Third Layer of Qi Refining

Hum! With a clear chime, Chen Zhuo activated a Golden Armor Talisman the moment he arrived in the ancient cultivation world. Then... Nothing happened. This time, he didn't encounter a soul. The grim old man's corpse was nowhere to be seen. All that remained were brownish bloodstains and a few torn scraps of clothing. It seemed wild beasts in the mountains had dragged the body off and devoured it. Remaining cautious and on high alert, Chen Zhuo pulled out his spiritual communication jade slip and whispered, "Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu, detect the surrounding spiritual energy levels!" This was a neat little exploit. His divine sense currently only reached a radius of five meters; anything beyond that was impossible to probe. However, using the jade slip's spiritual energy detection, any cultivator who hadn't concealed their aura would be picked up by Xiao Yu. "Hello, Cultivator! The current spiritual energy level ranges between 4.84 and 5.11. The spiritual energy is abundant, making this an excellent place for cultivation! You must be inside a premium spirit-gathering chamber, right? Haha, your immortal path potential is truly boundless!" So stated the locally deployed offline Xiao Yu. Seeing this, Chen Zhuo immediately relaxed. "The spiritual energy density in this ancient cultivation world is actually comparable to a premium spirit-gathering chamber?" Chen Zhuo let out a long sigh, feeling somewhat awestruck. A premium spirit-gathering chamber cost ten spirit coins an hour. No wonder he had broken through to the second layer of Qi Refining so quickly. If calculated by the spiritual energy costs of the Immortal Mansion world, merely cultivating here had already netted him hundreds, if not thousands, of spirit coins' worth of value! 'I've heard that ancient cultivators had very ordinary spiritual roots that never underwent proper maintenance. By modern standards, many people only had a spiritual energy perception value of 10, putting them in the category of inferior spiritual roots...' Chen Zhuo mused inwardly, 'My perception value is 19. While still called an inferior spiritual root, it's already close to low-grade. Even the best among those ancient cultivators—those with heavenly spiritual roots—only had perception values around 50...' A spiritual energy perception value between 10 and 19 was an inferior spiritual root; 20 to 29 was low-grade; and 30 to 39 was mid-grade. Only values between 40 and 60 counted as high-grade. Anything above 60 was classified as a supreme spiritual root! Ten thousand years ago, the threshold for a supreme spiritual root sat around 55 points. Yet through ten millennia of technological advancement, the cultivators of the Immortal Mansion had learned how to maintain and nurture spiritual roots to improve them. Nowadays, the possessor of the strongest spiritual root was the leader of the Immortal Mansion, Heavenly Lord Hunyuan Kaiji Chengzhen, who had reached the late Soul Formation stage. His spiritual energy perception value was an astonishing 94 points—the highest known spiritual root to date. 'So, my innate aptitude would actually count as a normal cultivator's in the ancient cultivation world...' Chen Zhuo could only comfort himself this way. An Ah Q mentality might be shameful, but it worked wonders. With that thought, Chen Zhuo took a deep breath, savoring the ambient spiritual energy, and couldn't help drifting into intoxicated bliss. "Now that hits the spot! This is real spiritual energy. This is real cultivation!" Over the past five days in the Immortal Mansion world, Chen Zhuo had pushed himself to the limit just to accumulate two strands of spiritual energy, which had nearly driven him mad with frustration. It wasn't like here, where he could forge a strand in just an hour or two! That was the difference! As he cultivated, Chen Zhuo quietly planned his next steps. By now, he was thoroughly familiar with the Changchun Art. He only needed to focus his mind whenever a major circulation cycle drew to a close; the rest could run almost entirely on instinct, leaving him free to contemplate other matters. For instance... A cultivator market: Yunjin Market! There had been several sheets of paper inside that grim old man's storage bag. At first, Chen Zhuo hadn't understood the writing on them. Only after returning to the Immortal Mansion and looking it up did he realize it was an ancient script. After learning a bit of it, combined with Xiao Yu's assistance, he had successfully cracked the mystery. It was the old man's cultivation technique, a manual known as the Cangming Embrace-Unity Classic. To be honest, Chen Zhuo had been startled at first. After all, with such a pretentious and grandiose name, it certainly sounded like an advanced method! Only later did Chen Zhuo realize that a fancy name didn't necessarily mean a high-grade technique. This so-called Cangming Embrace-Unity Classic was merely a low-grade technique meant for Qi Refining cultivators. It was water-aligned, and its cultivation speed fell short of even the Whale Swallowing Art (51st Edition) distributed for free by the Immortal Mansion. However, it did contain a few minor spells that pleasantly surprised Chen Zhuo. Among them were spells like the Soft Water Barrier and the Water Silk Bind. One was a protective barrier, and the other was a binding technique. The shield that had been shredded so easily by the Sword Qi Talisman earlier was precisely that spell. While it hadn't amounted to much, having it was still better than nothing. Even though Chen Zhuo possessed a single wood-aligned spiritual root, cultivators were never strictly confined to their affinity; as long as spiritual energy was present, any spell could be cast. It was just that without the corresponding spiritual root, casting it merely consumed spiritual power. In terms of sheer potency, it fell far short of someone casting the spell with a matched elemental root. Aside from the old man's cultivation manual, there was also a map. A map of this world! Chen Zhuo's spirits lifted! The map was marked with numerous danger zones and had likely been purchased by the old man somewhere else. It was covered in annotations and notes left by the old man, written using specific slang and shorthand. Because they were personal notes, Chen Zhuo couldn't decipher what some of them meant. However, he recognized several place names. Yunjin Market, Yaoguang Market, and Taixu Lesser Market! Within this mountain range lay three cultivator markets! There were also accompanying notes, such as an inscription beside all three reading 'Sheltered by the Qiwu Sword Sect.' The only issue now was that Chen Zhuo didn't know his exact coordinates. The map wasn't from a video game, after all; it wouldn't thoughtfully display a 'you are here' marker for its bearer. Still, based on the geographical descriptions in the notes and the old man's claim of hailing from Yunjin Market, Chen Zhuo could roughly deduce his current position. He was probably several dozen kilometers away from Yunjin Market. Chen Zhuo shook his head, setting the thought aside for now to pour all his energy into cultivating. The most pressing task before him was breaking through to the third layer of Qi Refining. As for Yunjin Market and the other markets, it wouldn't be too late to explore them once he had sufficient strength. Chen Zhuo sat cross-legged by the stream, steadying his breathing as he circulated the Changchun Art. Over the past five days, though Chen Zhuo hadn't taken any medicinal pills, he had eaten spiritual leopard meat every day, accumulating a substantial reservoir of vitality in his body. Now, guided by the ambient spiritual energy, that banked leopard meat energy erupted all at once. Boom! A muffled rumble echoed from within Chen Zhuo's body. Chen Zhuo snapped his eyes open, flashes of lightning flickering in his gaze, as if he had undergone a complete physical rebirth. "Third layer of Qi Refining—achieved!"