Chapter 97 – Is This My Spirit Sea?
Third grade foundation stage pills, even if cultivators had swelled like an elm tree or were absolute dregs, as long as they could reach the peak qi layer and take a third grade foundation stage pill, they would surely be able to reach the foundation stage.
Shen Da and the other three had already reached sixth qi layer in these ten years with the occasional guidance of Yang Chen. From the third qi layer to sixth qi layer, could be considered as a good cultivation speed. Possibly their comprehension was weak previously, or maybe their luck was not that good and they couldn’t keep up with people who had passed on or maybe they didn’t even try their hardest, and had thus fallen to become servants.
During these ten years, Yang Chen had observed these four with the help of other people. They were already unswerving towards Yang Chen, even when Chu Heng had done his utmost to deal with Yang Chen, they still hadn’t betrayed him. Therefore, this was their deserved reward.
“Thank you, Young Master!”
All four of them were perplexed and directly fell to their knees, deeply bowing towards Yang Chen. Yang Chen was not only helping them with their cultivation, but also opening a path for them to join the ranks of the inner disciples. As long as they reached the foundation stage, they would not have to bear the identity of servants, but could be inner disciples of Pure Yang Palace. This kind of change, how could it not move them to tears? The four people even vowed in their hearts, that in the future, even if they became inner disciples, they would still regard Yang Chen as their master.
“But first find the things I need!”
Yang Chen did not say anything about the appreciation shown by these four and also didn’t pay much attention to their secret vow, he only smiled and urged them on:
“When cultivating, don’t try to flaunt and don’t try to run before you can walk. Now go!”
The four people didn’t dare to be neglectful: they got up at lightning speed and began to rush to do their tasks. Within a day, all of the materials that Yang Chen needed were in front of him.
Ho Lin sat on the side, attentively watching Yang Chen’s every movement and looking at the flame moving in the Profound Spirit Furnace. Yang Chen had specifically instructed her to do so, as for how much she could comprehend, that would depend on her own perception. One could refine a yang qi pill as long as one had cultivated to the third qi layer, but a third grade yang qi pill was not something that third grade pill masters were willing to refine.
Yang Chen’s movements were very quick but very clear, mostly because they were specifically for Ho Lin, so even the process of the flames purifying the herbs was extremely clear. His technique was not very complex, but it gave off an unexplainable sensation, Ho Lin only looked at it for a moment and was immediately immersed by it.
A third grade yang qi pill was much better compared to a yuan cultivation pill in terms of results. A third grade yang qi pill was enough to fulfill Gongsun Ling’s Spirit Power requirements for half a day. Adding onto that the abundant spiritual influence of the Immortal Falling Well, Gongsun Ling would absolutely not have any problems regarding a lack of Spirit Power.
As Gongsun Ling was going to stay in the Immortal Falling Well for around ten years, Yang Chen had refined seven thousand yang qi pills for her. In the radius of two thousand miles, all of the ingredients required for yang qi pills had been purchased, leaving none behind. Even those people who were in the business of buying and selling ingredients and herbs had begun to hoard these low grade ingredients.
Apart from the yang qi pills, Yang Chen still refined a hundred yuan cultivation pills, which were also at the third grade. Every one of those could be used at a time of injury to recover Spirit Power and to restore injuries, but this was just to be prepared for any eventualities.
Safety issues were still the main concern, but Yang Chen had obtained a fire jade belt from that unknown person who had chased him on his way to the Immortal Falling Well. After Yang Chen had used the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets and the Earth Fiend Sacrificial Formation Secrets to refine it by a few layers, he erased his own spiritual awareness from it.
This belt already had the defensive power to protect from attacks of an initial JieDan stage cultivator, but after being refined by Yang Chen for a few times, it could endure the attacks from a mid JieDan stage cultivator.
He did not prepare anything more. Firstly, Gongsun Ling would not accept it and secondly, she was going to the Immortal Falling Well to train herself. If her defense was too excessive, the original intention of training and gaining experience would be lost.
After two months, Gongsun Ling held on to these things. When Yang Chen had given them to her, Gongsun Ling hadn’t declined and only looked at Yang Chen with multiple emotions. Afterwards she silently received these and properly bidding farewell to Yang Chen, she stepped on her flying sword and controlled it to move towards the Immortal Falling Well.
During these two months of refining, Ho Lin had carefully observed everything from the beginning to the end for two whole months. After sending off Gongsun Ling, Yang Chen began to instruct Ho Lin to refine the xun qi pill. This kind of low level pill completely depended on the ability to manipulate flames. The ingredients were very low levelled, already unsuitable for Yang Chen to spend his time to refine them.
