Chapter 295: Chapter 235: Contracted Spirit Beast

Inside Evergreen Garden, Fang Qingyuan stood in the courtyard, his full attention on the Pill Furnace before him.

Inside the furnace churned a crimson, blood-like substance.

Fang Qingyuan enveloped the Elixir Liquid with his Divine Sense, adding other ingredients from time to time.

’A moderate amount of Ginseng Grass Powder... but what exactly does "a moderate amount" mean?’

Fang Qingyuan looked at the descriptions inherited through the jade slip and felt a little speechless. All five of the pill formulas described the required ingredients as either "a small amount" or "a moderate amount."

He suspected this was where he had gone wrong the last time he tried to refine a Blood Qi Pill.

Now, using his Divine Sense to hold a much larger portion of Ginseng Grass Powder than before, he hesitated.

’Ginseng Grass Powder can solidify the foundation and replenish vitality, increase blood qi, and neutralize the impurities in Demon Blood. The jade slip says it’s best to use hundred-year-old ginseng, but that’s incredibly expensive—a top-tier, Tier One Upper Grade spiritual material. If I use that to refine a mere Tier One Middle Grade Blood Qi Pill, wouldn’t I be taking a huge loss?’

The Ginseng Grass Powder he was currently using hadn’t been purchased from the outside; he had made it from a few roots he’d pulled from his own Immortal Mansion.

These ginseng roots were nearly forty years old, and having grown in the unique environment of the Immortal Mansion, their medicinal potency was superior to that of fifty or sixty-year-old specimens from the outside world.

After a few moments of contemplation, Fang Qingyuan added a bit more Ginseng Grass Powder to the Pill Furnace than last time. But the instant the powder entered, a burnt smell hit his nostrils.

’Another failure.’ Fang Qingyuan sighed. He poured the dregs from the Pill Furnace, rolled them into several longan-sized balls, and put them into a jade bottle.

The bottle was labeled: Strong Diarrhea Pill.

Even though the attempt to refine the Blood Qi Pill had failed, he couldn’t just waste the results. These failed pills still contained some medicinal power; they just had rather potent side effects.

All pills have toxins anyway. The ones he made just had a bit more than others, at most.

Having comfortably found an excuse for himself, Fang Qingyuan put away the Pill Furnace and declared his grand venture of alchemy for the day concluded.

One couldn’t rush alchemy. More importantly, continuous attempts consumed a huge amount of spiritual materials, and the cost truly stung Fang Qingyuan.

A single attempt to refine a Blood Qi Pill cost over a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. A successful pill could be sold for three hundred, which seemed like a decent profit margin, but that couldn’t make up for Fang Qingyuan’s abysmal success rate.

He had now attempted three batches, and not one had succeeded.

When it came to alchemy, he was worse than some Cultivators in the Qi Refining Realm. By professional standards, he wouldn’t even qualify as a Tier One Lower Grade Pill Master.

Fang Qingyuan decided that in his spare time, he would only attempt one batch at a time to slowly develop a feel for alchemy.

Lechuan had given him plenty of time; ten or even twenty years would not be an issue. In this respect, Golden Core Cultivators possessed far more patience than ordinary people.

After putting the Pill Furnace and his other tools away in the Immortal Mansion, Fang Qingyuan returned to his Quiet Chamber to meditate and cultivate in peace.

Now that he had stepped into the Foundation Establishment Fourth Layer, his cultivation speed had slowed dramatically without a Spiritual Object like the Purple Spirit Crystal Fish.

Furthermore, his Five Elements Spirit Root hadn’t improved in a long time, so even though he was cultivating with an upper-grade Spirit Root, he couldn’t increase his speed.

By Fang Qingyuan’s own calculations, advancing a single layer within the Mid-stage Foundation Establishment would require around thirteen years of arduous effort.

It took a long time for a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to advance to the next layer, so Fang Qingyuan’s pace wasn’t considered slow at all.

If one had reached Foundation Establishment with a Middle-grade Spirit Root, the cultivation speed would be despairingly slow.

Barring any surprises, Fang Qingyuan would need about forty more years to reach Foundation Establishment Sixth-Layer Perfection. Then, by taking the Great Barrier Breaking Pill gifted to him by Lechuan, he should be able to quickly reach the Late-stage Foundation Establishment.

At that point, it would be time to begin preparations for Core Formation.

As Fang Qingyuan mulled over these things, his mind gradually focused completely on his cultivation. The Spiritual Power in the residence converged around him, and he slowly sank into a deep meditative state.

...

「Three days later.」

Fang Qingyuan awoke from his cultivation. After reaching Foundation Establishment, the duration of each of his cultivation sessions had increased.

During Qi Refining, he had to cultivate diligently every day. But after Foundation Establishment, the total amount of Magical Power in his body had increased so drastically that a single session now lasted for three consecutive days.

