Chapter 403 The Calabash World
Ji An examined his body internally. His Wood Element Divine Palace emitted a blue light, his Heart Palace was crimson like fire with golden flame patterns swirling around its surface, and his Spleen shone with a warm, yellow spiritual light.
He opened his eyes with a smile, and immediately heard his senior sister's voice in his ears.
"Congratulations, Junior Brother, on your advancement in cultivation. You're one step closer to the Golden Core stage."
Han Yan's tone changed from serious to playful, "When you break through to the Golden Core stage, don't forget to help out your unfortunate senior sister who's been through thick and thin with you today!"
After ten years of getting to know each other, their friendship deepened, and they often cracked little jokes at each other.
Ji An smiled and said:
"Congratulations! There's still a long way to go before becoming a Golden Core cultivator. Let's encourage each other, Senior Sister."
He still has five steps to take to become a Golden Core cultivator: the fifth stage of the Chaoyuan realm, the fifth stage of the Chaoyuan realm, the continuous flow of the Five Elements, the convergence of the Five Qi, and the tribulation of lightning.
Han Yan smiled, "Junior brother has just broken through, would you like to cultivate for a while to replenish your mana?"
From then on, no one competed with her for the earth element energy. How wonderful! There are advantages to being backward, after all.
Ji An waved his hand gently, "No need, we can cultivate back in our cave later. Senior Sister, please continue absorbing Qi."
Refining magical power takes a long time, so there's no need for his fellow disciples to protect him.
A moment later, Han Yan finished absorbing the Qi, and the two flew back to their cave after a quarter of an hour on the clouds, each entering their own quiet room.
It was only just past Chen Shi (7-9 AM), so there was still plenty of time to make use of.
Ji An sat cross-legged on the futon, took out a piece of soul incense, put it into the incense burner and lit it. This was the last piece of soul incense he had, and he probably wouldn't be able to enjoy it before returning to his sect.
He took out the jade slip containing the cultivation method, opened it with a key, and placed it on his forehead. Then he began to study the essence of the Metal element chapter of the Five Elements Revolving Scripture.
Opening up a divine palace and using a divine palace to enhance one's cultivation are two different concepts.
Although I had heard the old master tell me the secrets before, those were just other people's experiences. If I wanted to learn, I had to go through the whole process myself.
About two hours later, Ji An put away the jade slip and began his first cultivation session after breaking through.
The spiritual energy in the cave gathered around him, and he inhaled it through his nose. His lungs glowed with a silver light, and the spiritual energy flowed through his immortal veins, entering his wooden palace.
The Jia and Yi wood elements within the acupoints brightened in color, emanating the essence of wood.
When the spiritual energy left the Wood Mansion, it took on a verdant hue and emitted a vigorous and rising spiritual aura.
After leaving the Wood Mansion, the spiritual energy gathered in the Fire Mansion, where it was processed and became bright and hot, also carrying an aura of rising energy.
When the spiritual energy entered the Earth God's Palace, it immediately changed. Its vigorous momentum was contained, and its heavy, mountain-like aura spread out.
The spiritual energy then entered the lungs, where the silver Gengjin Dao Seed flickered. The spiritual energy liquefied like silver lead and mercury, and finally flowed into the dantian.
The flames of life flickered, and the stone turtles proudly raised their heads, each swallowing a portion of the silver magic power.
Unlike the Foundation Establishment stage of cultivation, the refining of spiritual energy now involves further "refinement" through various divine palaces.
Half an hour later, Ji An felt that his cultivation had become proficient. He took out a jade bottle from the void space and poured out a silver pill with two golden patterns on its surface.
This is the White Tiger Profound Gold Pill. It feels slightly cool to the touch and is quite heavy, as if it were a metal ball rather than a pill.
After swallowing the pill, Ji An felt as if he had actually swallowed something of metal.
He remained calm and began to circulate his cultivation technique. The spiritual energy in the pill was quickly refined and filled into his dantian.
At the same time, wisps of pale silver metallic energy were released and entered the divine palace, strengthening its core.
Each time the Divine Palace absorbs a wisp of golden energy, the silver flames within its Primordial Life Fire grow stronger.
Another hour passed before they knew it, and the pill was completely refined.
Ji An opened his eyes. The refining speed of the White Tiger Profound Gold Pill was much slower than that of other pills, perhaps because the metal element has a converging property.
He stepped out of the quiet room and saw Han Yan cooking monster meat in the small living room outside.
"Junior brother, you've arrived at just the right time. The meat soup will be ready soon. Did you time it perfectly?"
They discovered an unknown bird-like monster in the Thousand-Ren Mountain, which tasted extremely delicious. The two of them would often hunt it and enjoy it as a treat.
Ji An jokingly replied, "That's all I had in mind, and my senior sister hit the nail on the head."
The two of them brought out bowls and plates and enjoyed eating meat and drinking soup with great pleasure.
After a while, Han Yan tentatively asked:
"Junior brother, now that you've broken through to the fourth level of the Chaoyuan realm, what are your plans for the future? Staying here any longer is just a waste of your time."
With the Earth Element Divine Palace perfected, the next step is to open the Metal Element Divine Palace. It would be best to find a mine and enter it, opening the palace in a place where the Metal Element energy is abundant, which can slightly improve efficiency.
"It's alright, Senior Sister. You don't know this, but when I left the sect, I had already opened up all the Divine Palaces. It's fine to draw water energy from the rapids in the Thousand-Ren Mountain."
Han Yan felt a little dazed. 'Established five prefectures before leaving the sect? Am I hallucinating?'
