"Immortal Arts" Were Hard to Come By!

Supported by the millions of disciples of the Red Flame Sect, Shen Mo's Spirit Stones had once reached a staggering ten million.

However, with [Martial Drill]—a Destiny as voracious as a gold-devouring beast—no matter how many Spirit Stones he accumulated, they would be drained dry in the blink of an eye!

Setting aside incomplete or tampered-with cultivation methods, a normal technique required over a hundred thousand, or even several hundred thousand, low-grade Spirit Stones for its first derivation. Further derivations on that foundation directly doubled the Spirit Stone cost.

Take Shen Mo's primary cultivation method, the Primordial One Qi Art, which he was currently circulating. Its first derivation through [Martial Drill] had consumed 478,000 low-grade Spirit Stones; the second had consumed 956,000. It had now been derived to the fifth stage, consuming a cumulative total of 14,818,000 low-grade Spirit Stones—a truly terrifying sum!

The Primordial One Qi Art had originally been a low-grade Spirit-tier technique. By Shen Mo's estimate, after five derivations, it had roughly risen to the mid-to-high-grade Treasure tier, becoming ever more wondrous.

Originally, Shen Mo had intended to press onward in one unbroken surge and derive it to the Immortal tier. But the Spirit Stones he had amassed over many years were nearly exhausted. He would still need to accumulate another forty or fifty million Spirit Stones to achieve that goal!

To him, though, it was not particularly urgent.

Whether he first cultivated a technique to the [Return to Simplicity] level before deriving it, or derived it several times before cultivating it deeply, the overall result was not greatly different!

In theory, the higher a technique's tier, the greater its power and efficacy. Yet it was also affected by one's mastery—that was, proficiency... Every time the Primordial One Qi Art underwent derivation, its proficiency plummeted by a