The third night.
Robbed of everything, Zhao Changfeng dug up Sand Worms, killed venomous snakes, and caught crows, refining these small creatures to restore his spiritual power. Only then did he realize how precious a first-rank Dryland Sand Lizard was.
Unranked insects and birds could not even be called spirit beasts. The power in their blood was pitifully meager, inferior even to cultivating with spirit stones.
Unfortunately, he did not have a single spirit stone left.
The Sola Desert was already barren of spiritual qi. Zhao Changfeng calculated that filling his lower dantian with such thin spiritual qi would take at least a month.
Insects and birds might be weak, but even the tiniest fly was still meat. They were better than cultivating with spiritual qi alone.
Trying to break through again is impossible now. Until I reach the yuanqi stage, danger lurks everywhere. Returning to Demon Mountain as soon as possible is my only path to survival.
After checking his bearings against the stars in the night sky, Zhao Changfeng set off on his return journey.
The spiritual qi of heaven and earth within Demon Mountain, overseen by Teng Kun, was more abundant than that in the desert. As long as he could return alive to his own cave, his safety would at least be assured.
After that, he would slowly accumulate power using the fairly plentiful spiritual qi within Demon Mountain, like dripping water wearing through stone.
Before Demon Mountain returned to the sect, he still had a chance to fill the sea of spiritual qi in his lower dantian. Then he could attempt to break through to the yuanqi stage a second time.
That was Zhao Changfeng's plan.
Yet plans could never keep pace with change.
"Oh! Isn't this my dear junior brother?"
Ruan Meizhen, who had never given up searching, suddenly spotted Zhao Changfeng's tall, handsome figure again. Her face full of mockery, she teased, "I kept you well fed and watered. Why did you run?"
Looking as though he were about to weep with joy, Zhao Changfeng shouted from far away, "Senior sister! You treated me so well, I'd have to be sick in the head to want to run!"
Compared with vicious fiends like Chen Haoming and Zhang Mu, Ruan Meizhen was practically a female bodhisattva in his eyes.
If he had been unlucky enough to encounter those two, he would have died violently on the spot. They would have refined his blood first, harvested his corpse qi next, and finally left him to be gnawed down to white bones by a Corpse-Eating Vulture.
Ruan Meizhen certainly harbored ill intentions, but at least she would wait until his breakthrough succeeded before striking. That gave him some breathing room.
"Not long after you left, a fellow cultivator from the Ghost-Controlling Sect called Chen Jian suddenly appeared, with a Corpse-Eating Vulture perched on his shoulder..."
Zhao Changfeng left out what needed leaving out. He merely said that he had fled as soon as he saw Chen Jian appear, only to be caught and robbed of everything he owned.
"The Ghost-Controlling Sect? Chen Jian? He didn't kill you?"
Suspicion gleamed in Ruan Meizhen's beautiful eyes.
She examined him closely and found that Zhao Changfeng really had lost all his spoils, which made her believe him a little more.
"He said I hadn't advanced to the yuanqi stage, so I wasn't worthy of becoming Spirit Materials for his cultivation. Killing me would only waste his time and the spiritual power within his body. He just made me hand over the spirit stones and implements I'd collected."
On this point, Zhao Changfeng answered truthfully.
Ruan Meizhen's expression abruptly turned grave. In a low voice, she asked, "He said... you couldn't become Spirit Materials for his cultivation?"
Zhao Changfeng nodded repeatedly.
Ruan Meizhen drew a breath, turning her slender white neck to look around as though afraid Chen Jian might have followed him.
Only then did she explain uneasily, "I don't know who Chen Jian is, but I know the Ghost-Controlling Sect's cultivation methods!"
"In their early stages, demonic cultivators of the Ghost-Controlling Sect haunt graveyards, looking for ghosts to refine. But not everyone becomes a ghost after death. An ordinary person only has a slight chance if their resentment before dying is extremely deep."
"If he killed you in this scorching desert before you broke through to the yuanqi stage, you really wouldn't have the slightest chance of becoming a ghost."
"Once you reach the yuanqi stage, he can put some effort into torturing you in all sorts of ways, constantly stirring up your hatred and fear. Only with secret arts to supplement that would you have any hope of turning into a ghost."
"A Ghost-Controlling Sect demonic cultivator with such methods must have opened the sea of divine sense in his upper dantian. He must have reached at least the primordial spirit realm!"
"You really are lucky to have survived someone like that. Even I'm a little impressed by your luck."
Ruan Meizhen clicked her tongue in wonder.
"The primordial spirit realm!"
Zhao Changfeng's expression shifted slightly. He suddenly felt that he really had stumbled into a pile of dog-shit luck, actually escaping disaster at the hands of someone as powerful as Chen Jian.
Every sip and bite seemed ordained by fate. Had his breakthrough not failed, leaving him unworthy of becoming Spirit Materials for the other man's cultivation, Chen Jian would never have let him go.
The fact that he had offered up his spoils obediently, without the slightest hesitation or resistance, was another reason he had survived.
"Stop wasting time. Break through to the yuanqi stage as soon as possible."
Seeing how much time had already been wasted, Ruan Meizhen had long since grown unbearably impatient and could not help urging him on.
Looking somewhat embarrassed, Zhao Changfeng gave a sheepish smile. "That powerful cultivator from the Ghost-Controlling Sect took all my spirit stones, and I used up quite a bit of my accumulated spiritual power while escaping, so now..."
Forcing down the urge to poison him to death, Ruan Meizhen could not even muster her habitual, feigned seductive smile. She said coldly, "So I still have to kill spirit beasts for you?"
