Chapter 41: Chapter 41: Qi Refining Fourth Layer (Please collect) _1 Chapter 41: Chapter 41: Qi Refining Fourth Layer (Please collect) _1 The next day.
Inside the cellar of the thatched cottage.
Fang Xi sat cross-legged, looking at a small obsidian bottle in his hand.
This was a bottle of ‘Wood Origin Pill,’ suitable for Qi Refining early and middle stage cultivators who practiced wooden element cultivation to enhance their cultivation base, and it also had a slight effect of stimulating breakthroughs at bottlenecks.
“Di Qi is quite trustworthy, but a whole monster beast’s meat and bones only sold for twenty Spirit Stones, a bit of a loss… This man must have skimmed a good amount off the top…”
This was within Fang Xi’s expectations. To avoid hassle and complete the trade quickly was what he wanted.
After all, he didn’t have much time here.
In Great Liang, Fang Xi had left the caravan behind on the pretext of wanting to act alone.
Anyway, the caravan traveled slowly, and with his movement speed, he could catch up in just a few hours over a two or three days’ journey.
If he couldn’t catch up… well, then he wouldn’t! As far as he was concerned, he had done his due diligence.
“It’s a pity I can’t go to the Hundred Tricks Tower, and I can’t sell Taisui Meat anymore… After I hunt monster beasts next time, I should disguise myself as an individual cultivator and sell the meat at the market…”
“Compared to Di Qi, the Pill Furnace Pavilion is the real rip-off! A bottle of pills for thirty Spirit Stones… I even had to add extra…”
Thinking of the various pills in the Pill Furnace Pavilion and their steep prices, Fang Xi couldn’t help the urge to grit his teeth and gasp in frustration.
Was it easy for him to be a transporter between two realms? In the end, all the profits were being monopolized by those guys!
“Sigh… Look on the bright side, cultivation is everything.”
Fang Xi calmed himself and poured out a ‘Wood Origin Pill’ from the obsidian bottle.
The pill was bright green, but it smelled slightly spicy.
He thought for a moment, then swallowed it directly, closing his eyes to refine it.
Before long, Fang Xi’s expression shifted as he felt a vast and gentle spiritual energy explode within his Dantian Qi Ocean, stimulating the incipient movements of the Eternal Spring Skills.
He involuntarily began to practice the third layer of the Eternal Spring Skills, over and over again.
By the time Fang Xi came to his senses, he had practiced the spell for a full three hours without realizing it.
After introspecting, a look of joy immediately spread across his face, “I’ve actually reached the peak of the Qi Refining third layer! It wasn’t easy…”
Heaven knows, when he transmigrated, he was already at the third layer of Qi Refining, and after more than a year, he still hadn’t reached the top!
Now, he had finally cultivated this layer of the spell to its peak and could charge at the bottleneck of the middle stage of Qi Refining!
“The power of the pill, not bad!”
Fang Xi stroked the obsidian bottle happily. There were still two ‘Wood Origin Pills’ inside it, which should be enough for him to break through the middle-stage bottleneck of Qi Refining!
“Indeed, stupidly sitting and cultivating is just foolish—popping pills is the true path to power!”
“Moreover, these Spiritual Pills inherently contain spiritual energy, and swallowing them mainly involves refining the spiritual energy and medicinal properties within the pills to cultivate. Thus, even in Great Liang, I could still make progress in my cultivation…”
Fang Xi for a moment wanted to immediately return to Great Liang and start catching monster beasts in a big way, then trade them for pills to cultivate.
But soon, he dismissed this rash idea!
Advancing too quickly in cultivation could easily result in an unstable foundation!
Moreover, the pills suitable for enhancing magic power and breaking through bottlenecks in the middle and late stages of Qi Refining were even more expensive!
Not to mention, taking a large number of pills could lead to pill poison, definitely affecting the breakthrough of subsequent major realms!
