Refining a Houtian Spiritual Treasure

"I'm rich, I'm rich, I don't know how to spend it..."

In the Shelter Grotto-Heaven, Li Yang's demonic and brainwashing singing had been echoing for days, driving the Taiji Diagram to the brink of wanting to smash into a wall.

"Little Mage, please stop singing. Day after day, from morning till night, aren't you tired of it?"

Li Yang seemed to heed its opinion, the singing ceasing, replaced by muttered incantations as he formed hand seals, refining the Solar True Fire and Lunar True Water into the grotto-heaven's sun and moon.

When the sun and moon rose and the Grand Formation of Celestial Stars completed its brand-new debugging, the demonic singing started up again.

"Master! Save me!"

The Taiji Diagram considered itself a chatterbox, but it realized it couldn't hold a candle to the Little Mage—this was pure torture.

If it didn't need to stay here to help Li Yang conceal the heavenly secrets and protect his path, it would have fled long ago.

And Li Yang?

He was genuinely happy.

Setting aside all that knowledge, just the sheer quantity of materials alone wasn't something someone at his level could gather, let alone this much.

Two months had passed since the Grand Master left, and only now had the sun and moon been fully refined, with the Grand Formation of Celestial Stars barely adjusted.

Watching the sun and moon rise into the sky, the formation that had been shattered by Heavenly Punishment and had its power weakened was now not only restored but amplified tens of thousands of times.

Seeing Chaos Qi descend in streams, then transform into vast amounts of Clear Qi, Turbid Qi, spiritual energy, and stellar force, Li Yang was overjoyed.

With such a massive conversion rate, the rapid rise in spiritual energy within his small grotto-heaven was merely a minor matter; the real gain was the Core Planet and the Celestial Stars continuously expanding.

In the blink of an eye, their volume swelled by a full circle.

And as they grew, the formation's power kept increasing—this amplification effect was truly astonishing.

"My avatars are also transforming. Those at the Origin Immortal Stage are advancing toward the True Immortal Stage, some of those who Returned to Dao are about to step into Origin Immortal, and the Refining Void avatars are climbing rapidly, not far from the Return to Dao stage either."

Although over half the avatars had been lost, numbering in the hundreds of millions, the survivors still exceeded ten billion.

Unfortunately, while the previous Heavenly Punishment hadn't completely destroyed them, it had taken a full six months to repair them, and now they were in a phase of explosive growth after recovery.

"With these, handling matters outside will be much easier."

During this time, his injuries and damaged avatars had left him without a clear enough grasp of the outside world's changes.

To cope, he had to force himself through his wounds to repair a Return to Dao stage 'Golden Core' avatar to guard the Thatched Cottage, which had made him deeply uneasy.

Now, things were better. He had enough avatars again, greatly bolstering his confidence.

Next, Li Yang turned his gaze to the Pill Cauldron on the Core Planet.

Though the cauldron had been repaired quite a bit, it still had many cracks, but this actually gave him an opportunity to upgrade it.

After all, if a Top-grade Magic Treasure Pill Cauldron serving as the formation's core was already this formidable, what would a Houtian Spiritual Treasure be like?

With this thought in mind, Li Yang prepared to refine the cauldron into a spiritual treasure.

"Wait, Little Mage, aren't you going to heal your injuries?"

The Taiji Diagram was stunned. It didn't understand—was refining treasures really that important right now?

Look at you, coughing up blood every now and then, with so many wounds on your body occasionally seeping Immortal Blood. Don't you care at all?

"What's there to fear? I won't die anyway. No rush."

He had the Work-Life Balance trait, which required plenty of rest time, so why hurry?

Let Late Bloomer accumulate for ten thousand years, let his rest time stack up for thirty or forty months, and then heal—wouldn't that be nice?

A little pain was nothing; he could endure it!

But the Taiji Diagram didn't know that. It just felt that this Little Mage's path was far too reckless—valuing treasures over his own life.

"Little Mage, doesn't your body hurt? If it's really bad, you could at least take a Nine-Turn Golden Pill."

