Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

Chapter 697 The Demon's Broken Horn

Inside the cultivation chamber, the alchemy furnace was set up, and the fire burned steadily.

Li Yuan sorted the medicinal herbs and arranged them on the stone platform. The four formulas for Guiyuan Yangying Dan, Peiying Ningyuan Dan, Ningyuan San, and Lingyuan Cuigu Dan each occupied one place, enough for several days of continuous refining.

The first batch: Guiyuan Nourishing Infant Pill.

The medicinal herbs were placed in the furnace, and the fire was reduced to thirty percent. Li Yuan extended his spiritual energy through both hands, guiding the medicinal power to fuse within the furnace. Having mastered the fourth-order alchemy technique, many methods were already ingrained in his instincts, allowing him to execute them accurately without much thought. The Myriad Manifestations Reversal system followed suit, promptly correcting any slight deviation in the medicinal power within the furnace.

The medicinal liquid condensed, and the elixir was formed.

The furnace lid was lifted, and three Guiyuan Nourishing Infant Pills rolled into the jade bottle. The pills were smooth and round, and had a strong medicinal fragrance. All three were of excellent quality.

The second batch was the Nascent Soul Condensing Pill. The proportions of the medicinal ingredients were slightly adjusted, the furnace fire was reduced to 25%, and the pill-condensing technique was changed from pushing to guiding. Four pills were produced, three of them being of high quality and one of superior quality.

The third batch is Ningyuan Powder. Since the powder does not solidify into a pill form, the final step is to break the medicinal power into powder, which requires even more precise control of the heat.

The finished product is of exceptional quality.

The fourth batch: Spirit Essence Bone Tempering Pill.

The four types of pills were processed in rotation, one batch after another, almost without stopping. The masterful technique became increasingly stable through repeated refining, and the initial minor deviations in the heat gradually disappeared. In the end, the fusion of medicinal power in each batch was almost identical.

The rate of high-quality products has been steadily increasing.

Three days later, the percentage of high-quality products approached 80%.

Li Yuan put the last batch of Spirit Essence Bone Tempering Pills into a jade bottle and extinguished the furnace fire. The furnace was still warm, and empty medicine bottles and dregs piled up on half of the stone table.

After tidying up the stone platform, Li Yuan habitually released his divine sense.

The restrictions on the cultivation chamber only block sound, not divine sense. The passive perception range of eight hundred feet extends, covering most of the main island.

Three or four miles away, a faint trace of demonic energy was detected by divine sense.

That wasn't the residual demonic energy permeating the Lingzhou Rift Cluster, but rather the aura of a living being. The permanent attribute of Trace Breath Insight extracted this demonic energy from the surrounding aura, its frequency remarkably similar to the demonic energy in the deep abyss valley.

The demon race of the Netherworld.

Li Yuan's brow twitched, and his figure transformed into a beam of light as he rushed out of the stone chamber.

It's only three or four miles away, you'll arrive in the blink of an eye.

On the rocky beach, a humanoid creature crouched behind a rock. Its entire body was covered with thin, dark gray scales, with a short, curved horn on each side of its forehead, and its vertical pupils gleamed with a cold, eerie green light.

His aura was approximately at the late stage of the Golden Core realm.

Li Yuan landed thirty feet away, his spiritual power protecting his body, and his spatial forbidden technique was ready to be activated at any time.

The demon also saw him.

The vertical pupils initially showed surprise, which quickly turned into greed. Instead of fleeing, it charged forward, uttering a muffled growl. Dark gray demonic energy surged from its body, carrying a foul stench.

It also wanted to capture Li Yuan.

Li Yuan raised his hand, and the spatial confinement spell descended, causing the aura within a fifteen-zhang radius to suddenly tighten. He then activated the Demonic Entanglement Technique, unleashing twenty-four binding ropes from all directions, tightly restraining the demons.

The demon struggled, but failed to break free. The binding ropes tightened, and the protective demonic energy around its body shattered rapidly under the pressure.

The greed in his vertical pupils instantly turned into terror.

It stopped struggling, its low growl suddenly rose, and its entire body trembled violently. Beneath its dark gray scales, a surge of violent demonic energy exploded from its dantian, flowing through its meridians and throughout its body.

Self-destruct.

