A Mortal's Start in the Spirit Beast Mountain

Chapter 37 The Advancement of the Fat Sun Bird

Five days had passed in the blink of an eye. Luo Ming slowly opened his eyes, his brows furrowed as he focused his inner energy on his dantian. Five days of arduous cultivation had yielded only a negligible increase in his magical power. At this rate, it would take at least several decades to reach the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage.

"Simply meditating to accumulate mana is infuriatingly slow! At this rate, even if you exhaust two hundred years of your lifespan, you might not even reach the threshold of the Golden Core stage." Luo Ming deeply felt the powerlessness of ordinary cultivators at this moment—without a massive amount of pills to support them, without a blessed land rich in spiritual energy, coupled with their own mediocre aptitude and low efficiency in refining spiritual energy, it was despairing. If their willpower was not strong enough, they would probably start to give up and enjoy life.

I was wondering why some cultivators, after advancing to the Foundation Establishment stage, would start researching unorthodox methods. It turns out they've already done their best. After all, for cultivators with average aptitude, unless they have a great stroke of luck, they can forget about advancing to the Golden Core stage in their lifetime.

The reason it's so slow is mainly because the invisible barrier that helped him compress his mana was too strong. Foundation Establishment cultivators need to slowly refine their mana to gradually expand it. When the mana growth reaches the limit of the barrier, breaking that shackle and thus more than doubling the mana is considered advancing to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. But after breaking through one layer, there is another layer with even stronger resilience, which is the bottleneck of the late-Foundation Establishment stage.

There is a consensus in the cultivation world that the main difficulty in breaking through before the Nascent Soul stage is the restriction of magical power. That is why cultivators with heavenly spiritual roots can advance to the Golden Core stage so easily. After reaching the Nascent Soul stage, however, it is a more illusory and ethereal cultivation process.

Therefore, cultivators before reaching the Nascent Soul stage both love and hate that invisible barrier, because it can help you break through major realms, but it will hinder you at minor realms.

As far as he knew, there were over four hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators in Spirit Beast Mountain. Of these, eighty percent were stuck at the early Foundation Establishment stage, and of the remaining two percent, eighty percent were stuck at the middle Foundation Establishment stage. Very few could break through to the late Foundation Establishment stage. This was the situation for sect cultivators. If they were independent cultivators, without the blessing of good fortune, it would be extremely difficult for them to break through to Foundation Establishment. Even if they were lucky enough to reach Foundation Establishment, they would mostly be stuck at the early stage for life.

"The spiritual liquid produced by the Spirit Gathering Cauldron is now just a drop in the ocean. It seems I need to purchase some pills. If only this Spirit Gathering Cauldron could accelerate the growth of spiritual herbs, it would solve my immediate problem." Luo Ming helplessly discovered that the spiritual liquid, which was very effective during the Qi Refining stage, provided less spiritual energy than he could absorb through meditation during the Foundation Establishment stage. At this moment, he was extremely envious of that little green bottle.

Just as he was planning to go to the market to buy pills, the spiritual energy in the cave suddenly became chaotic. Strands of spiritual energy seemed to be attracted by something and flowed in one direction.

Could it be... that it's about to begin?

The source of the chaotic spiritual energy was the Fat Sun Bird. At this moment, its wings were tightly folded, its feathers, which had previously shimmered with a pale golden sheen, suddenly taut, each feather tip oozing tiny sparks. Its aura intensified rapidly, clearly indicating that it had pushed its bloodline power to its limit. The next instant, a high-pitched cry pierced the sky, the sound waves carrying scorching fire elemental energy, even causing fine cracks to appear on the inner walls of the cave.

"Hey!"

The flames igniting around the Zhiyang Bird were no longer ordinary flames, but raging flames with faint golden patterns, as if cast from molten gold. Its wings slowly unfolded, its wingspan nearly half a foot wider than before, and its feathers tumbled in the flames, gradually taking on a glassy luster.

