Alchemy, Gu Nurturing, and Grueling Cultivation
When the courtyard gate opened, it was the old man Ai Kun, who was knocking on the door.
Song Wen hadn't seen Ai Kun for a while, and upon seeing him today, he noticed that Ai Kun looked much more haggard, as if he had aged ten years in a short period of time.
"It's only been a month since I last saw you, how come you've aged so much?"
Ai Kun walked into the Small Courtyard and sighed.
"I've been going to Blissful Union Spring Night Tower a bit more often lately."
"You should take it easy, old man."
"This is the only hobby I have left. If you take this away from me, what's the difference between living and dying?"
Ai Kun's gaze suddenly fell on Song Wen, and he asked in surprise.
"Your cultivation has broken through to the Qi Refining Sixth Layer?"
Upon hearing this, Song Wen realized that he had just broken through and had forgotten to conceal his cultivation level in the Longevity Art Technique.
Having been noticed by Ai Kun, Song Wen no longer concealed his feelings, nodded, and admitted it.
"Yes, I just broke through today."
"I remember when you first came to the market, you only had the Qi Refining Fourth Layer, right? It's been less than a year, and you've already broken through to the Qi Refining Sixth Layer. How come your cultivation progress is so fast?"
Song Wen said, "When I first came to the market, I was already at the peak of the Qi Refining Fourth Layer. So, my cultivation level has only increased by a little over one level."
Ai Kun said enviously.
"Could it be that your vital energy is abundant, and you've been accumulating strength for a long time? Maybe if I go to the brothels less often, I might have a chance to break through to the Late Qi Refinement."
After chatting for a while, Ai Kun left.
Not long after Ai Kun left, Song Wen also left the courtyard. He strolled around the market and, in a secluded spot, disguised himself as he had when he rented the neighboring Small Courtyard, and entered the No. 36 Small Courtyard.
Upon entering the Small Courtyard, Song Wen went directly to the underground secret room.
While chatting with Ai Kun, he sensed a change in the Gu Worm within his body.
The second Black Armor Gu he fed with Silverhorn Grass spun its cocoon and pupated a dozen days ago.
At this point, there were already signs that it was about to emerge from its cocoon.
Remove the cocoon and place it in the Gu Cauldron.
An hour later, a Gu Worm broke out of its cocoon and crawled out.
Having learned from the experience of the previous Sacred Beetle Gu, Song Wen directly took out a Beast Brocade Pill and fed it to it.
Song Wen took out another bottle of Essence Blood and slowly fed it to the Sacred Beetle Gu.
Another half month passed, and the newly evolved Sacred Beetle Gu gradually stabilized its realm.
Song Wen then began preparations to have the two Sacred Beetle Gu mate and reproduce.
However, things were not as easy as Song Wen had imagined. Although the two Sacred Beetle Gu successfully mated, the female Sacred Beetle Gu showed no signs of conceiving or laying eggs for a long time.
Song Wen did not give up easily. After three months of trying, the female Sacred Beetle Gu finally began to lay eggs.
A month later, the insect egg was successfully laid, but there was only one egg.
Half a month later, the insect eggs hatched successfully.
A new Sacred Beetle Gu has been born!
In this way, two years later, Song Wen had cultivated a total of six Sacred Beetle Gu.
All the other Tier 1 Gu Worm, except for two ordinary Beetle Gu (one male and one female), were no longer necessary and were all fed to Sacred Beetle Gu by Song Wen.
As for leaving behind two Qi Refining Level One Beetle Gu, it was mainly because Beetle Gu were weak, and therefore their aura was the weakest, making them easy to mistake for ordinary insects. Song Wen kept them for unforeseen circumstances.
In any case, the Spirit Stone required to raise two Qi Refining Level One Gu Worm are negligible for Song Wen.
In less than two years, Song Wen continuously consumed the new version of the Blood Qi Pill, and his cultivation of the Longevity Art Technique also advanced by leaps and bounds, breaking through to the Qi Refining Ninth Layer, not far from the Qi Refinement Perfection stage.
He has one Foundation Establishment and four Heavenly Spirit Fruits. He only needs to Qi Refinement Perfection to be able to Foundation Establishment again and cultivate the Longevity Art to the Foundation Establishment Realm as well.
Song Wen stood up, stretched his stiff body, and walked out of the courtyard.
Feeling somewhat depressed after days of arduous practice, he decided to go for a walk.
They went straight to Zhao Dapeng's Small Courtyard, Song Wen's courtyard, where rent should be paid.
After knocking on the courtyard gate, Song Wen waited outside for a moment before Zhao Dapeng opened it from the inside.
Song Wen handed over thirty Spirit Stone and said, "This is three months' rent."
Zhao Dapeng nodded, said nothing, and turned to close the courtyard gate.
Ever since discovering that Zhao Dapeng had used his own younger brother to create living corpses, Song Wen suppressed his desire to take revenge on Zhao Dapeng and wanted to see what he was up to.
As a result, this wait lasted for more than two years.
The rat-eyed man had been tormented by the corpse energy to the point of being unrecognizable, but miraculously, he still hadn't died.
A mortal was corroded by corpse energy for two years, but neither died nor turned into a zombie.
This greatly surprised Song Wen, a corpse cultivator.
In the Cultivation World, a living corpse that has not been completely zombified is practically useless in terms of combat power.
This made Song Wen even more curious: what exactly was Zhao Dapeng doing?
There was another matter that puzzled Song Wen.
Zhao Dapeng was raising living corpses in the market, which was a major taboo for righteous sects, yet he hadn't been discovered for two years?
This is simply unbelievable!
Or has someone already discovered it, but simply hasn't publicized it?
Or perhaps, Zhao Dapeng's act of raising living corpses was tacitly approved by the Beast Taming Sect?
Driven by intense curiosity, Song Wen once considered killing someone to search their soul, but he suppressed the thought.
Zhao Dapeng rarely leaves the market area, so killing Beast Taming Sect disciples there would be unwise.
Moreover, Song Wen also wanted to see what kind of living corpse he would ultimately turn his own younger brother into.
After leaving Zhao Dapeng's house, Song Wen went to the market and bought some spirit medicine for Alchemy.
The Beast Brocade Pill we obtained from Heng Cheng and his wife were used up a year and a half ago.
Before this, Song Wen had already begun refining the Beast Brocade Pill. With his Foundation Establishment Late Stage Divine Sense, he met the requirements for refining a second-tier pill.
To refine elixirs, one must first prepare the necessary Alchemy spirit medicine.
Most of the spirit medicine used to refine the Beast Brocade Pill are quite common, but there are two second-tier spirit medicine that are not easy to find.
These two second-tier spirit medicine are not available for sale in the spirit medicine shops in the market.
However, at the stalls of Rogue Cultivator, there would occasionally be one or two plants for sale, but it was far from enough to meet Song Wen's needs.
Later, Song Wen went to the Mountain Ravine Ghost Market and finally solved the problem.
Refining the Beast Brocade Pill is much more complicated than refining the Blood Qi Pill. Since Song Wen dared not use demonic spiritual power, he used the spiritual power of the Longevity Art to refine the Beast Brocade Pill, which made his spiritual power slightly weaker. He could only Alchemy the pill once at a time before his spiritual power was insufficient, and he needed to meditate to recover.
This resulted in the Beast Brocade Pill not being successfully refined for a long time.
It took seven or eight months to successfully refine the first batch of Beast Brocade Pill.
With the Beast Brocade Pill, the strength of the Sacred Beetle Gu can be rapidly enhanced.