Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

As Li Yuan returned to his residence in the evening, he glanced at the notice board on the wall and suddenly stopped in his tracks.

A new notice was posted on the bulletin board; the ink was still fresh, indicating that it had just been put up today.

The notice contained the rotation list of guards for the market's security team.

Li Yuan's gaze quickly swept across the names on the list, stopping at the third line.

Li Yuan, at the third level of Qi Refining, will begin rotating guard duties at the beginning of next month for a period of one month.

Upon seeing this, Li Yuan's heart sank.

The guards, that's not a good place.

The Wang family has two teams in Qinghefang City: a guard team and the patrol team to which Li Yuan belongs.

The two teams have clearly defined responsibilities.

The patrol team is responsible for the internal affairs of the market, which basically means running errands and doing odd jobs. The tasks are trivial, but the advantage is safety.

The guards, however, were different.

Qinghefang City is located on the outskirts of the Yuanheng Mountains. The Yuanheng Mountains are a hundred miles to the west, and monsters roam freely in the Yuanheng Mountains.

Although there aren't many monsters in the outer areas, some will still appear around the market, at which point the guards have to step in.

Besides demonic beasts, there are even more dangerous cultivators.

The Yuanheng Mountains stretch for thousands of miles, and their mineral veins, spiritual herbs and medicines, as well as various monsters, attract a large number of independent cultivators to come and make a living.

Naturally, plunderers, who were specifically responsible for robbing other cultivators, also emerged as a result.

Moreover, many of those who engage in the Tribulation Cultivation are independent cultivators working part-time. They are harmless in their daily lives, but given the opportunity, they will commit murder and robbery.

The guard team is responsible for patrolling the area around the market, driving away monsters, and deterring cultivators from raiding.

The guards' monthly salary is ten spirit stones, more than three times that of the patrolmen's three. They also receive more pills each month, but the danger is naturally much greater.

Many guards died on patrol, and some were so unlucky that their bodies were never recovered.

The guard rotation system was a rule established by the royal family to prevent a shortage of manpower in the guard team.

Each month, a group of people are drawn from the patrol officers of the market to supplement the guard team, and they are rotated every month.

During the rotation period, the original work is suspended, and the salary is paid according to the guard team standard.

The original owner of this body was swapped four times, three times with narrow escapes and once with minor injuries.

However, in these four instances, the original owner witnessed the deaths of two guards.

Li Yuan stood in front of the bulletin board, his face calm, but his mind was racing.

There are twelve days left until the first day of next month.

What can you do in twelve days?

Li Yuan naturally didn't want to join the guard team. Now that he had an equipment panel and a bright future ahead of him, he didn't want to risk his life for ten spirit stones.

If one can break through to the fourth level of Qi Refining, the situation will be completely different.

Level 4 of Qi Refining is already in the mid-stage of Qi Refining. Unless the guard team is particularly short of people or there is an emergency, they will not be forcibly conscripted.

The problem is that the original owner has been stuck at the peak of the third level of Qi Refining for almost two years. He just failed to break through the bottleneck by using pills, so it is almost impossible to break through in a short period of time.

Unless there is external assistance.

Li Yuan's thoughts turned to the system.

[Entry: Aura Filtering]

The effect of this entry is to increase cultivation speed by 30% and automatically remove impurities.

It can increase cultivation speed and improve the quality of spiritual energy, but it's not enough to break through; other attributes are also needed.

If given a month to accumulate experience, Li Yuan was confident he could make a breakthrough, but now he only has twelve days.

Ideally, after the aura filter is made permanent, not only will you gain an extra equipment slot, but you can also free up your current equipment slot to equip other items and gain new attributes.

If we can find one or two keywords that are helpful for the breakthrough, combined with the original spiritual energy filtering...

However, apart from the spirit stone, he has not found another item to equip, and only his own items can be equipped, and he currently only has one spirit stone on him.

Although I can receive my monthly salary in a few days, it only adds up to four spirit stones, which is probably not enough.

Furthermore, cultivating for a hundred cycles takes a considerable amount of time, and after permanentization, one will only have about two or three days left to break through.

Li Yuan took a deep breath, suppressed his restlessness, and looked around.

