A Mortal's Start in the Spirit Beast Mountain

Chapter 217 The Holy Fetus of Wood Spirit

This is a secret refining technique from Spirit Beast Mountain. It uses one's own essence and blood as a guide to imprint a mark on the spirit insect before it hatches, making it easier to control later and allowing for a closer connection between mind and body.

After completing all of this, Luo Ming's face was slightly pale, clearly indicating that casting this technique on tens of thousands of insect eggs at once had taken a considerable toll. He waved his hand to reinforce the formation, ensuring that the insect eggs would receive sufficient and peaceful spiritual energy nourishment before hatching.

"Finally, we've completed a crucial step. Now, all we need to do is patiently wait for it to hatch, and then feed it with plenty of spirit stones to help it grow." Luo Ming sat down cross-legged, took out two high-grade spirit stones, and prepared to meditate and recover his depleted essence and mana.

However, less than a quarter of an hour after he entered meditation, a clear, urgent, and even extremely greedy and longing wave suddenly came from the close connection between his mind and the Azure Dragon!

"Master! Master! We found it! We found something strange, but it tastes delicious! So much spiritual energy! It tastes ten thousand times better than these stones!" The slightly immature yet extremely excited thoughts of the Azure Dragon resounded in Luo Ming's mind like a thunderclap.

Luo Ming suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze flashing with sharp light!

Something strange? It tastes delicious?

Almost instantly, a term jumped into his mind—top-grade spirit stone!

That's it! This azure dragon possesses both water and wood attributes, and is extremely sensitive to pure spiritual energy. It has also been digging and devouring wood spirit stones here for a long time. It's not impossible that it could discover that top-grade wood spirit stone hidden deep underground with its spiritual energy contained to the extreme!

"Finally...found it?"

Luo Ming's heart skipped a beat. He suddenly stood up, a flash of earthy yellow spiritual light around him, and like a fish entering water, he instantly disappeared into the hard rock ground, using earth-遁术 (earth-遁术 is a type of magic that allows one to escape from the earth) to speed towards the approximate location of the Azure Dragon!

A large section of the mine wall ahead had been swept away by the thick tail of the Azure Dragon, revealing a more crystalline mineral body deep within. In the center of that dense, dark green, almost liquid-like wood spiritual energy, a crystal the size of a head, with a deep jade-like luster and mysterious patterns resembling tree rings on its surface, was quietly embedded there.

Unlike ordinary spirit stones that radiate brilliance, it possesses a restrained tranquility. However, the extremely pure wood spirit vitality caused Luo Ming's pores to involuntarily open up as he approached, and the circulation of his internal magic power accelerated.

"It's not a top-grade wood spirit stone..."

Luo Ming made his judgment at a glance. Although he had never seen a top-grade spirit stone in person, the records indicated that although its spiritual power was pure and abundant, it should be a pure energy crystal and would not have such a strong life aura.

He tried to carefully probe the crystal with his Nascent Soul level divine sense, but found that when his divine sense touched its surface, it was gently repelled by a soft yet incredibly tough invisible barrier, making it difficult to penetrate.

However, even through this barrier, he could still vaguely sense that a faint yet resilient life force, like a fetal heartbeat, seemed to be gestating inside the crystal.

"This...could it be..." Inside the Xuan Shui Pearl, the Heavenly Mirror Hermit rarely uttered a sound of disbelief and astonishment.

"Senior, do you recognize this?" Luo Ming's spirits lifted, and he quickly asked.

Tianjing Sanren remained silent for a moment, seemingly recalling and confirming, before slowly speaking, his tone tinged with emotion and reminiscence: "If my memory serves me correctly, this object closely resembles the 'Wood Spirit Sacred Embryo' mentioned in ancient texts!"

"Wood Spirit Holy Embryo?"

"Indeed. This is a marvel of creation, incomparable to ordinary natural treasures. It can only be formed with an extremely small probability when the wood-attribute spiritual energy is extremely pure and concentrated, and after a long period of sedimentation and a series of fortuitous events."