Li Yuan reacted quickly, instantly closing the spatial confinement spell in an attempt to completely imprison the demons, but he failed.

After a muffled thud, the self-destructing impact was crushed within three zhang, and the dark gray demonic energy dissipated and dissolved.

The demon's body rapidly disintegrated; its flesh, bones, and internal organs all turned into black powder under the backlash of demonic energy, leaving not even a trace of blood.

Li Yuan withdrew his spell and walked to the spot where the demons had perished. Only a thin layer of black ash remained on the ground, along with a single, curved, short horn.

The short horn is about three inches long, dark gray, with a rough surface texture, but it is very hard.

Li Yuan picked up the horn.

The moment it touched the object, a fluctuation of the inscription could be felt within a three-foot sensing range.

[Equipable item detected: Ghostly Horn Remnant]

[Equipment Attribute Preview: Demon Horn Essence - Blue]

[Effect: Permanently increases the ability to sense and identify demonic auras by 50%; permanently increases spiritual energy circulation efficiency by 50% during combat.]

[Preview of Permanentization Conditions: Defeat a demon with a three-headed Nascent Soul or higher (0/3)]

Blue entries.

Sensing the aura of demons and boosting combat prowess are both very useful, but the condition for making them permanent is to kill a demon with three Nascent Soul stage or higher.

Li Yuan had no equipment, so he first put the Demon Horn fragment into his storage bag.

He crouched down to examine the black ash on the ground. The demon's body was almost completely melted after its self-destruction, a rare occurrence among cultivators or demonic beasts. Even with immense power, a self-destruction shouldn't completely destroy the bones and inner core.

This demon's physical body was deeply intertwined with demonic energy; when the core of its demonic energy collapsed, its body dissolved. Only the horn remained, indicating that its material was not within the cycle of demonic energy.

Li Yuan used his spiritual power to collect some of the ashes, and then searched the surrounding area to make sure nothing was missed before packing up his belongings and returning to the Misty Forest Market.

Wulin Market, Tianyue Sect Contact Point.

Li Yuan recorded his encounter with the demons on a communication jade slip and sent it to the Tianyue Sect. The jade slip contained details of the demons' appearance, the strength of their aura, the strange phenomenon of their bodies dissolving after their self-destruction, and the only surviving sample of their keratinous material.

Tianyue Sect responded quickly.

The message was strongly worded, demanding that Li Yuan quickly return the ash samples and related records to the sect for archiving, and instructing all outposts in the lower realm to increase their vigilance. Demons from the Netherworld had appeared nearby, and the seals on the Demon Abyss ruins and the Netherworld Valley were likely more severely compromised than anticipated.

Li Yuan then went to the Mingyuan Sect's lower realm stronghold and met Zhou Heng and Xuanpu.

After listening, Zhou Heng remained silent for a moment, his face darkening. As a disciple of the Mingyuan Sect, he possessed far more information about the demons of the Netherworld than ordinary cultivators.

"A demon in the late stage of the Golden Core realm."

Zhou Heng said slowly, "The fact that it was able to find its way to this area on its own without being discovered means that it has been lurking in this area for quite some time."

Xuanpu flipped through a yellowed ancient book, looked up and said, "I checked the records a few days ago. The demons of the Netherworld invaded this area before, but it's been so long that it's hard to say exactly when. The records mention that the demons infiltrated through underground passages, first sending out a small number of scouts to test the waters, and then pouring in in large numbers."

Li Yuan nodded. The three layers of ancient demonic seals in the deep abyss valley, along with the underground structure connecting to the ley lines of the Demon Abyss ruins, all matched the zero.

Zhou Heng stood up and took two steps: "We need to ask the upper realm to send more people down. With only the manpower of the lower realm, we won't be able to stop the seal from deteriorating further."

On the table was a stack of jade slips containing intelligence, which were to be sent to the Mingyuan Sect headquarters in the Upper Realm.

Zhou Heng glanced at it: "Perfect timing, send someone up and take this batch of intelligence along with the information about the demons."

Li Yuan said, "I'll go."

Zhou Heng glanced at him and did not refuse.

"Then I'll leave it to you." Zhou Heng handed the jade slip and the demon materials to Li Yuan.

"As soon as possible."

Li Yuan put it into his storage bag and set off for the Upper Realm that very day.

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