Chapter 1664: Missing Out on a Brilliant Opportunity
Even if he couldn't gather all five mountains, refining just two or three of those mountains could still help him resist the power of his future lightning tribulations.
At present, he was already a Spatial Tempering Stage cultivator, so he had to transcend a major heavenly tribulation once every 3,000 years.
The time period in between tribulations appeared to have been extended, but major heavenly tribulations were far more devastating than the minor heavenly tribulations that Deity Transformation and Nascent Soul cultivators had to deal with. For most Spatial Tempering cultivators, they could generally safely transcend their first major heavenly tribulation, but the death began to spike with each successive major heavenly tribulation.
Those who could reach their fourth or fifth major heavenly tribulations were all old monsters who had lived for over 10,000 years, but even among them, there were only 20% to 30% of beings who would be able to transcend those tribulations.
As for the major heavenly tribulations after the fifth one, the death rate exceeded 70% to 80%.
It was said that ever since the human race had appeared in the Spirit Realm, there had been no Spatial Tempering cultivators that had managed to transcend nine major heavenly tribulations.
All beings who had transcended nine or more major heavenly tribulations were all cultivators at the Body Integration Stage or above. Even Spatial Tempering Stage beings who were far more powerful than other beings of the same cultivation base would undoubtedly perish if they couldn't reach the Body Integration Stage prior to their ninth major heavenly tribulation.
Of course, this was only applicable to human cultivators. As for metamorphosis stage demonic cultivators, their situation was quite similar to that of the human race when it came to heavenly tribulations. However, due to the differences in lifespans, cultivation arts used, and inherent aptitude among beings of different races, the intervals between heavenly tribulations and how devastating these tribulations were differed drastically.
It was said that for foreign beings that were inherently far more powerful than humans, their tribulations would only arrive once every 10,000 years, but the ferocity of these tribulations also far exceeded that of heavenly tribulations experienced by human cultivators. There were also some beings with far shorter lifespans than even humans, and their heavenly tribulations arrived once every few decades. Needless to say, these heavenly tribulations were far less devastating than those experienced by human cultivators.
After reaching the Body Integration Stage, each major heavenly tribulation became far more perilous than compared to Spatial Tempering Stage tribulations. Each major heavenly tribulation at that point was essentially a trial of life and death, and those who didn't pass would perish, while those who did would survive and experience slight boosts in their cultivation bases.
There were even some special cases where beings had broken through their bottlenecks during lightning tribulations.
As such, beings at the Body Integration Stage or above very rarely showed themselves unless there were extremely important matters they had to attend to. Almost all of their time was dedicated to cultivation and making preparations for their next trial of life and death.
Of course, major heavenly tribulations didn't consist entirely of lightning tribulations, but one thing was for certain; lightning tribulations were included in and were the main constituents of all major heavenly tribulations.
As such, the Integrated Five Extremes Mountain's ability to buffer the power of lightning tribulations was naturally extremely useful. If he could refine such a treasure, he'd essentially be significantly increasing his chances of successfully transcending future tribulations.
However, aside from the Divine Essencefused Mountain that he possessed already, Han Li had no idea where he could find the other four mountains.
Furthermore, aside from those four immensely powerful mountains, all of the secondary materials that had to be infused into these mountains were also extremely rare. Some of them were materials that Han Li had only ever heard of, yet never seen before, and that was quite disheartening to him.
After contemplating this matter in his secret chamber for a long while, Han Li's expression gradually eased. He glanced at the jade page in his hand before flipping his other hand over to produce a jade box. He placed the jade page into the box, then plastered a few restriction talismans onto the box before stowing it away.
Even though he already had the refinement method, there was no guarantee whatsoever that he'd come across any of other required mountains in the future.
As such, there was no point in becoming overly obsessed with this treasure as luck would most likely play a huge role in whether he could gather all of the required materials.
Having come to terms with this, Han Li sat in silence for a while longer before finally recovering to a completely placid mental state. After that, he rustled a sleeve, and a bracelet flew out from within.
Spiritual light radiated from the bracelet, and a ball of black light flew out from within before landing gently onto the ground.
Within the black light, there was a small black monkey that was huddled up into a motionless ball.
It was none other than the Weeping Soul Beast.
After suddenly putting on an extraordinary display of power to kill that cave spirit, which had been possessed by the soul fragment of the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign, the monkey had fallen unconscious, and was still yet to awaken.
Han Li's expression darkened slightly upon seeing this, and he made grabbing motion toward the small beast.
A burst of azure light surged forth from between his fingers, sweeping up the little monkey before drawing it to him.
Han Li's eyes narrowed as he inspected the monkey, and a series of translucent threads shot forth from his glabella before silently embedding themselves into the beast's body.
In order to ascertain the Weeping Soul Beast's current condition, Han Li had manifested threads with his spiritual sense in order to conduct a more thorough examination.
Thus, the crystalline threads disappeared into the small monkey's body, yet the Weeping Soul Beast displayed no reaction to this.
