Immortality and Cultivation: Starting with Improving Spiritual Root Aptitude

Time flies when you're practicing spiritual cultivation; three years can pass in the blink of an eye.

For Wu Fan, these three years of secluded cultivation were by no means wasted; on the contrary, he gained a great deal, far exceeding his initial expectations.

Just last month, he unexpectedly broke through to the eighth level of Qi Refining. This surprise made his usually calm nature show a hint of delight.

According to his initial calculations, given his own cultivation pace, it would take him at least several more months to break through to the eighth level of Qi Refining. Unexpectedly, he was able to achieve it in one step, as if it were a natural progression.

Late that night, Wu Fan had just stabilized his cultivation at the seventh level of Qi Refining when he suddenly felt a surge of excitement and decided to take the opportunity to try and break through the bottleneck.

He had prepared himself to persevere through repeated failures and hone his skills slowly, but unexpectedly, the magical power within his dantian surged suddenly, breaking through the barrier without any hindrance and successfully entering a new realm.

All of this is naturally inseparable from his lack of haste in recent years, and his repeated pauses from using elixirs to aid his cultivation, instead dedicating time to condensing his magical power and honing his foundation.

In retrospect, the decision to seemingly "slow down" was the right one, and we must continue to uphold this dedication to building a solid foundation.

However, the reason why this breakthrough was so smooth is not just this.

Wu Fan's cave dwelling was located on a second-grade low-level spiritual vein of the sect. In addition, he bought a spirit-gathering array when the four of them had a small gathering three years ago. With the two combined, the spiritual energy surrounding his body during cultivation was already at the concentration of a second-grade mid-level spiritual vein. This spiritual energy foundation alone saved him a lot of effort in cultivation.

It is worth mentioning that the Five Elements Pearl in his Yellow Court has also been advancing in the past three years. The spiritual energy in his body has reached twenty-eight strands, and the efficiency of absorbing spiritual energy and converting magic power has improved again compared to three years ago.

More importantly, aside from following the rules and regulations when refining pills for the sect and not relying on the power of the Five Elements Pearl, Wu Fan refined them all himself.

The pills he took were all made with the help of the Five Elements Beads.

With the blessing of this treasure, seven or eight out of ten pills he refined were of the highest quality, with pure and unadulterated medicinal power, making the refining process twice as efficient. This greatly accelerated his cultivation path.

"So, our previous predictions about the progress of cultivation can be pushed back even further."

Wu Fan sat cross-legged in the Spirit Gathering Array, holding a top-grade Qi Gathering Pill that he had just refined in his fingertips, silently calculating in his mind.

"Not counting the time it takes to break through, just reaching the peak of the eighth level of Qi Refining should be achievable within five years."

This conclusion filled him with joy.

The sect's Foundation Establishment Pills will be distributed soon, which is more than five years away. As long as he works steadily during these five years, he will definitely be able to break through to the ninth level of Qi Refining. At that time, when he competes for Foundation Establishment Pills, he will have more solid confidence and a better chance of winning.

Having made up his mind about this matter, Wu Fan felt completely relaxed.

His time in Falling Star Valley was busy yet comfortable, and his progress was not limited to cultivation level.

In the art of alchemy, he is now far beyond the level of an ordinary first-grade high-level alchemist.

Several years ago, his skills in refining several commonly used elixirs had already surpassed those of his alchemy mentor, Liu Xi, but he was lacking in the variety of elixirs he could refine.

Now, under the tutelage of Uncle Chen, and with the assistance of various alchemy classics stored in Falling Star Valley, he can now refine ten different first-grade high-quality pills. Among them, the most frequently refined ones have a considerable chance of being of excellent quality.

Most of the recipes for these pills were left behind by Liu Xi before his death, while a small portion were left by several senior brothers and sisters from the inner sect introduced by Jiang Ling.

Three years ago, after the four of them had a small gathering, Jiang Ling took the initiative to suggest that he price the pills a little lower, and she would help him introduce customers to his circle of acquaintances to sell the pills.

Wu Fan initially took it as just a polite remark, but he never expected Jiang Ling to be so efficient. A few days later, several inner disciples came to him, asking him to refine various kinds of pills.

Two of them requested that he refine pills of a type that were not recorded in the alchemy books he possessed.

In this way, Wu Fan not only obtained three new pill formulas for free, but also built an excellent reputation among the inner disciples over the years by producing high-quality pills at low prices, gradually becoming their "exclusive" alchemist.

He not only earned a lot of spirit stones, but his alchemy skills were also "forced" to steadily improve through repeated custom alchemy, which led to his current level of expertise.

However, I heard Cao Ge mention a few days ago that Senior Brother Ma, who won a top ten spot in the outer sect in the previous competition, had a similar alchemy skill level to him now.

So, Wu Fan's current alchemy skills are roughly at the threshold of the top ten in the outer sect disciple competition.

But this does not mean that he can rest easy and remain unperturbed.

Last year's Senior Brother Ma was tenth place, and it's hard to guarantee that there won't be a few dark horses this year who surpass the level of previous years and raise the overall threshold for alchemy competition.

Therefore, in the years to come, Wu Fan will devote most of his energy to the path of alchemy, apart from cultivating his cultivation level.

He had already secretly set his goal.

The goal is to refine all the various elixirs in hand into high-quality ones as quickly as possible. For the ones that are frequently refined, it is especially important to limit the number of attempts to three or less to achieve a high-quality result and ensure that there are no mistakes.

As for array formations, although he has made considerable progress in recent years and has mastered three low-level array formations, barely qualifying him as an array formation master, studying array formations is too time-consuming and energy-draining. With his mind preoccupied and unable to focus, he could only secretly decide to slow down or even suspend his research on array formations for the next few years and first solidify his two main paths: alchemy and cultivation.

Besides alchemy and cultivation, his body refinement and magical techniques have also made considerable progress.

In the path of body refinement, he once went to the sect's library and used his accumulated contribution points to exchange for a body refinement technique specifically for cultivating qi and blood, called "Blood Refining Body Technique".

This technique focuses on refining qi and blood, and it is his preparation for the qi and blood barrier in the three stages of foundation building.

Now, his body tempering realm has reached the fourth level of perfection, and his body is full of qi and blood. He only needs to hone his skills for a while longer to successfully break through to the fifth level of body tempering.

In terms of magic, the power of the Five Elements Daoist arts he mainly cultivated became increasingly stronger, especially the fire element magic, which was about twice as powerful as that of cultivators of the same level.

Of course, this was just his conservative estimate. After all, he rarely fought with other cultivators and had no specific reference. He could only be cautious and not overestimate himself or underestimate others.

And speaking of good fortune, the little guy's transformation is even more astonishing.

Now its size is no longer small; it has grown to more than three meters long, with a thick body and glossy fur, making it look like a giant beast.

Wu Fan secretly estimated that this little guy would be able to successfully transform into a demon beast within the next few months and truly possess his own demon power.

In recent years, he has been feeding Zhaofu with a mixture of various high-grade spiritual herbs and spirit-feeding pills. The little guy is becoming increasingly sleepy and often falls headfirst into a corner of the cave, sleeping for days without waking up. This is a sign of the impending transformation.

Looking at Zhao Fu curled up and sleeping in the corner, a hint of anticipation flashed in Wu Fan's eyes.