Time flew like a shuttle, the prime of life slipping easily away.
A backward glance revealed that an entire year had already elapsed.
Inside a warm and quiet meditation room, Luo Chen held his breath and focused his mind, fixing his attention unwaveringly on the vast expanse of his sea of qi.
A vortex was whirling at high speed.
As his spiritual sense withdrew, the vortex's rotation grew slower and slower.
He cautiously regulated the rhythm of pulling his spiritual sense away.
"If the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art is to reach minor mastery, it must be capable of revolving autonomously without the guidance of spiritual sense."
"Only then can it suppress the generation of pill toxins."
"It has taken a full year—success or failure hinges on today."
Thoughts flickering through his mind, he hesitated no longer and withdrew his spiritual sense entirely.
In that single instant, the vortex, which had grown exceedingly weak and slowed to an absolute crawl, stuttered.
It seemed on the verge of dissipating.
Hum!
As if accustomed to the vortex's presence in the sea of qi, just as it was about to break apart, a drop of pure spiritual liquid fell into it.
Right at that moment, the stalled vortex began to spin gently once more.
It drew the surrounding free-floating spiritual energy inside.
Witnessing this, Luo Chen finally let out a sigh of relief.
"It worked!"
"The Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art has attained minor mastery. From now on, I can resume consuming pills to cultivate."
He did not rush to test it with a pill.
He waited for this miniature vortex to finish stabilizing completely. At this moment, it was still newly born and exceptionally fragile.
With nothing pressing to do, Luo Chen called up his status panel.
[Lifespan: 36/165]
[Spiritual Roots: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth]
[Cultivation Realm: Foundation Establishment Layer Two 24/100]
[Cultivation Methods: Yimu Medicine King Scripture (Perfection 475/500), Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking (Grandmaster 501/1000), Myriad Beast Scripture (10/100)]
[Spells: Rank 2: Landslide (Adept 150/200), Glazed Sky Canopy (Adept 102/200)
Rank 1: Healing Art (Grandmaster 700/500), Earth Peak Technique (Perfection 450/500), Surging Waves Technique (Perfection 450/500), Sound Isolation Art (Perfection 351/500), Soul Deterrence Art (Expert 270/300), Great Perfection Spells (Click to view details)]
[Alchemy Arts: Folding Jade Hand (Great Perfection), Pure Heart Hand (Grandmaster 513/1000), Washing Brook Hand (Adept 170/200), Cloud Transforming Hand (Adept 141/200), Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art (Expert 201/300)]
[Martial Arts: Mountain-Cleaving Stele-Shattering Palm (Great Perfection), Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers (Perfection 400/500), Wang Clan Secret Manual (Entry 89/100)]
[Skills: Rank 2 Alchemist: Fasting Powder (Great Perfection), Myriad Wonders Pill (Great Perfection), Jade Marrow Pill (Great Perfection), Blood Burning Pill (Expert 204/300), Nether-Passage Pill (Adept 107/200), Emperor's Flowing Syrup (Entry 3/100)]
[Achievement Points: 10]
Glancing at his lifespan, he saw he was thirty-six years old, as expected.
Just as Luo Chen was about to look at the next entry, his gaze froze.
"160 to 165..."
"My maximum lifespan increased by five years?"
"Strange, I haven't broken through to a new realm, have I?"
Amidst his bewilderment, an understanding suddenly dawned on him.
Of course!
It had to be the chain reaction triggered by the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art reaching the Expert tier of proficiency—minor mastery.
The sea of qi brooks no defilement, nor the Dao Foundation any stain.
All return to dust, sooner or later; to purge toxins, seek the clear source.
This alchemy technique was far more than a simple method for neutralizing pill toxins.
Accumulated over days and months of practice, it actively expelled impurities from the physical body, rendering the cultivator's physique progressively purer and cleaner.
It faintly pointed toward the concept of an untainted, immaculate vessel.
Naturally, with a healthier body, he could live several years longer.
Luo Chen could not help smiling.
This alchemy art was quite good. By clearing toxins and nourishing vitality, it had visibly improved his skin over the past year.
When he was younger, refining pills day after day before a stove fire had given him a ruddy complexion.
Now, describing him as having skin smooth as jade and a fine, delicate complexion was by no means an exaggeration.
Then again, as a man, he did not care overly much about appearances.
Luo Chen chuckled and shifted his attention to his cultivation realm.
In a year, the progress bar for Foundation Establishment Layer Two had only advanced by twenty-two points, reaching 24/100.
To be frank, this pace was exceedingly slow.
Even though he had not taken any pills to boost his cultivation, he had diligently applied himself every single day without interruption, persisting with the Yimu Medicine King Scripture.
