In the pavilion, Lu Ye was reading by candlelight through the night.
Hua Ci came up holding a pottery jar, knelt beside Lu Ye, and took a bowl, from which she ladled out some milky soup.
The enticing aroma immediately filled the room.
"Time for soup."
Hua Ci’s tone was as gentle as water, like a virtuous wife, she brought the bowl filled with the milky soup up to Lu Ye.
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Lu Ye put down the book in his hand and looked at the strange thing in the bowl, which resembled a scorpion’s tail, causing the corner of his eye to involuntarily twitch.
Since Hua Ci’s arrival, his physical condition had been improving by the day. It was undeniable that having a genuine healing cultivator looking after him sped up his recovery far more than he could have managed on his own. A few days ago, his health had greatly improved, and by now his strength had fully recovered.
And all this was thanks to the medicinal soup that Hua Ci painstakingly prepared every day...
Not only was the soup extremely nourishing, but it also tasted great. If it weren’t for the fact that the Talent Tree would raise a great cloud of burnt fog each time he finished drinking it, Lu Ye might truly believe it had been made from some precious medicinal ingredients.
However, in reality, the ingredients for the soup were all found by Hua Ci in the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest.
In the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest, toxic creatures were everywhere. Spiders, toads, scorpions, snakes, centipedes, and the like... had all made an appearance in the pottery jar of soup.
The ingredients used for the soup were indeed a bit unusual, but the effects were genuinely good.
According to Hua Ci, since Lu Ye was immune to all poisons, she naturally should bring out all her skills to take care of him.
Lu Ye suspected that this woman was taking revenge on him and wanted to see him make a fool of himself.
He took the bowl handed over by Hua Ci, drinking slowly and methodically, while Hua Ci also served herself a bowl and enjoyed it together with him.
Suddenly, he turned his head toward Amber, "Do you want some?"
The tiger-eyed Amber, who had been staring over at them without a second thought, quickly leapt up and jumped out through the window.
Amber, who feared neither heaven nor earth, had lately been avoiding Hua Ci whenever she saw her.
"Oh, this is for you," Lu Ye suddenly remembered something and took a bracelet from his storage sack to give to Hua Ci.
Hua Ci narrowed her beautiful eyes: "What for? A token of affection?"
"It’s a Lu family heirloom, traditionally given only to the eldest daughter-in-law!"
Hua Ci took it, tried it on, and after a brief experiment to understand the bracelet’s function, she took it off and handed it back, "You need it more than I do."
This bracelet had the ability to conceal one’s figure and aura. It was precisely the trace-erasing bangle that Madam Yun had given to Lu Ye in the past.
Lu Ye then activated the Concealment Spirit Runes on himself in front of her.
Only then did Hua Ci reapply the trace-erasing bangle to her wrist. Recently, she had kept going out to hunt down Ten Thousand Demons Ridge cultivators, so the bangle was indeed useful.
When she killed enemies, she relied on secretly using poison, and with the special environment of the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest, people would often die without knowing the cause of their death. Having the trace-erasing bangle on hand was certainly a great advantage.
As for Lu Ye’s words about it being a Lu family heirloom traditionally given only to the eldest daughter-in-law, Hua Ci dismissed them as if he were merely talking nonsense.
Soon, the two of them had finished the medicinal soup in the pottery jar. Hua Ci cleaned up and left the wooden house, finding a place nearby where she could cultivate in peace.
As she breathed in and out, the surrounding greenish poison fog was drawn into her body.
Ever since fully inheriting the legacy from Mount Ying, Hua Ci’s method of cultivation became different from ordinary people. Now, if she wanted to quickly enhance her strength, she didn’t need much Spiritual Energy, but her need for poison was great.
In simple terms, the more potent the poison, the more it could enhance her strength.
The Ten Thousand Poisons Forest was a forbidden zone for cultivators, but for Hua Ci, there was no better place to cultivate in the entire Spirit Stream battlefield.
On the third floor of the pavilion, Lu Ye flipped through the pages and saw a new spirit rune. He scrutinized it carefully, and his previously indifferent expression immediately became focused, straightening his body as well.
The spirit runes he now mastered came from two sources. One, naturally, was the spirit runes carried on the leaves of the Talent Tree. He could execute these types of runes at will, almost without worrying about the risk of construction failure. In fact, to date, he had never failed an attempt to construct, even in the case of the Fire Phoenix. Although he succeeded on his first try, the consequences were quite serious.
The other source was from the ones he learned from books.
Compared to the first kind, the runes from this second source carried a significant risk of failure when constructing. The more complicated the rune, the higher the risk of failure.
Therefore, in battle, Lu Ye only used the spirit runes he obtained from the Talent Tree, never daring to use the ones learned from books, as any mistake during a fight could lead to irreversible disaster. He couldn’t afford the consequences of failing to construct a spirit rune.
However, these learned spirit runes were quite useful, like setting them up within a formation to exert their effects.
Spirit runes are different in complexity, and depending on the number of Yin-Yang Dual Origins required for construction, they can be divided into different grades.
No one had ever done so simply because, regardless of the kind of spirit runes, if used well, they could produce extraordinary effects.
Lu Ye had, in his mind, classified spirit runes into different levels based on their difficulty.
