"Did you lose control again?"
Seeing Ye Fei's expression, Jiang Mengyun's face dimmed, and she sighed softly.
Then she swept her wide sleeve, sending a gentle breeze over Ye Fei.
Ye Fei, whose eyes had been vacant a moment earlier, suddenly shuddered and came back to himself.
"Let's go back."
Looking at the confusion in Ye Fei's eyes, Jiang Mengyun spoke mildly, then summoned her flying ship and took him back to Jade Maiden Peak.
"Go back and make the most of your time cultivating."
Once they returned to Jade Maiden Peak, Jiang Mengyun gave Ye Fei a slight nod, then turned and returned to her cave abode.
"Yes!"
Ye Fei answered quietly.
After returning to his cave abode, Ye Fei sat on a stone stool and tugged hard at his hair.
What on earth happened to me just now?
Ye Fei felt bewildered.
He had some vague recollection of his loss of composure.
But at the time, his thoughts had no longer been under his control.
He had no idea why he had said those words.
There was nothing wrong with the words themselves, but the expression on his face at the time...
Forget it. Uncle-Master Jiang wasn't angry anyway.
Unable to make sense of it, Ye Fei simply put the matter aside. With a stir of his divine sense, he entered the Azure Dragon Sword.
Now that he had completed Body Tempering, all that remained was spiritual root cleansing.
More than forty demon beast carcasses had been left over from his fourth spiritual root cleansing.
So this time, Ye Fei had the Spirit-Washing Tree absorb those Demon Beast carcasses directly.
After absorbing all of them, the Spirit-Washing Tree had only just put out tender shoots.
It was still a long way from maturing and bearing fruit.
But Ye Fei no longer wanted to go outside to hunt demon beasts, so he simply fed the Spirit-Washing Tree all the spirit herbs from his last harvest.
Even so, it was still not enough.
In the end, Ye Fei simply took out his spirit stones.
This was the most direct method.
After consuming another two hundred lower-grade spirit stones, the Spirit-Washing Tree finally matured again.
That really wasn't easy.
Staring at the Spirit-Washing Fruit glowing purplish-red on the tree, Ye Fei was filled with emotion.
Successfully completing Body Tempering sounded easy enough, but only someone who had endured it could understand the pain involved.
It was something that carved itself into the bones and heart.
After reflecting for a while, Ye Fei reached out and picked all five Spirit-Washing Fruits.
After eating the Spirit-Washing Fruits, Ye Fei sat beside the Spirit-Washing Tree and began his fifth spiritual root cleansing.
This cleansing took a little longer than the fourth, lasting almost half an hour.
But after Body Tempering, the sensation of ten thousand ants biting him was much milder than it had been the fourth time.
This showed that Body Tempering did help with spiritual root cleansing.
That brought Ye Fei some relief and gave him another sliver of hope for the road ahead.
After cleansing his spiritual roots, Ye Fei did not use spirit stones to cultivate this time. Instead, he sat directly beside the Azure Dragon Pool.
He planned to make use of the top-grade spirit vein beneath the Azure Dragon Pool for his future cultivation.
After all, forcing the Spirit-Washing Tree to mature consumed far too many resources. He needed to conserve the spirit stones he had.
Previously, he had avoided cultivating here partly because it was a little slow, and partly because the cold was too intense. His body could not withstand sitting here for long.
Things were different now. He had successfully completed Body Tempering and could withstand the cold here.
"With your current bodily strength, you can cultivate a hundred zhang underground."
Ye Fei had only just sat cross-legged beside the Azure Dragon Pool when the Azure Dragon's voice descended from above the clouds.
"Underground?"
Ye Fei was puzzled.
"There is a top-grade spirit vein a thousand zhang beneath the pool. The deeper you go, the denser the spiritual energy becomes."
"But because of the Azure Dragon Pool, the deeper you go, the colder it becomes. Ordinary people cannot withstand it at all."
"With your Skin Refinement Realm physique, a hundred zhang beneath the edge of the Azure Dragon Pool is your limit. Once you reach the Flesh Refinement Realm, you can descend another hundred zhang."
"When you achieve a Dao body, you can cultivate deep within the pool itself. Then the benefits will be inexhaustible."
Seeing Ye Fei's confusion, the Azure Dragon explained further.
"Thank you for your guidance, Senior."
After hearing the explanation, Ye Fei cupped his hands toward the clouds overhead.
