Chapter 312 - 287: Mysterious Elixir, Wealth, Companion, Magic, Land

Chapter 312: Chapter 287: Mysterious Elixir, Wealth, Companion, Magic, Land

’At the very least, this Pill Furnace hasn’t been opened for a very long time...’

As he cast one Technique after another onto the Pill Furnace, he slowly gained control over this ownerless yet exceptionally special cauldron. At the same time, he came to a deeper understanding of its properties.

It was obvious that the Pill Furnace hadn’t been opened for a long time.

So obvious, in fact, that over the long eons, under the influence of this natural Grand Array, the lid and the body had practically fused together, becoming a single, seamless whole.

For the lid of a Pill Furnace whose Grade absolutely surpassed that of a Spiritual Artifact to be refined to the point of near-fusion with its body... one could only imagine how much time it had endured.

Chu Mu’s thoughts churned as a series of Techniques flowed from his hands. At this moment, it was no longer just a display of his Alchemy Skill, but more a demonstration of his Artifact Refining Skill.

He needed to separate the nearly-fused lid and body once again.

This itself was not difficult to achieve.

The difficult part was that he wasn’t sure if there was actually an Elixir inside the Pill Furnace.

If there was, this separation process absolutely could not disrupt the stability between the lid and body, much less touch the inside of the furnace.

The Spiritual Radiance Blessing had descended. Chu Mu’s eyes were focused, his expression calm and neutral. His Divine Sense and Magical Power, like countless tiny tentacles, enveloped the Pill Furnace completely, dissecting and separating it bit by bit.

This process continued for nearly five full days before he finally stopped.

Chu Mu sat before the Pill Furnace, closing his eyes to regulate his breathing.

About one hour later, he slowly opened his eyes.

The Pill Furnace before him remained as it was. The fused lid and body had been separated, but to the naked eye, there was no discernible difference.

Several days of analyzing the Pill Furnace was enough for him to roughly confirm that the heaven-envied Thunder Tribulation he had speculated about had indeed struck this cauldron.

Now, all that was left was to confirm whether the heaven-envied Elixir or Spiritual Object that had caused it was still inside.

He glanced at the jade-like corpse, took a deep breath, and formed a hand seal. Magical Power flowed out, pouring into the Pill Furnace as he began to establish a connection with it.

After a short while, the Pill Furnace, which had been silent for an untold number of years, suddenly began to hum and tremble. Beneath it, the flickering flames of the Earth Fire surged abruptly, nearly engulfing the entire cauldron.

As time passed, the Pill Furnace’s vibrations grew more and more intense!

"Rise!"

With a low shout from him, a deafening ROAR was heard. The lid seemed to explode off the furnace as a torrent of Fire Qi erupted. A violent shockwave swept out, and caught off guard, Chu Mu was sent flying!

In just an instant, he stabilized his out-of-control body in mid-air. Chu Mu stared intently at the streak of crimson-gold light that shot out from the Pill Furnace.

Locked onto by his well-prepared Divine Sense, the streak of crimson-gold light was exceptionally clear.

It was an Elixir wreathed in golden flames!

Chu Mu’s pupils shrank. His stabilized body suddenly leaped forward as he reached out his hand. At that same moment, his Magical Power and Divine Sense converged on the Elixir from all directions.

The next second, the fleeing streak of crimson-gold light was clutched in the palm of his hand.

An intense heat surged forth. Even his body, tempered day after day by the Great Sun True Flame, could barely withstand the corrosive power of this golden light. The flesh of his palm was visibly being eroded by the searing heat.

Chu Mu was not alarmed; instead, he was overjoyed. ’No matter what kind of Elixir this is, an effect this powerful is proof enough of its extraordinariness!’

He turned his hand over, and under the suppression of his Divine Sense, the streak of crimson-gold light finally revealed its true form.

It was a golden Elixir, wreathed in golden flames. Three complex Pill Patterns coiled around it, looking perfectly natural.

"Three Pill Patterns..."

Chu Mu took a deep breath, suppressing the shock in his heart. He had no time to examine it closely. With a flick of his hand, he placed the Elixir into a Jade Box.

He then took a step and reappeared in front of the now-open Pill Furnace.

The Fire Qi within the furnace was still surging, roiling with intense heat, but in his Divine Sense Perception, the furnace was empty.

Looking around, aside from the torrent of Fire Qi that now filled the entire cavern, there was nothing else out of the ordinary.

Although he had anticipated this, he couldn’t help but feel a little regretful.

He looked down at the Jade Box in his hand and undid the Restriction. The golden Elixir once again came into view.

After observing it for a moment, Chu Mu couldn’t help but feel a bit puzzled.

’Normally, no matter how perfectly refined an Elixir is, a bit of its medicinal properties will inevitably leak out.’

’By perceiving and observing these leaked properties, one can roughly determine the Elixir’s effects.’

’But this Elixir...’

Within his Divine Sense Perception, he couldn’t detect the slightest trace of medicinal properties. There was only the intense, violent heat of flames, concentrated to the extreme.

This meant that unless he conducted some sort of experiment on the Elixir, he had no way of determining its properties.

’But... such an experiment would inevitably damage the Elixir itself...’

Chu Mu frowned, his gaze shifting irresistibly to the Jade Corpse. After a moment of contemplation, he ultimately suppressed the thought.

Although he still didn’t know the Elixir’s Grade or its medicinal properties, its preciousness was clearly beyond doubt.

