Immortal of the Nine Realms

”Nice!” Li Daoye’s eyes brightened slightly. He had been able to obtain a hundred-year Vermilion Fruit and five hundred low-grade spirit stones, a harvest that far exceeded his expectations. He wouldn’t have been able to obtain anything if it weren’t for Fang Chen!

The two of them divided the items in front of Ji Congyun and company.

The number of spirit stones in Fang Chen’s storage ring soared to eight hundred.

Even a Foundation Building Realm cultivator would be hard-pressed to produce eight hundred low-grade spirit stones all at once.

Li Daoye was delighted. ”We’ve made a killing!”

Fang Chen sighed and took out a fragment of the dragon truncheon for Li Daoye to see. ”You made a killing. My loss is not small.”

Li Daoye took a cold breath. The dragon truncheon, which had twelve Soul Imprints, had actually been broken? That was a treasure forged with Moon Sinking Gold. If it were to be placed on the black market of the Flame Empire, it would be worth at least three to five hundred low-grade spirit stones!

Li Daoye sighed. ”What a pity,” he lamented, “such a good treasure was ruined....”

”We gain some and lose some.” Putting away the dragon truncheon fragment, Fang Chen turned to Ji Congyun. ”These two weird demons inside haven’t been dealt with yet. It would be impossible for you to send anyone inside anytime soon,” he said. “Let’s go back to the capital first. When I’m ready, we’ll deal with them together. During this time, make sure to have more manpower ready.”

Ji Congyun nodded slightly. ”Yes.”

With that, the group returned to the capital, and Fang Chen and the others stayed at the Ji Manor, receiving VIP treatment. Ji Congyun had even directly given up his living quarters to them. He didn’t forget to instruct Ji Lengxing to ensure that the Ji Family’s servants would wait on Fang Chen and be on his beck and call.

”Lord Fang, I won’t interfere in the upcoming matters. Now that I’ve obtained a Vermilion Fruit and a bunch of spirit stones, I want to find a secluded place to cultivate for a few years. I want to undergo a complete rebirth before returning to the Flame Empire,” said Li Daoye.

With a sly smile on his face, Fang Chen said, ”We could find some good stuff still in that place. Are you not interested?”

Li Daoye rolled his eyes, then seriously said, ”I’ve gained a lot already, all thanks to you. Not to mention, if it weren’t for you, I’d have died countless times over this time. A hundred-year Vermilion Fruit and five hundred low-grade spirit stones are enough for me for several years. I won’t be greedy. If you encounter any trouble in the future, feel free to find me at the Eight Trigram Sect. If I can be of any help, I won’t hesitate to lend you a hand.”

Zhao Yan and Xu Ge nodded silently upon hearing this.

Fang Chen also put away his smile, stood up with a solemn expression, and lightly patted Li Daoye’s shoulder. ”Cultivate well. I hope that one day we can explore the cultivation world together.”

A smile rose on Li Daoye’s face. He nodded. “I’m looking forward to that day.”

With that, he turned and left.

Fang Chen didn’t see him off.

However, after Li Daoye left, Fang Chen’s divine soul followed him for a day and a night, making sure he exited the Frost Water Empire safely before retracting his divine soul.

In the following days, Fang Chen focused on creating Purple Lightning Talismans. Due to the depletion of spiritual materials, the Purple Lightning Talismans he made were all low-grade and were far less powerful than the mid-grade ones. However, the process of crafting talismans was a part of his cultivation. The Purple Lightning Talismans were just a byproduct.

After the turmoil he had experienced in the past few days, his spiritual energy had become even richer, and after a few days of crafting Purple Lightning Talismans, he was able to condense his eighth immortal vein effortlessly.

The eighth stage of Qi Refining!

In just a few months, he had progressed from a novice to the eighth stage of Qi Refining. The immortal veins he condensed were also pure and rich.

”Let’s try the Destiny Treasure refinement method.”

After stabilizing his cultivation base, Fang Chen took out the sword embryo he had obtained, which was highly valued by Supreme Immortal Pudu.

