Immortality and Cultivation: Starting with Improving Spiritual Root Aptitude

Wu Fan was startled, thinking to himself, "Luckily, I set up multiple layers of defense beforehand, otherwise I wouldn't be able to safely activate the Fire Serpent Technique right now!"

He suppressed the pounding in his heart and quickened the pace of his incantation.

On the other side, Liu Xi easily shattered the three fireballs that Wu Fan had launched with a wave of his hand. A cold glint flashed in his eyes as he fully activated the Wind and Earth Whirlpool, launching a fierce attack on Wu Fan's defense.

Looking at the scene before him, he was equally shocked: "This Wu Fan is only at the fifth level of Qi Refining, yet he has achieved such a level. He is several times more troublesome than Bai Ruanyu, the sixth-level Qi Refining cultivator we encountered before! If he were to grow to the late stage of Qi Refining, the outcome today would be unpredictable!"

Thinking of this, Liu Xi's eyes flashed with murderous intent: "This brat must die today!"

Just then, Wu Fan finally completed his Fire Serpent Technique.

"hiss......"

The nearly ten-foot-long fire serpent let out a sharp hiss and charged straight at the willow mat with raging flames.

While the fire serpent's massive body was concealing its movements, two inconspicuous beads quietly flew out.

One was light red, and the other was dark green; these were Wu Fan's most prized possessions: the Poison Sac Bead and the Bursting Bead.

Almost the instant the poison sac beads and the exploding beads flew out, a crisp "crack" rang out, and the Fire Cloud Shield in front of Wu Fan exhausted its spiritual light, being blasted away by the swirling wind and falling into the grass a few feet away, instantly becoming dim and lifeless.

Wu Fan was so frightened that his whole body stiffened, and his hair stood on end. He quickly retreated several steps, while simultaneously urging his spiritual power and forming a hand seal with his fingertips. Instantly, a blazing wall of fire rose up, which was the Fire Screen Technique, in an attempt to block the onslaught that followed.

Seeing that Wu Fan was still relying on the fire-type shield for defense, and then looking at the approaching fire snake, Liu Xi revealed a disdainful sneer.

Having already suffered from the fire serpent once before, he had prepared defensive talismans and spiritual energy shields. In his opinion, even if this fire serpent was a bit thicker than before, it would at most consume more of his magic power and could not harm him at all.

"Prepare to die!"

Liu Xi let out a low shout, his spiritual power surging around him. He activated his shield to prepare to withstand the fire snake, while simultaneously manipulating the wind and soil vortex to accelerate its rotation, intending to deliver a fatal blow to Wu Fan the moment the attack was blocked.

In just two breaths, Wu Fan was forced to retreat repeatedly by the rapidly spinning vortex of wind and soil, and the ground where he had been standing had been scraped into deep trenches by the vortex.

The light shields formed by the defensive talismans he had previously cast had been broken through one after another, leaving only the last two layers. Together with the fire screen spell he had hastily cast, they were barely holding up the last line of defense.

Wu Fan was in a terrible state, and Liu Xi wasn't much better off.

In a short while, in order to resist the fire serpent whose power had increased many times, he had exhausted all the defensive talismans he had initially used. The spiritual light from the shattered light shield scattered in all directions, but the fire serpent's power had only been reduced by half.

The remaining flames on the fire serpent were still fierce, and Liu Xi could only use his own spiritual energy shield to withstand them, his face gradually turning pale.

Before his battle with Wu Fan, he already had very little spiritual energy left in his dantian. Even after taking a pill to recover some of it, he only had about 30% left.

After fighting Wu Fan for a long time, his magical power was almost exhausted, and sweat was seeping from his forehead.

But Liu Xi remained confident: "As long as we can stop this wave of fire serpents, this kid is doomed. He could never survive under the harsh conditions of Dang Kangqi!"

At the same time, in the brief moments between frantically dodging the "Wind and Soil Qi", Wu Fan keenly noticed that Liu Xi's protective light shield only had one layer left.

