Chapter 1201: Seclusion
Within the secret chamber on the main peak of the Dreamcloud Mountains, everything was enshrouded in a vast expanse of white mist. It seemed that a restriction had been set up within the entire secret chamber.
At the center of a chamber sat a man with his legs crossed and azure light shimmering all over his body. Around him were five pristine white jade-liked humanoid skeletons that were also seated with their legs crossed.
These skeletons were enveloped in a layer of greyish-white devilish Qi, yet all of their mouths were slightly agape, and there were respectively black, white, blue, yellow, and green flames shimmering within.
The azure humanoid figure sitting at the very center of the chamber had his palm almost joined together in front of his chest, and there was a ball of indistinct purple flames burning between his hands.
This humanoid figure was none other than Han Li, who had been seclusion for an indeterminate number of years.
All of a sudden, silver light flashed on the wall, and another azure humanoid figure appeared within the restriction, standing next to the wall in a completely stationary manner.
After a long while, Han Li suddenly opened his mouth, and the ball of purple fire was sucked into his mouth as a purple line of flames.
In contrast, the five skeletons nearby all closed their mouths, and the different-colored flames within disappeared in a flash. Immediately thereafter, the greyish-white devilish Qi over their bodies quickly receded to reveal the skeletons, which had turned into different colors that matched their respective flames.
At this moment, Han Li slowly opened his eyes, but they were still completely glazed over. Only after a long while did his pupils regain their clarity. He turned his gaze toward the azure humanoid figure off to the side, and his brows furrowed slightly.
That azure humanoid figure was naturally none other than the humanoid puppet, which Han Li had left outside the cave abode. During these past few years, Han Li would summon the humanoid puppet to him at regular intervals to assimilate it with the second Nascent Soul again, but aside from that, the puppet was left to look after the cave abode. Now that it had suddenly appeared here, something important that had to be brought to his attention must've happened.
Han Li felt this to be rather strange. After all, the second Nascent Soul paired with the humanoid puppet was not inferior in power to a normal great cultivator, so what could've happened that even it wasn't able to take care of? With that in mind, he immediately swept his spiritual sense toward the humanoid puppet and began to assimilate with the second Nascent Soul's spiritual sense.
After around 15 minutes had passed, a peculiar look appeared on Han Li's face. The stationary humanoid puppet suddenly raised a hand before pulling an item out of the storage pouch hanging from its waist, then calmly handing it over to Han Li. Han Li immediately accepted the item to find that it was a broken jade talisman around half the size of a palm.
After injecting his spiritual power into object, many tiny crimson characters began to appear on its surface.
Han Li only glanced at these characters for a short while before a contemplative look appeared on his face. "Fellow Daoist Endless Sky, you're also awake now, right? It looks like we've been in seclusion for a long time." Han Li's voice was slightly raspy and stiff from not speaking for so long.
"It's only been about 120 to 130 years; not really all that long. Why do you say that? Do you want to come out of seclusion now? You've reached a critical juncture in combining your glacial flames and Unbroken Cinque Devils; it'll only take another decade or so before the five devils will be able to successfully refine the five type of glacial flames. Wouldn't it be a pity if you left now?"
Spiritual light flashed, and a small cauldron flew out from within Han Li's sleeve. The cauldron hovered before him, and the figure of a small child appeared above it. In its current state, the demon beast appeared to be two or three years older than it was when it had first gone into seclusion with Han Li.
Han Li shook his head, and said, "It's not really a big deal; I can just continue the refinement process when I come back. It's just that this Myriad Distance Talisman is revealing to me some news from the Scattered Star Seas. I once made a deal with the Heavenly Star Sages, and it looks like Ling Yuling is in trouble now, so I can't just ignore the situation."
"The Heavenly Star Sages? You mean that late-Nascent Soul Stage couple from the Scattered Star Seas? Back then, I used a secret technique to examine their bodily conditions. The did have an abundance of magic power within their bodies, but they appeared to be approaching the ends of their lifespans at the time. Even if they haven't been killed, they've most likely passed away already. Otherwise, with that couple looking after the Star Palace, why would this Ling Yuling request assistance from you?" the small child speculated.
"The message that Ling Yuling sent me has indeed neglected to mention the Heavenly Star Sages, so it's most likely the case that they truly have passed away already. This is an opportunity for me as well; I've always been very interested in the Star Palace's Divine Essencefused Light. I've carefully studied the methods to progress to the Deity Transformation Stage that the Heavenly Star Sages provided me with, and the only viable one is to completely master the Divine Essencefused Light. During this trip, I can go and obtain that cultivation method," Han Li mused.
"I've never heard of a cultivation art known as the Divine Essencefused Light in the Spirit Realm before, so this is most likely something created by a cultivator of this world. Won't you be dabbling in too many different areas if you use this cultivation art? Take care that you don't let these things distract you from your pursuit of the Great Dao," the small child cautioned.
"I'm aware of this. Prior to cultivating the Divine Essencefused Light, I'll make sure to progress to the pinnacle of the late-Nascent Soul Stage first, then try to use my glacial flames to try and break through the Deity Transformation Stage bottleneck. If I can succeed in doing that, then there would be no need to cultivate the Divine Essencefused Light. Otherwise, I have no choice in this matter," Han Li said with a grave expression.
"If that's the case, then I don't really have anything else to say. I also know many methods that can help once progress to the Deity Transformation Stage, but it's a shame that they would be ineffective in this world due to the sparse spiritual Qi here. By the way, how have you been cultivating for the past century? The magic power within your body seems to have grown a lot more abundant," the small child asked after assessing Han Li's bodily condition."That may be true, but I'm still far away from reaching the pinnacle of the late-Nascent Soul Stage. It's going to take me at least another 50 to 60 years of cultivation to get there, and that's only through constantly taking all types of pills as well. If I were to cultivate through meditation alone, I most likely wouldn't be able to reach that point even after an entire century," Han Li heaved a forlorn sigh.
