Wutan City, Xiao Family.
Xiao Yan stood before the sickbed, his youthful face filled with intense worry, his strong emotions seemingly making his body tremble.
His innate wisdom awakened, Xiao Yan recovered the memories of his past life at this moment.
The Dou Qi Continent, the Jia Ma Empire... after understanding his identity, Xiao Yan knew the person on the bed was terminally ill and would soon give him an important keepsake.
That was a ring called the Bone Flame Ring, which harbored the soul body of Yao Lao inside it, a very classic old-man golden finger.
As he thought that, a bottle was handed over from the bed.
Facing this unexpected object, Xiao Yan's mind went completely blank, and even all the way back to his room, he still hadn't fully recovered his wits.
Where is that pitch-black, archaic ring of mine? Xiao Yan stared with a head full of question marks at the small green bottle in his hand.
Presenting a natural green color, it was slightly smaller than ordinary medicine bottles, with several dark green leaf-shaped patterns printed on the bottle body, and touching it gave a protruding sensation, as if it were inlaid directly with real leaves.
He weighed it with his hand; the bottle was very heavy, and its material was neither ordinary jade nor special metal.
Xiao Yan had read extensively, and almost all the appearance and material of the small bottle in his hand matched the special small bottle in his memory. He forcefully twisted the small cap that tightly sealed the bottle mouth.
Failing to budge it at all, he gained a bit more belief in his heart.
Xiao Yan waited until nightfall, and when the night grew deep and quiet, he opened the window, letting the moonlight fall upon the small bottle.
Under his intensely focused gaze, he soon discovered an anomaly.
Under the moonlight, the small bottle emitted a faint whitish glow; had it not been for close and careful observation, it would have been impossible to notice at all.
The appearance matched, and even the ability to absorb moonlight was present. Excitement surfaced in Xiao Yan's pitch-black pupils—the Bone Flame Ring had turned into the Palm-Heaven Bottle!
This Palm-Heaven Bottle was also a very classic golden finger. Its most well-known ability was absorbing moonlight to condense green liquid, thereby accelerating the growth of medicinal herbs. A simple drop of green liquid could increase a herb's age by a hundred years.
Of course, if it were a complete Palm-Heaven Bottle equipped with a bottle spirit, its functions would go far beyond this, and the interface would differ. Even a Palm-Heaven Bottle without a bottle spirit had differences in the speed and circumstances of condensing green liquid.
In the Mortal Realm, the commotion when condensing green liquid was quite large, taking seven days to condense a single drop. Upon reaching the Spirit Realm, the commotion of condensing green liquid lessened, and a drop could be condensed every three days.
How would it be on the Dou Qi Continent, he wondered?
Xiao Yan found a small beast-skin pouch to store the bottle, then stepped out of his room and took it out in a vast, uninhabited area.
In this open space, if the small bottle were like it was in the Dou Qi Continent and the Mortal Realm, it would madly absorb moonlight, forming a basin-sized white halo of light.
Xiao Yan stared fixedly. The small bottle did not have such a violent reaction; the commotion was as minimal as it was inside the room, matching its appearance in the Spirit Realm, with light almost imperceptible.
Repeating the experiment continuously, five days later, Xiao Yan gave a gentle twist, and the cap tightly sealing the bottle was unscrewed by him. Approaching the bottle mouth to look, a soybean-sized, emerald-green liquid had appeared inside, reflecting the entire bottle wall in a glowing green.
Clearly, compared to when it was in the Mortal Realm and the Spirit Realm, the Palm-Heaven Bottle had a different sort of effect here.
Its commotion in absorbing moonlight here was very small, requiring only five days to condense a drop of green liquid.
Knowing that this green liquid acted like poison to animals, Xiao Yan directly targeted plant seeds for application.
He found a flowerpot, planted a seed of a Spirit-Gathering Herb, placed it in his room, applied the green liquid, and waited for it to take effect.
A twenty-year Spirit-Gathering Herb was one of the materials for refining the tier-four medicinal pill, the Qi-Gathering Powder. Its price was extremely exorbitant, basically able to sell for a high price of around fifteen thousand gold coins at an auction house, but the seeds were very common.
The Spirit-Gathering Herb had extremely high demands for the heaven and earth energy of its growing region. Under long-term absorption, as long as the level of heaven and earth energy decreased even slightly, the Spirit-Gathering Herb would rapidly wither and die.
The reason people could still harvest twenty-year Spirit-Gathering Herbs and let alchemists cooperate with other materials to refine Qi-Gathering Powders—which helped people condense their Dou Qi Vortex—was because Spirit-Gathering Herbs, like dandelions, could produce a large number of seeds at once.