Those spirit runes that consisted of more than one hundred Yin-Yang Dual Origins were considered first-level spirit runes.
More than two hundred would be second-level...
And so on and so forth.
As for the level of the Fire Phoenix spirit rune, it had exceeded Lu Ye’s own standards since constructing this spirit rune involved around a hundred thousand Yin-Yang Dual Origins—an astounding number.
Up until now, the spirit runes Lu Ye had mastered basically required only several hundred Yin-Yang Dual Origins to construct, with a few needing just a hundred or two. But aside from the Fire Phoenix, no other spirit rune had broken the thousand mark.
It wasn’t until this moment that he had come across one in a book.
The construction of this spirit rune required nearly three thousand Yin-Yang Dual Origins, undoubtedly making it incredibly difficult to establish.
However, the description of this spirit rune in the book, and the various functions it could perform, piqued Lu Ye’s interest.
This spirit rune was undoubtedly a very powerful one. Although it had little use in combat, if employed at the appropriate time and place, the effects it could produce would be absolutely unimaginable.
Lu Ye immediately immersed his mind, following the teachings of Madam Yun, and began to break down the spirit rune.
It was an essential process. To successfully construct a spirit rune, one must first familiarize oneself with its structure, knowing how much Yin Origin and Yang Origin was needed, and how the Yin-Yang Dual Origins fit together. Any small error could lead to the failure of the spirit rune’s construction.
This was why spirit runes masters were rare, and most of them only specialized in one area of spirit runes. For example, the array cultivators’ regular cultivation of spirit runes suited for array setup, artifact refiners’ for Artifact Refining, and battle runes masters’ for combat.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to cultivate more spirit runes; they simply lacked the energy and ability to do so.
Perhaps with the advancement of their cultivation and continuous accumulation, those who specialized in a particular area could master more spirit runes. Yet, the Path of Spirit Runes was profound and vast; no one dared to claim they were all-capable.
Lu Ye was working toward that direction—not because he was arrogant, but because he had a unique advantage that no one else possessed, and that was the Talent Tree.
After spending a whole day, Lu Ye finally completed breaking down the entire spirit rune and became familiar with all of its structures.
What followed was the attempt to construct it. He took out a jade tablet from his storage sack and began to construct the spirit rune on it using his spirit force.
Using a jade tablet to construct spirit runes made it easier to observe and summarize; it also allowed for more stability during the construction. Moreover, if the construction failed, it wouldn’t cause any harm to oneself. All these benefits had been taught to him by Madam Yun.
If he didn’t use a jade tablet, a failure in construction could cause the spirit force to explode, potentially threatening his well-being.
Time passed, and the days went by.
The Ten Thousand Poisons Forest remained tranquil, while the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge cultivators continued their siege, unwilling to leave lightly. No one knew if they would have another opportunity like this to capture Lu Yiye again, so even though the cultivators from Ten Thousand Demons Ridge were growing impatient, they had no choice but to continue the stalemate.
Within the wooden hut in the forest, Lu Ye did not neglect his own cultivation while familiarizing himself with the spirit rune, consuming large quantities of elixir pills and continually opening new spiritual orifices.
When he entered the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest, he had only opened up to the 248th orifice, which was merely eight more than when he had set out from the Righteous Blood Sect’s base.
Now, after being trapped in the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest for a month, he had reached the 275th orifice, almost maintaining a pace of opening one orifice per day.
This rate of opening orifices was enough to make all Spirit Stream Realm cultivators in the Nine Provinces envious. With an abundance of elixir pills and ample fuel for the Talent Tree, apart from the six to eight hours of rest each day, Lu Ye was almost continuously in a state of cultivation and reading.
Looking at it this way, being trapped in the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest might not be such a bad thing for him after all.
Especially after Hua Ci’s arrival, Lu Ye had set up a spirit energy gathering array in the wooden hut and also constructed Spirit Energy Gathering Spirit Runes within his own spiritual orifices, significantly increasing the efficiency of his training.
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He hadn’t done this before due to concerns that the movement of nature’s spiritual energy might overload the array, potentially leading to damage. Should the array break, Yiyi and Amber would definitely be poisoned.
But with Hua Ci around, there was no need to consider these concerns; even if the array was broken, Hua Ci could detoxify them.
This was the Core Circle, where nature’s spiritual energy was still rich, although not as exaggerated as when enhanced by the Heaven’s Augury Pillar.
With only the last twenty-five orifices left to advance to 8th Heaven cultivation, he had originally planned to make his escape from the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest after the ascension. But ever since he saw that complex spirit rune in the book, he had more ideas. Whether or not they could be executed would depend on how things played out at the time.
Currently, Lu Ye was able to construct that intricate spirit rune from the book, although the success rate was not yet guaranteed. This was something that required constant practice and couldn’t be rushed.
Days passed by swiftly, and in the wooden hut, Lu Ye looked in astonishment at Hua Ci, who walked in carrying a clay pot. He focused his Ocular Power to inspect her spirit checkpoint, confirming he hadn’t seen wrong.
"7th Heaven already?"
"Mm, I just advanced today," Hua Ci replied, while handing Lu Ye a bowl of medicinal soup.
Lu Ye truly couldn’t believe it.