After leaving Heavenly Sea Pavilion's branch on Green Locust Island, Lu Xiaotian rode his sword through the boundless skies above the sea. He occasionally encountered a few spirit birds that attacked provocatively, but he killed most of them outright and collected their materials. Over the past ten-odd years, his cultivation had long since reached the peak of the twelfth level of Foundation Establishment, and he had made no further progress for several years.
He had not spent much in the way of cultivation resources, nor had he devoted much time to alchemy. Instead, his attainments in formations had advanced by leaps and bounds. Over the past decade, in order to test the Five-Element Formation and derive all manner of formations, he had bought vast quantities of materials with Spirit Stones, only for many of his attempts at refining them to fail. Even for him, aside from a few middle-grade and high-grade Spirit Stones, nearly everything else had been used up. These materials from demonic beasts of the fourth rank and above could still fetch a fair number of Spirit Stones. Besides, the formations needed for the tribulation would consume a tremendous amount of Spirit Stones as well.
Along the way, he also encountered large flocks of demonic birds. Lu Xiaotian did not wish to provoke too much trouble. Though their numbers were not as terrifying as the fire bat swarm he had seen before, they were still impossible to kill completely.
Whenever this happened, Lu Xiaotian would dive straight into the seawater and use the Water-Melding Pearl's wondrous effects to evade them.
He came across two islands, but Lu Xiaotian was dissatisfied with them. They were too long and narrow, with their narrowest points only a few zhang wide, not even enough space to set up his two large formations.