Chapter 269 - 269 266 Turned Black and Became Stronger
Chapter 269: Chapter 266: Turned Black and Became Stronger Chapter 269: Chapter 266: Turned Black and Became Stronger The fusion this time was very smooth, and there were no difficulties due to the Shadow Demon Snake and the Ruyi Golden Snake not being from the same world or the same Cultivation System.
Strictly speaking, the Ruyi Golden Snake was not originally native to the Biluo Great World but appeared there after the Heavenly Demon Great World invaded the Biluo Great World.
Tracing further back, it even originated from the Human Clan Ancestor Realm.
After all, both the Human Clan and the Demon Clan come from the same world.
Although the Shadow Demon Snake does not condense a Demon Core, the demon beasts of this world naturally use the Demon Core as a source of energy, but the Shadow Transformation Technique is not due to the Demon Core.
Instead, it is an innate skill deeply branded in the bloodline of the Shadow Demon Snake.
The Demon Refining Pot’s ability to fuse Spiritual Beasts has never been about helping Demon Beasts fuse the bloodlines of other similar Demon Beasts but for the innate skills hidden deep within those bloodlines.
…
Thus, the Ruyi Golden Snake was not affected by the different cultivation methods of the Shadow Demon Snake.
After the fusion with the Shadow Transformation Technique, the Ruyi Golden Snake naturally did not need to condense a Demon Core either.
The Demon Core is merely a crystalline body formed from a gathering of energy.
As long as it has the corresponding energy, it can execute the Shadow Transformation Divine Power.
However, after the successful fusion, Qin Feng’s expression appeared somewhat strange.
Because this fusion was different from any previous ones.
In the past, after fusing with other Spiritual Snakes, the Ruyi Golden Snake’s appearance did not show any changes; it remained the same as it had always been before the fusion, and at most, it could become either bigger or smaller when executing the divine skill Big and Small Ruyi Changes.
But after fusing the Shadow Demon Snake’s bloodline talent, the appearance of the Ruyi Golden Snake changed; its originally brilliant golden appearance, which seemed remarkable at first glance, now turned into a dark gold color.
The entire snake body turned from its originally dazzling appearance to a dark, slippery, and unremarkable look, making it very easy to overlook.
If placed carelessly in the shadows, it could even hide its form completely, becoming invisible to anyone.
Qin Feng sighed lightly; it seems that when combining with the Ruyi Golden Snake in battle in the future, it will never again display the impressive appearance of sparkling gold, and even if its body is covered with Golden Scales, it will only turn dark gold.
However, he wasn’t simply a youth obsessed with appearances; furthermore, now that the Ruyi Golden Snake had lost its dazzling golden color but adopted a dark gold shade, one would find a mysterious aura about it with prolonged observation, and it even gained the function of Shadow Invisibility.
Qin Feng quickly put this minor issue aside; so what if his Lifebound Spiritual Snake turned dark?
It wasn’t a big deal as long as it became stronger and more capable.
What currently troubled him most was that he no longer had enough Spirit Stones to squander, and this fusion again consumed the power of the Spirit Veins in the Void Shattering Hammer Cave Mansion, and the more powerful the Spiritual Beast became, the larger the amount of Spiritual Power needed for fusion would drastically increase.
Qin Feng felt this method could not continue.
He had already sensed the Spiritual Energy in the Spirit Veins becoming significantly weaker.
Now that the Ruyi Golden Snake was only at the Foundation Establishment Peak Realm, it had already consumed so much.
If it reached the Demon Core Realm, perhaps it would deplete the Spiritual Power in these Spirit Veins in just one or two uses.
By then, he would probably have to import outside resources into the cave mansion to support the normal Cultivation of the Spiritual Beasts.
This approach was very uneconomical; not only did it consume a great deal, but it also wasted a lot of his time and energy.
He squinted and pondered for a long time before finally deciding to target the Demon Clan.
Perhaps because of the frequent volcanic eruptions in this realm, there are many veins of various metals, gemstones, and Demon Crystals.
Previously, he had tried inputting Demon Crystals into the Demon Refining Pot, and it still refined very pure Spiritual Energy without any mix of Demonic Qi.
However, the Demon Crystals he put in were of the Fire Element, and the refined Spiritual Energy was also pure Fire Element Spirit Energy.
This left him somewhat helpless, as the cultivation technique he practiced did not include any Fire Element spells, and although he could absorb this spiritual energy, he had to expend a great deal of spiritual power to dissipate the fire energy within it and convert the Fire Spirit Energy into pure Spiritual Energy before integrating it into his True Yuan.
Of course, there were other types of demon crystals, but they were relatively fewer in number, at least Qin Feng couldn’t get many at the moment.