In fact, his proficiency in the Yimu Medicine King Scripture was already on the verge of grinding up to Grandmaster.
In other words, without pills, breaking through to Foundation Establishment Layer Three would take at least another four years.
And one had to remember, this was while he occupied a cave dwelling atop a Rank 2 spirit vein!
"This is only the early Foundation Establishment stage, which should be the easiest and fastest period for progression."
"If it's already like this, then once I reach the late stage..."
Luo Chen remembered with stark clarity that during Qi Refinement, the early and middle stages were counted in months.
Upon entering the late Qi Refinement stage, the time multiplied tenfold, counted in years.
The spiritual energy demanded during Foundation Establishment would only dwarf that of Qi Refinement.
By then, it would no longer be a matter of ten times.
It would be a hundredfold, a thousandfold!
Pursing his lips, the joy from his increased lifespan cap gradually subsided.
At the very least, everything was advancing in the right direction!
As for cultivation methods, there was not much to dissect.
He had long figured out that circulating the Yimu Medicine King Scripture twenty times barely earned him a single point of proficiency.
He was still twenty-five points away from Grandmaster, which translated to five hundred full circulations. With all his might, he could circulate it five times a day.
"A hundred days, then?"
Murmuring to himself, Luo Chen turned his attention to another technique.
Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking!
Grandmaster tier!
The earthfire fiend energy extracted from Mount Xiaohuan had been exhausted long ago.
To continue cultivating it later on, he had sent people into Tianlan Immortal City to purchase another batch of earthfire fiend energy, finally grinding his way to Grandmaster through persistent, meticulous effort.
And Grandmaster Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking had delivered an immense surprise.
With a thought, his spiritual sense radiated outward before abruptly snapping back.
It coalesced into a thin, film-like membrane that wrapped tightly around his sea of consciousness.
It vaguely seemed to establish a defensive mechanism.
Relinquishing his control, his spiritual sense gradually receded into his sea of consciousness.
Luo Chen let out a long breath.
At Grandmaster level, Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking did not develop an offensive technique, but rather a defensive one.
He could sense that beneath that golden membrane of spiritual sense, he could withstand spiritual sense attacks from the outside world.
"Could this shift have originated from Wang Yuan's body refinement manual?"
Under the martial arts column, an additional entry had indeed appeared.
Wang Clan Secret Manual.
Over the past year, Luo Chen had concentrated on cultivating the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art.
Yet that did not mean he had neglected everything else.
Aside from his routine cultivation, whenever he had a spare moment, he practiced a boxing set recorded in the manual Wang Yuan had gifted him.
It took little time anyway—whenever he grew stiff from long hours of meditation, he would stand up to stretch his limbs and run through a set.
This boxing routine was renowned neither for tempering the physique nor for its strikes.
Instead, it emphasized preservation of health and defense.
It integrated elements of willpower and soul, requiring that each move and stance extend one's intent alongside the body.
Over time, it had left Luo Chen feeling considerably more energized every day.
He had not expected that once Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking reached Grandmaster, it would also form a golden defensive film.
"Perhaps I can study it further and solidify this golden film of spiritual sense, wrapping it permanently outside my sea of consciousness."
Luo Chen knew all too well that soul attacks were forever the most perilous and extreme form of assault.
A single strike invariably brought injury or death!
Back when Gao Tingyuan cast the Soul Deterrence Art against him only to suffer backlash, it had served as a prime example.
Defending against soul attacks was extraordinarily difficult; usually, one could only endure them by sheer grit.
There was practically no such thing as the weak overcoming the strong.
If your soul's foundation was deeper than your opponent's, you could endure it.
If not, you would be wounded.
Furthermore, even if one endured it, there could still be a momentary stiffness or pause,
thereby exposing a fatal vulnerability in battle.
It was decided: his cultivation of Bright Spirit Fiend Breaking could not stop!
"The fiend energy on hand is running low; I need to buy more."
His gaze slid downward.
It came to the spells column.
There was no need to look over the Rank 1 spells; the main ones were the two Rank 2 spells.
Landslide and Glazed Sky Canopy had both reached the Adept tier.
This was good news,
yet Luo Chen was not overly attached.
The shortcomings of such large-scale spells were always painfully evident.
The familiar issue of spiritual power consumption was one thing; the casting time was another.
Unless they could be brought to the level of instant casting like the Fireball Art—allowing the fused Blazing Sun Art to be unleashed swiftly as well—
only then could they truly be relied upon against enemies.
Luo Chen practiced these two spells primarily because he recognized their potential.
"Step by step!"
Muttering to himself, Luo Chen scanned the assorted entries across his status panel.
His eyes skimmed through the lines and paused at the pills section.
The Blood Burning Pill and Nether-Passage Pill had also reached Adept tier.