The silver sword embryo was like sentient mercury in his palm, gently rolling with occasional bubbles rising.

”The Void Immortal Sword Sect should be quite formidable; otherwise, Supreme Immortal Pudu wouldn’t be afraid to let me refine this sword embryo. He even stored it in such a remote place as a last resort.”

Refining the sword embryo was a lengthy process. With good luck, it might take three to five years to succeed, otherwise, it could extend to several decades. However, once the sword embryo was successfully refined, its strength would surpass that of ordinary Spiritual Treasures by many times.

”Mi Sheng’s refinement method isn’t of high grade. I wonder if it can be used to refine this sword embryo....” After pondering for a while, Fang Chen placed the sword embryo in front of him, slowly closed his eyes, and started circulating his spiritual energy through a special route. With each circulation, a faint redness appeared on his forehead.

His spiritual energy was depleting rapidly; after just five or six revolutions, nearly seventy to eighty percent of his spiritual energy was consumed. That was even faster than the consumption rate he experienced when creating Purple Lightning Talismans.

Unconsciously, a drop of blood essence was forced out from his forehead. Blood essence was the vital essence that existed in both cultivators and ordinary people. In the latter, it remained hidden within the body, supporting the body’s daily consumption.

If one fell ill, the blood essence would be depleted, and in death, it withered away. The stronger the individual, the more abundant his blood essence, such as in martial artists. Cultivators, on the other hand, had much higher blood essence levels than martial artists of the same level because they cultivated spiritual energy.

The method of refining the Destiny weapon was essentially a way to force out the blood essence from the body, using it in combination with spiritual energy to refine the not-yet-formed Spiritual Treasure. Once successful, it could turn into a Destiny weapon.

The more blood essence forced out each time, the faster the speed of refining the Spiritual Treasure. However, to cultivators, losing even a drop of blood essence would damage their physical bodies, so they needed some time to recover after each session.

Fang Chen’s spiritual energy enveloped his drop of blood essence and landed on the silver sword embryo. A faint red glow slowly merged into the sword embryo, gradually fusing with it.

Boom!

Fang Chen seemed to hear a loud noise, and in the next moment, he found that he was suddenly in a vast universe filled with countless twinkling stars.

Fang Chen was stunned. ”Where is this?!”

He was just refining the sword embryo, how did he suddenly end up in a place like this? Was this an illusion?

At that moment, a distant loud noise rang out.

Fang Chen looked up to see a sight that left him utterly baffled.

A giant planet emitting a cold light was disintegrating piece by piece. The fragments produced by its destruction shot into the void like a meteor shower, spreading through the void. The fragments blasted through stars as they traversed the void, crushing them to debris.

Large chunks of the massive planet fell away, revealing its core—a round, silvery bead.

Fang Chen was somewhat dazed. ”This... this aura is very similar to the silver sword embryo! Could it be that the sword embryo was crafted from the core of a planet?”

It was then that an even more astonishing scene unfolded. A giant palm appeared in the sky, slowly grabbing the silver core. It took the silver core and then disappeared.

The surroundings suddenly returned to its former calm state. It was as if everything that had just happened never occurred. Before Fang Chen could think further, he returned to reality.

In front of him was the silver sword embryo, flying around.

There seemed to be a faint and indistinct special connection between him and the silver sword embryo.

I’m so hungry....

This thought suddenly struck Fang Chen out of nowhere, but he suddenly recalled one point. ”No wait, I’m a cultivator. Even though I haven’t reached the point where I can abstain from food, I shouldn’t feel hungry even after one or two months of not eating. This isn’t my feeling; it’s... it’s you!” Fang Chen stared at the silver sword embryo and cautiously asked, ”Is this feeling of hunger coming from you? Are you hungry?”

The silver sword embryo flew in front of Fang Chen and stopped, then moved up and down, as if nodding.

Hungry, hungry, hungry!

The thoughts of the silver sword embryo surged like rolling waves.

Fang Chen’s expression was strange. ”This... I’ve already used a drop of blood essence. Can’t you wait until I recover a bit?”