The sea wind snapped and roared, setting Qing Chen's robes fluttering.
"The path to the golden core requires more than nine turns of demon fire and the Golden Jade Liquid Returning Pill. It needs more, far more qi-blood power!"
His thoughts involuntarily drifted back to his last breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment Realm, when he had opened his Brahma apertures.
The hardships of that process remained vivid in his mind.
Back then, to meet the Brahma Aperture Blood-Refining Secret Art's enormous demand for qi and blood, he had nearly exhausted the vast stockpile of demon beast qi and blood accumulated in his Demon Banner.
Without those reserves, he feared he could never have successfully opened new Brahma apertures.
Qing Chen understood clearly that this mystic art was largely responsible for his strength advancing so rapidly.
According to that "old monster," he had undone the first layer of the Bodhi Spirit Body's seal.
Since reaching Foundation Establishment, his cultivation had indeed begun growing significantly faster.
Yet among the Condensed Jade Sect's jade slips and texts, as vast as a sea of smoke, there was not a single word recording just what miraculous constitution the Bodhi Spirit Body was.
As for that so-called Heavenly Star Ten Thousand Spirits Record, there was no record of it either.
Qing Chen had sounded out his master, True Person Budong, through indirect questions, but even his widely knowledgeable master had never heard of such a spirit body.
This made Qing Chen suspect that the old monster, Golden-Body Bodhisattva, might have come from the upper realm.
But just what kind of place was the upper realm?
Was it really called the Spirit Realm?
The Immortal-Locking Cult came from Another Realm. Was that an upper realm too?
He knew nothing about any of this.
He had learned only