Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit - Chapter 291

Chapter 291 – Improvements

Lu Ping could never have imagined that the Core Division Pellets would be this powerful. Initially, he just needed to let his foundation bloodline absorb the bloodline inside the pellets, but he had forgotten about the massive true energy within them.

Almost a year had passed since Lu Ping finally refined all the true energy inside his body, pushing him to the peak of the First Layer Core Forging Realm. Despite this, he had an odd feeling that he could advance straight into the Second Layer Core Forging Realm anytime he wanted.

In his heartspace, a Golden Core stopped shining brightly, only maintaining a soft and warm light, with twelve Primordial Stars slowly orbiting around it. Suddenly, the Primordial Stars were summoned to the physical world, and the cave-dwelling began to shake violently as if it was about to collapse.

Lu Ping hurriedly kept the Primordial Stars back into his heartspace, and breathed out a long sigh of relief. Although he had only summoned the nascent weapon set for a couple seconds, he still felt a great sense of ease when using them, realizing that they were also much stronger than before!

However, that was only because the weapons were in the ranks of mystic instruments. Since he was now in the Core Forging Realm, he would eventually have to raise their ranks into mystic treasures. At that point, he would go back to the same predicament of lacking the true energy to properly wield them.

Lu Ping raised his hand and a total of 1296 sword lights formed around him. The sword lights followed his thoughts and performed different moves at the same time. He clenched his hand and the sword lights gathered in his hand taking the shape of a golden light sword.

The light sword started forming from the hilt, but just before the sword tip could be formed, Lu Ping’s expression changed, and the sword suddenly shattered back into sword lights. In the end, the sword lights failed to merge together.

Lu Ping sighed and waved his hand to disperse the sword lights. Unfortunately, he was still one step away from Sword Simplicity, the final stage of Sword Intent.

After that, Lu Ping took out the Golden Scale Sword and refined it with his true energy. This time, the sword was much easier and smoother to control.

One of the most important features of the Core Forging Realm was the combination of true energy and divine revelation. In the Blood Condensation Realm, cultivators’ arcane energy and divine sense acted separately; the strength of an attack depended on the arcane energy, while controlling the attacks depended on divine sense.

However, in the Core Forging Realm, an Enlightened Masters started to combine their true energy and divine revelation together, allowing them to exert spells and skills to the fullest.

Right now, Lu Ping’s current strength was likely even stronger than Enlightened Master Jin Li, let alone the masked assassin in Qian Yuan City who had tried to kill him earlier!

Lu Ping cast a hand sign, causing the Golden Scale Sword to turn in mid-air and thrust towards him, disappearing inside his body upon contact. This was another feature of the Core Forging Realm, the ability to keep non-nascent weapons in the body.

The Golden Scale Sword became a tiny flying sword orbiting around the twelve Primordial Stars. A portion of the true energy gathered in the heartspace was used to nourish the sword.

The Golden Scale Sword was Enlightened Master Jin Li’s nascent mystic treasure, so the late Enlightened Master had poured a lot of resources like Grade 2 spirit materials to forge it. Hence, the flying sword had great potential, making Lu Ping want to take good care of it rather than let it go to waste.

After finding out the improvement to his combat strength, Lu Ping turned his focus to the next most important thing. He flicked his finger and a huge cauldron flew out from his interspatial ring.

This was the River Inclusion Cauldron that he had never been able to use!

Lu Ping had always longed to concoct pellets with it, but he was too weak to even refine it back then, let alone use it for his alchemy. However, with the increase to his cultivation base and strength, Lu Ping was confident that he would finally be able to refine it and use it for his alchemy.

While Lu Ping hoped that his thoughts were correct, he didn’t slow down the injection of his true energy into the cauldron to try and brand it as his own.

Moments later, Lu Ping successfully refined the cauldron and kept it within his heartspace. His face was slightly pale, and his heart was beating quickly. Whilst he knew that it wouldn’t be easy, he never expected that it would be this difficult. The cauldron had taken more than one-third of his true energy to refine!

Fortunately, using it for alchemy wouldn’t consume as much true energy as it did to refine it.