Fang Qingyuan felt the soreness and pressure in his meridians, as well as the Spiritual Power he had absorbed. All of it would take time to settle and be refined.

It would take about seven days before he could begin his next session.

This wasn’t just true for Foundation Establishment Cultivators. As one’s Cultivation Realm increased, the length of each seclusion session for High-tier Cultivators also grew substantially longer.

A Mid-stage Golden Core cultivator like Lechuan, for instance, would need over a month for each seclusion. A Nascent Soul Cultivator would require even more time, with a single formal session being measured in years.

Of course, Fang Qingyuan didn’t yet know about cultivation beyond the Golden Core realm. Perhaps those Cultivators had unique methods to alter their practice.

Otherwise, if one seclusion meant ignoring worldly affairs for a year or two, it would feel as if they were wasting most of their lives just cultivating. That didn’t match Fang Qingyuan’s perception of High-tier Cultivators.

In his experience, his master, Lechuan, appeared before him quite often and rarely went into any serious seclusion.

’Could it be that Lechuan has hit a bottleneck, making seclusion useless for him?’

The thought had barely crossed his mind before Fang Qingyuan subconsciously pushed it away. Lechuan was his master, after all. It was best not to speak ill of the old man behind his back.

After finishing his cultivation, Fang Qingyuan immersed his consciousness within the Immortal Mansion.

Ever since his realm breakthrough, the area inside the Immortal Mansion had doubled in size.

Through years of experience, Fang Qingyuan had learned that the area within the Immortal Mansion expanded based on the total amount of Magical Power in his body.

Going from the Third-Layer Foundation Establishment to the Foundation Establishment Fourth Layer, the total amount of Magical Power in his body had doubled, and so had the area of the Immortal Mansion.

When Fang Qingyuan’s Divine Soul entered the Immortal Mansion, he saw a vast expanse of dark earth appear in the distance, a full two hundred mu in size.

Added to the previous two hundred mu, the entire Immortal Mansion now spanned four hundred mu.

Fang Qingyuan hadn’t let the newly appeared land go to waste. In the distance, on the Black Land, Jinbao was huffing and puffing as it planted ginseng.

Jinbao was bent over, strenuously planting one Ginseng Seedling after another, while the Crimson Young Bird beside it was in charge of digging the holes.

Whenever the Crimson Young Bird poked a hole in the black earth with its beak, Jinbao would use its huge bear paw to delicately pick up a tiny Ginseng Seedling and carefully tuck it inside.

Once the seedling was in the ground, Jinbao would even use its paws to brush the loose soil over it and pat it down.

Once that was done, Yinbao, hovering above, would spray a jet of water, accurately watering the new seedling.

The three Spirit Beasts worked together in perfect sync; you could tell at a glance it wasn’t their first time doing this.

Watching the three little ones working so diligently, Fang Qingyuan felt a sense of gratification.

’Raising Spirit Beasts isn’t just about having them fight for you,’ he mused. ’When there’s work to be done, you have to put them to work. Otherwise, they’d just be idle, wouldn’t they?’

By now, Fang Qingyuan no longer hesitated to expose the Immortal Mansion to Spirit Beasts like Jinbao and Yinbao.

He realized that if he wanted Jinbao and Yinbao to live in the Immortal Mansion regularly, he wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret from them forever anyway.

He already trusted Jinbao and Yinbao a great deal. Besides, he had taken other precautions.

Just as he had done with the Bee Queen, Fang Qingyuan had used the Divine Soul Possession Technique on Jinbao and Yinbao as well.

Previously, during the Qi Refining Stage, Fang Qingyuan’s Divine Soul hadn’t been strong enough, so he could contract with one Spirit Beast at most.

Back then, Fang Qingyuan was using Yinbao as a tool for travel and making money, so he wasn’t in a hurry to contract it. Instead, he chose the Bee Queen.

Later, after Jinbao was born, Fang Qingyuan’s one contract slot for a Spirit Beast had already been used on the Bee Queen, so the matter was delayed.

Now that Fang Qingyuan’s Divine Soul and cultivation had reached the Foundation Establishment Stage, he was strong enough to split off a few more wisps of his soul to contract several more Spirit Beasts.

Jinbao, Yinbao, and the Crimson Young Bird were now all bound to Fang Qingyuan by a soul contract. With the lives of these three little creatures in his hands, he had finally granted them access to the Immortal Mansion.

The four-hundred-mu Immortal Mansion was obviously far more appealing to the three little ones than their small plot of land outside—provided, of course, they didn’t have to keep planting ginseng.

Sensing Fang Qingyuan’s arrival, Jinbao started working even harder. This burst of energy only lasted a moment, however, before Jinbao, tongue lolling, stood up on its hind legs and bounded toward him.