Ho Lin had already practiced her control over flames for more than nine years and although there was still a great disparity compared to Yang Chen, she had already reached the level to satisfy the requirements for the xun qi pill. Within a few days, Ho Lin had already grasped the technique to refine the xun qi pill and began to set dates with the Medicine Hall to refine the xun qi pill and at the same time earned a large number of sect’s contribution points and Spirit Stones.
Gao Yue was still in the process of comprehending her insights, it seemed that her cultivation would increase again. Yang Chen did not disturb her and after exchanging greetings with everyone, she began her closed door training again.
This time, Yang Chen was planning to attack the first wood Spirit Power foundation stage bottleneck. During the time he was refining pills for Gongsun Ling, apart from mechanically refining pills, Yang Chen didn’t stay idle and pondered over the possibility of adding the Penglai Divine Wood branches into the foundation stage pill. If other people knew that Yang Chen, while refining third grade pills, was still pondering over other things, it would surely make them go mad.
Yang Chen had already thought of the method to blend the Penglai Divine Wood’s first wood Spirit Power with the foundation stage pill. The branches and tree leaves of the Penglai Divine Wood were not suitable for making elixirs, but could be used to refine tools, while the most suitable part to be used in medicine were the roots. After he determined this, the number of tests Yang Chen needed would reduce greatly. He only needed to test for a few crucial points, even if it failed, the resulting objects would still be things which people would drool over, so it wouldn’t just be wasted.
Taking four small roots of the Penglai Divine Wood branches, Yang Chen began to refine the third grade pill. The four roots were to be added at four crucial points at the time of refining the foundation stage pill. These were the possibilities Yang Chen had come up with after doing tens of thousands of simulations in his mind.
The thousand year matured Profound Yang Fruit were in fact matured for over one thousand three hundred years, adding in the other ingredients, which were all excellent ingredients with a maturity of over a thousand years or higher, this furnace of pills, even the leftover ashes, were rare objects.
In accordance with the method of making the foundation stage pill, these ingredients were added into the Profound Spirit Furnace and the Geocentric Flame began to purify them. When all of the ingredients had turned into a liquid and had been mixed, Yang Chen added the first root. Just as he added the root, Yang Chen immediately discovered a frightening problem.
The geocentric fire was surprisingly unable to quickly refine the Penglai Divine Wood.
Although, according the concept of the five phases rousing each other, wood gave birth to fire, the Penglai Divine Wood was very high grade and the Geocentric Flame could not match up to it.
Yang Chen was now very glad that he had spent a year to allow the Profound Spirit Furnace to absorb the Real Sun Fire, so now it could be used immediately.
If it were some other person, even the original master of the Real Sun Fire, He LianYun, if the Real Sun Fire were meeting an object like a piece of Penglai Divine Wood, which could rouse other phases, it would have lead to the Penglai Divine Wood directly being burned to ashes, leaving nothing behind. But in his previous life, Yang Chen was the master of the Real Sun Fire, so he was more familiar with the flame than any other person in the mortal world. Only a trace of the extremely fine thread of fire could have directly penetrated through the small root of the Penglai Divine Wood.
On one side he had put his mind to controlling that melted medicinal liquid, on the other side he was also controlling this trace of flame to refine the roots. Fortunately Yang Chen’s Spiritual Awareness right now was very powerful. The three purities secrets were not only making Yang Chen’s Spiritual Awareness become ever more powerful, but were also allowing Yang Chen to put his mind to two things, allowing him to accomplish these things effortlessly.
After spending a lot of time, that one root was finally refined, blending in with the liquid of the foundation stage pill. No mistakes had appeared during the process, which had already been simulated tens of thousands of times, and after one month, the medicinal liquid successfully revealed a shallow, green colored pill.
This third grade foundation stage pill was completely different from ordinary foundation stage pills. The hint of wood attributed Spirit Power was very obvious on the outside. This was the first pill Yang Chen had tested and although it was successful, Yang Chen still wanted to compare it with a few other test results, to have a look which one had the best results.
Very quickly four months had passed and within Yang Chen’s Achievement Ring, there were now four green foundation stage pills. Currently these four pills were arranged in a row in front of Yang Chen, with their colors ranging from a shallow green to a dark green, revealing the degree of wood attributed Spirit Power they contained, depending on the color.
The four roots were added at different times and had produced four different types of results, but the most shocking thing was, that Yang Chen had refined these four foundation stage pills in four tries. In other words, his success rate for refining third grade foundation stage pills was a hundred percent.