Meanwhile, Han Li's eyes were already half-closed as he began to inspect the beast's condition using those spiritual sense threads. After a long while, an incredulous look appeared on Han Li's face as he exclaimed, "Impossible! How could something like this have happened?"
Not only had the Weeping Soul Beast recovered all of the magic power it had lost, its body was a lot more powerful than before, and the magic power within its meridians had also become far more abundant. Furthermore, during the period in which he was conducting his inspection, the Weeping Soul Beast's body was still changing at a slow and steady rate.
"Is it about to evolve again?" Han Li appraised the little monkey with a perplexed look on his face. The Weeping Soul Beast hadn't devoured anything that would result in these changes, so where were these enhancements coming from? Could it be that all of this had something to do with the events that had unfolded in the Golden Devil Mountain Ranges?
Han Li was quite intrigued as he continued to inject more of his spiritual sense into the Weeping Soul Beast's body, trying to make sense of its current condition.
All of a sudden, Han Li's expression changed slightly as he exclaimed, "Wait, what's this? I'm sure it didn't have this thing in its body before!"
Deep within the Weeping Soul Beast's dantian, he'd discovered countless transparent particles that were barely visible.
These particles were extremely discreet, and each of them was only around a tenth of the size of a grain of rice. They gave off no aura whatsoever, but they'd been completely enveloped by the Weeping Soul Beast's soul-devouring light, and it seemed that they were constantly being refined.
Upon witnessing this peculiar phenomenon, Han Li almost immediately thought back to when the Weeping Soul Beast had slain the cave spirit, then devoured its soul.
Could it be that these particles were formed by the soul of the cave spirit or stemmed from the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign's soul fragment?
If that were the case, why hadn't the Weeping Soul Beast ever had such a reaction to devouring other ghostly beings in the past? Could it be... All of a sudden, a thought occurred to Han Li, and his expression changed drastically.
He hurriedly manipulated one of the spiritual sense threads within the Weeping Soul Beast's body to wrap around one of the particles in its dantian, then immediately pulled the particle out of its body.
The particle that had been drawn out of the Weeping Soul Beast's body was barely visible, and the spiritual sense thread disappeared in a flash as Han Li pointed a finger at the particle in a solemn manner.
An azure thread shot forth from his fingertip, binding tightly onto the particle before drawing it right under Han Li's eyes.
Brilliant blue light erupted from within his pupils as he activated his Brightsight Spirit Eyes to their maximal extent, then appraised the particle with an intense unblinking gaze.
After a long while, Han Li exhaled as he flipped his hand over to produce a thumb-sized jade vial.
The azure thread swayed before carrying the translucent particle into the small vial, following which the vial disappeared in a flash.
After that, Han Li quickly swept a sleeve through the air, and the spirit beast bracelet that was hovering in mid-air expelled a burst of spiritual light, which drew the Weeping Soul Beast back into the bracelet.
Han Li then stowed the treasure away before rising to his feet and hurriedly departing from his secret chamber.
Almost as soon as he emerged from behind the stone door, Han Li transmitted an instruction to Doll, asking it to look after the cave abode. Immediately thereafter, he flew through the air as a streak of azure light, appearing outside his cave abode in mere moments.
He then quickly descended to the foot of the mountain before hailing a beast-drawn carriage and giving the driver an instruction to take him to the center of the city.
During the next dozen or so days, Han Li visited all of the shops in Cloud City in which tomes were being sold, and selectively purchased a large number of tomes that he'd never paid any attention to in the past. These tomes covered a vast variety of topics, some of which detailed cultivation arts and secret techniques, while others were merely general books that introduced all types of strange objects and peculiar events.
After taking all of these tomes back to his cave abode, Han Li immediately began to read through them at an astonishing speed, as if he were trying to find something within them. After an entire night had passed, he emerged from the secret chamber with a disappointed look on his face. He then left his cave abode again and purchased another large batch of tomes from all over Cloud City.
Thus, five or six days passed by, and Han Li repeated this process day after day. The number of tomes that he'd purchased and the number of spirit stones that he'd spent on them had both reached astonishing sums.
However, after returning from another tome shopping spree, Han Li picked up an antiquated jade badge as he sat in his secret chamber, and as he swept his spiritual sense into the jade badge, an elated look suddenly appeared on his face.
"I found it! True Kirin essence is indeed something that isn't very well known, but I knew there would be some records of it on some ancient tomes," Han Li murmured to himself before focusing his attention on the jade badge again.
Thus, Han Li sat in a stationary manner, seemingly completely absorbed by the jade badge in his hand.
After a long while, he heaved a long sigh before tossing the jade badge onto the ground with an extremely dejected look on his face.
"How could this be? I can't believe I missed out on such a brilliant opportunity just like that!" Han Li sighed in a forlorn manner.
He then flipped his hand over to produce the small vial that was carrying the translucent particle.
After removing the lid of the vial, the translucent particle slowly flew out from within before hovering above the vial's opening. Han Li appraised the seemingly ordinary particle, and a wry smile appeared on his face.