The cabin was poorly furnished; besides a wooden bed, a wardrobe, a table, and a futon, there were only some odds and ends piled up in the corner.

Most of these miscellaneous items were left behind by the original owner of the body. Since Li Yuan inherited the memories, he naturally knew what was inside.

At the bottom of the wardrobe was a chipped magic sword, which the original owner had bought from the market years ago for a few spirit stones. He had thought that he could repair it and still use it, but he found that the cost of repairing it was more expensive than buying a new one, so he had left it unused until now.

Li Yuan squatted down and took out the magic sword.

The sword is about three feet long, with a noticeable notch at the blade and the patterns on the blade are somewhat faded, indicating a significant loss of spiritual energy.

Li Yuan gripped the sword hilt, waiting for the system's response.

There was nothing there.

There were no prompts, no text.

"As expected, damaged items cannot be equipped."

Li Yuan had anticipated this; the word "complete" written on the spirit stones he equipped already explained the situation.

Li Yuan put the magic sword back in its place and then began to rummage around the room again.

Aside from the magic sword, the only other equipment available was a few cleansing talismans on the table.

These were purchased from Old Zhang a few days ago. A dozen cleansing talismans are twelve in total, and ten dozen would only cost half a spirit stone. It's all about selling in large quantities.

The effect is so-so. It can clean up dust and mosquitoes, and keep you clean for a period of time. It doesn't help with cultivation at all; it's just for convenience.

Li Yuan picked up a cleansing talisman, and familiar semi-transparent text immediately appeared:

[Equipable item detected: Cleansing Charm (Complete)]

[Entry Preview: Clean Body (Gray) - The body does not easily attract dust and can repel mosquitoes]

[Preview of Permanentization Requirements: Learn the spell - Cleanse]

[Equipment slots are full (1/1). Replace current equipment?]

[Current Equipment: Low-grade Spirit Stone]

[The following entry will be lost after replacement: Aura Filter (White)]

[Note: After removing the original equipment, the permanentization progress will be retained, but the same type of equipment can only be re-equipped after twelve hours.]

Li Yuan immediately chose to cancel.

Aside from this cleansing talisman, there were no other items in the house to equip—most of the valuable items had been sold off by the original owner.

"There seems to be another way. First, equip a Cleansing Charm and make it permanent. This will give you an extra equipment slot. Then, find an affix that helps with breakthroughs and add it to the original Spiritual Energy Filter. This way, the probability of a breakthrough is not small."

However, there is a problem: I don't know how to perform the cleaning procedure.

Although Cleansing is one of the most common introductory spells for monks, it still requires specialized learning.

Li Yuan put down the cleansing talisman in his hand and began to think.

The Cleansing Technique isn't expensive, but it still costs several spirit stones to learn from other cultivators, and it takes several days to even begin to master it.

Currently, both methods require finding new terms yourself, and relying solely on spiritual energy filtering has a low success rate, and each has its own drawbacks.

Thinking too much is useless. Focus on doing the things at hand well. In twelve days, the primary goal is to improve cultivation and ideally achieve permanent spiritual energy filtering.

With a thought, Li Yuan brought up a control panel.

【Aura Filter (White)】

[Permanentization Progress: 1/100]

After closing the panel, Li Yuan returned to the wooden house. Without delay, he sat down cross-legged and began to circulate the Spirit Guiding Technique.

Spiritual energy converges from all directions, passes through that invisible filter, becomes incomparably pure, and flows into the dantian along the meridians.

After his original body failed to break through, his cultivation level also regressed slightly. Therefore, Li Yuan's current cultivation is not only to meet the conditions for permanentizing the entry, but also to re-accumulate his cultivation.

As Li Yuan's cultivation deepened, the night grew darker, and the wooden house became completely silent, with only the sound of Li Yuan's even breathing.

After an unknown amount of time, Li Yuan opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath.

[Permanentization Progress: 6/100]

After five cycles of cultivation, sensing his progress, Li Yuan's face lit up with joy.

The filtered spiritual energy puts less pressure on the meridians than I imagined.

Therefore, it seems that the time for a term to become permanent may be shorter than one might imagine.