This was due to the few batches of pills he had refined during spare moments over the past year.
At present, he had no use for these two pills himself.
However, the Blood Burning Pill genuinely boosted a cultivator's instantaneous combat strength.
Competition in Tianlan Immortal City was fierce, and fighting could erupt at any moment.
These Blood Burning Pills were trump cards he prepared for the upper echelon of the Luotian Association, and even for late Qi Refinement cultivators.
Facts had proven that Blood Burning Pills were exceptionally effective in low-tier battles.
Back during the Battle of Mount Xiaohuan, the Luotian Association had managed to keep casualties to a minimum precisely because of Blood Burning Pills.
Afterward, because Luo Chen needed to prepare for his breakthrough to Foundation Establishment, he had hardly refined any.
As a result, during the Battle of Gaoling Plain, the Luotian Association suffered its heaviest losses since its founding.
Out of over three hundred people, only around a hundred and fifty survived in the end.
Even his good friend Zeng Wen had been left there forever.
Had they possessed a supply of Blood Burning Pills at the time, at least several dozen more people might have survived!
With that cautionary lesson before him, Luo Chen would rather invest a bit of time.
As for the Nether-Passage Pill, it was a Foundation Establishment spirit medicine prepared for those few cultivators in the Luotian Association who were nearing Qi Refinement Great Perfection.
Moreover, he wanted to know whether, now that he was in Foundation Establishment, ordinary Nether-Passage Pills would still have any effect on him.
If low grade would not do, what about middle grade? High grade? Or even peak grade Nether-Passage Pills?
Compared to peak grade Myriad Wonders Pills and peak grade Jade Marrow Pills, both of which were of little use to Luo Chen, if peak grade Nether-Passage Pills proved effective, he would willingly pay a high price to refine them.
Spirit medicines capable of augmenting the soul's foundation were simply too rare!
And in the process of grinding toward peak grade Nether-Passage Pills, the excess lower-grade ones would certainly not go to waste.
Luo Chen understood intimately what tremendous advantages a robust soul foundation offered when attempting to establish a foundation.
In fact, they would not even require many Nether-Passage Pills.
A small batch of pills would grant Duan Feng and the others a slightly higher chance when attempting Foundation Establishment.
"The achievement points have reached ten again."
Looking at those ten achievement points, ripples stirred in Luo Chen's heart.
Having reached Foundation Establishment, he could expend standard achievement points to achieve entry-level mastery in corresponding Rank 2 cultivation methods, spells, and even pill recipes.
He had no cultivation methods requiring entry.
In spells, he possessed exceptional natural aptitude.
In other words, all his achievement points were effectively reserved for pill recipes.
And as for recipes?
With a thought, two pill recipes appeared in his hands.
One was of beast hide, recording the Blood Fiend Pill.
The other was of bamboo slips, recording the Jade Dew Pill.
"Originally, I should have used them to learn the Blood Fiend Pill; that was my promise to Wang Yuan."
"Yet I have studied this recipe for years, even deducing the Blood Burning Pill from it."
"There is no need for achievement points. Give me a little more time, and I will be able to grasp it fully on my own."
The present Luo Chen had already developed considerable confidence in the Dao of alchemy.
If it were an unfamiliar recipe, he might still be at a loss to gain entry quickly.
However, having held the Blood Fiend Pill recipe for so many years, he had already unraveled seven or eight parts out of ten.
Furthermore, refining this pill had never been a matter of technical difficulty.
The true hurdle lay in the primary ingredients.
Therefore, he preferred to save these achievement points.
"The Jade Dew Pill..."
Murmuring, Luo Chen recalled the effects of the Jade Dew Pill in his mind.
It possessed miraculous efficacy for female cultivators, particularly those practicing water or ice-attribute cultivation methods.
Its efficacy vastly outstripped conventional cultivation pills.
This was not merely what the recipe claimed!
The Jade Dew Pill was widely popular in another grand domain, its effects long known to the world.
It was only because of the vast distance, coupled with the difficulty of refining it, that so few circulated in the Jade Cauldron Domain.
"If I can refine it, it will undoubtedly become an immense source of wealth!"
"However, doing so could easily invite the covetous eyes of major factions, so I must weigh it carefully."
"If Jade Marrow Pills can generate enough wealth, there is no hurry to refine the Jade Dew Pill."
Pondering these matters, Luo Chen gradually reached a decision.
He planned to emerge from seclusion tomorrow and visit the Luotian Association to see the results of Gu Caiyi's market investigation.
A year had passed!
That batch of Jade Marrow Pills should have been sufficient to gather comprehensive market feedback.
Time ticked away.
After Luo Chen finished taking stock of his current attributes, morning had already arrived.
By this point, the tiny vortex within his sea of qi had finally stabilized completely.
