"If I remembered correctly, back in that cave, when I cultivated the Flesh Rebirth Art to the initial perfected realm, the water droplet showed a total cultivation time of one year and twelve days.
Its proficiency had only been [1/500].
Afterward, I traveled south all the way and tracked them here. Exactly one day had passed, and throughout that time, I had continuously used this secret art to maintain my disguise.
Yet now, this technique's total cultivation time had increased by one day, and its proficiency had become [4/500]. Didn't that mean that as long as I used this art to maintain a disguise in the future, the secret art would effectively cultivate itself automatically?!"
This discovery was no small matter. If that was truly the case, then this flesh secret art was practically giving the water clock cultivation time while it idled on its own!
More importantly, the Flesh Rebirth Art consumed a negligible amount of spiritual power. With He Sheng's current reserves, maintaining a disguise for several years would not be a problem.
"If it can truly passively increase cultivation time, then couldn't I endlessly roll back in the future? Roll back whenever I reach the limit, then roll back again once I reach the limit, repeatedly farming cultivation time this way?"
He Sheng grew excited. This was a tremendous discovery, and the joy in his heart instantly washed away the disappointment of failing to fully recover the hundred million in savings.
"It seems my development of the Time-Reversing Water Clock is still far from its limit. I'll have to conduct more experiments in the future."
With that thought, He Sheng stopped dwelling on other matters. He focused his mind on the plus sign behind the Flesh Rebirth Art, and the relevant cultivation information immediately appeared.
[After half a year of arduous cultivation, your Flesh Rebirth Art advanced into the Great Perfection realm. Not only could you alter your appearance at will, you could also control the textures and hues of every inch of skin down to the finest detail. Even the rhythm of your breathing and the beat of your heart could be disguised without a single seam showing. This was thanks to your increasingly exquisite control over skin, muscles, and bones. With the aid of the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, you could even perceive the minute changes within every particle of flesh and blood.] [During this period of arduous cultivation, you vaguely comprehended some mysterious principle concerning "flesh transformation," and you attempted to dig deeper along that insight. But you soon discovered that this secret art had already reached its summit, leaving no possibility of further progress.] [You were not discouraged. Instead, you prepared to cast off the old and bring forth the new upon the foundation of Great Perfection, blazing a path of your own.] [One month later, you had no choice but to admit that the strength of your current body simply could not support this flesh secret art reaching a higher realm.]
The Flesh Rebirth Art was not an especially profound flesh secret art. In just a year and a half, it had already reached its ultimate realm.
[Flesh Rebirth Art (Perfected): 500/500] (Total cultivation time: one year, seven months, and fifteen days)
"From the cultivation information, this secret art still has the potential to go further. But just like the Soul Imprint Art and the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, I currently lack the prerequisites needed to advance them further."
Whether it was the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm or the Soul Imprint Art, both required greater divine sense as their foundation before they could advance further;
And if the Flesh Rebirth Art wished to break through its ultimate realm and open up a realm of "Transcendent Mastery" like the Clear Billows Water Control Art, it required a more powerful physical body as a prerequisite.
"In short, I need body cultivation."
He Sheng muttered softly.
He was not opposed to body cultivation. If he found a suitable technique, he could naturally begin cultivating it. After all, a stronger body would not only support the Flesh Rebirth Art in going further, but also give him another means of preserving his life in spell battles.
"If Brother Piao's body cultivation had been formidable, then even if he couldn't have used his flesh to withstand a flying sword head-on, he wouldn't have been killed in a single strike by that youth carrying a sword, right?"
He Sheng thought once more of the terrifying methods of that sword-bearing youth.
Come to think of it, although the other party possessed a horrifying mechanism that ignored spiritual power defenses, it could not ignore solid, tangible matter.
At that thought, He Sheng felt even more strongly that body cultivation was necessary.
"However, body cultivation cannot be accomplished in haste. This will need to be considered over the long term."
He Sheng circulated the Flesh Rebirth Art and made another slight adjustment or two. Once he looked indistinguishable from Wu Feng, he took out a spare set of clothes from Wu Feng's storage pouch and changed into them, preparing to leave.
"Still... how could this Wu Feng be so dirt poor?!"
He Sheng had not noticed before, but after sweeping Wu Feng's storage pouch with his divine sense, he discovered that this fellow was truly poor beyond measure.
There were fewer than five thousand low-grade spirit stones in the storage pouch altogether, and only four magic artifacts—two top-grade magic artifacts and two high-grade magic artifacts.
Aside from that, there were some second-rank talismans and a few medicinal pills.
Adding everything together, the total estimated value of the items in the storage pouch would not exceed twenty thousand spirit stones.
He Sheng recalled the fragments of Wu Feng's memories he had seen during the soul search, and only then realized that this fellow was actually an ascetic cultivator.
Simply put, although this man was a second-rank lower-grade artifact refiner, most of both the annual stipend granted by the Celestial Sea Commerce Association and the spirit stones he earned from refining artifacts were spent on medicinal pills that improved his spiritual power cultivation.
The remaining portion of his spirit stones was all used to purchase Spirit-Binding Sand and cultivate a secret art for tempering divine sense based on artifact refinement—the Divine Artifact Treasure Vase Forging Method.
"However, judging from Wu Feng's memories, although he was a second-rank artifact refiner, his ability to earn spirit stones was not particularly strong."
As an attendant artifact refiner of the Lower River Branch, Wu Feng received an annual stipend of eight hundred low-grade spirit stones. Each year, he had to complete at least three custom magic artifact commissions for the Lower River Branch.
The remuneration for such custom artifact refinement was calculated according to the artifact's grade. Even a top-grade magic artifact only earned two hundred spirit stones in refinement fees.
In other words, Wu Feng could only earn a little over one thousand low-grade spirit stones a year from the Lower River Branch.
His other income mainly came from orders introduced by the commerce association, as well as customers who came to him themselves.
But artifact refinement was slow work. From preparing the spiritual materials, to controlling the flames and forging, to engraving restriction patterns, and finally collecting the artifact and shaping it—
Refining a single magic artifact could easily take ten days to half a month. If it was a superior top-grade magic artifact, refining it in one go could take one or two months.
And that was not even counting the possibility of failure during refinement...
"On average, Wu Feng's annual income was probably around three thousand spirit stones.
It sounded like a fair amount, but after deducting the cost of purchasing pills that increased spiritual power and the expense of cultivating the Divine Artifact Treasure Vase Forging Method, he only had a few hundred spirit stones left."
By judging the income of an artifact refiner like Wu Feng, who was also at Foundation Establishment Early Stage, He Sheng felt that his estimate of Brother Piao's savings had been too low.
After all, a Foundation Establishment Early Stage artifact refiner was, no matter how one put it, one of the foremost figures in the Silver Sand River region.
After all, even including these foreign cultivators, there were fewer than ten Foundation Establishment cultivators in the entire Silver Sand River region.
Yet Wu Feng, as one of the leading figures, only earned three thousand low-grade spirit stones a year. After deducting the essential expenses of cultivation, his average annual disposable low-grade spirit stones were only five or six hundred.
"If Wu Feng was considered a white-collar elite earning several million a year, then the resources Brother Piao had accumulated in the He Family's secret treasury were not some hundred million, but several hundred million—perhaps even close to a billion...
No!
Every last bit of that money must be recovered. Otherwise, if I have to accumulate the resources needed for Core Formation on my own afterward, I'll have to wait until monkeys grow old and horses turn white!"
The next moment,
He Sheng no longer lingered. He transformed into a streak of watery blue light and sped toward Lower River Market.
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