
But now, Ning Fa had obtained the Perfected Technique Seal for the Thunderball Technique, which was why he was so astonished.
Ning Fa's face was like carved stone. He felt he had been surprised too many times tonight, to the point of numbness.
He forcefully calmed his emotions, his gaze flickering.
The reason for all these changes didn't seem hard to guess. It was likely due to the Thunder Rune Pattern becoming complete.
Not only had it caused his body to mutate, making his spiritual energy perception and absorption efficiency astonishing, but it had also allowed him to master the Thunderball Technique at the Minor Accomplishment stage and directly elevate it to the Paragon stage, even obtaining the Perfected Technique Seal!
No wonder the power of the Thunderball Technique just now was so immense.
And it probably wasn't just because the Thunderball Technique had reached the Paragon stage. The fact that the Dharma power within his body had been refined into silver Dharma power by the Thunder Rune Pattern should also be a significant reason.
This had caused the power of the Thunderball Technique to clearly exceed the limits of a low-grade first-tier spell, and even ordinary mid-grade first-tier spells couldn't compare.
Ning Fa couldn't help but feel excited. Did this mean that when he cultivated other thunder-element spells, as long as he could master them to the Minor Accomplishment stage, they would also directly advance to the Paragon stage and he would obtain a Perfected Technique Seal?
This seemed very possible.
Ning Fa suppressed the excitement in his heart and gradually calmed down.
He then remembered that he had originally intended to break through the bottleneck of the middle stage of Qi Condensation. But looking at the situation, the Dharma power he cultivated through meditation was all refined into that silver Dharma power by the Thunder Rune Pattern.
Although the quality of this silver Dharma power was much stronger than before, its quantity had decreased.
This also seemed to mean that the threshold for him to break through the bottleneck had become much higher, requiring a certain amount of this refined silver Dharma power.
After all, his previous massive flow of Dharma power had only transformed into this small amount of silver Dharma power, with a conversion rate of less than ten to one.
Understanding this, Ning Fa did not feel dejected. Instead, his eyes gleamed with a strange light.
With his current spiritual energy perception, it seemed he wouldn't need too much time to cultivate and increase the quantity of silver Dharma power.
He even thought of taking large amounts of the Essence Replenishing Pills he refined to aid his cultivation, which should further shorten this time.
Thinking of this, Ning Fa couldn't help but burst into laughter, his voice echoing in the empty room.