A cave in a corner of Flying Stone Peak
Bai Yi casually dealt with the beast hiding inside, then waved his hand and sent a Gale sweeping through the cave to clear it out.
He tossed down the turtle shell, and the Azure Peak Sword struck the ceiling, shattering loose stones that buried the entrance.
After putting away the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and checking that everything outside was secure, the color gradually drained from Bai Yi's face, which he had been forcing himself to keep composed.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, took out a Qi-Blood Pill and a Qi-Replenishing Pill from his pocket, and hurriedly swallowed them. Then he sat cross-legged on the ground, palms facing upward, and circulated the Minor Five Elements Art to refine the pills.
"Trying to kill a Qi Refining, Seventh Layer Vajra Crocodile Turtle with the strength of Qi Refining Fifth Layer was still too much of a stretch."
As Bai Yi looked inward, his Qi Sea and Dantian had already run dry. Even his Meridians and Acupoints had sustained varying degrees of damage from bearing a Spiritual Power output beyond their limits.
For his final two sword strikes, to ensure he killed the Vajra Crocodile Turtle, he had forcibly kneaded together the Dao Resonance of two different Sword Arts.
He had barely managed to unleash power close to twice as great.
But the price had been severe damage to his Meridians. If those three people had just now disregarded everything and tried to seize the Demon Core,
then even if he could kill them, his own Dantian and Meridians would likely have suffered injuries that were difficult to heal.
Bai Yi closed his eyes and calmed his mind. The Five Elements Qi Vortex ground the medicinal power of the Qi-Blood Pill and Qi-Replenishing Pill he had swallowed as rapidly as a millstone, and wisps of medicinal power flowed into his Meridians, slowly healing the damaged areas.
A day and a night passed. After consuming nearly a third of the pills,
Bai Yi's eyes suddenly opened. His gaze was sharp as a sword, enough to make people wince.
"So this is what it feels like when the Minor Five Elements Art reaches perfection..."
Bai Yi was pleasantly surprised. As his fundamental cultivation art, the Minor Five Elements Art had not only greatly increased the speed at which he refined Spiritual Energy upon reaching perfection at the fifth layer.
The speed at which he refined all kinds of pills had also changed dramatically.
In just a day and a night, injuries that would have required an ordinary cultivator several days of rest to heal had completely recovered.
What was more, after this ordeal, the Spiritual Power in his body had improved somewhat, both in its degree of refinement and in the precision of his control over it.
If he had a large supply of Spiritual Energy or supplementary pills, he could even use the perfected Minor Five Elements Art to attempt to break through to Qi Refining, Sixth Layer in a short time.
After carefully examining his Meridians and Dantian and confirming there were no lingering problems, Bai Yi turned his gaze to the Vajra Crocodile Turtle's Demon Core and the Vajra Crystal lying beside him.
"I wonder if I can nurture two Enlightenment Glimmers in one go."
Bai Yi didn't hesitate for long. He reached out and picked up the Demon Core on his left. A faint Demon Pattern traveled across the surface of the egg-sized core.
A Qi Refining, Seventh Layer Demon Core would be worth at least four hundred thousand outside.
That was as much as his father's salary for four years without spending a penny.
"This isn't absorbing Spiritual Resonance. It's eating money."
Bai Yi joked to himself before sinking his consciousness into his Sea of Consciousness and activating the Dao-Deriving Mirror.
As if it knew mealtime had come around again, the Dao-Deriving Mirror trembled softly when it sensed his consciousness. A wisp of Qi Vibration flowed along his Meridians and into the Demon Core in his hand.
As soon as the Qi Vibration entered, the Demon Qi within the core burst out like ignited explosives.
The dense Demon Qi had only just begun to escape when it was clamped tightly in place by an invisible hand, forced back into the Demon Core and refined into Life Essence, which flowed continuously into the Dao-Deriving Mirror.
The radiance around the Dao-Deriving Mirror gradually gathered, and the Enlightenment Glimmer that had nearly finished forming
was nurtured into being after absorbing less than a third of the Vajra Crocodile Turtle's Life Essence, appearing like a star circling the mirror.
