Compared with Childhood Stage Layer 2, reaching Childhood Stage Layer 3 was undoubtedly far less difficult.
It was only due to the limitations of the Nourishing Origin Fundamental Scripture that Li Mo could not press forward in one vigorous burst. Instead, he mobilized the miasma spiritual power throughout his body and repeatedly struck at the bottleneck.
After more than half a day, when his heartbeat gradually settled, his cultivation naturally broke through to Childhood Stage Layer 3.
His Middle Dantian expanded by twenty percent, and the spiritual power within it had also been compressed.
Li Mo felt utterly refreshed. Every breakthrough in realm carried a feeling of shedding his mortal frame and exchanging his bones, and even the Tattooed Beast benefited immensely.
He closed his eyes and connected with the spiritual qi outside.
He discovered that the variant spiritual energy spread throughout his body had more than doubled. Some of it was rather well concealed; without the Corpse Spirit Root, it would have been difficult to perceive.
As an Acquired Spiritual Root, the Corpse Spirit Root aided cultivation enough to rival the Five Elements Spiritual Root of ancient times, greatly increasing the efficiency of absorbing spiritual qi.
Li Mo merely circulated the Nourishing Origin Fundamental Scripture.
Specks of spiritual qi were like fledgling swallows returning to their nest, scrambling into his mouth and nose before being drawn by the Corpse Spirit Root and surging through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
If Li Mo wanted to remove the impure spiritual energy within, it was far easier than before.
Under the effects of the Corpse Spirit Root, the spiritual qi became exceptionally docile. However, because the miasma spiritual power leaned toward water and earth, it only applied to three kinds of spiritual qi.
"Does this mean... I have a Water-Earth Dual Spiritual Root?"
Li Mo wore a strange expression.
Yet upon carefully comparing it with an Innate Spiritual Root, the Corpse Spirit Root was nearly identical in function. Moreover, once he advanced to Childhood Stage Perfection and all five viscera underwent Spiritual Root Transformation, the effects would likely become even more apparent.
Li Mo rose to his feet and tested his vastly enhanced physique inside the room.
He found that he was gradually metamorphosing in an inhuman direction. With his current strength, carrying a yellow ox weighing several hundred jin would not be much of a problem.
Of course, what mattered most to Li Mo was that after his blood turned to sand, the upper limit of his qi and blood had already far surpassed that of Childhood Stage Layer 2.
Using Paint Green Clothes now came as naturally as turning his hand over.
The corners of Li Mo's lips rose. As painting calmed his mind, his Spirit Division began choosing which visceral artifact to transform at Childhood Stage Layer 3.
After hesitating for a moment, miasma spiritual power wrapped around the liver in the upper right side of his abdomen.
At the same time, the Book of Fortune flipped to its sixth page. The liver was directly branded onto the Blank Pages, signifying that a new divine ability was being nurtured.
Li Mo knew something about the five viscera.
The liver was chiefly responsible for detoxification and could even affect the absorption of medicinal properties. It was the visceral artifact that offered the most obvious aid to his current cultivation.
"His..."
Li Mo's scalp went numb. A piercing pain came from his liver, directly interrupting the Circulation Cycle through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, as though countless ants were gnawing at his liver.
He stopped meditating and took out the artifact-refining tools he had bought from Yi Bao Pavilion.
He had already memorized the Basic Artifact Refining Method and had also purchased a Low-grade Magic Tool catalog that recorded the method for refining the "Golden Sand Diagram."
At Yi Bao Pavilion, Low-grade Magic Tool catalogs were practically given away for free. After all, if more cultivators were not exposed to artifact refining, low-grade spiritual herbs would have no broad market.
Li Mo knew that once he fainted, he would not wake up for at least ten days.
He could not let the inn room fees go to waste.
The Basic Artifact Refining Method was indeed rather rudimentary. It simply used spiritual power to nourish spiritual herbs, remove their dross, and refine them into Magic Tool Blanks.
The difficulty lay in requiring extremely strong control over spiritual power.
Since miasma spiritual power leaned toward the Water-Earth Attribute, the spiritual herbs Li Mo had bought at Yi Bao Pavilion were similar in nature: the hide of an unknown Pseudo Bizarre Beast.
The Beast Hide's surface was covered in barbs, while the remaining flesh and blood beneath had crystallized. One could clearly sense faint earth-attributed spiritual qi radiating from it.
