Chapter 162 The Great Perfection of the Thick Earth Returning to Origin Mantra

Ji An's divine sense probed out of the storage bag, and he grinned:

"Is the mission that urgent?"

Inside were three thousand pieces of cut-out Qi Refining stage Black Wind Wolf hides, one hundred late Foundation Establishment stage beast hides, and a number of matching talisman ink and talisman brushes. A certain number of Explosion Talismans and Explosion Talismans were required to be submitted within one month.

He quite liked the task of drawing top-grade explosive talismans, but drawing more than a thousand high-grade explosive talismans would kill him.

Ji An recalled his state when he drew the Ten-Day Wind-Sealing Talisman at Mingfeng Mountain, and his face appeared somewhat ferocious.

His divine sense was over-exhausted and recovered very slowly. It took him four or five days to fully recover after returning to Crimson Flame Peak.

"Senior brother, compared to casting spells, drawing talismans consumes far more spiritual energy..."

Ye Changqing waved his hand and said:

“Junior brother, I know your difficulties, but recently the major sects have been using all sorts of methods to attract cultivators to Mingfeng Mountain Immortal City. All the shops opened by the sects must have enough stock to sustain their operations.”

"Not only you, but all high-level talisman masters have received a large number of talisman-making tasks, as have the weapon refiners and alchemists."

As Ye Changqing spoke, he took out a light blue, flat, round porcelain jar with floral and plant reliefs, and said:

"This contains calming flower incense, which can nourish the soul and relieve the intense pain caused by excessive consumption of spiritual energy."

Everyone's workload was much heavier than before, but things gradually returned to normal over the past few months.

The strategy of several sects is to attract independent cultivators to settle in Mingfeng Mountain. At the same time, they also need to build up the reputation of their sect shops, which will make it much easier to earn spirit stones or collect materials.

Ji An lifted the lid of the porcelain jar, and a faint minty scent wafted out, bringing a refreshing feeling.

Looking at the twenty jars of incense inside, his expression softened considerably. He deftly put the porcelain jars into his storage bag and smiled:

"Don't worry, senior brother, I guarantee I'll complete the task and won't make things difficult for you."

The sect has strict requirements for Tranquilizing Incense. Normally, he is not qualified to exchange for it. Only alchemists and weapon refiners who receive a large number of missions can exchange for it.

His success rate in making Explosive Flame Talismans is close to 80%. He can complete the task by drawing about two thousand talismans, which saves him a lot of Tranquilizing Incense.

Ye Changqing chuckled:

"If you try to be clever, your success rate will definitely be over 40%. The difficulty of the mission will not allow you to fill up your time limit."

Ji An gave a simple, honest smile and changed the subject:

"What's the situation at Mingfeng Mountain now? How many cultivators have gone there?"

"The situation is not bad. In just half a month since it opened, it has already attracted a large number of families to move in."

The number of independent cultivators has reached more than 30,000, most of whom are cultivators in the middle and late stages of Qi Refining, and the number continues to increase.

The next task is to wipe out the demonic beasts east of Mingfeng Mountain and turn this large area into the territory of cultivators.

With just two or three decades of development, the overall strength of the entire Western Continent will inevitably rise to a new level.

By eliminating the demonic beasts and developing various small spiritual vein nodes, more cultivators can be provided with places to cultivate.

Putting aside other factors, with sufficient resources, the number of low-level cultivators increases very quickly.

As the overall number of cultivators increases, more Foundation Establishment cultivators will emerge, and these cultivators will be the backbone of the resistance against demonic calamities.

Ji An was surprised:

"Is everything going so smoothly? Don't the monsters show any sign of retaliating?"

"How could there be no counterattack! Several powerful demons at the Golden Core stage have attacked Mingfeng Mountain before."

However, all three sects have built teleportation arrays leading to Mingfeng Mountain, allowing several Golden Core elders to teleport there at any time. They can easily defend the immortal city using the mountain-protecting array.

