Elven cultivators

Fourteen years have passed in the blink of an eye.

The year was 9281 in the Dawn Calendar.

With tireless cultivation day and night, and aided by the Spirit Gathering Talisman and the Returning to the Void Devouring the Sea Technique, Anton finally broke through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining before his 60th birthday.

Feeling the eighteen breaths of primordial spiritual energy slowly surging within his dantian, Anton felt a surge of excitement in his chest and almost couldn't help but shout out to release his inner thrill.

It felt like finally accumulating enough experience in a game in a past life, watching the character's level number jump up, a feeling of profound satisfaction.

Now he understands why cultivators like to let out a long roar after breaking through a realm.

Breaking through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining means that Anton can finally begin to study magic.

The primary goal is naturally to master the spiritual fire, only after that can one begin to learn alchemy.

What Anton longed for was naturally the Peiyuan Pill, which was considered a treasure for cultivators in the Qi Refining stage.

Don't be fooled by the fact that he has only refined eighteen breaths of spiritual energy so far; he is still far from the one hundred and eight breaths required for Foundation Establishment.

However, as long as there are enough Qi-Nourishing Pills, the speed of refining spiritual energy will be far greater than before. It is possible to refine a mouthful of spiritual energy in less than a year.

This illustrates the importance of resources.

"The four essential elements of cultivating immortality are wealth, companions, methods, and location, with wealth being the most important."

"If this were a cultivation world, with the backing of a sect, after refining the first breath of spiritual energy, there would be a Qi-Nourishing Pill to assist in cultivation. At most, it would take ten years to break through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining. Why would I need to grind it down little by little like I did?"

After a few sighs, Anton gathered his thoughts and located the Great Dao Jade Slip deep within his soul.

Due to their shallow spiritual energy, cultivators in the Qi Refining stage have a very limited range of spiritual fires to choose from.

The most common types are Beast Soul Fire, Stone Fire, and Pill Fiend Fire.

Beast Soul Fire is forged using the essence of demonic beasts as a catalyst. It has decent power, but it is limited by the attributes of the demonic beast in its previous life and cannot be flexibly changed.

Fire from the stone is drawn from the shallow layers of the earth's veins. Its power is mediocre, and it is mostly used to assist in alchemy or to purify ores.

Dan Sha Fire is a highly poisonous spiritual fire that alchemists refine using their own pill toxins and medicinal residues. It can only be used to refine poison pills and Gu pills, and its uses are very limited.

These spiritual flames are either too weak or have limited uses, so they are not good choices.

Those top-tier spiritual flames, such as Samadhi True Flame, Nanming Li Flame, Azure Lotus Earth Flame, and Taiyin True Flame, are already at the level of supernatural powers and cannot be cultivated by those in the mere Qi Refining stage.

In view of this, some powerful cultivators have devoted a great deal of effort to creating and perfecting a method for condensing high-level fire seeds through self-cultivation, which "does not rely on external objects but transforms the illusory into the real" using one's own power.

Simply put, it means to refine a wisp of spiritual fire from scratch without relying on external fire, spirit beasts, or spirit stones, using oneself as the furnace.

In fact, this method was not created out of thin air, but rather referenced the cultivation concept of Samadhi Fire.

Samadhi Fire is generated by the combination of one's own essence, energy, and spirit as fuel.

Based on this concept, by further reducing the requirements for the strength of essence, energy, and spirit, a weakened version of Samadhi Fire can be refined.

Within the Great Dao Jade Slip, there are tens of thousands of cultivation methods for condensing the fire seed.

Some emphasize using essence and blood as a catalyst, while others emphasize using spiritual consciousness as a furnace; there are all sorts of methods, each with its own strengths.

Anton selected the most outstanding and most suitable technique for himself from among them—the Five Elements Flame Transformation Technique.

The spiritual fire generated by this technique is called the Five Elements True Fire, also known as the Five Elements Revolving Spiritual Fire.