Refining a foundation stage pill was not a very difficult matter for a high grade pill concocting master, but a third grade foundation stage pill was not something that even a third grade pill concocting master could refine successfully in every try. That Yang Chen had accomplished this would be enough to make people like the YuanYing stage experts, Deng Yi and Zhu Peng feel inferior.
Yang Chen needed to penetrate the pills with his Spiritual Awareness to determine the difference in Spirit Power between these foundation stage pills. But when he wrapped up the pills in his Spiritual Awareness, his consciousness all of a sudden appeared within his spirit sea and in front of him were four enormous, green balls.
Yang Chen had absolutely not expected that he would come into the spirit sea at this kind of time, but when he saw the four huge, green balls, he could not help but let his mouth fall open because of the shock and amazement. Where were these four balls? They were clearly the four foundation stage pills, magnified to this extent and the volume of every pill appeared to be several times more than Yang Chen had wanted.
What made him even more delighted that he could look at any part inside of these four balls, no spot was hidden from his sight. The structure of these four pills, their composition, the distribution of Spirit Power, even the few defects within the pills, at this moment, nothing was hidden from Yang Chen and everything was laid out in front of him.
‘Could this be an effect of the three purities secrets?’
Yang Chen did not dare to be sure of any reason why his spirit sea had turned out like this, he was completely unable to understand this. Although in his previous life, he was a great principal golden immortal, he was the lowest level great principal golden immortal and his spirit sea was merely a simple spirit sea, without anything inside. Not to mention the different layers of his spirit sea, he would not even have been able to see the composition of these foundation stage pills.
But regardless of what was said, this was not a bad thing for Yang Chen. To be able to able to analyze these foundation stage pills so clearly, their structure, their composition, their distribution of Spirit Power and even their defects, what more could a pill concocting master want? This was simply a well tailored gift for Yang Chen! It would definitely make other pill concocting masters go green with envy.
Whatever the reason was for the spirit sea being like this, Yang Chen immediately gave up on analyzing these four foundation stage pills and retreated from the spirit sea. After coming out, he immediately began to repeat the contents of the three purities secret from his memory, as he knew that the most probable reason for this was precisely the three purities secret.
Very quickly Yang Chen discovered the origin of this effect: the three purities secrets were able to constantly increase the Spiritual Awareness of cultivators. Compared to other cultivation method for Spiritual Awareness, they were a lot stronger, but usually, after cultivating for a long time, cultivators would divide their Spiritual Awareness after it had reached a realm, higher than their own.
After the Spiritual Awareness was divided, it meant the appearance of a second primordial spirit, but usually for this kind of condition, it required a cultivation of at least the YuanYing stage. Because the murderous spirit of the XianTai Stage had been refined by the three purities secret into a large amount of Spirit Power, Yang Chen had attained this condition long ago, but since his cultivation was very low, he hadn’t been able to divide his Spiritual Awareness to form a primordial spirit. Currently his Spiritual Awareness had already reached the peak of the JieDan stage, but his cultivation was only at the initial foundation stage. This huge difference of almost two realms had led to the appearance of this situation, which was not recorded within the three purities secret.
This is a kind of qualitative change, triggered by the quantitative change was a pleasant accident and at the same time it signified that Yang Chen had finally reached the third layer cultivation method of the three purities secrets. Even if the Greatest Supreme Elder was present at that moment, he would also have admired that lucky opportunity which Yang Chen had received.
Since it was such a good thing, Yang Chen naturally did not hesitate to cultivate the third layer of the three purities secrets. That sensation of the Spiritual Awareness being refined gave Yang Chen some anguish, but then that familiar, pleasurable feeling appeared again. Just using it once, Yang Chen was able to sense that his spirit sea had become even more refined, it truly was the Greatest Supreme Elder’s cultivation method, powerful to the extreme.
The four foundation stage pills in front of him, had not entered his spirit sea before, with just one look within the spirit sea, Yang Chen had determined that these were merely the projections of those foundation stage pills, after they had been scanned by his Spiritual Awareness. Once he entered the spirit sea, Yang Chen had already experimented with the method for coming out, the size of the pills changed according to Yang Chen’s wishes, allowing him to see their inside composition even more easily.
Within the spirit sea, Yang Chen could cover everything at a single glance. The four pills were being thoroughly analyzed by Yang Chen to the utmost: where was the heat control imperfect, when was there a deficiency in the ingredients being added, in a pill that Yang Chen had previously believed to be perfect, he found more than ten defects.
Naturally, he also found the most perfect pill he wanted. But these were not the pills which Yang Chen was going to use immediately, rather, according to the method of refining this foundation stage pill, he would have to replace the minor root of the Penglai Divine Wood with the main root and refine it again.