Earth Spirit Pill

Chapter Thirty-Five: Earth Spirit Pill

During the Small Competition, Lei Dong moved into the area exclusively for core disciples without any pretense. ♬💢 💘♧ After all, the sooner he could cultivate in the cultivation room built on the spirit cave, the more strength he could accumulate. Cultivation is not just about fighting others, but more importantly, fighting against heaven. Within a limited lifespan, one must constantly defy the heavens to ultimately achieve immortality and perish with heaven and earth.

The effect of the spirit cave was quite good. Coupled with the Vitality Pill, which was even better than the Lesser Vitality Pill, Lei Dong's cultivation increased day by day. Every month, he would attend the Old Ancestor's lecture for a day. In fact, the Old Ancestor's core disciples were far more than the three in Lei Dong's current batch. Generally, he would take in three core disciples every ten years. This tradition had been maintained for over seventy years since the Old Ancestor advanced to the Golden Core stage and obtained his own cave mansion. Although they were nominally core disciples, the Old Ancestor never allowed those at the Qi Refining stage to call him Master. Only after reaching the Foundation Establishment stage would they become the Old Ancestor's true inner disciples, truly considered his own.

Theoretically, over seventy years, the Old Ancestor should have recruited over twenty core disciples. However, to this day, Myriad Ghost Ancestor only had five inner disciples, who were the five referees presiding over this Small Competition. The remaining core disciples numbered only a mere ten. The rest either perished midway or remained stuck at a certain layer of the Qi Refining stage for decades, eventually having to leave in dejection to establish cultivation families and branch out. If their descendants had good spiritual root aptitude, they would be recommended to the sect again.

From this, it can be seen that advancing from the Qi Refining stage to the Foundation Establishment stage is not as easy as imagined. ♗🍩 69shùⓧ.cOm 😂😺 One can imagine how many among Lei Dong's batch would eventually reach the Foundation Establishment stage? Perhaps only Ding Wanyan had a greater chance, while the rest, including Zuo Chao and Lei Dong, would all depend on luck.

Although the Qi Refining stage is divided into twelve layers, and bottlenecks can be encountered at each layer, the difficulty of each advancement increases as one progresses. Furthermore, every four layers, a relatively large bottleneck is encountered. For example, advancing from the fourth to the fifth layer, from the eighth to the ninth layer, and the advancement from the twelfth layer to the first layer of the Foundation Establishment stage are the points where most cultivators get stuck.

Therefore, the first to fourth layers of the Qi Refining stage are called the early Qi Refining stage, followed by the middle and late stages.

Two and a half years, a full two and a half years, passed in the blink of an eye.

By this time, Lei Dong had been a core disciple for quite some time. Combining the advantages of resources for core disciples with Lei Dong's unwavering focus on cultivation over these two years, his cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. It took him a year and a half to break through two stages, directly reaching the fifth layer. After that, it took him nine months to cultivate to the peak of the fifth layer. For the next three months, no matter how he cultivated, he made no progress. He attempted to force a breakthrough three times, but all ended in failure. His meridians and acupoints were also somewhat damaged during the breakthrough attempts, requiring a period of recuperation to recover.

Undoubtedly, he had encountered the legendary bottleneck. Lei Dong couldn't help but smile bitterly. He had easily broken through the bottleneck between the fourth and fifth layers, which were relatively easy to encounter. However, from the fifth to the sixth layer, he couldn't break through no matter what. Bottlenecks were truly annoying things, unpredictable and appearing without warning. →

After reviewing many materials and classics on bottlenecks, Lei Dong was somewhat speechless. Sometimes, a breakthrough could be achieved through enlightenment during a battle. Sometimes, enlightenment would suddenly occur while observing scenery. But sometimes, even after spending ten years traveling outside, observing countless natural landscapes, and fighting hundreds of battles, a breakthrough still couldn't be achieved.

However, after countless years of development in the cultivation world, countless exceptionally talented individuals have emerged. Through numerous explorations, many pills have gradually been developed to increase the chance of breaking through. But the vast majority of these pills carried various dangerous factors. At best, they could cause severe damage to meridians and a regression in cultivation. At worst, they could even cost one's life.

As for the pills that truly had no side effects, they were all refined using thousand-year-old spiritual herbs. With their powerful effects, they could push cultivators to break through, increasing the success rate. But due to the materials, such pills were naturally extremely expensive. Imagine, a spiritual herb with a hundred years of efficacy was worth no less than a hundred spirit stones, and a thousand-year-old spiritual herb was worth at least a hundred times more.