An Enlightenment Glimmer took shape, but Bai Yi didn't stop. He continued absorbing the Life Essence remaining in the Demon Core.
A quarter of an hour later, the Vajra Crocodile Turtle's Demon Core crumbled to dust and scattered from his hand.
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Along the edge of the Dao-Deriving Mirror, another ring of radiance had already formed to nearly half its full extent.
"This one Vajra Crocodile Turtle Demon Core is worth sixty or seventy Qi Refining, Third Layer Demon Cores."
Bai Yi raised an eyebrow and picked up the Vajra Crystal lying beside him.
The moment his fingers touched it, Qi Vibration flowed in again, slowly devouring the metallic Spiritual Resonance within the Vajra Crystal.
As the Spiritual Resonance was consumed, the Vajra Crystal on the outside gradually cracked and fell away. By the time the second Enlightenment Glimmer had been nurtured to its final quarter,
the Vajra Crystal, originally the size of a washbasin, had been reduced to the size of a goose egg.
"Too bad. If my earlier feeling was wrong,
then I'm afraid I'll have to wait a while longer for this second Enlightenment Glimmer to condense."
Watching the progress in his Sea of Consciousness, Bai Yi contemplated, then looked at the remaining Vajra Crystal with a hint of anticipation.
He had noticed something different when he first picked up this Vajra Crystal. Now he hoped his feeling wouldn't be wrong.
Just as Bai Yi was thinking, another layer of Vajra Crystal was devoured and fell away, and a dark golden light shone through the cave.
"This is... a Vajra Crystal Core?!"
Bai Yi was startled, then a hint of excitement appeared on his face.
Vajra Crystal and Vajra Crystal Core differed by only one word, but the latter far surpassed the former in both grade and value.
As a highly condensed product of Vajra Crystal, the Vajra Crystal Core was of second-tier, supreme quality.
Used as the main material for Artifact Refining, it could grant a magical artifact a sharp metal attribute. In terms of value alone, this single piece could rival, and even slightly exceed, the Vajra Crocodile Turtle's Demon Core from just now.
Looking at the Vajra Crystal Core in his hand, Bai Yi pondered for several seconds before deciding to keep it for now.
After all, for him, currently in the Secret Realm, using one Enlightenment Glimmer to cultivate the White Rainbow Sword Art to Dao Resonance Perfection was enough for the time being.
Even if he devoured this Vajra Crystal Core and obtained a second Enlightenment Glimmer,
the only cultivation secret art he had on hand to study was the Heavy Spirit Scripture.
Considering that it had taken him a week to study the Minor Five Elements Art last time, the Heavy Spirit Scripture, which he had no cultivation experience with at all, would probably take even longer.
"There's still more than half a month. If I spend a little more time killing some monsters, I can gather enough Spiritual Resonance for the Enlightenment Glimmer."
Bai Yi made up his mind and carefully put the Vajra Crystal Core into his backpack.
If he sold this Vajra Crystal Core, he could get three or four hundred thousand, enough at the very least to buy a bottle of Qi-Boosting Pills.
As long as he passed the Four Academies and Ten Palaces Preliminary Exam and received more support from the White Household, he was confident he could reach Qi Refining, Sixth Layer before the final entrance examination.
After all, according to Bai Xiaojing, the talented Third Year of High School students from family groups in their Dao Studies program were mostly only at Qi Refining, Sixth Layer before the Academy selection.
After putting away his backpack, Bai Yi sat cross-legged and brought his consciousness to the outside of the Dao-Deriving Mirror.
He gazed at the mass of Enlightenment Glimmer that had already taken shape and approached it with practiced ease.
The instant his consciousness touched the Enlightenment Glimmer,
immortal-dreamlike white mist rose again, turning the surroundings into a sea of clouds in an instant.
Amid the sea of clouds, a hazy figure took shape. Unlike the last time he comprehended the White Rainbow Sword Art, when the figure had practically guided him step by step,
this time, as the figure appeared in the center of the sea of clouds, a sword of cloud condensed in an instant.
The figure leaped into the air. The motionless cloud sword then displayed the transition from stillness to movement to the utmost.
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