She felt stifled, as though she really had become Zhao Changfeng's guardian. Not only did she have to protect his life, she also had to keep hunting spirit beasts to help him achieve a Realm Breakthrough.
"Spirit stones would work too. It's just... they'd be much slower."
Zhao Changfeng lowered his head in embarrassment.
Biting her lower lip, Ruan Meizhen silently comforted herself. I can't lose my temper. I can't lose my temper. He's the one I chose to bear my calamity. I can only go along with him...
"Come hunt spirit beasts with me. Don't run off again this time!"
Apparently unwilling to look at Zhao Changfeng a moment longer, she tossed out those words and set off along their old route with a graceful sway, continuing to toil for him.
The Sola Desert's scant spiritual qi could nurture, at most, first- or second-rank spirit beasts. Even her search depended entirely on luck.
It took her a full six hours to find a Four-Eared Sand Fox and toss it in front of Zhao Changfeng.
As both were first-rank spirit beasts, the power contained in their Beast Blood did not differ much. Zhao Changfeng circulated the Essence-Devouring Demon Art, absorbing it with practiced ease.
Perhaps because his sea of spiritual qi was so depleted, although a bloody hue once again spread through his lower dantian, he felt not the slightest restless Killing Urge.
Yet he knew perfectly well that as long as he consumed beast blood through the Essence-Devouring Demon Art, the impurities within the spirit beasts would settle inside him. Sooner or later, they would erupt.
Two hours later, the sand fox had become a dried corpse.
"Nothing beats a Demonic Cultivation Art! And nothing beats a spirit beast brimming with blood vitality!"
Zhao Changfeng felt thoroughly invigorated.
Refining the Beast Blood of a single Four-Eared Sand Fox was worth several days of cultivating with spirit stones. Without spirit stones to aid him, he would have needed over a month in the desert.
No wonder Demonic Cultivation Arts had become the mainstream among the world's cultivators. Though the risk of backlash was terrifying, the rewards were equally immense.
"Senior sister, ahem... I'll need you to kill one more."
Zhao Changfeng spoke shamelessly.
Ruan Meizhen was both startled and suspicious, her radiant face full of puzzlement. "You're at the yuanjing stage ninth heaven. You refined a Dryland Sand Lizard, then a Four-Eared Sand Fox, and you still haven't reached the great perfection required for a Realm Breakthrough?"
"How long could you possibly have escaped pursuit by a scourge from the Ghost-Controlling Sect at that level? How much of your spiritual power reserves could you have used up?"
Zhao Changfeng did not mention that his failed breakthrough had drained all his power. After considering it seriously, he said, "Perhaps my sea of spiritual qi is much broader than an ordinary person's."
The doubts in Ruan Meizhen's heart remained. Her dark brows drew together in a delicate frown. "That is certainly possible, but you... don't look much like that sort of person."
"Why?" Zhao Changfeng asked curiously.
Ruan Meizhen offered a casual explanation. In essence, only those with truly extraordinary innate talent possessed a sea of spiritual qi in their lower dantian that was much broader than an ordinary person's from the outset.
This was what the very best Demon Sects valued most when selecting talent.
The initial size of one's sea of spiritual qi was ordained by heaven. Only when a cultivator broke through a major realm could its area expand again.
In theory, every person's sea of spiritual qi had only eight opportunities to expand in total.
Those born with a broad sea of spiritual qi could hold greater reserves of spiritual power, greatly increasing their chances of a successful breakthrough.
Whenever such exceptionally gifted people entered a new major realm, their Sea of Spiritual Qi would also expand farther than that of ordinary people.
They were the true favored children of heaven, the rarest talents across the Great Domains of the Three Great Ruins. Once they revealed themselves, every demonic faction would scramble to claim them.
Such people could bypass the many cruel competitions within demonic sects and be placed under protection early on.
Could it be... that Zhao Changfeng was one of them?
Strange ripples of light shimmered in Ruan Meizhen's beautiful eyes as she stared intently at the location of Zhao Changfeng's lower dantian, silently resenting her cultivation for being too low to glimpse the truth.
Yet a moment later, she realized something was wrong and sneered coldly. "You secretly tried to break through and failed, didn't you?"
She might not be able to discern the truth, but could Teng Kun have missed it too?
Those two from the Lingxiao Sect had been taking disciples for years. How could they not have examined him carefully?
Since he had not been born with a broad sea of spiritual qi, the only reason refining a Four-Eared Sand Fox had still failed to fill Zhao Changfeng's lower dantian was that a failed breakthrough had exhausted his reserves!
Seeing that she had exposed him, Zhao Changfeng explained with a dry laugh, "Your eyes truly blaze like torches, senior sister. My first breakthrough attempt did fail. I was just too embarrassed to say so."
At that very moment, a powerful surge of delighted surprise suddenly rose within him.
His sea of spiritual qi had been no different from an ordinary person's at the outset, yet he really could expand it ahead of time without waiting painfully to break through a major realm.
Far away, deep within the cold, mysterious void, after the Bronze Cauldron hunted down and refined alien things from Beyond the Heavens, it would pour countless streams of radiant energy into its true body.
And he, too, would receive a cauldron-shaped, dark cyan strand of extraordinary power.
This gift from Beyond the Heavens could expand his sea of spiritual qi, allowing him to increase the area and reach of his spirit sea while still at the yuanjing stage.
He had already experienced it once himself. At the time, however, he had not fully understood its mysteries or realized how tremendously it could aid his cultivation.
It actually changes my fundamental innate talent. How utterly miraculous!
Zhao Changfeng was suddenly filled with anticipation for the future. He silently longed for the Bronze Cauldron's next appearance, determined to seize the opportunity to strengthen his innate talent.