Drinking the medicine every day had indeed sharpened her senses of smell, taste, and sight, but what concerned Mo Caihuan most was still breaking through her bottleneck.
Half a month later, she impatiently asked Food Immortal, "The time is up. What's this method you mentioned for breaking through my bottleneck?"
"How much do you know about Demon Beasts?"
"Not much. There are very few Demon Beasts in the Heavenly South, though there are plenty of spirit beasts."
"They're not the same. Demon Beasts are living creatures that cultivate using the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Spirit beasts are livestock raised by cultivators. As far as flavor goes, Demon Beasts taste better," Food Immortal said. "The higher their rank, the more delicious they are."
"Get to the point first."
"Ahem, let me savor the memory for a moment." His childish voice sounded almost wheedling as he said, "Since you don't know much about Demon Beasts, I'll start with an introduction. Demon Beasts are delicious and powerful. As they cultivate, their bodies constantly change. The Demon Core inside them is just like our Golden Core. Supposedly, if they keep cultivating, their Demon Core will also turn into a Nascent Soul. But that isn't the most important thing. What matters most is their body. They concentrate the power they cultivate in a particular body part, and usually, that part is also the tastiest. I only discovered this after eating over ten thousand Demon Beasts. So before eating one, I always fight it and observe which part it uses to unleash its abilities. Aside from the Demon Core, that is its second most important part."
Mo Caihuan said nothing and listened as he continued.
"Through observation, I discovered that this is the part where a Demon Beast's life force is strongest. Sometimes, its life energy is so abundant that it can even produce a second Demon Core. So if you want to practice Body Tempering, you can strengthen your life energy, then break through the restrictions inside your body one part at a time."
"Then how do I increase my life energy?" Mo Caihuan thought that internal energy could not increase without limit either.
"That's where pills come in. Pills that boost life force are much easier to buy than pills for directly practicing Body Tempering," Food Immortal said. "I've already taken your situation into account and proposed the most reasonable plan. Whether it succeeds will depend on your fortune."
The internal energy gained through arduous cultivation alone was not enough. She needed large quantities of pills that increased internal energy-or, in a cultivator's terms, boosted life force.
"What pills, for example?"
"Peiyuan Pills, True Essence Pills, Vital Essence Pills. Basically, anything with 'essence' in its name will strengthen your life force."
Essence carried the meanings of a beginning and the first. Cultivators also collectively called spiritual energy, demonic energy, baleful qi, and other kinds of energy primordial essence. This fit their understanding of the world: energy became form, and form became substance. In the beginning, the world had contained only various kinds of energy.
Life energy was also a kind of energy, and there were pills corresponding to it.
"Thank you. I'll ask around."
"Forget the thanks. Eating more delicious food is the proper way to repay me. Give your stomach some training. Eating so little-are you feeding a sparrow? Back in my day, I could swallow a Demon Beast as huge as a mountain and still be only seventy percent full."
Mo Caihuan could not be bothered to listen to his boasting and went to inquire about pills that increased life force and their prices.
Such pills did exist, though there were not many available, and the prices were reasonable enough. According to the cultivators, only certain special cultivation methods required them.
In the end, she decided to buy Peiyuan Pills, the most common kind. Their price depended on their quality. Poor-quality ones cost five Spirit Stones each, while good-quality ones cost fifteen.
That was far too expensive. She began to envy how Han Li could take cultivation pills as freely as ordinary medicine. With the Little Green Bottle to accelerate the growth of medicinal herbs, and by refining his own pills to cut costs, Han Li could eat them by the mouthful. Once he developed a tolerance, he could simply switch to another kind and keep eating.
"I'm broke." Mo Caihuan bought three high-quality Peiyuan Pills and had no money left.
Now she could only take a gamble.
"Break through the restrictions in your stomach first." Knowing that Mo Caihuan was about to cultivate, Food Immortal immediately offered his advice.
"I want to start with my bones." She had her own ideas, however.
"If you start with your stomach, I'll teach you a powerful Body Tempering technique."
"What technique?"
"The Indestructible Body."
"I lack a Spiritual Root, not a brain. Isn't the Indestructible Body a spell?" Mo Caihuan said, exasperated.
"You know about the Indestructible Body too?" Food Immortal seemed surprised that a mortal had even heard of it.