She had never heard of such a situation before. How could someone open up another divine palace when their divine palace was not yet perfected?
"Junior brother, did I hear that right?! How did you do that?"
Her tone betrayed disbelief.
"This situation is related to my physical condition and cannot be considered a real skill."
Ji An said, half-jokingly, that his situation was different from others, and it would be too troublesome to explain. There was no need to reveal his smugness when he was in the Foundation Establishment stage.
'So it's a natural talent; that explains it.'
Han Yan comforted herself, feeling a deep sense of frustration when she first heard that the other party's internal organs were fully open.
Ji An finished the soup in the bowl and said:
"From now on, I will drink water and practice qi circulation in the mountain streams near my senior sister."
He's going to start cultivating by taking pills from now on. After finishing the White Tiger Profound Gold Pill, he'll start taking the Heavenly Water Soul Cleansing Pill.
The two chatted for a while longer. Han Yan returned to her quiet room to rest, while Ji An used his Little Cloud Rain Technique to wash the dishes and the bronze cauldron used for cooking.
After finishing the cleanup work, he returned to his meditation room and entered a meditative state. Suddenly, the stone tortoise led him into the core space of the world.
Whenever the stone tortoise accumulates a certain amount of spiritual energy, it will bring him to this place.
In recent years, Ji An has not used his spiritual power again, letting the stone tortoise control everything, because he saw a glimmer of hope.
He was inside at that moment! As for what was happening outside, the golden retriever described it as a rock emitting a faint spiritual light and floating in the air.
At first, the stone tortoise could only bring in his consciousness, but half a year ago it brought in his body as well.
The situation in the gourd world has changed significantly since when the gourd stone was first obtained; the area has now reached twelve zhang in circumference.
From nine zhang to twelve zhang, the apparent number only increased by three zhang, but the area nearly doubled.
The lightning and thunder in the outer gray fog have become less frequent, and the black spatial rifts have also appeared much less often.
The gravel underfoot became finer, and digging two feet down revealed moist soil.
A skinny mountain rat, practically skin and bones, rushed over as if it had seen Ji An enter.
"Squeak!"
Ji An smiled and took out some fresh meat and a large amount of nuts.
He brought the mountain rat in three months ago, hoping to bring more life to the place.
The surface sand here is very dry, making it ideal for storing nuts.
Last time we were unprepared, but this time we brought enough food for the mountain rats.
Ji An thought that once the topsoil became moist, he would plant the wild grass.
There are no spiritual veins here; it can be described as a desert of spiritual energy. However, he believes that with the stone tortoise's unremitting efforts, a spiritual vein will surely be born here.
A moment later, the stone tortoise completed its mission and took him away from the gourd world.
Ji An let out a long breath. He now had an urgent wish: to find an area with active volcanoes and wait for a volcanic eruption.
Based on the experience of Crimson Flame Peak, volcanic eruptions can yield Daoist essence, which can accelerate the cultivation of this small world.
The next day, the two rode out together on a cloud, and Han Yan landed on a mountain peak.
Ji An landed beside the turbulent stream at the foot of the cliff on the mountain peak. He released his golden light magic to cut out a foothold, then stood on it with his feet shoulder-width apart and his five toes gripping the ground.
He began to exhale, raising both hands from his sides, and pursed his lips to make a sound, "blow".
As you exhale completely, slowly stand up as you inhale.
A wisp of cool air enters the mouth, immediately causing saliva to flow; this is precisely the effect of water circulating qi.
The body instinctively swallowed, and the water-elemental energy was gushed down, entering the water-elemental divine palace and being devoured by its core.
A cool, refreshing sensation spread throughout my body, giving me a feeling of being nourished.
His kidneys were jet black, with white veins swirling around them like a sea of clouds.
Exhale and inhale, and wisps of water-based energy are swallowed into Ji An's body, causing his divine palace to grow stronger.
Ji An silently counted the number of times he absorbed the Qi, and stopped when his soul began to feel slightly tired.
One can ingest twenty-three strands of Qi. If one reaches the limit, one should be able to ingest twenty-seven or twenty-eight strands of Qi.
"good!"
Compared to before, there has been significant progress. When the Golden Palace reaches its full potential and strengthens the Water Palace, the time required to upgrade the Water Palace to its perfect state will be much less than that of other divine palaces.
Six months have passed.
At dawn, Ji An parted ways with his senior sister and came to a deep pool.
The depth of the pool was unknown; he had never ventured inside to investigate. By sight, he could tell that the bottom was pitch black.
Based on experience, it is estimated that light will only be affected when the water depth reaches 100 zhang (approximately 500 meters).
He was getting into position, preparing to absorb the energy, when he suddenly felt the ground shake and ripples spread across the pool.
Ji An sensed something was wrong and immediately rode a cloud into the air, moving as far away from the pool as possible.
He then saw a large number of bubbles rising from the pool, like boiling water, and the water vapor began to rise.
He had just flown a few dozen feet when the water in the pool suddenly shot up into the sky, forming a water column that shot straight into the clouds.
Ji An sensed an astonishing power contained within the water column, with dense spiritual energy spreading outwards in the form of shockwaves.
After a moment, the water in the pool suddenly receded, splashing up a large amount of water droplets, like a sky full of sparkling shattered jade.
"What's going on?"
Ji An said with lingering fear that he had been to this deep pool several times, and each time he would stay for half a day, because the stone turtle could absorb some Kan spirit.
This was the first time he had ever witnessed such a scene, and he had no idea what the reason behind it was.
He frowned slightly, thought of a possibility, and immediately focused his mind on his dantian, connecting with the stone turtle.
(End of this chapter)
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