Foundations of Cultivation

For the next stretch of time, Lin Xuan devoted himself wholeheartedly to practicing the purification of Mid-Grade Marrow Cleansing Pills. All beginnings were hard; at first, every step had been arduous, and his success rate was terrifyingly low.

He succeeded only once out of nearly every ten pills. Such a failure rate had at one point made Lin Xuan consider giving up. However, compared to others his age, Lin Xuan was more mature and more resolute. Once he set his sights on something, he would never rest until he achieved it. In the end, he gritted his teeth and persevered.

Heaven did not disappoint those who worked hard. As time passed, Lin Xuan gradually became more familiar with the process, and his efficiency rose to one successful purification for every five pills. Though still low, it was at least within a tolerable range.

One had to know that the effects of Mid-Grade Pills were extraordinarily miraculous, utterly incomparable to Low-Grade Pills.

Obviously, such purification efficiency could not possibly meet Lin Xuan's requirement of nine pills a day. He had a rough plan for his cultivation. Though he had temporarily slowed his progress, he still needed to cultivate every day and could not neglect his training.

After deducting the time spent meditating and practicing, along with his scant daily sleep, the remaining time, at a twenty percent success rate, yielded only one Mid-Grade Pill per day.

He could not possibly take just that one pill. Though for other cultivators, this was already an unimaginable luxury, Lin Xuan was not satisfied. After all, he possessed the ability to purify them.

If there were not enough Mid-Grade Pills, he would use Low-Grade Pills to make up the numbers. Their effects were somewhat inferior, but something was better than nothing!

Thus, Lin Xuan took one Mid-Grade Pill in the morning and four Low-Grade Pills each at noon and in the afternoon, beginning his diligent cultivation.

Time flowed like water, racing past. In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.

The potency of Mid-Grade Pills was indeed extraordinary. Though he took only one each day, driven by their powerful medicinal effects, Lin Xuan's cultivation steadily rose. The growth in his spiritual power was strikingly apparent. At this rate, in a few more months, he should be able to cultivate his technique to the fifth layer and become one of the few experts among the disciples who had entered the valley at the same time to reach the late Spirit Movement Stage.

Lin Xuan was satisfied with the speed of his advancing cultivation, but the efficiency of his Mid-Grade Pill purification had not improved as he had hoped. After a month, he should have grasped some techniques and become more proficient, yet his success rate showed no increase. It remained at twenty percent. Though the Star Sea within him had expanded somewhat, it could only purify a little more than one pill, not enough to support the purification of two.

It seemed his use of the Blue Star Sea had reached a bottleneck. After careful analysis and consideration, Lin Xuan came to this conclusion: if he wished to improve, his cultivation needed to rise several more levels.

For example, if he cultivated his technique to the fifth layer and entered the late Spirit Movement Stage, perhaps his efficiency in purifying Mid-Grade Pills would increase. The Star Sea grew in tandem with spiritual power, and once his spiritual power underwent a leap, the bottleneck he encountered in using the Star Sea would disappear.

Though he had reached this conclusion, Lin Xuan did not desperately rush to raise his cultivation. Cultivation required effort, but one could not be impatient for quick success. Haste made waste. The Spirit Movement Stage was equivalent to laying a foundation for the long road of cultivation. To be fair, with spiritual medicines supporting him, his cultivation speed was already absurdly fast. If he continued blindly pursuing speed, he might achieve good results in the short term, but it would do no good for his future cultivation.

Though young, Lin Xuan was not at all impetuous. Even possessing such a precious treasure, he did not seek quick success. One had to eat one bite at a time, and cultivate one step at a time. Lin Xuan would not become carried away merely because he could purify pills. On the contrary, since Heaven had granted him this advantage, he had to cherish it all the more and make good use of it. Every day after cultivating, Lin Xuan would reflect upon and summarize his experiences.

Since he had decided to build a solid foundation rather than seek quick success, Lin Xuan deliberately slowed his pace from then on, striving to make his foundation even more stable.

Under such circumstances, aside from purifying pills and meditating in cultivation each day, Lin Xuan had gained some extra time. Naturally, he would not waste it, and he decided to begin practicing the use of Spirit Tools.

A Spirit Tool was essentially a simplified version of a Dharma Treasure, meant specifically for low-level cultivators. Yet one must not underestimate its power. Though it could not overturn rivers and seas, it still possessed immense Supernatural Power, capable of flying through the skies and burrowing into the earth, wondrous beyond measure.

Once one cultivated a Spirit Movement Stage technique to the fourth layer, one could control Spirit Tools. However, that was merely in theory. The reason was simple: although Spirit Tools were far inferior to Dharma Treasures, they were still exceedingly precious. Generally speaking, only Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators could possess them. Newcomers at the Spirit Movement Stage, aside from the rare few who inherited relics from their predecessors or were exceptionally gifted and received them from their masters, could not possibly own Spirit Tools.

But Lin Xuan was different. Having looted Zhang Yu and Zhou Yan's treasures, he was extremely wealthy. Besides spirit stones and Talismans, he also possessed Spirit Tools—three of them, no less.

The first was the Gold Binding Rope that Zhou Yan had used when she ambushed her master. Once shrunk, it was only about a foot long, but after spiritual power was infused into it, it could extend at will. Its purpose was to bind enemies.

The other was that Flying Sword, an offensive Spirit Tool. Lin Xuan had witnessed its power firsthand. With a single strike, it had blasted down a sizable mountain wall. Its might was incomparable.

Yet these two were not the most precious. Zhou Yan had only reached the great completion of the Spirit Movement Stage. Though she was one of the foremost experts among low-level disciples, her wealth clearly could not compare to that of Zhang Yu, who was in the Foundation Establishment Realm.

There was only one Spirit Tool inherited from Zhang Yu: a small ring resembling a Bracelet, crystal-clear and entirely snow-white.

Do not be fooled by its inconspicuous appearance. The Jade Snow Ring was immensely famous within Floating Cloud Valley, one of the sect's few top-grade Spirit Tools.

Spirit Tools were divided into four grades: low, mid, high, and top. Only Core Condensation Realm experts could use Dharma Treasures, while even the strongest Foundation Establishment Realm experts possessed no more than a single top-grade Spirit Tool.

Taking Floating Cloud Valley as an example, even the various martial uncles and martial elder uncles mostly possessed high-grade Spirit Tools. Only a small handful had top-grade Spirit Tools, and Zhang Yu had been one of them. It had to be said that Lin Xuan's luck was truly excellent.

In fact, aside from the Jade Snow Ring, Zhou Yan's two Spirit Tools were also remarkable. The Gold Binding Rope could bind enemies; it was a mid-grade auxiliary Spirit Tool whose nature lay between offense and defense.

As for that Flying Sword, it was high-grade!