Li Mo stroked the Beast Hide with his palm as miasma spiritual power slowly flowed in.
After a burst of sizzling, the Beast Hide actually began to shrivel. The grease and flesh beneath its skin turned into black smoke, and the hide grew increasingly charred.
Nourished by the miasma spiritual power, the Beast Hide began showing signs of refinement.
Li Mo raised his brows.
He could hardly believe it had gone so smoothly. Even for a Magic Tool Blank, many Artifact Refiners needed more than a dozen attempts before reaching Entry Level.
But Li Mo soon realized that his ability to refine the Beast Hide's impurities so quickly was likely related to the exceptional purity of his miasma spiritual power, along with the control granted by his eidetic memory.
Enduring the intense pain, he continued refining the Beast Hide with complete concentration.
The Beast Hide became thinner and lighter, though its blood vessels and meridians remained. In the end, it turned into a Magic Tool Blank as thin as a cicada's wing.
The autumn rain beyond the inn window fell without end.
After Li Mo refined the three Beast Hides in his hands into Magic Tool Blanks, the autumn rain had still not stopped. It had taken only two short days.
He had made only one mistake. His success rate alone was enough to make a great many Artifact Refiner apprentices ashamed enough to break into a cold sweat.
Li Mo picked up a Magic Tool Blank and examined it. It was no different from ordinary rice paper, and he could not help muttering, "That's it?"
Only then did he realize.
As the Book of Fortune branded more and more organs, and he received the support of various divine abilities, Li Mo's talent and aptitude would continuously grow.
Li Mo set the Magic Tool Blanks out to dry beside the window.
The magic tool he was about to refine required time to air-dry, allowing the Magic Tool Blanks to gain sufficient toughness.
Refining the finished magic tool would not be troublesome, since it was only a Low-grade Magic Tool.
According to the Golden Sand Diagram catalog, he merely needed to grind the metal spiritual herbs into powder, then paint a river of sand onto the Metal-Earth Attribute Magic Tool Blank.
With Li Mo's painting skill, it would be effortless.
Once his artifact-refining level was high enough, he could attempt to cultivate the Primordial Acquired Dao Body.
Taking advantage of his spare time, Li Mo inspected the liver whose branding had been completed. The divine ability he had acquired was exactly as expected.
It was called "Contain Toxin and Digest Poison."
The divine ability could not only enhance the absorption of pills, but also detect toxins within the body and gradually dispel them through Contain Toxin and Digest Poison.
Li Mo had figured it out: the divine abilities awakened by the Book of Fortune all leaned toward support.
He activated Contain Toxin and Digest Poison, using inner sight to scan through his flesh, blood, and bones. He could see the bodily structure that set him apart from ordinary people.
Li Mo roughly swept over his visceral artifacts. When his consciousness reached his brain, his expression suddenly turned grave.
He froze in disbelief for a long while. Even with a Leakless Body, he broke out in a cold sweat from fright, his breathing turning extraordinarily heavy.
His brain had a dark, dull hue—a sign of corpse transformation.
Li Mo was already over fifteen years old, so it was normal for Death Sickness to begin showing signs. The problem was that scattered black spots had appeared across the surface of his brain.
The black spots were clearly caused by metal toxin. It seemed that, without realizing it, he had already been eroded by some unknown method of the Ziqi Sect.
Fortunately, the metal toxin could be suppressed by Contain Toxin and Digest Poison. Dispersing it, however, would require the slow work of water wearing through stone.
"Pills?"
If the toxins came from pills, that would be easier to handle—the source would be obvious at a glance.
But he faintly suspected that the pills were most likely not the problem. After all, most of the poisoned Rogue Cultivators in the Heart Beast Black Market could not afford pills.
Without hesitation, Li Mo swallowed a Corpse Brain Pill. Feeling the Spiritual Root Transformation in his liver, he kept his consciousness fixed firmly upon his brain.
As a result, the poison in his brain did not worsen because of the Pill.
"Trouble has gotten serious. The metal toxin may be spread throughout the air."
What was strange was that through Contain Toxin and Digest Poison, Li Mo learned that the metal toxin's main harm was affecting the nerves. With the physique of cultivators who pursued Eternal Life, it could not possibly threaten their lives.
He strongly suspected that poisoning would perhaps only cause a few hallucinations.
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