“Selling a large amount of monster beast meat, not to mention the possibility of depressing the market and making it not worth the loss, could also easily expose myself…”
“I need to be steady. I’m only seventeen, almost eighteen… No rush, no rush…”
Fang Xi looked at the Wood Origin Pill in his hand and fell into deep thought.
A day later.
Fang Xi walked out of the thatched cottage with a touch of frustration on his face.
He had originally thought that after taking another Wood Origin Pill, he would break through the bottleneck.
But he hadn’t expected that one pill wasn’t enough for him. After taking the last Wood Origin Pill, he barely managed to break through the bottleneck of the Qi Refining fourth layer, becoming a mid-stage Qi Refining fourth layer cultivator.
“Talents!”
Fang Xi faintly felt that the low-grade Spiritual Root was going to become an increasingly significant obstacle on his path to longevity.
It was still manageable during the Qi Refining Stage, where various pills to enhance magic power are rare but can always be bought if one is willing to spend Spirit Stones.
However, the pills needed by Foundation Establishment cultivators to enhance magic power could only be found at the Green Bamboo Mountain Market’s auction held once every ten years.
Not to mention, once reaching the Core Formation level, both the pill recipes and hundreds-year-old spirit medicines would become incredibly scarce and rare.
To rely completely on the power of pills to surge upward, even without pill poison, was simply unrealistic!
“Spiritual Root… Spiritual Root… I wonder if there’s a way to improve the Spiritual Root?”
Fang Xi fell into contemplation.
According to the theory of Spiritual Roots in the Cultivation World, every cultivator with a Spiritual Root must inherently possess all Five Elements, only that one or several Spiritual Roots are more prominent, with the longest board determining the cultivator’s talent.
Fang Xi himself had a lower-grade Wooden Spiritual Root, indicating that among his Five Elements Spiritual Roots, the Wooden Element was the strongest, but it also only reached the level of a lower grade Spiritual Root.
Above the lower grade, there are middle and upper grade Spiritual Roots, and even the legendary Earth and Heavenly Spiritual Roots—these are fabled to exist, and once they appear, they will inevitably cause super sects to compete for these Core Formation Seeds, the reservists for future powerhouses!
“But… I have never heard of a method to enhance a Spiritual Root? Perhaps that is because my previous incarnation was of too low a cultivation and lacked sufficient knowledge?”
“If Spiritual Roots could be improved postnatally, why would sects bother recruiting disciples with excellent Spiritual Roots? So even if there is a way, the cost must be immense…”
“Sigh… One word, difficult!”
Fang Xi silently worried about his Taoist Path.
He walked to the center of the courtyard, and suddenly, a small seed appeared in his hand.
This was Iron Luo Grass seed, a common weed he had casually collected while working as a Spirit Farmer here.
This kind of weed has no real use, just extremely tough, comparable to steel.
Fang Xi took out these seeds, but it was for the practice of magic spells!
After his cultivation reached the mid-Qi Refining Stage, he finally could move beyond the embarrassment of only knowing how to use the Spirit Farmer’s weed removal and rain-casting spells during the early stage of Qi Refining, and began to practice mid-grade Level 1 spells!
The spell he was about to practice was called ‘Entanglement Skills,’ a minor spell recorded in the ‘Eternal Spring Skills’ cultivation technique.
Its main purpose was to use magic power to grow the seeds into vines that could entangle and bind the enemy!
Average spells from an average cultivation technique… That was all the power one could expect.
As Fang Xi recited the incantation from memory, he used his magic power and threw out the seeds.
Pop!
The seeds fell to the ground and remained still for a long time…
“The spell failed…”
Fang Xi sighed.
On the path of cultivation, he had never been any kind of genius.
Fortunately, the casting of spells could be perfected through repeated practice.
Fang Xi was not in a hurry for actual combat, so he could afford to recite the incantation slowly and perform the hand gestures for the spell the same way to lower the difficulty.
After half a day.
Accompanied by a series of complicated and tongue-twisting syllables, Fang Xi formed a hand seal and threw out the seeds of the Iron Luo Grass.