However, providing those Fire Element demon crystals to the Demon Refining Pot as the energy to drive its operation was not a bad idea, since the Demon Refining Pot was not picky about which type of energy it used.
Besides demon crystals, there were also Demon Cores, which were energy crystals inside the bodies of demon beasts.
In some respects, Demon Cores were similar to the inner cores inside Demon Beasts; both were energy bodies developed from different cultivation systems resulting in different types of energy bodies.
A Demon Beast’s inner core was located in the Dantian in the abdomen, whereas a demon beast’s Demon Core was in its head.
Before reaching Core Formation, Demon Beasts had no energy bodies, yet demon beasts always possessed a Demon Core, no matter their strength— even weak, low-level demon beasts were no exception.
However, the energy in the Demon Cores, although much purer than that in the mined demon crystals, was also much more violent.
They even contained some spiritual energy with higher-level Demon Cores mixing more potent demon beast spiritual energy, which meant ordinary cultivators could not directly absorb and refine the energy within.
If one truly wished to absorb it, they would need to put in the effort to remove the demon beast’s spiritual energy.
Otherwise, if touched by this demon beast’s spiritual energy during cultivation, it was very easy to affect the cultivation.
If it merely caused chaos in the True Yuan, it wasn’t much of an issue, but if it damaged the meridians and acupuncture points or even assaulted the Divine Soul leading to possession by fire, it would be a big problem.
However, few cultivators were willing to absorb the energy from high-level demon beast Demon Cores for cultivation.
Because after careful investigation, cultivators soon discovered that high-level demon beast Demon Cores actually contained one or two Talent Magic abilities of the demon beasts from their prior lives.
If placed within Demon Beasts, these could be regarded as their Innate Divine Abilities.
This discovery was quickly reported up the chain, and immediately received significant attention from the Sect higher-ups.
Various Sect Elders believed that if these Demon Cores could be used to create Spiritual Artifacts and Magical Treasures, the effects would undoubtedly be excellent.
Moreover, if the grade of the Demon Core was high enough, it might even be possible to use the magic and spiritual body of the demon beast within the Demon Core to create a Spiritual Treasure with its own spiritual nature.
After interrogating the captured Demon Clan Mages, the cultivators quickly learned how the Demon Clan utilized these Demon Cores.
They crafted these high-level Demon Cores into magic wands or other types of Magic Equipment, utilizing the magic power and magic within the Demon Core for attack and defense.
This was known to the Demon Clan as Alchemy.
A skilled Alchemist could not only craft various Enchanted Equipment but could also use these demon beast Demon Cores to produce very powerful weapons and Magic Jewelry.
Then the cultivators quickly sorted out these Enchanted Equipment and Magic Jewelry from various spoils of war, and even the Demon Clan Mages’ magic wands were studied by them.
And the Artifact Refiners from various factions were even more proactive, scouring everywhere for any surviving Demon Clan Alchemists among the captives, including those Mages who knew a little about alchemy.
They picked these Alchemists and Mages from among the captives, saving these Demon Clan individuals, who had a skill to offer, from the tragic fate of becoming mining slaves.
This is the difference between mages and warriors.
Although the martial skills of the Demon Clan warriors are decent, to the cultivators, these guys are nothing more than laborers for mining and gathering various mineral resources.
After all, there aren’t many cultivators who practice body refinement, and even if there are, they only need to learn martial skills and cultivation systems from a few high-level members of the Demon Clan, without paying much attention to these common Demon Clan warriors, who don’t even have a single powerful member among them.
How could the martial skills of these Demon Clan warriors ever surpass the body refining techniques of the cultivators?
At least for a true disciple like Qin Feng who practices the Four Symbols Divine Decree, those common Demon Clan warrior’s martial skills are nothing to behold.
In the previous battles, he had killed many Demon Clan warriors and hadn’t seen any remarkable martial skills among them.
As for the cultivation methods, he was even less inclined to take a closer look.
If he wanted to draw inspiration, he could wait for the sect to unearth stronger techniques from higher-ranked Demon Clan powerhouses later on.
As a true disciple of the sect, he didn’t need to do everything personally.
Sometimes, it was enough to reap the benefits of others’ efforts.
However, the treatment of mages and alchemists was far superior to that of warriors.
The knowledge they possessed couldn’t be learned in a day or two.
It involved a long-term accumulation of study and practice, and required enough talent to integrate and comprehend.
Artificers, including many cultivators who were very interested in alchemical knowledge from this realm, flocked around these alchemists and mages, urging them to impart all their knowledge, planning to integrate alchemy into their artifact refining techniques.
As for whether these alchemists would teach seriously, the cultivators weren’t too worried.
They first chose a troublemaker from among the Demon Clan mages and then had a cultivator from the Five Poisons Sect demonstrate in front of the alchemists what the Ten Thousand Poisons Devouring Body entailed.