Even if it lacked the vigor of active execution, it was nonetheless operating on its own.
This meant that whenever he consumed a pill, the medicinal power would first enter the vortex to be broken down.
With a flick of Luo Chen's mind, two pill bottles appeared in his hand.
One was the Soaring Dragon Pill, refined by Azure Pill Valley at the three-turn level, ranking at low grade.
The other was the Qi Harmonizing Pill, refined by the Medicine King Sect and sold exclusively by the Spirit Herb Pavilion.
Its quality went without saying—naturally low grade as well.
These major sects seemed to sell only low-grade pills to outsiders, and at exorbitant prices.
Apart from auctions, middle- and high-grade pills were rarely ever sold to rogue cultivators.
The name 'Qi Harmonizing Pill' was simple and unadorned, sharing a similar style with the naming of the Qi-Nourishing Pill and the Dust Transforming Pill.
"Next, I must test the effects of ingesting Foundation Establishment pills."
"Spiritual power conversion, consumption frequency, and the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art's capacity to suppress and purge pill toxins."
"Through these experiments, I will clarify the broad direction of my cultivation."
Luo Chen selected the Qi Harmonizing Pill first.
As a specialty of the Medicine King Sect, its quality was certainly guaranteed if nothing else.
The bottle in his hand contained the standard count of ten pills.
Purchased from the Spirit Herb Pavilion, its current market price had already climbed to six hundred low-grade spirit stones a bottle.
It was truly outrageously expensive.
Though costly in the past, at four to five hundred spirit stones a bottle, it had at least remained within a reasonable range.
"With the war dragging on, not only do artifact prices stay inflated, but various cultivation resources have also grown increasingly steep."
"Sigh, who knows when it will end."
Luo Chen sighed wistfully and popped a Qi Harmonizing Pill into his mouth.
The moment it passed his lips, the Yimu Medicine King Scripture began operating at full power.
Spiritual power coursed through designated meridians and acupoints across his body, guiding the Qi Harmonizing Pill down into his stomach.
In the past, the pill would have burst open at this stage, its vast medicinal potency channeled by the cultivation method like small streams merging into a mighty river, entering the dantian's sea of qi to become part of the cultivator's spiritual power.
In between lay a process of digestion, release, conversion, purification, and eventual integration.
This time, however, that immense surge of medicinal potency did not immediately merge upon entering the sea of qi under the circulation of the Yimu Medicine King Scripture.
Instead, it was led directly beside the vortex formed by the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art.
"No wonder it has to reach minor mastery to be effective."
"Cultivators can generally run only one cultivation method at a time, and when ingesting pills, most choose their core method. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to multitask with another art to neutralize pill toxins."
"Over time, the toxins accumulate."
"Yet once the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art attains minor mastery, it can operate autonomously."
Under Luo Chen's rapt attention, the vast medicinal power carried by the Qi Harmonizing Pill entered the vortex.
For a brief instant, the vortex nearly collapsed.
However, supported by the surrounding spiritual power so pure it had condensed into liquid, it managed to hold steady.
The medicinal potency entered the vortex and spun rapidly.
Wave after wave of bountiful medicinal power transformed into spiritual energy, spiraling outward to merge into Luo Chen's own spiritual power.
And during this very process, imperceptible wisps of grayish-black residue were flung outside the sea of qi from above.
Luo Chen watched the refinement process of the pill attentively until it concluded.
Opening his eyes, Luo Chen lifted his robe and touched his navel.
Faintly, there was a damp sensation, as though from sweat.
"Is this the manifestation of suppressing pill toxins?"
Casually casting a Cleansing Art to restore himself to a clean, refreshed state, Luo Chen let out a massive breath of relief.
Now, he could finally rely on pills to cultivate.
Even though the vortex formed by the Clear Source Wondrous Elixir Art was not as potent as active channeling, it could already suppress the generation of a vast amount of new pill toxins.
Whatever little remained could be completely purged over time later on.
"Only because my talent in spell arts is extraordinary was I able to reach this stage in one year; anyone else would have required several years at least."
"And achieving major mastery would be even further out of reach."
After marveling for a moment, Luo Chen began estimating how much spiritual energy a single Qi Harmonizing Pill had added.
Anyone else might only obtain a rough estimate.
Yet he possessed a system.
The status panel quantified it with precision.
Calling up the status panel again, his eyes fell upon the cultivation realm entry.
[Foundation Establishment Layer Two 24/100]
"No change?"
"Could the medicinal power of one Qi Harmonizing Pill be insufficient to advance progress by even a single point?"
Luo Chen's eyes flickered, and he already had a plan in mind.
He would spend more time in the days ahead to experiment and systematically map it out!
Chapter 233