“Eternal Spring commands, all woods to grow!”
The next instant, Fang Xi felt the magic power inside his body like a dam that had suddenly opened, pouring out in an instant!
The Iron Luo Grass seeds on the ground burst open swiftly, shooting out dark, meter-long leaves with sharp serrated edges and wrapping around a wooden post.
Crack! Crack!
The Iron Luo Grass, like a giant python, kept tightening its coils, and the wooden post shattered in moments, sending wood chips flying everywhere.
“This power… it’s just okay, I guess.”
“At the critical moment, I still have to rely on my fists!”
Seeing this, Fang Xi felt not so much disappointment in his heart.
“Haha… well done with the Wooden Element spell!”
At that moment, a voice of admiration suddenly came from beyond the fence.
Fang Xi looked over and saw his next-door neighbor Chen Ping, responding with a smile: “You flatter me… it’s nowhere near as flexible and destructive as your fire spells, Sir.”
Perhaps only this person could exchange such business-flattering compliments with him.
Chen Ping’s cultivation techniques were even worse than his, his only proficient spell being a fireball technique that he had played around with for many years.
“However, the ‘Entanglement Skills’ are a mid-grade Level 1 spell, could it be that Mr. Fang, you have…?”
Chen Ping suddenly looked at Fang Xi with surprise.
“Haha… by some stroke of luck, I finally made a breakthrough to the mid-Qi Refining Stage!”
Fang Xi had never intended to hide the progress of his cultivation.
What he really wanted to keep secret was his body refining cultivation.
“That’s fantastic, congratulations, Sir,” Chen Ping responded with a respectful bow, his eyes filled with envy.
His talents were indeed mediocre, making cultivation and breakthroughs extraordinarily difficult.
At that time, Chen Ping continued: “It just so happens I met you, so I wanted to let you know… I’m moving.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
Fang Xi was surprised.
Was Chen Ping giving up being a Spirit Farmer?
“To be honest, after receiving the legacy of Master Zong Symbol, I made some progress in the art of talisman crafting, and now I am already a mid-grade Level 1 Talisman Master…”
Chen Ping replied proudly.
This time, it was Fang Xi’s turn to envy Chen Ping.
A mid-grade Level 1 Talisman Master was much more valuable than someone at the mid-Qi Refining Stage.
‘Damn it, there’s no justice… Even Master Zong Symbol was barely at this rank, and Chen Ping used to struggle with drawing even low-grade Level 1 Spirit Talismans, how could he have suddenly become enlightened?’
Fang Xi was completely puzzled.
Chen Ping then scratched his head and revealed a naïve smile: “Additionally… Lu saw my diligence and was moved by my talent for talisman crafting, agreeing to guide me for several days and isn’t leaving for the time being…”
“…” Fang Xi was further speechless, fighting the twitch at the corner of his mouth, and offered his congratulations: “Congratulations, Sir, on your sincerity moving even the immovable!”
The cultivation world doesn’t value whether it’s a first or second marriage. Even female cultivators can maintain several thousands of adornments and be complemented by everyone.
Because in terms of ‘power,’ female cultivators can also cultivate and breakthrough, not in the slightest bit inferior to male cultivators.
The true root of equality lies in equivalent power!
And Lu Zhi had high cultivation, a good appearance, and a sizable inheritance…
At that moment, even Fang Xi felt a bit jealous.
After reflecting on this, Fang Xi’s thoughts suddenly went back to Fairy Yun Meng and others’ interactions with Chen Ping: ‘Perhaps… this Mr. Chen has some unique charm after all?’
But no matter how he looked at it, he could not see it. Besides, if there really were a secret, why had Chen Ping been struggling so much before?
“Haha… when I join with Lu in a union of Taoist Companions, I will surely not be stingy with a cup of Spirit Wine for Mr. Fang!”
Chen Ping laughed heartily, full of spirit and pride.