Cultivation Leaf · Body Tempering with Three Herbs

Early the morning after Bi Ji left, Nan Feng woke beneath the rock wall and sensed that the Spiritual Power around him had changed.

Dew dripped down the rock wall and landed cold on the back of his hand.

The wood-attribute Spiritual Power in the air was denser than it had been yesterday. It flowed from deep within the Star Dou Great Forest, moving between the ground and the canopy.

Nan Feng stretched his hand out from under the rock wall. The underlying light of a Soul Ring in his palm flickered when it touched the Spiritual Power.

The wood-attribute Spiritual Power was gentle and sustained. It seeped into his dantian through his meridians, leaving a faint green sheen on the surface of his Soul Power.

Bi Ji had said she would make the Spiritual Power of the Lake of Life flow outward. She had done it.

A blue-gold leaf lay beneath the rock wall.

It was the size of a palm, with golden veins and a warm glow around its edges. It was warm to the touch.

Nan Feng picked up the leaf. It had been pinned beneath a piece of rubble, with one corner sticking up.

Bi Ji had left it when she departed in the night, without saying what it was for.

He swept his Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light over it. The Spiritual Power fluctuations inside the leaf had the same quality as the blue-gold Spiritual Power around Bi Ji: gentle and sustained, with no trace of aggression.

Old Huai poked his head out of the crack at the base of the tower.

"A Cultivation Leaf. An Emerald Swan condensed it from three thousand years of cultivation."

"It can nourish your meridian walls and stretch their capacity a little. She gave you this so you could handle the herbs that come afterward."

Nan Feng put the Cultivation Leaf in his mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed.

The leaf melted in his mouth, turning into a gentle warmth that flowed down his throat. It seeped into his meridians, stretching their walls until they were a fraction wider than before.

The warmth circulated through his meridians three times before dissipating.

Nan Feng stood up and followed the hunters' trail deeper into the forest for half an hour.

The wood-attribute Spiritual Power grew denser and denser. The layer of fallen leaves underfoot was thick and soft, springy with moisture when he stepped on it.

The trees around him were taller and denser than those on the outskirts. Their crowns formed an unbroken canopy, with only a few shafts of sunlight filtering through the gaps.

His Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light picked up several unusual points of light in the area.

They were dark green, their Spiritual Power fluctuations steady and subdued, almost indistinguishable from the wood-attribute Spiritual Power around them. His Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light picked them out one by one and marked their locations.

The first herb grew in a gap between the roots of an old banyan tree.

Its leaves were heart-shaped, with fine silver patterns along their edges and a layer of water droplets on their undersides. Its stem and roots squeezed out from between the tree roots and burrowed into the fallen leaves beside them.

Nan Feng crouched down to identify it. He had seen a similar illustration in an antique shop in his previous life.

Earth Core Grass. A hundred years old, wood-attribute, nourishing to the meridians and capable of stabilizing the foundation of Soul Power.

He used a short stick to dig away the soil around its roots, pulled out the whole plant, and wrapped it in a damp cloth before putting it in his bundle.

The second plant was beneath a fallen, dead tree.

Most of the deadwood had rotted away, and a cluster of slender vines grew in its midst, bearing several dark red fruits.

The fruits were only the size of a fingernail and warm to the touch. The Spiritual Power fluctuations inside them felt much like those of the Fierce Bear King's inner core.

Earth Essence Fruit. A substitute for the inner core of an earth-attribute Soul Beast. It was only a few decades old, but that was enough to aid cultivation.

He picked the fruits and put them away, then buried the vines back under the fallen leaves so they could keep growing.

The third plant grew in a gap in a pile of scattered rocks.

Deep in the crevice was a small shrub with dark purple leaves covered in fine fuzz. Its stem and roots were short, thick, and twisted, as though they had been squeezed by the rocks for too many years.

Nan Feng crouched outside the crevice and studied it for a long time. His Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light lingered on this plant the longest.

Purple-Veined Grass. A hundred years old, wood-attribute with a yin leaning, capable of tempering mental power and widening the meridian walls.

He reached into the crevice with his short stick, pushed the surrounding rubble aside, and pulled out the whole Purple-Veined Grass, roots and all.

With all three herbs in hand, he returned to the rock wall.

Nan Feng did not rush to refine them. First, he arranged the three herbs on the ground in front of him according to their attributes.

Earth Core Grass nourished the meridians, Purple-Veined Grass tempered mental power, and Earth Essence Fruit replenished earth-attribute origin. The three attributes complemented one another; refined in the right order, their effect was far better than using any one of them alone.

Old Huai poked his head out and took a look.

"Take the Earth Core Grass first and nourish your meridian walls until they're as thick and resilient as they can be. Then take the Purple-Veined Grass."