"Now!"

A glint flashed in Wu Fan's eyes, then vanished in an instant.

Then, with a sudden flick of his finger, the exploding beads and poison sac beads were drawn together by spiritual power.

"Bang! Bang!"

Two loud explosions rang out almost simultaneously in the distance.

The exploding beads suddenly burst open like fireworks, and flames shot into the sky around Liu Xi, sending shards of stone flying everywhere; the poison sac beads, on the other hand, burst out a square of dark green mist, instantly enveloping him.

Immediately afterwards, there was another loud "bang". The fire serpent, which had not yet exhausted its power, was affected by the explosion wave of the exploding bead and was also detonated. The burst of flames immediately intertwined with the poisonous mist of the poison sac bead, producing a series of "sizzling" corrosive sounds.

This series of changes, though seemingly complicated, actually happened in the blink of an eye, so fast that Liu Xi had no time to react.

Wu Fan, on the other hand, was completely enveloped by the aura of the wind and earth, and had no way to avoid it.

The only remaining defensive shield around him was the Fire Screen Technique, whose flames flickered violently under the impact of the swirling currents, threatening to shatter at any moment.

Once the barrier breaks, his physical body will be cut into pieces by the high-speed rotating vortex of wind and soil.

Wu Fan was plunged into despair, and he had already prepared himself to die with his enemy.

But at that moment, the aura of wind and earth that enveloped him suddenly stopped, and the oppressive feeling around him instantly dissipated.

With a "thump," Wu Fan's legs went weak, and he sat heavily on the ground.

But he dared not relax for a moment. He immediately suppressed the dizziness from exhaustion, summoned back the Blazing Sun Sword and the damaged Fire Cloud Shield, and stared warily at the area in front of him where crimson flames and deep green mist intertwined.

He scrambled backward as fast as he could, until he was several dozen feet away and confirmed that he had reached a safe distance. Only then did he stop and gasp for breath.

Wu Fan watched from afar, and saw the thick fog gradually dissipate under the breeze in the forest, and the firelight slowly went out.

As the fog dissipated, Liu Xi's figure lay motionless on the ground for a long time.

He did not approach rashly, but quietly observed for half an incense stick's time. After confirming that Liu Xi showed no signs of life, he slowly got up and controlled the Flaming Sun Sword to fly away.

After stabbing Liu Xi several times with the tip of his sword, Wu Fan finally breathed a sigh of relief and slumped to the ground, confirming that the other man was completely dead.

At this moment, the spiritual power in his dantian was completely exhausted. If Liu Xi had not been killed in time by the exploding bead, even if he had not been strangled by the wind and earth energy, he would have lost his fighting power due to the exhaustion of spiritual power and would have been killed by Liu Xi in the same way.

After resting for a dozen breaths, Wu Fan finally managed to calm himself down, stood up, and walked to a distance of about ten feet from Liu Xi's corpse.

The willow mat had been blasted beyond recognition by the exploding beads, and the surface of the corpse was a strange dark black.

It was clearly caused by the toxicity of the poisonous bead penetrating the body.

Wu Fan understood.

Most of the time, Liu Xi died the moment the exploding bead exploded, and his corpse was merely a result of being further eroded by the poison from the poison sac bead after his death.

He did not regret using these two trump cards. The cultivation world was a dog-eat-dog world, and if he did not go all out, he would be the one to die.

Moreover, the battle was very fruitful. Just looking at the magical artifacts used by Liu Xi, they were all top-grade first-level artifacts. The flying needle artifact and the Azure Shadow Blade alone were enough to make up for his losses.

What concerned him even more was that yellow flag.

Wu Fan's eyes lit up, and he quickly walked to the yellow flag and reached out to pull it up.

"Is this the Dangkang Banner that Liu Xi mentioned?"

He probed his spiritual sense into the flag and casually activated it.

The next moment, Wu Fan's face immediately showed surprise:

"It's actually a top-grade first-tier magic weapon!?"