As the name suggests, it can alternate and rotate among the five elements.

In addition to being able to refine pills of any attribute, it can also instantly switch to fire attribute when fighting enemies, specifically targeting their weaknesses.

Even at the Foundation Establishment stage, the Five Elements True Fire is still considered a top-tier killing technique.

The only drawback is that cultivators must possess five spiritual roots and cultivate techniques with the five elements attributes, which is an extremely demanding requirement.

But Anton just happens to meet this condition.

"Let's choose the Five Elements True Fire."

Anton had already considered the matter of the spirit fire, and at this moment, he made a decision quickly without hesitation.

The Five Elements True Fire and the Primordial Spiritual Energy have an extremely high compatibility. When the two are combined, they can achieve an effect greater than the sum of their parts.

After quickly memorizing the contents of the Five Elements Flame Transformation Technique, Anton did not immediately begin practicing it. Instead, he began to examine the recipe for the Nourishing Essence Pill.

As the most frequently used basic elixir in the cultivation world, the Peiyuan Pill has an astonishing number of variant formulas, which can be described as being used in countless creative ways.

When Anton was searching for the recipe for Peiyuan Dan, he was almost overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of recipes and it took him a long time to figure out the differences between them.

In general, the refining concepts of these formulas are all the same, and the ultimate effect is to temper the cultivator's physical body and accelerate the refining speed of spiritual energy.

The difference lies in the materials used, which also results in varying degrees of effectiveness.

When making selections, Anton's primary consideration was the materials needed for alchemy, while the effects of the elixir were secondary.

After all, if the alchemy materials cannot be found on the Dawn Continent, or if no substitutes can be found, then no matter how good the effect is, it will be useless.

After careful selection, Anton finally chose a variant of the Peiyuan Dan formula called "Longyuan Dan".

The main ingredient of the Dragon Essence Pill is dragon blood, or the blood of a spirit beast containing dragon blood, while there are more than twenty auxiliary ingredients.

Dragon blood is the most crucial element; the higher the concentration of the blood, the better the final elixir will be.

On the continent of Dawn, there is no shortage of dragon bloodlines.

"I wonder if the dragon bloodline in this world is interchangeable with the dragon bloodline in the cultivation world?"

There was no point in thinking too much, so Anton decided to give it a try first. If it didn't work, he could just try a different formula for the Qi-Nourishing Pill.

If successful, the Dragon Essence Pill, with its far superior effects compared to ordinary Foundation Establishment Pills, will undoubtedly significantly shorten the time it takes for him to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage.

"For the main ingredient, let's try the blood of the Scaled Rock Lizard first. If that doesn't work, we can switch to the blood of other dragon beasts."

Anton no longer needs to rely on spirit guides to draw talismans, saving a lot of materials. However, he continues to go out hunting every two or three months, so he has now accumulated a lot of Scaled Lizard blood.

Now it comes in handy.

"As for auxiliary materials..."

Anton glanced at the recipe and found that apart from a few ingredients, the rest were materials he had never heard of in the Dawn Continent. Obviously, he would have to find alternative materials.

"Tomorrow I'll go to Professor Darian's office and borrow a few materials catalogs to see what similar materials can be used as substitutes."

Researching alternative materials for elixirs is far more complex than researching alternative materials for talismans.

Moreover, the experimental process will definitely consume a lot of materials.

Looks like I'll have to make a trip to Biyue Port.

Anton secretly made his plans.

Bishui Port is a thriving commercial hub; he should be able to buy all the materials he needs there.

Fortunately, I have all the Scaled Lizard skins I've collected from hunting over the years, so I can take them to Biyue Port to sell and use the money to buy materials.

"But before that, we still need to refine the spirit fire first."

Anton took a deep breath, sat cross-legged, and focused his mind on his dantian, beginning to comprehend the Five Elements Flame Transformation Technique.