"The Purple-Veined Grass's medicinal power will seep into your mental power core through the nourished meridian walls without scorching them. Take the Earth Essence Fruit last. Its earth-attribute origin will help you compress your Soul Power density a little further."

"Get the order wrong, and the Purple-Veined Grass's medicinal power will scorch your meridian walls and make things worse instead."

Nan Feng nodded.

He took the Earth Core Grass out of the damp cloth, put the whole plant in his mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed.

The herb was slightly bitter, with the astringent taste of earth and grass mingled together. The astringency quickly turned into a gentle, warm current that flowed down his throat into his stomach, then seeped into his meridians.

The warm current traveled along his meridian walls. Wherever it passed, they relaxed and unfolded, growing thicker and more resilient.

The process lasted nearly the time it took an incense stick to burn. Once the warm current had fully seeped in, Nan Feng felt that his meridian walls were ten percent more resilient than before, and there was a little less resistance to the circulation of his Soul Power.

Then he picked up the Purple-Veined Grass.

The deep purple leaves were so astringent that his brow furrowed.

The astringent taste lingered in his mouth for a few breaths, then suddenly burst apart, turning into a sharp chill that shot straight to the top of his head.

The chill jolted his mental power core. Ripples spread outward, one after another.

His perception surged in that instant. The range of his Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light expanded from thirty paces to fifty, and its precision rose by a level as well.

He could clearly sense the paths of every tree's roots, the veins and patterns of every leaf, and the Spiritual Power fluctuations of every insect hiding beneath the fallen leaves.

As the chill washed over his mental power core, it became more solid, its density increasing considerably.

Last came the Earth Essence Fruit.

The three dark red fruits tasted sweet and sour. Once the flesh melted, it became a solid current of earth-attribute Spiritual Power that seeped into his dantian.

That Spiritual Power was similar in nature to the earth-attribute origin of the Fierce Bear King's inner core, but gentler and more sustained.

The earth-attribute Spiritual Power spun inside his dantian, compressing and tightening the somewhat unstable mass of Soul Power Qi.

His Soul Power density increased another notch. The mass of Qi in his dantian was solid and compact.

After finishing the refinement, Nan Feng closed his eyes and sensed his condition.

He was at the middle stage of level thirty-four, still some distance from the late stage. The quality of his Soul Power had increased by nearly twenty percent since before the refinement.

His meridian walls had risen a step in both resilience and width, and the density of his mental power core had also risen by a level.

The residual medicinal power produced by refining the three herbs seeped through his meridians into the crack in the third-level door at the base of the tower. The residue was enveloped by the Power of Creation, transformed, absorbed, and fed back to him.

The crack in the third-level door widened another sliver. The output of the Power of Creation was somewhat more substantial than before.

Nan Feng continued cultivating beneath the rock wall for three days.

Over those three days, he repeatedly compressed the Soul Power left after refining the herbs, allowing every bit of it to sink into the deepest part of his dantian.

He opened his eyes on the morning of the fourth day, his Soul Power stable at level thirty-five.

Going from level thirty-four to thirty-five had taken half a month in all. It was much slower than the period of rapid progress after absorbing the Soul Ring, but every step had been steady.

With the herbs' help, the thickness and resilience of his meridian walls had reached a new level, and his Soul Power density had increased by twenty percent.

Old Huai poked his head out of the crack at the base of the tower.

"Level thirty-five. Five more levels to forty."

"Tempering your body with herbs was the right path. It's much faster than simply grinding away over time. The variety of herbs on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest is limited, and the farther you go, the harder the herbs you need will be to find."

"There are rarer herbs around the Lake of Life. Bi Ji agreed to help you stabilize the Spiritual Power, but those herbs grow by the lake, in Ferocious Beast territory. It's not somewhere you can enter as you please. Go after your Soul Power reaches level forty."

Nan Feng nodded.

He cleaned up the remaining herbal dregs, erased the traces of his cultivation beneath the rock wall, and followed the hunters' trail toward the outskirts of the forest.

It was already afternoon when he emerged from the Star Dou Great Forest. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the clouds, casting a warm glow over the withered yellow wheat stubble in the fields on both sides of the main road.

He followed the main road toward Heaven Dou City, his pace neither hurried nor slow.

His Soul Power was at level thirty-five. The crack in the third-level door had widened another sliver during his body tempering with the herbs, and the output of the Power of Creation was somewhat more substantial than before.

Xiao Wu was stuck at level twenty-nine, waiting for him. Huo Wu and Shui Bing'er were both waiting for him to reach level forty. Bi Ji was waiting at the Lake of Life for him to come touch the stone stele.