"Even if you lose a hand or a foot, you can restore it with spiritual energy. As long as the injury isn't fatal, your body can heal itself," Mo Caihuan said. "Isn't that how it works?"
"Heh, that's only one kind. There are several kinds of undying bodies. The one I'll teach you certainly doesn't require a Spiritual Root. It only relies on the power of your bloodline," Food Immortal said.
"Only bloodline power? I don't believe it." Mo Caihuan knew this was a material world. Any ability required a corresponding amount of energy. Bloodline power was weak-how could it sustain bodily regeneration?
"You don't believe it? A frog at the bottom of a well. Have you ever seen a wall lizard?"
"A gecko? Of course. You're saying your technique works like a gecko?"
"Exactly. A gecko sheds its tail," Food Immortal said. "As long as you store energy in your stomach, you can repair your body when needed. Many Demon Beasts have similar healing abilities. And once your stomach becomes stronger, you won't have to slowly absorb Spirit Stones with Five Hearts Facing Heaven anymore. You can chew them up and swallow them, absorb the spiritual energy through your stomach, and send it throughout your body. It's faster."
"My teeth aren't that good," Mo Caihuan said.
"Just listen to me, and I guarantee you'll have good teeth and a hearty appetite," Food Immortal said. "Girl, don't be so suspicious. Listen to me. I won't harm you. I still want you to taste more delicious food."
Mo Caihuan considered it for a while. Rather than blunder through training on my own, I might as well listen to him. Although Food Immortal could no longer defeat even a Golden Core cultivator, he had at least been a Nascent Soul cultivator once.
"All right. Teach me."
"Now you're worth teaching," Food Immortal said with satisfaction. "I may not understand body tempering, but I understand Demon Beasts. You can't go wrong listening to me. Humans aren't Demon Beasts, but their bodies have many strengths worth learning from. They're far stronger than humans. Don't worry. I'll select the strengths that suit you and help you temper your body."
Following Food Immortal's instructions, she concentrated her internal energy to break through the restrictions in her stomach.
She first swallowed a Peiyuan Pill and immediately felt her internal energy surge. Her body felt ready to explode.
She focused her mind and directed this power toward breaking through the bottleneck in her stomach. This was a struggle against heaven and earth.
She could clearly feel the force of her body's resistance. There was no room for nonsense, only a head-on collision of brute force. If she broke through, she succeeded. If she could not, she failed. There was no technique to it, only sheer force and perseverance.
With all the internal energy in her body concentrated together, the restrictions in her stomach were no match for it and were breached. Next came the assault on her other internal organs. Following Food Immortal's advice, she attacked the heart first.
Mo Caihuan did not know how much three Peiyuan Pills could accomplish. She simply gave it her all.
Before entering seclusion, she had instructed everyone to stay away from the courtyard. No matter what happened, no one was allowed inside. If anything came up, they were to find Yan Ge, or, failing that, her mother.
She needed to concentrate on cultivating.
She often grew hungry while cultivating and ate fasting pills. These were inexpensive, serving as the equivalent of dry rations for Qi Refinement cultivators. Once cultivators reached Core Formation, they could truly abstain from food, absorbing spiritual energy instead of eating.
Food Immortal disliked fasting pills. Their flavor had not changed in thousands of years; they all tasted like chewing wax.
Half a month passed in cultivation.
"Ah, after all that effort, I've only cleared seventy or eighty percent of the bottleneck," Mo Caihuan said miserably.
"That's pretty good. Buy another three Peiyuan Pills, and you'll break through," Food Immortal comforted her. "Your cultivation is roughly comparable to the sixth level of Qi Refinement now. First, enjoy some good food. Whether things go well or badly, delicious food always helps. It adds flowers to the brocade when things go well and makes bad things a little less bad."
Mo Caihuan had the kitchen prepare several hearty dishes to lift her spirits.
On the fifteenth of that month, she would have to ask Daoist Wealth to buy another three Peiyuan Pills.
But when the fifteenth came, Daoist Wealth did not appear. For the past few years, he had come without fail, rain or shine. His sudden absence gave her a bad feeling.
On the seventeenth, Yan Hu hired a cultivator to help him and came to Jia Yuan City. He, too, was deeply worried. "Has Daoist Wealth come to collect the goods?" he asked.
"No."
Both their expressions grew troubled.