Cultivation: Beginning with the Heart Reflecting Heaven and Earth

When Lu Qian woke up from his cultivation again, he suddenly felt something was wrong. When he got up to check, he found a storage bag outside the door.

After opening the storage bag, Lu Qian found an iron whip, a black iron umbrella, two bottles of Rejuvenation Pills, and a jade slip explaining the situation.

After examining the information in the jade slip, he thoughtfully took out the iron whip. "So this is called the Thunder Whip. It's a magical weapon that Elder Tao used when he was young. He prepared it for me long ago."

The Thunder Whip is considered a high-grade first-tier magic weapon, definitely not an ordinary item. After all, it was something Tao Pili brought out, so its quality couldn't be too bad.

The special feature of the Thunder Whip is that it is a dual-purpose weapon. Whether you use your inner energy to control it to smash people from a distance or simply pick it up and swing it like a big stick, its power is quite impressive.

"They must have taken my Star Immortal Body into account when they chose this weapon!"

Lu Qian activated his magic, manipulating the lightning whip to fly up and strike forward with a whooshing sound. His true energy rapidly dissipated. "It seems I can't control it like this yet. With my current cultivation level, I can only manage one or two strikes with that power, which is completely insufficient to sustain a battle, unless it's used for a sneak attack!"

He has decided that he will still use the Thunder Whip as a big stick; this is the most correct way to use it at present.

As for the black iron umbrella, it's called the Xuan Tie Umbrella, a mid-grade first-tier magic weapon, nothing special.

As Lu Qian activated his magic, the black iron umbrella hovered below his head, casting a curtain of light that could barely be considered as providing all-around protection.

"With my cultivation level, this should last for about a dozen breaths. If someone attacks, it might last for a shorter time, but it's still enough."

Moreover, Lu Qian also possesses the Canglan Robe, which can also be used as a defensive magic weapon, so there's no need to worry too much.

All that's left are pills. There are only two bottles of Rejuvenation Pills. There are no antidote pills or healing pills, but that's barely enough.

Swords and blades have no eyes; as long as you don't die right away, you can always find a chance to escape and then simply return to the rear.

No matter what the punishment would be for failing the training mission, it wouldn't be worse than death. Lu Qian didn't have a strong competitive spirit, and if things really couldn't be done, he would just run away without any mental burden.

"Next, we just need to wait for the training mission to begin. No need to rush!"

As time passed, the day finally arrived. Lu Qian saw Xie Xunzhen again after a long time and quickly asked, "Are you going too?"

Xie Xunzhen nodded, "We're all going with you, but it's not just to protect you. We'll also be doing missions. And there are a lot of good things on the merit list that we don't usually see, so I'll have to give it my all."

Lu Qian was taken aback. "A list of war merits? What does that mean?"

He had never heard of this before.

Seeing Lu Qian's expression, Xie Xunzhen immediately realized that he didn't understand, so he explained, "For wartime missions like this, rewards are generally calculated based on battle merits, not Dao cultivation points. As long as you have enough battle merits, you can freely exchange them. Your cultivation level is too low right now, so you don't need to worry about this."

"Although the Holy Land will offer many good items for exchange, the prices are all very high. Unless you are extremely strong or work extremely hard, it is basically impossible to exchange for anything of good quality."

"After all, the Holy Land demands our lives, not gives us freebies. And often, even after the battle ends, not half of the items on the battle merit list have been replaced. The items on the list are like carrots in front of a donkey—most of the time you can see them but can't have them! But for that tiny bit of chance, we still have to fight!"

Lu Qian finally understood: the Battle Merit Ranking was meant to motivate the people of the Holy Land to fight to the death.

After all, the people in the Holy Land are very precious. They are usually well-resourced and properly nurtured. Few are willing to risk their lives like rogue cultivators. They are like people who wear shoes; they won't easily go barefoot.

The items on the battle merit list are not easily obtained even by people from the Holy Land. At this time, people from the Holy Land have no choice but to fight desperately for those resources.

Even if you know that you can see those rewards but may not actually get them, there's still a chance if you try your best. If you don't drink, you have no chance. Someone will always be willing to risk everything.

It can only be said that even the disciples of the Holy Land have no surplus food. Compared with the people of the independent cultivators or small sects, the disciples of the Holy Land are certainly considered to be very rich and powerful, but it is impossible for them to get everything they want. Similarly, there are some things that they cannot obtain. The Battle Merit Ranking is such an opportunity to obtain what they dream of!

At this moment, Lu Qian understood Xie Xunzhen's meaning. His cultivation level was indeed too low, only at the fourth level of Qi Refining. No matter what, it would be difficult for him to accumulate a high amount of battle merits, and the things on the list would be out of his reach.

There will always be opportunities in the future. Lu Qian has a good attitude. He treats this as an opportunity to gain experience and there is no need to be too anxious.

More importantly, there's no use in being anxious; it's impossible for his cultivation level to improve all at once, so let's just let nature take its course.

Xie Xunzhen then added, "Those who risk their lives to gain battle merits are generally disciples at the late Qi Refining stage or even the peak Qi Refining stage. They are about to establish their foundation, which is why they desperately try to obtain foundation-establishing spiritual items. Although the Holy Land will distribute Foundation Establishment Pills, these pills only guarantee that you won't be seriously injured or even die during the breakthrough, but they cannot guarantee that you will definitely succeed in establishing your foundation!"

Lu Qian nodded. Of course, he knew this too. Without the Foundation Establishment Pill, failure to establish the foundation could result in serious injury or even death. But with the Foundation Establishment Pill, even if the foundation establishment failed, it wouldn't have a big impact. After a period of recuperation, one could continue to establish the foundation.

It can be said that the most important function of the Foundation Establishment Pill is to save lives. Of course, it is also beneficial to Foundation Establishment, increasing the success rate by about 30%, but it cannot guarantee that Foundation Establishment will be successful.

At this point, you'll need to use foundation-building items to ensure a high success rate for foundation building.

There are three stages in the Foundation Establishment process: the physical body stage, the magical power stage, and the spiritual consciousness stage. Only by passing all three stages can one successfully establish the foundation.

Therefore, many disciples of holy lands cultivate body-refining techniques with the goal of Foundation Establishment. By strengthening their physical bodies through body-refining techniques, they can make the physical challenges easier to overcome.

If one does not practice body-refining techniques, one can use some pills or spiritual objects to strengthen the physical body, which can achieve the same effect. There are also some spiritual objects that are effective for mana barriers and spiritual consciousness barriers, but they are all very valuable and not easy to obtain.

Although only a minority of the disciples of the Holy Land are unable to establish their foundation, it is precisely because they have prepared all kinds of resources that they are able to achieve a relatively high success rate.

If you rush into foundation building without any preparation, it is very likely that you will fail and suffer serious injury or even death.

After all, even in the Holy Land, not everyone has a Heavenly Spiritual Root, so it's impossible to say that there are no bottlenecks in Foundation Establishment.

Moreover, even if there is no bottleneck when establishing a foundation with a Heavenly Spiritual Root, it is still necessary to prepare all foundation-establishing pills and spiritual items as a precaution.

Because accidents are unpredictable, the only way to prevent them is to make adequate preparations in advance.