Qi Gathering Fifth Level

Name: Shen Changchuan

Cultivation Realm:

Qi Gathering Fifth Level, Early Stage

Cultivation Technique:

Elephant Mountain Qi Absorption Art

Dharma Artifacts:

Two Golden Needles (quasi-low-grade Dharma Artifacts)

Soul-Snatching Bell (mid-grade Dharma Artifact)

One Storage Bag

Spells:

Golden Bell Technique: 100% (Mastery traits: slight increase in defensive power, negligible metal-element spell cultivation experience)

Earth Shaking Technique: 100% (Mastery traits: slight increase in spell power, negligible earth-element spell cultivation experience)

Water Dragon Technique: 45%

Azure Wood Sword Light: 1%

Inside the Spirit Spring Secret Chamber,

Shen Changchuan looked at the panel before him, his face brimming with delight.

Heaven never failed those with a determined heart.

Two months of hard work

had brought him tremendous improvement.

First, his Cultivation Realm had surged in one stroke to the Qi Gathering Fifth Level.

The spiritual power within his body had more than doubled!

At the same time,

he had learned four new spells, and cultivated two of them to mastery.

The Golden Bell Technique made up for his defenses, while the Earth Shaking Technique made up for his control and area attacks.

Shen Changchuan had specifically chosen them to address his weaknesses.

With this,

having mastered eight Mastery Level Spells, Shen Changchuan could not exactly be called a hexagonal warrior now,

but at the very least, he had acquired ways to deal with situations in every respect.

Compared to two months ago,

his strength had improved tremendously!

At the very least, without using Dharma Artifacts,

one of him now could fight at least three of his former self!

Thinking of Dharma Artifacts,

Shen Changchuan glanced at the Dharma Artifact section of the panel.

Over this period, he had figured out one thing: if a Dharma Artifact in his possession was placed inside the Storage Bag, that Dharma Artifact would disappear from the Dharma Artifact section.

That was also why the panel did not currently display the dagger among Shen Changchuan's spoils, nor the other quasi-low-grade long sword Dharma Artifact.

As for the underlying principle,

Shen Changchuan could not make heads or tails of it either.

So he simply stopped thinking about it.

Compared to that,

improving his own realm and strength was far more important.

"Pills really do speed up cultivation. No wonder medicinal pills are so expensive."

"The reason I could reach this point in two months was largely thanks to those thirteen Qi Nourishing Pills!"

Indeed,

Shen Changchuan had consumed all thirteen Qi Nourishing Pills among the spoils he had obtained from the Four Fiends of Heshan as cultivation assistance.

Of course, Shen Changchuan recalled the plotlines in cultivation novels he had read in his previous life, where enemies might leave poison or hidden tricks inside the pills they left behind.

But after giving it the slightest bit of thought, he threw that possibility to the back of his mind.

How should he put it?

Alchemy was not cooking,

where one could casually toss in seasonings.

Every pill required the medicinal properties, spiritual energy, and even attributes of all sorts of spiritual herbs to blend together in perfect harmony before it could take shape. During the pill-forming process, the slightest carelessness could blow up the furnace and turn everything into charred ash.

And even after a pill had formed, once it was contaminated by something foreign and its internal circulation of medicinal power was damaged, its medicinal power would rapidly dissipate, reducing it to a useless pill.

Adding something to a pill without damaging the spiritual pill itself

was practically a breakthrough of the fundamental logic of alchemy.

Only a legendary Grandmaster Alchemist could probably accomplish such a thing!

A Grandmaster Alchemist

was an existence on the same level as the Profound Pill True Person.

If the Four Fiends of Heshan truly possessed such skill and had managed to acquire such pills,

then Shen Changchuan would accept it.

If he died, then he would admit defeat!

But judging from things now,

the Four Fiends of Heshan clearly did not possess that kind of ability.

"It's just a pity that the Qi Nourishing Pills have all been used up. With that, the days of rapid improvement have come to an end."

Looking at the Qi Gathering Fifth Level, Early Stage displayed on the panel,

Shen Changchuan felt satisfied, yet could not help feeling a greedy twinge of regret.

In two months, he had leapt from the middle stage of the Fourth Level to the early stage of the Fifth Level.

That rocket-like pace was something Shen Changchuan had never even dared to imagine before.

But considering that after consuming the Azure Origin Water Grass, his bodily and soul aptitudes had improved,

and that he had ample cultivation pills assisting him, such progress was no longer strange.

It was just that the thirteen Qi Nourishing Pills he had seized had now all been exhausted.

From here on, it would basically be impossible to maintain such speed.

Unless he could find a new source of spiritual pills.

But unfortunately, that would not be easy.

This Border Wasteland was too remote; it simply could not support an Alchemist.

The pills carried by the Four Fiends of Heshan had likely come from a larger city even farther away.

Difficult, difficult, difficult!

For a time, Shen Changchuan could not come up with a good solution.

Perhaps,

if he could obtain an inheritance of alchemy,

he could use the Progress Bar Panel to grind its progress up, then refine pills for his own cultivation?

But Shen Changchuan quickly shook his head.

The value of an alchemy inheritance was not the slightest bit less than that of a high-grade Dharma Artifact!

It was a skill that earned Spirit Stones, enough to allow a cultivation Lineage to establish itself!

Even those who knew alchemy would clutch it tightly and never pass it on lightly.

Better to forget it.

Shen Changchuan could only suppress those thoughts.

"I can only wait until after the autumn harvest and see whether the merchant caravans arriving outside Wu Family Market have the corresponding spiritual pills for sale."

"If not, then I can only consider making a trip to Qing City."

Shen Changchuan felt somewhat helpless and let out a soft sigh.

After two months of secluded cultivation,

Shen Changchuan had gained much,

but because of the limited time, he had not managed to cultivate all the spells left behind by the Four Fiends of Heshan.

For that reason,

the day of the autumn harvest had arrived.

Across the Spirit Fields,

the golden Spirit Grain stretched as far as the eye could see, glittering brilliantly beneath the sunlight.

When the wind blew, it rolled like waves of gold.

The major matter of harvesting the Spirit Grain

was not something Shen Changchuan dared take lightly.

Thus, he ended his secluded cultivation

and emerged from the Spirit Spring Secret Chamber.

"Grandfather, how is it going?"

When Shen Changchuan saw Han Qinhu waiting outside, he immediately asked.

Though Shen Changchuan had spoken with great confidence when he proposed reforms for Great Bay Village,

this was ultimately his first time dealing with the management and cultivation of Spirit Fields.

So he did not have much confidence.

"Very well."

"Based on the experience of several old farmers in the village, harvesting should begin in about three days."

"According to their estimates, this season's harvest should be quite good. The output from those ten mu of Spirit Fields should be somewhat higher than last season's. Each mu should increase by around ten jin of Spirit Grain, reaching an output of one hundred and ten jin per mu."

"The two Spirit Fields managed by Groups Eleven and Twelve have seen an even greater increase in production. Roughly estimated, each should yield more than forty additional jin."

Great Bay Village was, after all, their home base, and it concerned the production of the Twelve Mu Spirit Field.

Thus, Han Qinhu had hurried back from Great Bay Village several days earlier to begin preparing the various matters for harvesting the Spirit Fields. He therefore knew more about the specific situation of the autumn harvest.

"Changchuan, congratulations. Your reforms for the village have succeeded."

Han Qinhu's voice was filled with emotion at that moment.

The second update will be after noon. I've been a little off these past two days. As I wrote, I suddenly slipped back into padding things out out of habit. For this chapter alone, once I came to my senses, I forcibly cut nearly a thousand words of nonsense.