At this moment, Han Li suddenly thought of the Fuschia Cloud Pill that he had refined in that mysterious medicine garden. If he had a sufficient number of such pills, he would be able to accelerate his rate of cultivation by severalfold.
It was a pity that certain types of spirit herbs required to refine the Fuschia Cloud Pill had already gone extinct, and it was impossible to take those spirit herbs out of the medicine garden and plant them in the outside world. At his current cultivation base, the pills that he was taking had a very limited enhancement effect for him, and he was rather dissatisfied with their efficacy.
Furthermore, he hadn't been wasting the green liquid in that mysterious vial during these past years, either. After setting aside a sufficient amount to satisfy his pill refinement requirements, the rest of that liquid had all been used to cleanse his spirit eyes and mature his spirit insects.
However, he stopped cleansing his spirit eyes after just over 20 years over. This was because after cleansing his spirit eyes countless times, the Brightsight Spirit Water no longer provided any benefits to him. As such, it would've been simply wasteful to continue cleansing his eyes with the spirit water.
Despite that, Han Li's spirit eyes had already undergone a drastic transformation.
After injecting spiritual power into his eyes, not only was Han Li able to see through clouds and mist, he could see objects that were 10,000 feet away as clearly as if they were right before his eyes. In that case, unless he found himself confined within a restriction that cut off one's spiritual sense, his spirit eyes would prove to be extremely pragmatic and useful to him.
After maturing for over 100 years, the Six-Winged Frost Centipede finally grew their second pairs of wings. As such, they had ascended straight from fifth grade demon beasts to become seventh grade demon beasts, and at the same time, they had attained the power to control wind and snow. If all 12 centipedes were to unleash their full power in unison, they could instantly transform an area with a radius of over five kilometers into a glacial land.
In contrast, the Gold Devouring Beetles showed no signs of imminent evolution yet. He had obtained a method from Saintess Tianlan to mature these beetles through the use of five-elemental spiritual Qi, but it was clearly not the right time to employ such a technique. It appeared that he was going to have to nurture these spirit insects for many more years before that course of action became applicable.
As for the Armored Earth Dragon that he had found in the Great Jin, which was only proficient in searching for heavenly materials and earthly treasures, it was also very content to cultivate by itself in the cave abode. However, judging from its cultivation base, it was still very far away from reaching the eight grade metamorphosis stage.
In terms of cultivation arts, Han Li was cultivating the Azure Essence Sword Art and the Great Development Technique at the same time.
Perhaps it was due to the changes in his spiritual root aptitude or perhaps it was because he really did have exceptional aptitude in spiritual sense cultivation; in any case, he was able to cultivate up to the final layer of the Great Development Technique in one fell swoop, and the process seemed to have gone even smoother than when he was cultivating the first few layers.
As such, his spiritual sense had become several times more powerful than it once was. If he could also cultivate the final layer of the Great Development Technique, then his spiritual sense wouldn't be inferior even to that of the average Deity Transformation cultivator.
Aside from the remarkable improvements in his spiritual sense, Han Li's current body was also powerful beyond belief.
In order to facilitate the cultivation of the Nine Gale Transformations, he cultivated the third layer of the Brightjade Arts. Even though it didn't take him much time to do so, the level of difficulty and the excruciating pain involved almost made Han Li give up midway. It was no wonder that very people reached the third layer or above, even in the Spirit Realm.
However, after cultivating the third layer of the Brightjade Arts, Han Li's had even surprised himself with how powerful his body had become.
At present, he was able to remain completely unscathed in the face of attacks from normal treasures without even having to unleash his protective spiritual layer.
As for the Nine Gale Transformations, that cultivation art had been extremely easy to progress in, and he had completely mastered it within the short span of a few years.
During his seclusion, Han Li had also refined a few treasures.
He naturally prioritized the refinement of the Wood Birth Bead, which would grant him the immortal body ability on one occasion. Coincidentally, the most important supplementary materials required to refine this bead were the Soul Nurturing Tree and the Spirit Well Tree, two of the three divine woods.
To others, these items were extremely difficult to find in the human world, but this was not an issue for Han Li.
As such, he was able to easily refine the Wood Birth Bead before absorbing it into his body.
Aside from this bead, he also refined the pair of poisonous hooks he had obtained from the Twin-Tailed Human Face Scorpion, as well as the fire dragon pillars he had sourced from the Kunwu Mountains into two sets of powerful treasures.
Han Li was tallying the rewards he had reaped during this period of seclusion when he suddenly waved a sleeve through the air, tossing out a black jade vial as he began to chant something.
The five skeletons nearby immediately shuddered as greyish-white devilish Qi abruptly surfaced over their bodies, transforming them into ghostly heads each around the size of a wagon-wheel. There were also devilish flames blasting out from the mouths of the ghostly heads, creating an extremely sinister sight to behold.
Han Li raised a hand and cast an incantation seal toward the ghostly heads, upon which they quickly shrank down to around the size of human fists. A burst of light then erupted from the black jade vials, sucking in all five ghostly heads.
Han Li stowed the jade vial away before rising to his feet.
He swept his sleeve toward a patch of white light on the wall of the secret chamber, and spiritual light flashed as the restriction within the chamber quickly receded, revealing the stone door at its entrance.
Han Li made his way over to the stone door expressionlessly, while the humanoid puppet disappeared on the spot amid a flash of silver light.