Ever since Nie Tian had returned from the Blood Skull’s headquarters, he cultivated wholeheartedly in his room.
Instead of using spirit stones, he used spiritual materials that contained flame power and wood power.
Two weeks passed.
As Nie Tian channeled flame power to his vortex of flame power, he could see increasingly clearly that numerous tiny flames were being formed at the bottom of the vortex.
It was like a miniature sea of flames, within which lay formidable flame power.
However, a moment later, he noticed that when he continued to channel more flame power to the vortex, no more flames were formed.
That was when he realized that he had refined his vortex of flame power to its limit.
Therefore, he went on to absorb essence from the peculiar wood chips and green leaves that Pei Qiqi had obtained for him.
As he channeled more and more wood power to his vortex of wood power, a small pond of green liquid was formed at the bottom of the vortex, which was the concentrated essence of plants and vegetation.
Two months later, he discovered that the liquid seemed to reach the brim and stopped growing.
That was when he realized that he had finished refining his vortex of wood power.
After that, he took out a handful of strange-looking stones that contained a faint amount of star power, and channeled the power into his vortex of star power.
There had already been a tiny pond of liquidized star power, which he referred to as stardew, at the bottom of his vortex of star power. He had formed it by cultivating in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace and the Blood Sect.
It only took him three days to absorb the star power from those few pieces of spiritual materials, and as a result, a few drops of stardew were added to the bottom of his vortex of star power.
However, he could feel that it was far from enough to fill his vortex of star power to the point where he was ready to make the breakthrough into the Heaven stage.
Spiritual materials that contained star power were rather rare. Even with Pei Qiqi’s special status, she had merely managed to get him a handful of them.
Without more of those spiritual materials, there was only one way for him to obtain more star power: use the Fragmentary Star Incantation to channel starlight to his spiritual sea in an open space.
However, the entire Shatter City was enveloped by a giant light shield. Polluted spiritual Qi couldn’t penetrate it, and neither could starlight.
That meant that as long as he was in Shatter City, he couldn’t channel starlight from the heavens to the vortex of star power in his spiritual sea.
One day, Nie Tian awoke from his cultivation. He sat by his window and stared deep into the night sky, lost in his thoughts.
The spiritual power in his spiritual sea was in a misty state, but the essence at the bottom of the vortexes of three different attributes was obviously more condensed.
He had a feeling that the spiritual power in his spiritual sea was the foundation that he had built his cultivation on.
Without it, he wouldn’t have a spiritual sea, and none of the vortexes of different attributes would exist.
Every time he made a small breakthrough in the Lesser Heaven stage, a new vortex of spiritual power was formed in his spiritual sea.
The three vortexes of spiritual power unceasingly refined spiritual power and tempered his spiritual sea. However, his spiritual sea also required his other vortexes to develop to the point where it was ready to upgrade and he was ready to enter the next cultivation stage.
That meant that the more types of power he cultivated, the longer it would take to advance to that point.
If he had only cultivated flame power, he would have reached the breakthrough point long ago.
Given the right enlightenment, he would have made the breakthrough much more smoothly.
Cultivators had limited lifespans, and could only obtain more when they broke through into a new stage or realm.
Even cultivators who were as powerful as Wu Ji and Hua Mu could only let out useless sighs as their lifespan ran out while they weren’t anywhere near entering the next realm.
That was also why the major sects usually admitted disciples with clear cultivation attributes, since they would be able to rapidly advance in their cultivation stages, and thus stay ahead of their lifespan.
As for Nie Tian, since he possessed a unique bloodline power, his lifespan would surpass normal cultivators by a great margin.
Therefore, even though he was cultivating three different types of power simultaneously, his exceptionally long lifespan would allow him to go rather far down this cultivation path.
However, it didn’t mean that he could afford to waste his time, so he had no other options but to leave Shatter City now that he had used up the spiritual materials that contained star power.
At that moment, it occurred to him that Pei Qiqi had a small teleportation portal set up in the Void Illusion Mountain Range.
He was aware that the tainted spiritual Qi would be a great danger if he wished to travel to the Void Illusion Mountain Range. However, he had a solution in mind.
He had been able to keep the demon Qi away with his chaotic magnetic field while he had fought in the Blood Sect and Ghost Sect.
Therefore, he had reason to believe that he would be able to apply the same method in the Void Illusion Mountain Range, and remain safe without using Li Ye’s jade bracelet.
He quickly made up his mind.
At first light the following day, he went to Li Ye’s pavilion.
“Wow, it’s been a long time, Hua Tian.” Exhaustion could be seen on Li Ye’s face as it appeared as if he hadn’t slept for days. “I’ve spent the past few days forging a piece of spiritual equipment, but for some unknown reason, my attempts have failed over and over again. Dammit!”
“I want to go to the Void Illusion Mountain Range again.” Nie Tian went ahead and expressed his intentions.
Li Ye rubbed his bloodshot eyes and asked with a shocked expression on his face, “Why? Are you running out of spirit stones? It can’t be. The spirit stones you obtained from our last trip were more than enough to last you years, even if you used them to rent cultivation rooms from the Blood Skull. Plus, you should know that not every trip to the Void Illusion Mountain Range will turn out to be productive. You’ve got to understand that we got lucky last time, and we had my senior martial sister there to guide and protect us.
“For now, she has sufficient Space Spirit Jades to support her work, and I heard that she’s been working on a teleportation formation. I’m afraid that she won’t have the time to go to the Void Illusion Mountain Range with you.”
“As for me, I’m quite busy with equipment forging…”
Nie Tian didn’t wait for Li Ye to finish before saying, “I want to go by myself. I only came here to ask you if I can use Miss Pei’s teleportation portal, so that I won’t have to take a long journey to the Void Illusion Mountain Range.”
Li Ye’s expression flickered. “You want to go by yourself? Are you crazy!? You’re only at the Lesser Heaven stage. Don’t you get the false impression that you can defeat a Greater Heaven stage expert in a real fight only because you killed Yang Ling! Last time was different. If it hadn’t been for the unique limitations of that mine, you wouldn’t have stood a chance against him!”
“I understand.” Nie Tian nodded gently and said with a serious tone. “I’m not going to the Void Illusion Mountain Range to hunt spirit beasts or explore spatial rifts. I’m only going because I need to leave here to practice my special incantations. I’ll mind my own business and try my best to steer clear of powerful experts.”
“Alright then, I won’t stop you if you insist on going.” Li Ye nodded. “Give me 100 spirit stones, 50 for the Blood Skull and 50 for my senior martial sister. Give me a minute to freshen up and I’ll go with you in a bit. However, there’s one thing you must remember: don’t expose the location of my senior martial sister’s teleportation portal in the Void Illusion Mountain Range.
“If anyone learns about its location, the Dark Moon and Wild Fire might soon discover and destroy it. It would take an enormous amount of time and effort to build another one.”
“You can rest assured,” Nie Tian said. “I’m only using it to travel back and forth. I won’t stay in that region for too long.”
“Oh, right. I have a map for you. There’s a place you can go which has been fully explored and determined futile long ago. There aren’t any spirit beasts or active spatial rifts in that region, so very few people would want to go there.”
Li Ye explained further as he washed his face and fixed his hair. “Also, it’s not very far from the teleportation portal. You should be fine there if you can keep a low profile. One more thing: be quick about it. if you stay there for too long, trouble might find you anyways.”
“Alright.”