Luo Ming sensed the terrifying temperature of the flames and his face lit up with surprise. He immediately erected a spiritual energy shield: "This bloodline fire! It can actually threaten Foundation Establishment cultivators! If it advances to the second level, ordinary early Foundation Establishment cultivators would probably have no choice but to flee at the mere sight of it. Hehe, I've really struck gold!"

The master has no say in the process of a spirit beast's advancement; success depends entirely on its own accumulation of power. Luo Ming watched quietly as the Fat Sun Bird seemed dissatisfied with the fire elemental energy gathering around it, letting out several more high-pitched cries.

"Bah! Bah! Bah!"

With a roar, the Fat Sun Bird suddenly raised its head, and a ball of crimson-gold flame overflowed from its throat, which was the original bloodline fire that it had cultivated for many years.

As the golden fireball spun, the flames around it suddenly surged, turning from pale gold to a blazing crimson, instantly engulfing the entire cave hall. The extreme heat assaulted them, distorting the spiritual energy in the air. Luo Ming immediately summoned his Yellow Silk Umbrella to defend himself, but the pale yellow shield began to hiss and melt as soon as it was deployed, forcing him to channel even more mana into it.

Luo Ming's eyes shone brightly, his heart filled with joy: "A flame of this magnitude would be difficult for an ordinary early Foundation Establishment cultivator to withstand! As expected of an ancient spirit bird, even I, its master, might not be able to defeat it with certainty."

The cave was completely unrecognizable at this point. The stone tables and chairs had all turned into lava, and even the ground had been burned down to a depth of half a foot. If it weren't for the protective array around it, it would probably have been burned to ashes long ago.

At that moment, a crisp sound, like shattering glass, entered Luo Ming's mind. It was as if some shackle within the Zhiyang Bird suddenly exploded, turning into countless points of light that merged into its limbs and bones. The surging fire elemental energy around it found an outlet and rushed wildly into the Zhiyang Bird's body. The flames around her gradually subsided, no longer so violent, but instead condensed into a thin layer of fire film that adhered tightly to her body surface.

As a massive amount of spiritual energy poured in, the aura of the Fat Sun Bird steadily increased, eventually stabilizing at the second level. At this moment, its feathers had completely turned into a lustrous crimson gold color, its pupils were filled with a halo of flames, and the occasional sparks dripping from its wingtips could even burn deep, bone-revealing holes in the bluestone.

Meanwhile, in a cave several miles away, Steward Qin was instructing his descendant Qin Meng on cultivation when he suddenly frowned and said, "Meng'er, you cultivate on your own first. I'll be right back."

Before he finished speaking, he got up and walked straight to the adjacent spirit beast room. Just now, through the divine soul restriction, he sensed that his spirit beast was unusually agitated, and he wondered what had happened.

"Could it be that advancing to the second level recently left some hidden dangers?" Deacon Qin carefully reassured the eagle in front of him. This white-headed, golden-clawed eagle had followed him for decades and had recently advanced to the second level, greatly increasing its strength. It was currently consolidating its realm.

After a careful inspection, the eagle showed no signs of distress and gradually calmed down. Only then was Deacon Qin relieved and turned to leave.

In his view, it must be because a senior bird spirit beast passed over the cave, triggering the eagle's instinctive fear. Back when the eagle had not yet advanced, a senior from the sect once rode a level three double-tailed owl by, and the eagle had a similar reaction.

Monsters are born with special senses, which are especially evident among their own kind. Lower-level monsters will instinctively fear higher-level monsters with stronger bloodlines, which is a common phenomenon in the cultivation world.

The Zhiyang Bird was a renowned spirit bird in ancient times. Although it was not as powerful as the Golden Crow or the Kunpeng, its bloodline level was still among the top. This time, it had just advanced to the second level, and its bloodline power had not yet been fully controlled and restrained, which caused the eagles several miles away to become agitated.