Ye Changqing said with no small amount of pride, "Mingfeng Mountain is the bridgehead for cultivators to resist the demon calamity, and the area from Mingfeng Immortal City to Qingyun Immortal City is the buffer zone between the three major sects."

If a demonic disaster occurs, reinforcements will be continuously transported to the front lines via teleportation arrays and flying boats.

"It seems that the sects are well prepared. If the scale of this demon calamity is similar to that of three thousand years ago, the defense will probably be relatively easy."

Ji An laughed and said that the sect was tens of thousands of miles away from Mingfeng Mountain, and each teleportation array required a large number of mid-grade spirit stones to teleport.

The construction of the teleportation array demonstrates the determination of several sects to protect Mingfeng Mountain.

Ye Changqing nodded, his voice tinged with a hint of regret:

"Human cultivators have been exploring the Western Continent for over six thousand years. If the three sects can stand firm this time, we can be considered to have truly taken root in the Western Continent."

He stood up and continued:

"Come on, show me around. I've been here so many times, but I've never really appreciated the scenery of Crimson Flame Peak."

He wanted to see where the second-tier Crimson Cloud Pine was located, as each second-tier spiritual tree could slightly increase the sect's foundation.

Ji An summoned his flying shuttle and laughed:

"Please get on the flying shuttle. I can show off to my senior brother that I now have three second-tier Crimson Cloud Pines here."

"In other words, in a few months, Crimson Flame Peak will be able to harvest a lot of second-tier pine nuts."

Junior brother, I'll buy some privately.

Ye Changqing revealed a hint of joy. The sect only had about thirty second-tier Crimson Cloud Pines. The pine nuts would be given priority to Foundation Establishment cultivators in the mid-to-late stages of the Fire Element Technique for them to refine, and were rarely roasted into pine nuts for people to eat.

These few second-tier Crimson Cloud Pines were planted privately by Junior Brother Ji. They were not part of the sect's plans for the next two or three years, which created room for manipulation. Otherwise, Uncle-Master Jia Yu would not have mentioned collecting pine nuts to brew wine.

“I will give my senior brother ten catties, and I will give him ten catties every year from now on.”

Ji An said that second-tier low-grade spiritual items can already be handed over to the sect's secret treasury to exchange for minor merits. Although second-tier low-grade Crimson Cloud Pine Nuts are not particularly precious spiritual items, they are still difficult to buy even with spirit stones.

"You're always taking advantage of my junior brother, how can I accept that!"

A smile appeared in Ye Changqing's eyes, and he decided to pay more attention to edible spirit wood seeds or plants in the future.

...

One year later.

Ji An stood at the entrance of the cave, using his magic to nurture the Crimson Cloud Pine.

Suddenly, he felt a strong suction force emanating from the pine tree, frantically devouring his magical power.

He saw that the trunk of the spirit pine tree had visibly increased in size, and a rich fire elemental energy was rising and surging within the trunk.

The pine needles were even more crimson, radiating a shimmering light that was about a foot long.

Ji An raised his eyebrows and laughed loudly:

"The sixth one!"

This is the sixth second-stage Red Cloud Pine on Red Flame Peak, which can produce more than 1,000 catties of pine nuts every year.

After the red cloud pine reaches the second-grade lower grade, the yield of pine nuts decreases, to only about 200 catties.

The pine tree stopped absorbing magical power, and Ji An removed his hand. The originally pale yellow pine needles were now as clear as red jade, surrounded by a spiritual light about an inch long.

Ji An was in high spirits. He let out a long roar and used his Wind Control Technique to leap to the mountaintop.

The wind howled in my ears, and my hair flew wildly.

After spending half an hour extracting the essence, he returned to the foot of the mountain.

By the cold pool, Xia Yuhan and her sister were already waiting by the stone house.

Every morning is Ji An's talisman-making time. The talisman shop opened by the sect in Mingfeng Mountain Immortal City is booming, so he has no choice but to earn more contribution points as well.