Those seeds drifted with the wind, and among them, fortunate ones might land in places where heaven and earth energy was concentrated and stable, supporting them to grow to a high age.
The next day, the originally barren flowerpot grew a verdant plant.
It was almost indistinguishable from ordinary wild grass, but its tip flickered with a fluorescent glow—it was precisely a Spirit-Gathering Herb. The denser the fluorescent glow, the higher its age represented.
Xiao Yan looked at the light emitted by the Spirit-Gathering Herb in the pot, which was almost like a small piece of moonlight stone. Judging by the information in his books, it was very easy to determine that this was a hundred-year-grade Spirit-Gathering Herb.
At a hundred years of age, it was even rarer, capable of refining pills of a higher grade than the Qi-Gathering Powder, and its value was more than seven or eight times higher than a twenty-year Spirit-Gathering Herb.
Having suddenly acquired a medicinal herb that could easily be converted into over a hundred thousand gold coins, Xiao Yan instead lay on the bed, his mind wandering afar. At this moment, he no longer held the joy of testing the Palm-Heaven Bottle's effect on the Dou Qi Continent or obtaining the century-old Spirit-Gathering Herb.
Sharing the status of a classic golden finger with the ring that hid the old man, the Palm-Heaven Bottle possessed extremely high freedom. How to make good use of it required careful planning.
Xiao Yan was well aware of his own advantages. He possessed extremely high innate talent, having practiced since age four, and without the support of many resources, he had reached the Ninth-Stage Battle Qi by age ten.
Now, without Yao Lao crippling his strength and turning him into trash, and with him able to rely on the medicinal herbs ripened by the Palm-Heaven Bottle, even if he couldn't exchange them in Wutan City for special medicines like the Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid that could accelerate Dou Qi cultivation without side effects, exchanging for a Qi-Gathering Powder was certainly not a problem.
With the medicinal power of the Qi-Gathering Powder aiding him, he wouldn't need to spend a long time accumulating energy to condense the Dou Qi Vortex; after breaking through to the Ninth-Stage Battle Qi at age ten, he could become a Dou Zhe.
After breaking through to become a Dou Zhe, one could practice cultivation methods. As for whether he absolutely had to practice the Flame Mantra technique, there was no absolute requirement.
On the current Dou Qi Continent, wanting to break through and become a Dou Emperor involved two methods.
First, obtain the Emperor-Grade Nascent Pill, refine it to perfection, and break through with the complete Emperor Pill.
Second, refine the Nihility Devouring Flame or Purifying Demonic Lotus Flame, thereby opening the stone statue of Tou She Ancient God to obtain the inheritance and become an emperor.
These two methods had nothing to do with whether one practiced the Flame Mantra technique.
After becoming a Dou Zhe, Xiao Yan felt he could completely trade high-age medicinal herbs for a Profound-Tier cultivation method to gain faster cultivation speed.
The benefits of practicing a high-grade cultivation method from the start were numerous and immense: advanced cultivation methods allowed the Dou Qi Vortex to contain more Dou Qi; the quality of the Dou Qi cultivated would surpass low-grade methods; driving Dou Qi during battle would be smoother; the high efficiency in cultivation went without saying...
Combining the above factors, becoming a Dou Zhe at age ten and practicing a Profound-Tier cultivation method—Xiao Yan himself couldn't imagine how fast his speed would become.
Of course, if he could obtain the assistance of medicinal pills, his speed would be even faster, and his innate talent and comprehension in alchemy happened to be even stronger than his cultivation.
Yao Lao frequently absented himself from alchemy teachings, falling asleep after the first Buddha's Fury Lotus, which resulted in a lack of guidance for tier-three and tier-four pills; he fell unconscious at the bottom of the Burning Heaven Qi Refining Tower, followed immediately by being captured by Wu Protector, completely losing his guidance.
First, the medicinal herbs ripened by the Palm-Heaven Bottle could be exchanged for alchemy data for self-study; second, they could be exchanged for alchemy materials, fearing no waste; third, high-grade pills only required rare medicinal herbs, and once his alchemy art improved, he could endlessly enjoy high-grade pills to accelerate his cultivation.
Aside from his understanding of innate talent, Xiao Yan also accurately grasped the locations of certain treasure vaults.
Near the picking spot of the Thousand Medicine Hall in the Magic Beast Mountain Range, within the cliff walls, there was one; deep underground in the eastern part of Stone Desert City grew the Green Lotus Core Flame...
That Green Lotus Core Flame was very peculiar, growing within a green lotus seat formed by the roots and stems of vines. Since it grew through plants, it could also be ripened by the green liquid.
Xiao Yan collected his thoughts and sat up from the bed. Those matters were still far away from him in the present; for now, he had to start practicing his Dou Qi first.
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