Li Yang glanced at the Taiji Diagram and shook his head. "It hurts a lot, but this is my cultivation. I find joy in it."

The Taiji Diagram fell silent.

It couldn't understand this Little Mage's path.

Enjoying pain this much—could it be that his future Great Dao would be centered on suffering?

Wasn't that a deviant, heretical path?

But it couldn't persuade Li Yang at all, so it could only watch over him helplessly, ensuring he didn't stray down the wrong road.

Everything else was left to Li Yang's own discretion.

And so, the Taiji Diagram's days were spent watching Li Yang refine treasures, read books, stare at the Immortal Blood he coughed up, gaze at his own wounds, and occasionally show off his resounding singing voice.

"I don't get it. I completely don't get it!"

The Taiji Diagram was on the verge of breaking down. It had no idea what Li Yang was trying to do.

How could he give off such a leisurely vibe?

As time trickled by, Li Yang's injuries didn't change much, but the grotto-heaven's transformations grew more and more dramatic.

Each star grew larger and larger—the biggest now had a diameter of three hundred meters, the smallest about ten feet. As for the Core Planet, its diameter had already exceeded three thousand li, and the entire grotto-heaven's space had expanded by over a hundredfold.

Let's not even mention the Chaos Qi—nowadays it surges more and more violently, and even the spiritual energy it transforms into grows increasingly high-grade.

Unfortunately, because the core of the great formation is ultimately neither an Innate Spiritual Treasure nor an Innate Spiritual Root, the transformed spiritual energy only carries a trace of innate characteristics, and those quickly degenerate and vanish.

Even so, the spiritual energy within the Cavern Heaven remains exceedingly dense; in the void, the energy condenses into liquid, and on the Core Planet, spiritual rain falls almost every day, causing the planted Spiritual Medicines to grow wildly.

A scene of thriving vitality, where all things compete to flourish.

And the Pill Cauldron on the Core Planet, along with Li Yang's refining, was gradually undergoing change.

Now, all scars were gone, spiritual light burst forth, and it seemed poised to advance to a Houtian Spiritual Treasure at any moment.

That day, Li Yang put down the book in his hands and turned his gaze to the Pill Cauldron.

"The time has come—the final step."

He tossed many materials into the void, drawing the stored power of the Circulating Star Dou over this period and smashing it into the Pill Cauldron.

Then, endless spiritual energy was ignited, scorching the cauldron until it glowed red-hot.

"Yin-Yang power, gather!"

With a hand seal, the Yin-Yang power stored by the sun and moon over this time surged wildly into the cauldron, forming a small Taiji Diagram that spun continuously.

Next, Li Yang took out a heavily sealed jade bottle; inside was the Chaos Qi he had painstakingly stored through immense effort.

Gritting his teeth, he drew it out and cast it straight into the Pill Cauldron.

"Chi!"

Although this Chaos Qi belonged to the gentle kind from the Inner Chaos, it still possessed the power to erode and return all things to chaos. In an instant, the Pill Cauldron was reduced to a thin layer.

Yet Li Yang remained unmoved. He poured in large quantities of materials and spiritual energy, and countless restrictions and runes were struck into the cauldron's interior.

Gradually, the Chaos Qi fused with these materials, and one restriction after another, rune after rune, linked together, forming a grand cauldron structure.

At the center of the cauldron, the endlessly spinning Yin-Yang fish also absorbed a trace of Chaos Qi, undergoing an inexplicable transformation.

Faintly, the Taiji Diagram seemed to notice something and let out a startled cry.

"Wait—using the Nine-Turn Golden Pill refining method to refine a spiritual treasure? And it's almost succeeding? And that Yin-Yang fish—why does it feel like a counterfeit of me? What kind of freak is this?"

Li Yang paid no attention to the Taiji Diagram's fussing. At the final step, all his focus was on this.

"Blood sacrifice, come!"

Li Yang coughed blood. Fresh Immortal Blood, containing the thunderous essence of the Purple Firmament Divine Thunder and the aura of destruction, instantly merged into the Pill Cauldron.

"Boom!"

A golden light shot into the sky.

A Houtian Spiritual Treasure.

Success!!