Mingfeng Mountain is like a fortress, blocking high-level demonic beasts from invading eastward. East of the Immortal City, rogue cultivators have been occupying spiritual vein nodes and establishing cultivation families.

The cultivators began to encroach on the territory that originally belonged to the demon beasts, and the demon hunting movement was in full swing. According to statistics, more than 70,000 rogue cultivators have settled in Mingfeng Immortal City.

Ji An entered the stone house and asked:

"How many talismans are planned for today?"

He had already devised a plan for making talismans, and he did what he was supposed to do each day in a methodical manner.

"Reporting to my master, according to the plan, we need to successfully draw fifty Flame Talismans and two Explosion Talismans this morning."

"Why are there so many?"

Ji An frowned slightly. His usual workload consisted of only twenty or thirty Explosion Talismans.

"Tomorrow is the day to make the deal with Uncle Wei. I need to provide him with a thousand Blazing Flame Talismans, but I'm still short by more than forty."

"All right."

Ji An grinned and picked up his brush to begin making talismans.

Now, his success rate in drawing Explosive Flame Runes has reached 85%, and his success rate in drawing Burst Runes is close to 60%.

Each month, one can earn over 3,000 contribution points and over 2,000 spirit stones from talisman-making skills.

He rarely buys talisman-making materials from outside sources now, as the materials provided by the sect are basically enough to cover his needs.

A silver light flashed from a communication talisman sword and flew into the stone house, chiming softly beside him.

After Ji An finished drawing the Explosive Flame Talisman he was working on, he reached out and took the talisman sword.

"I have returned to my sect and will visit Crimson Flame Peak in three days."

The message came from my senior, Du Huaiyuan.

One difficulty in refining Foundation Establishment Pills using the inner cores of demonic beasts is that the demonic energy and impurities contained within the demonic cores need to be removed as much as possible.

While traditional fire-based alchemy can refine demonic energy, it also damages the medicinal power of the demon cores, requiring more demon cores to refine a single batch of Foundation Establishment Pills, thus consuming a significant amount of raw materials.

Although Du Huaiyuan's water-based alchemy method takes longer, it can more easily remove impurities and demonic energy from demon pills, greatly saving raw materials, and the quality of the finished pills is slightly better than that of fire-based alchemy.

Under these circumstances, Du Huaiyuan was summoned by the sect to Mingfeng Immortal City to oversee the refinement of Foundation Establishment Pills using demon cores as the main ingredient.

Ji An grinned. Over the past year, they had occasionally exchanged letters.

The other party said that he spends more than six hours a day refining pills, and the number of pills he has refined in this year is more than he has in the previous twenty years combined.

He turned his head and said:

"I will be hosting a banquet for Senior Brother Du in three days, and I will prepare a sumptuous feast of spiritual food."

Xia Yuhan bowed slightly: "Yes, Senior Brother Liang just experimented with pine honey roasted meat yesterday, which is perfect for drinking with alcohol."

After finishing his talisman-drawing task for the morning, Ji An strolled into the underground cave.

The spirit-seeking rat curled up into a ball and slept under the earth spirit fruit tree. Hearing the noise, it squinted at him for a moment, then continued to snore.

Ji An made a hand seal and released the Thick Earth Returning to Origin Mantra. As the spell took shape, a magical intent different from usual spread out.

Beneath the warm and nourishing aura, there was also a hint of deep and obscure divine intent.

The golden retriever scrambled to its feet and looked around warily.

Nourished by the spiritual energy from the spell, the yellow spots on the stone skin of the Earth Spirit Fruit Tree shone brightly, brighter than the stars in the night.

Ji An closed his eyes, feeling the lingering effects of the spell, and then connected his mind with the stone tortoise.

[Spell: Thick Earth Returning to Origin Mantra (Perfect 99% → Great Perfection)]

In the spell column, this line of text gradually faded and disappeared, while the color of the Ji Earth Dao Seed in the Chongmen acupoint became brighter, and spiritual light flickered throughout the acupoint.

(End of this chapter)