Chapter 357: The Final Step
Han Li stayed beside the white spirit pond for a while longer before leaving the medicine garden, then returned to his bedroom before immediately falling asleep.
These past three years, he had been refining Myriad Axis Pills without rest, and the entire pill refinement process was one that required his full attention. At the same time, he had to calculate the timing of his usage of the Mantra Treasured Axis, and even with his late-True Immortal Stage cultivation base and spiritual sense, he was feeling quite exhausted.
Prior to commencing his cultivation, he had to take some time to recover so that he could prime his body, mind, and magic power into the best possible condition.
He slept for three days and three nights, and upon awakening, he was once again raring to go, arriving in his secret chamber before sitting down with his legs crossed and summoning an azure jade vial.
He tipped the vial over slightly to produce a Myriad Axis Pill, and after holding it between his fingers and inspecting it for a while, he promptly swallowed the pill.
The pill quickly melted in his stomach before surging throughout all of his meridians as a powerful flow of warmth.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly, and he felt as if this surge of warmth were like a pack of galloping wild horses that were flowing faster and faster through his meridians while gradually forming a series of vortexes, resulting in a painful and swollen sensation in those meridians.
Moments later, Han Li's brows gradually unfurrowed as an elated look appeared on his face.
The Myriad Axis Pill was even more efficacious than he had anticipated.
He gently exhaled as he focused his attention on his Mantra Axis Scripture, commencing a process of immersive cultivation.
A layer of gentle golden light rose up to envelop his entire body, and the years slowly passed.
The dust that was accumulating outside the gate of the cave abode was becoming thicker and thicker, and at this point, it was virtually impossible to tell that there was still a gate on the mountain face.
500 years was an extremely long time for mortals. During this time, entire empires could rise up and collapse, yet for cultivators, it was nothing more than one bout of seclusion.
On this day, countless dark clouds suddenly converged in the sky above the island, and arcs of lightning were flashing incessantly within the clouds.
All of the world's origin qi in a radius of thousands of kilometers churned violently to form an enormous spiritual energy vortex that was slowly revolving in the sky.
Countless balls of spiritual qi appeared in the sky, and they converged toward the island, drawn there by the revolving vortex.
Several dozen kilometers away from the island was a fiery red island that was only around a half a kilometer in radius, and it was a coral island that was extremely beautiful and resplendent under the light of the sun.
All of a sudden, a crimson demon beast emerged from the water near the island with a splash.
The demon beast was over 100 feet in length and resembled a boar with steely crimson fur. There was also a pair of white tusks protruding out of its mouth, giving off a metallic gleam.
What was more remarkable about this creature was that it had six legs.
Its facial features were quite menacing, but its body was as round and rotund as a watermelon, so it appeared far more comical than it did threatening.
If any cultivators familiar with the Black Wind Sea were present, they would've been able to identify this demon beast as a Pig Dolphin Beast, a very common low-grade demon beast in this region, except this one was already at the late-Nascent Soul Stage.
The beast's rotund body abruptly swelled up, and it opened its mouth up wide to produce a burst of powerful suction force, allowing it to gobble up some of the balls of spiritual qi in the air.
A layer of red light then began to flash over its body, and the phenomenon lasted for about two hours before the balls of spiritual qi in the air faded away.
The Pig Dolphin Beast closed its mouth, and the red light radiating from its body was looking a little brighter than before.
The beast cast its gaze toward the island in the distance, then oinked a few times as if it were asking for more.
It had already been residing here for a very long time, and several centuries ago, an extremely powerful human cultivator had arrived on that island, leading to all of the formidable demon beasts nearby moving away.
However, at the time, it had just attained a basic level of intelligence and was still rather ignorant, so it didn't leave.
The human cultivator had remained in his cave abode this entire time, and he hadn't attacked any of the nearby demon beasts.
Due to the fact that all of the more formidable demon beasts in the area had moved away, the Pig Dolphin Beast had been able to enjoy a very safe and comfortable life, and even though its intelligence had developed further since then, it had still decided not to leave.
As for why it had decided to stay, that was because during the past few centuries, that enormous spiritual qi vortex would appear every once in a while, and it had already appeared 11 times up to this point.
Whenever this happened, the Pig Dolphin Beast would use its innate ability to absorb some of the spiritual qi in the air, and that was how it had rapidly progressed from the Qi Refinement Stage to its current cultivation base in just a few centuries.
The Pig Dolphin Beast took a few more glances at the island in the distance.
Its cultivation base was already approaching the pinnacle of the Nascent Soul Stage, and if that phenomenon had lasted a while longer, perhaps it would've already reached the Deity Transformation Stage.