Then he silently recited an incantation and cast the Earth Escape Technique.
A dozen breaths later, Ye Fei had burrowed a hundred zhang underground.
Just as the Azure Dragon had said, the deeper he went beneath the Azure Dragon Pool, the stronger the bone-piercing cold became.
Even with his body's resistance, a hundred zhang underground was already his limit.
Such dense spiritual energy.
As soon as he sat down, Ye Fei sensed the extraordinarily dense spiritual energy here. It was at least ten times as concentrated as outside.
Let's see how fast I can cultivate here.
With that thought, Ye Fei immediately began circulating the Free and Easy True Formula within his body.
As the Free and Easy True Formula circulated, streams of spiritual energy flowed into his body through the pores all over his skin.
Under the circulation of the Free and Easy True Formula, they transformed into streams of true qi and flowed into Ye Fei's dantian.
It's actually faster than cultivating with spirit stones.
A moment later, Ye Fei suddenly opened his eyes, his face brimming with excitement he could not suppress.
He discovered that the spiritual energy here was exceptionally pure and converted very efficiently. Cultivating here was even a little faster than using lower-grade spirit stones.
Time flew, and two months passed in the blink of an eye.
Ye Fei finally advanced to the seventh level of Qi Refining, entering the late stage of Qi Refining.
But to his frustration, shortly after reaching the seventh level and stabilizing his cultivation, he encountered another bottleneck.
These cultivation bottlenecks are coming far too often.
Feeling his cultivation stagnate again, Ye Fei had the urge to curse.
These bottlenecks really were far too frequent.
In truth, the fault lay not with the frequency of the bottlenecks, but with the poor quality of his spiritual roots.
Even after five cleansings, Ye Fei's spiritual roots were still relatively poor, perhaps only a tiny bit better than those of a cultivator with four spiritual roots.
With spiritual root aptitude like his, this cultivation level truly was his limit.
Without so many resources supporting him, it would have taken him at least several decades to reach this level with his aptitude.
Keep going.
Left with no choice, Ye Fei returned to the Spirit-Washing Tree.
With a stir of his divine sense, a large pile of spirit stones appeared beside him.
"Eat up."
Ye Fei pointed a finger, and the spirit stones flew toward the Spirit-Washing Tree one after another, like pearls threaded on a string. The tree absorbed each one, turning them into nourishment.
As the Spirit-Washing Tree absorbed the Spirit Stones, it continued to grow, blossom, and bear fruit.
After the tree had absorbed two thousand five hundred lower-grade spirit stones, the five Spirit-Washing Fruits finally ripened.
What a bottomless pit.
Looking at the mere thousand-odd spirit stones he had left, Ye Fei shook his head helplessly.
These had come from several months' worth of spirit herb harvests.
Complaints aside, when Ye Fei saw the five luscious Spirit-Washing Fruits, an excited smile still spread across his face.
"The sixth time."
Ye Fei sat cross-legged on the ground, gazing at the Spirit-Washing Fruits in his hand as he murmured.
Then he opened his mouth wide and swallowed all five fruits.
Three months later, when Ye Fei opened his eyes again, his cultivation had advanced to the late stage of the seventh level of Qi Refining, rising by another two minor stages.
The reason he stopped this time was that he had encountered a cultivation bottleneck again, and again, and yet again.
Helpless, Ye Fei returned to the Spirit-Washing Tree once more.
This time, he did not intend to use spirit stones to force the Spirit-Washing Tree to mature. Instead, he took out the spirit herbs he had harvested over the past five months.
Fortunately, there were enough spirit herbs. After the tree absorbed more than three thousand plants, the Spirit-Washing Fruits finally ripened.
This is the seventh time. Following the pattern, I should advance straight to the middle stage of the eighth level of Qi Refining next.
Looking at the five Spirit-Washing Fruits in his hand, Ye Fei was full of anticipation.
Without delay, Ye Fei soon completed his seventh spiritual root cleansing.
What's going on? Didn't I just cleanse my spiritual roots? Why isn't it working?
To Ye Fei's frustration, even after this spiritual root cleansing, his cultivation bottleneck remained.
When he resumed cultivating, his cultivation still would not increase in the slightest.
Could the late stage of the seventh level of Qi Refining really be my limit?
At that thought, Ye Fei's face turned pale, and his body began to tremble.
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