A thousand-year-old spiritual herb, plus some precious auxiliary materials, even if the cost price was only ten thousand spirit stones. Assuming that batch of materials could refine ten pills, and the success rate was a higher thirty percent, then the cost price of a single pill used to break through bottlenecks without harm would be three to four thousand.

In fact, Lei Dong had also checked at the sect's pill exchange. The item called Earth Spirit Pill required a contribution value of one hundred thousand for each pill. He also inquired with Zhao Baiwan, and the price of Earth Spirit Pills in the outer market was usually between four to six thousand spirit stones, with very limited supply. Such a price was astronomical for Lei Dong. But he had to admit that the Earth Spirit Pill had a good reputation. Except for the peak bottleneck of the twelfth layer of the Qi Refining stage, where its effect for foundation establishment was slightly insufficient, the success rate for other layers was quite considerable. Especially for the bottleneck Lei Dong was currently facing, from the fifth to the sixth layer, if one's aptitude was not too poor, possessing an Earth Spirit Pill could almost guarantee a ten-tenths breakthrough. The remaining medicinal properties could also save Lei Dong a significant amount of cultivation time.

As for asking the Old Ancestor to bestow an Earth Spirit Pill, that was simply wishful thinking. If every core disciple needed an Earth Spirit Pill from the Old Ancestor to break through bottlenecks, even someone on the Golden Core Path would be bankrupted. Most people, when encountering an insurmountable bottleneck, would choose to travel outside, hoping to pass through it during some fortuitous encounter.

But Lei Dong did not think this was a good idea. Traveling indeed offered a chance to comprehend heaven and earth and use the momentum of nature to break through bottlenecks. But the problem was, it was too unreliable. Perhaps one could go out today and resolve it tomorrow. But perhaps it would take three to five years, or even more tragically, ten to eight years.

Of course, he would have to go out eventually. Staying in the Myriad Ghost Cave offered no benefit for breaking through bottlenecks. Some people had done it, sitting idly for many years, repeatedly attempting breakthroughs and failing, eventually becoming disheartened. Lei Dong's goal was clearly set on the Earth Spirit Pill, but to obtain the Earth Spirit Pill, he had to raise a sum of money.

Including the small amount of spirit stones plundered from Zhou Minghua's storage belt, plus what he had saved over the years, his total savings amounted to only a little over eighty spirit stones. As for the Middle Grade Spirit Ghost bestowed by the Old Ancestor, he had never touched it, sealing it in an item called a Soul Sealing Ball. Even so, it was still far from the value required to purchase an Earth Spirit Pill.

After much deliberation, he could only set his sights on the Soul Devouring Pagoda again. However, to cultivate each Middle Grade Spirit Ghost, it required absorbing the soul force of about five thousand Yin Souls. Based on the time Lei Dong took to capture them years ago, it would take about a month. Now, Lei Dong was many times stronger than when he was at the Qi Refining Second Layer, so the capture speed would increase. In a few months, he could accumulate enough capital for an Earth Spirit Pill, and more than enough.

As for selling Middle Grade Spirit Ghosts, Lei Dong was no longer the greenhorn he was at the Qi Refining Second Layer. With his cultivation at the peak of the Qi Refining Fifth Layer, and the Three Ghost Soldiers, although they hadn't had many opportunities to devour flesh and blood over the years, they had gradually grown to the peak of level five. With such strength, while it couldn't be said to sweep through those in the middle Qi Refining stage, as long as they weren't particularly wealthy and laden with Upper or Middle Grade Magic Items, Lei Dong wouldn't fear encountering ordinary cultivators at the seventh or eighth layer of Qi Refining. And in the lower echelons of the cultivation world, the seventh or eighth layer of Qi Refining was already considered a minor expert. As for Foundation Establishment cultivators, they were extremely rare. Considering that the Myriad Ghost Cave, including the Ghost Slaves, only had a mere six Foundation Establishment cultivators, one could see how rare Foundation Establishment cultivators were in this world.

Of course, caution and prudence remained Lei Dong's main theme. He tried to avoid trouble as much as possible. He spent a small amount of money to obtain a jade slip map of the Yin Sha Sect's territory, marking all the relatively low-level Yin Sha lands. It was indeed worthy of being called the Yin Sha Sect's territory; Lei Dong felt a prickle of scalp when he saw the densely packed markings.

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