Then, they had a high-level inner sect elder from the Ghost Controlling Sect personally take action, anchoring the soul of the Demon Clan mage who had been devoured by countless tiny insects, leaving no trace of his bones, to demonstrate what the Soul Searching Method was.
Finally, the sinister-looking elder from the Ghost Controlling Sect, unable to bear the sight of the tortured soul of the destroyed Demon Clan mage, used the Soul Burning Fire to completely incinerate the mage’s soul, sparing him further suffering.
It seemed his Soul Burning Fire wasn’t very strong; the burning took a bit too long, causing the soul of the Demon Clan mage to wail miserably for a long time before completely dissipating into smoke.
With such methods successively applied, the mages and alchemists were immediately intimidated.
They were eager to impart all their knowledge to avoid being suspected by these Human Clan cultivators of withholding information, which might subject them to other forms of punishment that the cultivators had yet to mete out.
Subsequently, from the mouths of these mages, the cultivators learned about the existence of the Demon Pharmacists.
This was also a branch within the mage system, similar to the alchemists.
Only that alchemists smelted metals and were good at making various enchanted equipment, while Demon Pharmacists mastered various pharmaceutical knowledge and were adept at producing various magic potions.
Whether it was for healing injuries, aiding in magic power cultivation, enhancing spiritual power, or the many other peculiar uses, all magic potions came from the hands of Demon Pharmacists.
Upon hearing this news, it was the alchemists’ turn to become restless.
They began another round of searching for Demon Pharmacists, hoping to directly understand the properties of various medicines from this realm through the pharmacists and learn the skills of the Demon Clan in producing various magic potions, integrating them into their alchemy.
Perhaps seeing the treatment of the alchemists and Demon Pharmacists, soon some mages skilled in making magic scrolls stood up, hoping to gain the cultivators’ favor through their skills.
Although the magic power of ordinary mages was strong, the cultivators didn’t pay much attention to it.
Thus, the treatment of those mages who solely pursued magic power was far inferior compared to the specialists like alchemists and pharmacists.
Thus, some mages skilled in making magic scrolls actively indicated they also possessed special skills.
Thus, they quickly got what they wished for and were treated with high regard by the Talisman Makers.
Cultivators of the Immortal Dao are always this eager for knowledge.
They continuously absorbed knowledge from other clans to strengthen themselves, integrating it into their own cultivation system and passing it down through generations.
Even if some capabilities of other races couldn’t be expressed verbally, such as the innate divine abilities related to one’s bloodline that are carried from the womb, rather than through knowledge transmission,
the cultivators could still perceive these bloodline divine abilities through various means and transform them into cultivation techniques that could be passed down.
Even if there was some disparity in power compared to the original, the effects were similar, and it was even possible for the cultivators to deduce stronger aspects from it, gaining deeper insights.
For now, Qin Feng had no significant interest in the knowledge held by the alchemists and demon pharmacists; he did not plan to divert his energy to artifact refining and alchemy.
Wouldn’t it be better to spend that time understanding more about cultivation methods and divine skills?
Besides, as a true disciple, he didn’t need to learn these skills; the sect would naturally provide him with ample resources for his cultivation.
Should he decide to learn in the future, he could simply review the knowledge collected by the sect in this area; with his status, no one would stop him from accessing it.
He wasn’t even particularly interested in high-level demon cores; relatively speaking, he preferred demon crystal stones mined from veins.
This was because high-level demon cores were too scarce, whereas demon crystal stones were easily obtained.
With enough demon crystal stones, he could power the Demon Refining Pot, allowing him to integrate many demon beasts’ talent skills into his spiritual beast’s body, which was much stronger than merely making simple use of a demon core, right?
Thinking of this, Qin Feng became excited.
He felt that he should find a way to obtain as many demon crystal stones as possible.
Of course, he wasn’t inclined to mine them himself; that was the dullest method, as sorting demon crystal stones from veins would waste a lot of time.
As for the demon clan captives, although they would be sent by the sect to various veins for mining, the mined demon crystals and various other ores belonged to the sect, and even with his not insignificant status within the sect, he couldn’t fill his own pockets.
However, there were still other methods to obtain a large amount of demon crystals.
This was the Demon Realm, after all; he didn’t need to worry about the means to acquire a large batch of demon crystals in a short time.
Moreover, he could also trade other treasures and resources he had collected for demon crystals.
Unlike him, other cultivators valued demon cores more.
After all, high-level demon cores contained one or two magic skills of demon beasts, and once fashioned into various magic and spiritual artifacts, they could directly be used to cast spells.
Thus, in the marketplaces of the Cave Heaven World, the price of demon cores was high, and all the sects were buying up high-grade demon cores at high prices.
Especially the artifact refiners, whose demand for high-level demon cores was ever-increasing.