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name: 10 ...

You can think of it as... the placenta of a wood spirit.

Tianjing Sanren explained, his voice tinged with excitement, "For cultivators with wood spirit roots, this item is nothing short of a life-altering treasure! Simply refining the outer shell can not only add nearly a hundred years to one's lifespan, but the purest and most refined wood spirit essence contained within can also be directly absorbed by the cultivator, instantly increasing their cultivation by a hundred years without any risk of a weak foundation! Because its essence is so pure, the condensation of magical power after absorption surpasses even arduous cultivation!"

Luo Ming was deeply shaken, his eyes gleaming with delight. A hundred years' worth of pure cultivation gained out of thin air? And without affecting his foundation? This was practically a divine object every cultivator dreamed of! It was many levels superior to the spirit wine Feng Xi had given him.

Not to mention it also has the effect of increasing lifespan! On the path of cultivation, wealth, companions, methods, and land are all important, but lifespan is fundamental! An extra hundred years of lifespan means countless more possibilities!

However, Tianjing Sanren's next words made Luo Ming's feelings complicated: "What a pity, what a pity... It seems that the 'wood spirit' nurtured within this thing is not yet fully grown, it's just a rudimentary form. If it could mature and give birth to a true, intelligent, innate wood spirit, its value would be immeasurable! If a cultivator could refine a mature, complete wood spirit... there's a considerable chance they could cultivate a 'wood spirit body' later in life! That's comparable to a heavenly spiritual root, and even possesses a more wondrous and special physique in some aspects!"

A Wood Spirit Body! A spirit body created through postnatal cultivation?!

Luo Ming gasped sharply, his gaze toward the Wood Spirit Holy Embryo instantly becoming incredibly intense!

He himself was not exceptionally gifted in spiritual roots, and he was well aware of the limitations that innate talent placed on the path of cultivation. Although he had consumed the Heaven-Mending Pill, which had been enhanced by the Spirit Gathering Cauldron, and his spiritual root talent was much stronger than that of a dual-spiritual-root cultivator, he was still some distance from the heaven-defying talent of a Heavenly Spiritual Root cultivator.

If he could truly acquire a spiritual body later in life, even if it were just a wood spirit body, it would be an unimaginable benefit to his cultivation path! More importantly, if he had a wood spirit body, wouldn't that be equivalent to possessing a top-tier wood spirit root? At that time, refining this sacred embryo would result in a surge in cultivation and an increase in lifespan, truly maximizing the benefits!

But...mature? This Wood Spirit Holy Embryo seems to have been gestating for countless millennia to reach its current size. Who knows how many more millennia it will take for it to mature naturally? How could he afford to wait that long?

If an ordinary person obtained this item, they would probably refine it directly and reap whatever benefits they could without expecting anything in return. However, since Luo Ming possessed a treasure like the Spirit Gathering Cauldron, he naturally wanted to test whether he could use the cauldron's mysteries to accelerate the maturation of the Wood Spirit Holy Embryo.

A bold idea, so daring it made his heart race, popped into his head uncontrollably.

"Senior," Luo Ming's voice trembled slightly, "you said... if we use the power of this cauldron, supplemented with a large number of high-grade wood-attribute spirit stones, could we... accelerate the gestation process of this Wood Spirit Holy Embryo?"

Upon hearing this, Tianjing Sanren remained silent for a long while before slowly saying, "...I do not know. This cauldron is profound, far beyond my comprehension. Theoretically, if one could provide sufficiently pure and homogeneous wood-attribute life essence, it might be possible to nourish the nascent wood spirit within and accelerate its growth. However, this would be extremely risky. Firstly, the required wood-attribute spirit stones would likely be enormous. Secondly, if not properly controlled, it could easily disrupt its fragile internal balance, causing the sacred embryo to collapse and all previous efforts to be in vain. Moreover, even if it were feasible, how long it would take is unknown."