txolops Chapter 176 Refining the Golden Elixir
Chapter 176 Refining the Golden Elixir
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.
A pale-faced, unremarkable figure in a gray robe appeared discreetly beside the teleportation array in Tianxing City. His aura was concealed, revealing only the late Foundation Establishment stage. This was none other than Luo Ming in disguise.
With a calm expression and steady steps, he blended seamlessly into the crowd of cultivators, easily passing through the teleportation array and entering Tianxing City.
Luo Ming headed to the rented cave dwelling with practiced ease. The concentration of spiritual energy was crucial for his recovery from this period of dissipated cultivation, directly impacting the speed of his recovery and the stability of his foundation. Therefore, he unhesitatingly chose the fiftieth-floor cave dwelling—the highest-floor cave dwelling available for rent, with a significantly higher concentration of spiritual energy than his previous dwelling, sufficient to support his recovery.
Naturally, the rent for such a top-tier cave dwelling was outrageously expensive, more than double the price of the cave dwelling he had rented years ago. If it weren't for those crucial concentrations of spiritual energy and to save time on rebuilding, he really wouldn't have needed to spend so many spirit stones.
After finalizing his cave dwelling and setting up his own restrictions, Luo Ming changed his appearance several times, disguising himself as different cultivators, and went to various shops in Tianxing City to sell all the non-essential magic treasures, pills, and materials in his storage bag, exchanging them for a huge amount of spirit stones.
Afterwards, he made a special trip to Fengle Trading Company and spent a lot of money to purchase a top-level spirit-gathering array before quietly returning to his rented cave.
The reason he exchanged so many spirit stones was for the purpose of rebuilding his cultivation. To achieve the fastest possible rebuilding speed and the most stable foundation, he needed to consume a massive amount of spirit stones to support the operation of the spirit gathering array and continuously provide pure spiritual energy.
His experience refining the Sea-Sinking Mystic Crystal back then gave him a method to quickly obtain high-grade spirit stones—that is, to use the power of the Spirit Gathering Cauldron to synthesize a large number of mid-grade spirit stones into high-grade spirit stones. However, this method requires an extremely large number of mid-grade spirit stones.
Luo Ming patted his storage bag, feeling the crisp sound of the spirit stones colliding inside and the rich fluctuations of spiritual energy. For a moment, he was both amused and exasperated, thinking to himself, "Am I so poor that all I have left are spirit stones?"
As the cave's restrictions were unlocked layer by layer, and as spiritual light flowed, mysterious runes appeared and disappeared.
Luo Ming stood in the center of the secret chamber. Instead of immediately activating the technique to disperse his power, he raised his hand and flipped it over. An ancient and mottled spirit-gathering cauldron landed steadily in front of him. The spirit patterns engraved on the cauldron faintly revealed ancient spiritual charm.
He opened his mouth and spat out a golden pill, which slowly floated out. Wisps of black demonic energy surrounded the pill, intertwining with the pill's own luminous white light, exuding a strange yet pure aura.
"You brat, are you really determined to do this?" The voice of Tianjing Sanren came from the mysterious light beside him. His tone contained both undisguised shock and a hint of barely suppressed anticipation. He had lived for hundreds of years and cultivated to the late stage of the Nascent Soul realm. He was knowledgeable and experienced, but he had never seen such a sight: a cultivator was willing to put his own golden core into the cauldron for tempering. Even if he had already decided to disperse his cultivation and start over, such behavior was too inconceivable.
Luo Ming gazed calmly at the floating golden pill and said slowly, "Anyway, if this pill is directly dispersed, the spiritual energy will be wasted. It's better to put it into the cauldron and try to refine it with the spirit fire of the Fat Sun Bird. Perhaps we can have an unexpected opportunity."
