Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art

After parting ways with the Green Snake, He Sheng headed straight back to where Kou Xiang'er was hidden. Seeing that she was safe and sound, he did not wake her. Instead, he took out several storage bags.

First were three azure storage bags, containing the Lower River Branch's goods, which Kou Xiang'er had sorted into categories.

The first held spirit stones, slightly more than the figures in the previous ledger—just over ten thousand.

The second held spirit materials, varied beyond counting. Most were first-tier spirit materials, while there were fewer than twenty second-tier ones.

The third held dharma artifacts, numbering as many as two hundred and thirty-eight. Most were mid-grade dharma artifacts; after all, the Lower River Market's main clientele consisted of Qi Refinement rogue cultivators.

For the Lower River Branch, low-grade dharma artifacts were cheap and yielded limited profit, while high-grade dharma artifacts were too expensive for rogue cultivators to afford. Mid-grade dharma artifacts were naturally their mainstay of sales.

Thus, both low-grade and high-grade dharma artifacts were few in number.

As for supreme-grade dharma artifacts, there were only two. One was the Owl Dragon Banner, the so-called treasure guarding the Lower River Branch's shop.

The other was an order sent over by another branch. Wu Feng had already forged it, but the other party had not yet had time to collect it.

"It was more or less the same as what I calculated from the previous ledger. If I wanted to quickly convert these dharma artifacts into spirit stones, I could only sell them at a bone-breaking discount.

"And I would need the right channels. After all, I had no idea whether the Celestial Sea Commerce Association's dharma artifacts bore special marks. It would be troublesome if I sold them one moment and they came knocking the next."

The dharma artifacts from the Lower River Branch, combined with those from the He Family's secret vault, brought the number of dharma artifacts in He Sheng's possession to over two hundred. Turning them into cash was a major problem.

Not to mention that Wu Feng's and Elder Xu's storage bags each contained several dharma artifacts as well. However, the two were Foundation Establishment cultivators, so theirs were naturally mostly supreme-grade dharma artifacts.

At that thought, He Sheng took out a storage bag threaded with gold and edged in silver, along with a black jade ring. The former was Elder Xu's storage bag, while the latter was naturally his beast-controlling ring.

"This Elder Xu was quite well-off. He had around three hundred mid-grade spirit stones, along with several thousand low-grade spirit stones.

"With this, the spirit stones in my possession have already exceeded two hundred thousand. Once I turn the dharma artifacts and spirit materials into cash, it should be enough to buy a Golden Core Formation Pill.

"If I can also find the other portion of resources Ji Yunlai hid away, it will be enough to cover the cost of forging a Nascent Dharma Treasure."

There were quite a few items in Elder Xu's storage bag. Aside from spirit stones, there were also many pills, though most were meant to feed spirit beasts.

There were not many dharma artifacts: two supreme-grade dharma artifacts and one high-grade dharma artifact.

There were also plenty of miscellaneous items. He Sheng gave them a rough sweep with his divine sense, and one item caught his attention—a handwritten manuscript.

He Sheng pulled out the manuscript. It felt quite heavy in his hand, unlike ordinary paper. It seemed instead to have been tanned from the hide of some demon beast.

The entire scroll was a deep dark-blue, with fine golden patterns faintly flowing across its surface, exuding an indescribably mysterious air.

"<Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art>?"

Those words were written on the manuscript's cover. When He Sheng unfolded it, the opening thesis made his breath catch!

"Technique Divine Abilities are techniques that approach the divine. Comprehension is the foundation, Intent Realm the key.

"..."

The thesis contained only a little over a hundred words, yet it dispelled the doubts in He Sheng's heart.

First, the secret art's thesis plainly explained what a Technique Divine Ability was.

A Technique Divine Ability was the cultivation of a certain high-tier spell to its utmost limit, comprehending a unique "Intent Realm," thereby entering the Dao through technique and gradually deriving a Divine Ability Embryo from it.

Yet comprehending an Intent Realm was incomparably difficult. Only those with exceptional comprehension could achieve it.

This <Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art>, however, had opened up another path, creating the method of "Life-Borrowing Joint Cultivation."

The core of this method was to find a high-tier spell similar to a certain demon beast's innate talent, using that innate talent as a reference and support to cultivate jointly with the beast.

The demon beast's innate talent became the cultivator's "crutch" for cultivating Divine Abilities. With that crutch, the cultivator could directly cross the most difficult stage of comprehending an Intent Realm,

Using the demon beast's innate talent to first advance the spell into a Transcendent Art, then deriving a Divine Ability Embryo from it.

"In other words, in the traditional cultivation of Technique Divine Abilities, an Intent Realm is a necessary prerequisite for forming a Divine Ability Embryo.