In the heartspace, the River Inclusion Cauldron pushed the Golden Scale Sword away to the furthest orbit, and absorbed almost the same amount of true energy as the Primordial Stars did. Lu Ping suspected that if the Primordial Stars weren’t his nascent weapons, the River Inclusion Cauldron would even try to push them away to the outer orbit. After all, the closer they were to the Golden Core, the more true energy they could absorb, reaping greater benefits.

Initially, Lu Ping had planned to upgrade the cauldron with the cauldron Mystical Inscription he had in his possession. However, after seeing the cauldron’s dominance in the heartspace, he decided to delay the upgrade. He was afraid that the cauldron would really push the Primordial Stars away from the Golden Core if he chose to upgrade it right now.

Furthermore, upgrading the top-grade cauldron to a mystic treasure would require a Master Smith. Additionally, even if the upgrade was successful, Lu Ping wasn’t strong enough to use a cauldron mystic treasure. A top-grade cauldron mystic instrument was perfect for him.

Even Grandmaster Alchemist Yan Wu-Jiu was using a top-grade cauldron mystic instrument; the entire Zhen Ling Sect only had three top-grade cauldron mystic instruments, and the Xuan Ling Sect only had one.

Lu Ping brought the River Inclusion Cauldron out again and heated it up with the Azure Spirit Fire. The temperature of the room rose sharply and the seals inside it started to burn down. Lu Ping quickly made nine hand signs to cast a seal and lower the room temperature.

He had used the [Sea Crossing Concealment Art], which had greatly improved in power after he advanced to the Core Forging Realm.

The pestle puppet prepared 27 pieces of 1000-year spirit herbs and a couple dozen 500-year spirit herbs. Then, Lu Ping added the spirit herbs into the cauldron to let it melt into medicinal paste. The fire setting was fixed, and the fire puppet was tasked to maintain the fire.

After that, Lu Ping sat down on the side and meditated.

This time, Lu Ping didn’t use the Amethyst Bee Royal Jelly that was now running low, or any high-grade spirit stones of which he had a limited supply. He only cast the [Spirit Explosive Technique] with two mid-grade spirit stones, the spirit purification technique, and the [Pellet Concoct Technique].

Despite this, he still successfully concocted four Golden Essence Pellets. Although this pellet was the easiest Core Forging Realm pellet, the success rate still indeed confirmed Lu Ping’s qualification as Master Alchemist. Unlike when he passed the Grandmaster Alchemist’s test through a stroke of luck.

After testing out his current alchemy mastery, Lu Ping finally made up his mind. He took a deep breath, and reached out to the opened book beside him.

In the Tome of Thousand Millets, there was a beautiful bird singing on the peach tree. Beside it, there was another similar-looking bird listening attentively. The lush peach tree was shaking its branches and leaves to accompany the bird.

Suddenly, a giant hand appeared out of thin air, interrupting the bird’s song, and grabbing three 1000-year golden spirit herbs before swiftly disappearing!

The songbird looked at the place where the giant hand disappeared, before resuming its singing as if nothing had happened. The other bird jumped around a few times, evidently noticing the difference in the giant hand’s aura, but it was quickly attracted to the songbird’s singing once again.

Golden Marrow Grasses.

The only three 1000-year spirit herbs in Alchemist Sheng Tao’s spirit garden. Besides these herbs, the late alchemist also left behind a pellet recipe for the Golden Marrow Pellet.

After Lu Ping’s careful nurturing over the years, the Golden Marrow Grasses had matured, and their seeds had been replanted in the spirit garden.

When Lu Ping decided to concoct the Golden Marrow Pellets, he suddenly had a heavy heart filled with regret and anticipation. Alchemist Sheng Tao died with the regret of not being able to concoct the Golden Marrow Pellets, which was transferred to Lu Ping after he inherited Alchemist Sheng Tao’s alchemical heritage. For a long time, Lu Ping had buried this regret in his heart, but now, he had grown skillful enough to fulfill this desire.

Golden Marrow Pellets were the best medicinal pellets for Early Enlightened Masters, far better than Golden Essence Pellets, but also much more difficult to concoct. Hence, Lu Ping would have to give his all and do his best; the time to really test the limits of his alchemy had arrived!