Half a year later.
That day, Song Yan stood in the courtyard in the bamboo grove, closely examining a bamboo stalk utterly unlike the purple bamboo around it.
Naturally, this bamboo had grown from the Cloud Abyss Bamboo Rice he had planted earlier.
It was already roughly as tall as a person, with sturdy, distinct joints and a faint jade-green sheen over its entire body. Its wood-element spiritual Qi was concentrated, and it brimmed with vitality.
Its age was approximately equivalent to two hundred and forty or fifty years.
Nectar matured different spirit medicines and spirit plants at entirely different rates.
Moreover, even for the same spirit plant, the effect and speed of the nectar's maturation varied at different stages of growth.
But if it continued at its current pace, in just over another half year, it should reach the minimum age required for the Cloud Abyss Bamboo leaves used to refine Sword-Nurturing Pills-five hundred years.
However, Song Yan had other plans for this.
When he had first read about Sword-Nurturing Pills, he had learned of one special feature: even for Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators, only the first three pills could improve their cultivation.
Any more would only replenish and restore sword Qi.
Thus, to maximize the effects of the Sword-Nurturing Pills, Song Yan intended to extend the maturation period a little longer, maximizing the sword bamboo's age without slowing his own cultivation progress.
Besides, he had never refined Sword-Nurturing Pills before, and there might be some losses during refinement.
In the days that followed, Song Yan settled into a repeating routine.
Every day, he cultivated and comprehended the Sword Dao, while everything concerning the cloud abyss sword bamboo was entrusted entirely to the Phantom Aspect Heavenly Demon.
Just like that, another year and a half passed.
That day, Song