Under normal circumstances, he would never dare to risk his golden core like this. In the past, although he had placed the demon core in the Spirit Gathering Cauldron to nurture it and enhance his own spiritual power with the power of the cauldron, he had never tried to directly calculate the golden core with the domineering spiritual fire of the Fat Sun Bird. He had no idea what kind of changes this action would bring.
After all, the demon cores he had put in before were just inanimate objects, while his golden core was his other life, so he couldn't help but be careful.
Moreover, he had other plans—to use this golden core forging process to cultivate the second level of the "Spirit Fire Forging Divine Technique".
It should be known that the Golden Core inherently contains a large amount of divine consciousness power. By using spiritual fire to refine the Golden Core, one can take advantage of this divine consciousness nourishment to hone one's divine consciousness and break through the bottleneck of techniques.
Luo Ming looked up at the Xuan Yuan Pearl suspended in mid-air and asked loudly, "Senior, are you ready?"
"Hahaha, so be it!" Tianjing Sanren laughed loudly, his tone becoming more carefree. "I'll go crazy with you today. I'm really curious to see what kind of result this strange act will ultimately produce."
Before the words were finished, the twelve Xuan Yuan Pearls that had been hovering around the secret chamber suddenly shone brightly, transforming into twelve streams of light that rushed into the Spirit Gathering Cauldron. Luo Ming's golden core, which was shrouded in demonic energy, followed closely behind, slowly falling into the center of the twelve Xuan Yuan Pearls and being steadily supported.
In an instant, spiritual light surged within the cauldron, and invisible ripples of spiritual energy spread outwards. Thick Xuan Shui power emanated from the Xuan Yuan Pearl, wrapping around the golden core as if it were a tangible substance, firmly binding it and preventing it from disintegrating and scattering during the subsequent burning of spiritual fire.
"Let's begin!" Luo Ming shouted, making a hand seal with his fingertips and gesturing to the Zhiyang Bird beside him.
The Zhiyang Bird understood and immediately opened its beak, spewing out a stream of blazing white spiritual fire, its flames swift and fierce, instantly engulfing the entire Spirit Gathering Cauldron. The cauldron, heated by the fire, immediately turned crimson, and the spiritual patterns within became even more brilliant, humming as if enduring the scorching heat of the spiritual fire.
"hiss--"
A piercing, excruciating pain instantly swept through Luo Ming's entire body, reaching the very depths of his soul. This pain was several times more intense than when he had refined the demonic creature earlier. He clenched his teeth, fine beads of cold sweat instantly appeared on his forehead, and his whole body trembled slightly.
He thought to himself that the spiritual power contained within the golden core was too concentrated, and under the burning of the spiritual fire, the spiritual power was also subjected to the scorching heat, which caused such extreme pain.
In the past, when he cultivated the "Spirit Fire Forging Technique", he always proceeded step by step, only daring to cultivate for a short while each time before immediately stopping to rest, for fear that his divine sense would not be able to withstand the burning of the spiritual fire and would suffer great damage to his divine sense.
But today, in order to break through the bottleneck and to avoid wasting the spiritual nourishment within the Golden Core, he had no choice but to endure it.
Inside the cauldron, the demonic energy that was corroding the surface of the golden core seemed to sense the deadly threat of the spiritual fire. It frantically burrowed into the golden core as if it were a living thing, trying to escape the burning of the spiritual fire.
Inside the Spirit Gathering Cauldron, the terrifying burning power of the spiritual fire was everywhere, and the intense heat of the true fire permeated every line of the golden core, gradually refining the fleeing true demonic energy.
In a short while, the demonic energy on the surface of the golden core was completely refined, leaving only a trace of demonic energy deep within the core's structure. This demonic energy had already merged with the core's own spiritual power, making it difficult to remove. Even with intense spiritual fire, it could only be slowly worn down.
At the same time, the surface of the golden core began to slowly melt, and the originally white core gradually became translucent and clear, almost transparent. The blood-connected, almost one-to-one feeling between Luo Ming and the golden core also weakened little by little as the core melted, until it became almost imperceptible.