Afterward, Song Yan returned to his regular life of tempering his mind, cultivating, and practicing the sword.
His physical condition also returned to its peak, step by step.
In his spare time, he tried refining new pills.
Since he was only experimenting rather than studying them deeply, he chose the simplest pill suitable for Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators: the Spirit-Nourishing Pill.
In fact, after establishing his Dao Foundation, Song Yan's cultivation speed had improved somewhat again.
With the aid of the Spirit-Absorbing Sword Formation, even without pills, his cultivation speed could already barely match that of someone with a single spiritual root.
Precisely for this reason, Song Yan now aimed almost exclusively for upper-grade pills when refining.
He sold all the Mid-Grade and lower-grade pills he produced.
Only upper-grade pills with pure Spiritual Power would be swallowed and refined to aid his cultivation.
He cultivated his realm, Divine Sense, and swordsmanship in tandem.
Although he had yet to experience just how difficult each bottleneck in the Foundation Establishment Realm was to break through, he could make a rough estimate.
To reach the Foundation Establishment middle stage without any external assistance, pills, or the like would probably take over a decade, to say nothing of breaking through to the Foundation Establishment late stage, perfection, and finally the Golden Core Realm.
"The path is long and beset with obstacles... Still, in the cultivation world, once someone reaches the Foundation Establishment Realm, no one really cares how old they are when they break through a minor realm, or how much time they spend on it.
Everyone's opportunities were different, so none of it offered any basis for comparison.
For example, some cultivators practiced cultivation methods geared toward nurturing health, and their cultivation speed was inherently slower.
But because their lifespans were slightly longer