Looks like I'll have to wait for next time... the Pig Dolphin Beast thought to itself, then swam back into the sea.
Inside the cave abode, Han Li's entire body was radiating dazzling golden light while also giving off a burst of tremendous spiritual pressure.
As many as 35 specks of golden light had appeared over his body, and as the golden radiance slowly faded, he opened his eyes to reveal a hint of excitement within them.
He had been making rapid progress in his cultivation, opening 11 immortal acupoints in less than 600 years.
If anyone else were to hear about this rate of progress, they would be stunned beyond belief, and if they were to hear that he had a virtually limitless supply of Myriad Axis Pills at his disposal, even a Golden Immortal would be so envious that they would be coughing up blood!
Even Han Li himself hadn't anticipated that he would be able to open 11 immortal acupoints in just 500 years.
According to his original estimates, it would've taken him at least 1,000 years to reach this stage, but in reality, he had gotten there far faster.
Aside from that, there was something that was rather perplexing to Han Li about the Myriad Axis Pill, and that was the issue of resistance.
Even though he had been taking Myriad Axis Pills throughout the past 500 years, his body hadn't developed any resistance to it, thereby making it less efficacious.
He had spent some time trying to uncover the reasons for this, but his experiments hadn't yielded any conclusive results, so he ultimately set the matter aside. After all, it wasn't a bad thing, so there was no reason to dwell on it.
He shook his head to rid himself of that train of thought, following which a contemplative look appeared on his face.
With 35 immortal acupoints opened, he only had one more left to reach the Golden Immortal Stage.
It was only a single step, but the difference was like that between night and day, and the degree of difficulty of making the breakthrough was comparable to a Grand Ascension cultivator ascending to immortality in the Spirit Realm.
In order to break through this bottleneck, not only did he have to open up 36 immortal acupoints, the most difficult part was overcoming the final one of the three decays, namely the acupoint decay.
Up to this point, Han Li still hadn't experienced any of the decays in his cultivation, but he had heard many stories about how damning these decays could be, so even with his current powers and abilities, he didn't dare to grow complacent.
The best way to ward off the three decays was to truly master a law power.
He was cultivating the laws of time, one of the three paramount laws, and if he could truly master it, even a little bit, then that would most likely be extremely effective for warding off the three decays.
However, up to this point, he had exhausted all of his other options without any success, and his only hope left was to refine a dao pill.
All of a sudden, a thought occurred to Han Li, and he rose to his feet and left his secret chamber before arriving in a section of his medicine garden.
There was a patch of black spirit soil here, and the air was very cool and moist.
Planted in the spirit soil was a white spirit ginseng root that was quite transparent in appearance, looking as if it had been carved out of white jade.
This was none other than one of the dao pill's primary ingredients, the Heavenmade Ginseng Root.
Finally, his persistent efforts had paid off, and he had managed to purchase a young Heavenmade Ginseng Root from the Transient Guild at a high price.
Han Li gave a pleased nod at the sight of the ginseng root.
After obtaining the ginseng root, he had immediately instructed the giant ape puppet to water it with the Heaven Controlling Vial spirit liquid, and at this point, it was already over 100,000 years of age, making it fit for pill refinement.
At this point, all that he was missing was the Dewform Herb, but there was still no news on it.
This was almost entirely up to luck anyway, and given that he was currently in the Black Wind Sea, all he could do was rely on the Transient Guild.
With that in mind, he heaved a faint sigh and returned to his secret chamber before sitting down with his legs crossed.
Even though he was still unable to refine any dao pills for now, he naturally didn't want to just sit around and do nothing. Instead, he was going to attempt to open up his 36th immortal acupoint, and at the very least, he was going to open it up most of the way to reach the pinnacle of the late-True Immortal Stage.
With that in mind, Han Li consumed another Myriad Axis Pill before closing his eyes to cultivate.
This area of the Black Wind Sea was virtually completely untouched, and it seemed to never display any changes, giving one the impression that time stood still here.
Another 50 to 60 years passed by in the blink of an eye, and once again, the Pig Dolphin Beast appeared on the nearby coral island before casting its gaze toward the island that Han L was situated on.
According to its past experience, the spiritual qi vortex was about to appear.
During these past few years, it came out virtually every single day to check, for fear of missing out.
However, close to 10 years had already passed since the date that it had predicted, yet the spiritual qi vortex still hadn't appeared.
Not only that, but the island was completely silent, and some of the spiritual power fluctuations that had previously occasionally emanated from it had also ceased to appear.
A slightly agitated look appeared in the Pig Dolphin Beast's eyes as it continued to stare at the island in the distance.
Could it be that the human cultivator had already left?
After some further hesitation, it turned and began to swim toward the island.
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