"And from the Clear Ripple Water Control Art, I comprehended the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm. I have already fulfilled the prerequisite for forming some kind of Divine Ability Embryo!"

Though He Sheng still did not understand the distinctions between Technique Divine Abilities, Fate Divine Abilities, and the like, with Ye Shaochen as a dazzling pearl before him, he knew that a Divine Ability Embryo's might would certainly far surpass ordinary means.

"It seems I need to settle down as soon as possible and put the cultivation of artifact forging and the Divine Artifact Treasure Vase Forging Method on the agenda. After all, only once my divine sense is substantially strengthened can the Clear Ripple Water Control Art hope to advance further."

As that thought flashed through his mind, He Sheng carefully pondered the <Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art> again.

This secret method had clearly been created as a shortcut for cultivating Technique Divine Abilities, specifically to circumvent the requirement of comprehension.

However, its limitations were equally obvious. It required a specific innate talent to match a specific spell in order to cultivate it, and the manuscript recorded only seven Divine Ability Embryos that could be cultivated through Life-Borrowing Joint Cultivation.

"From the detailed explanation of this secret method, the mysteries of an Intent Realm still greatly surpass a mere Transcendent Art.

"Life-Borrowing Joint Cultivation is almost mechanical cultivation. It uses a demon beast's innate talent to cultivate a specific Transcendent Art, then follows a specific path to derive a certain Divine Ability from that Transcendent Art.

"But the mysteries of an Intent Realm are far more than that.

"For example, my Subtle Ripple Intent Realm can not only augment divine sense and cultivation methods,

"When combined with an escape art, it becomes a Transcendent escape art such as Subtle Ripple Water Escape. It can also cultivate an offensive Transcendent Art such as Water-Gathering Break."

In He Sheng's view, an Intent Realm was more like some kind of conceptual god, while a Transcendent Art was merely one form in which that conceptual god descended and manifested.

"An Intent Realm is this difficult to obtain. It seems Brother Piao's comprehension is quite high."

Originally, He Sheng had believed that he comprehended the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm because he had devoted enough cultivation time to the Clear Ripple Water Control Art. But according to the <Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art>, comprehension was a necessary condition for grasping an Intent Realm.

That meant that, at the very least, Brother Piao's body had extremely high-grade hardware.

He Sheng naturally would not think it was his own comprehension at work. After all, when he had used the Time-Reversing Water Clock to comprehend the Subtle Ripple Intent Realm, he had only just transmigrated here and was utterly in the dark about this world.

At the time, the Time-Reversing Water Clock must have conducted the cultivation based on Brother Piao's body's hardware specifications.

He Sheng carefully studied the seven Divine Ability Embryos recorded at the end of the <Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art>, memorizing one by one the spells they required and the compatible innate talents of demon beasts.

"It seems that the firelight Elder Xu released through that Three-Colored Tail-Plumed Rooster was the Transcendent Art, 'Crimson Fire Mystic Light,' which serves as the prerequisite for the [Crimson Sun] Divine Ability Embryo. But it was still lacking in refinement.

"According to the <Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art>, once cultivated to its limit, a Transcendent Art's power could exceed the realm of talisman treasures and reach the level of a Nascent Dharma Treasure refined to completion."

However, when cultivating a Transcendent Art through Life-Borrowing Joint Cultivation, bitter cultivation alone was not enough to reach its upper limit. The key lay in developing the demon beast's bloodline.

This was also the key to forming a Divine Ability Embryo, and another limitation of this method.

"At minimum, it requires a superior Profound-grade bloodline with over eighty percent bloodline awakening before there is hope of using Life-Borrowing Joint Cultivation to form a Divine Ability Embryo."

To initially cultivate a Transcendent Art, the demon beast's bloodline awakening had to exceed thirty percent.

To raise the Transcendent Art's power to its upper limit, bloodline awakening had to reach at least fifty percent!

"Limitations are limitations, but if resources truly were not lacking, and one could raise the corresponding demon beast, wouldn't that mean that even someone at Foundation Establishment Early Stage could possess offensive power comparable to Foundation Establishment Late Stage?!

"And that would only be a Transcendent Art brought to its upper limit.

"What if one directly cultivated a further-advanced Divine Ability Embryo?"

Ye Shaochen's figure inevitably surfaced in He Sheng's mind once more. He increasingly felt that cultivation in this world was far more than simply sitting in meditation and refining qi.

"I wonder whether cultivating the <Myriad Demons Co-Cultivation Spirit Transformation Art> with the Time-Reversing Water Clock can ignore the requirements for demon beast bloodlines?

"If it can... wouldn't I be able to quickly master a Divine Ability?"

A thought suddenly arose in He Sheng's heart. He was immediately filled with excitement and promptly began trying it!