’To damage such a precious item...’

’...would be a monstrous waste!’

’Besides, since the Elixir exists, even if it’s from a secret recipe, as long as it hasn’t been lost to time, there should still be traces of it in the Cultivation Immortal Realm...’

’I’ll ask around when I get back...’

Chu Mu mused to himself. He turned his hand over and sealed the Elixir again. To be on the safe side, he even added a few extra Restrictions.

After placing the Jade Box in his Storage Space, he finally turned his attention to the Pill Furnace and the high platform it stood on.

The Pill Furnace was one with the platform, the platform was one with this Spirit Stone Vein, and the Spirit Stone Vein, under the effect of the Chain Array, was one with this Spirit Vein.

In other words, unless he destroyed this interlocking system, there was very little he could take away besides this single Elixir.

’I can’t destroy it...’

Chu Mu thought to himself.

’A setup of this magnitude is extremely rare.’

’It’s easy to destroy, but repairing it would be difficult.’

’Moreover, the entire setup is centered around the Fire Attribute, and I happen to major in the Fire Attribute.’

’Even if I just used this place as a Cave Mansion to live in, its benefits would be extraordinary.’

’Once it’s destroyed, the gathering and nurturing effects will dissipate, and this Spirit Vein, this ancient place, will be completely exposed to the world.’

’A Tier Three Spirit Vein, without the Grand Array to block it, would likely be detected by outside Cultivators before long...’

’But if the Grand Array remains, even if it’s partially damaged, with this vast sea of magma as cover, this ancient place, this Tier Three Spirit Vein, as well as the accompanying Spirit Stone Ore and various other Spirit Ore Veins, would be... my personal property!’

Lost in thought, he walked out of the cavern and began to wander around within the Grand Array.

It wasn’t hard to tell that when this Spirit Vein was first sealed, its grade was probably not very high.

What had happened during its evolution over tens of thousands of years was now impossible to know.

The damage to the sealing Grand Array was, just as he had expected, undoubtedly the result of the Thunder Tribulation. He even found traces of Celestial Thunder within the mountain’s Ore Veins.

And there were quite a few associated mineral deposits within the Spirit Vein.

Besides this Fire Attribute Spirit Stone Ore, the rest were various types of Fire Attribute Spirit Ores.

They were of all shapes and sizes, all products formed over the eons by the corrosive influence of Fire Attribute Spiritual Energy.

Most of the Ore Veins were Tier Two, and there was even a Tier Three Red Gold Ore vein.

Spirit Ores are rare, and their associated deposits are even rarer.

For example, the associated deposit for a Tier Three Lower Grade Red Gold Ore was Red Spirit Ore, with a grade as high as Tier Three Upper Grade!

Without a doubt, sealed within this Grand Array and having evolved over tens of thousands of years, a massive fortune of resources had accumulated.

After wandering for several days, the idea of claiming this Spirit Vein Land for himself grew stronger in his heart.

He had thought it through very clearly.

His Pseudo Spirit Root aptitude meant that his Cultivation had to rely almost entirely on external support.

And as for external resources, he was currently only in the Early Stage of Foundation Establishment. If not for this sudden war, he knew without even thinking that gathering enough external resources to support his cultivation at this stage would have been an incredibly difficult task.

If it was already like this at the Early Stage of Foundation Establishment, what about the Middle Stage, the Late Stage, Foundation Establishment Perfection, or even the lofty realm of a Golden Core True Master?

The higher his Cultivation, the rarer the necessary external resources would become, and the harder they would be to collect.

If external resources were insufficient, then he might have to rely more on the slow, grinding work of cultivating by himself.

And when relying on one’s own day-by-day cultivation, whether the cultivation location had abundant Spiritual Qi was obviously the most crucial factor.

With his current Cultivation, this problem was easy to solve.

After all, in any Marketplace, as long as one had enough Spirit Stones, renting a residence could provide a relatively abundant Spiritual Qi environment.

But...

Chu Mu sensed the dense and pure Fire Attribute Spiritual Energy here.

What other place would allow a mere Early Stage of Foundation Establishment cultivator like him to monopolize an entire Spirit Vein of at least Tier Three for his cultivation?

Not to mention, it was a Fire Attribute Spirit Vein that was compatible with his Spirit Root!

A Fire Attribute Spirit Vein, an Earth Vein sea of fire...

Every single thing here was a near-perfect match for his Spirit Root and the Great Sun Scripture he cultivated.

"Wealth, companion, technique, and land..."

Chu Mu murmured. Of these four tenets widely known in the Cultivation Immortal Realm, if he counted the Fire Attribute Spirit Vein before him, he now possessed three of them.

And each one was top-tier.

Wealth: he had his Artifact Refining Skill and Alchemy Skill, which could rake in riches.

Technique: he had the Great Sun Scripture, the inheritances for Alchemy and Artifact Refining, and the Divine Soul Saber.

Land: this Spirit Vein was at least Tier Three. If news of it were to spread to the outside world, the intensity of the war on the Jingmen battlefield would likely double.

As for a companion...

A person has physiological instincts and needs.

But his rationale was crystal clear.

Dao Companions held little meaning for him.

After all, in the Cultivation Immortal Realm, the purpose of Dao Companions was mutual support, procreation, and leaving behind a bloodline inheritance.

As for him... he had no such needs at the moment, nor did he want to.

Putting aside everything else, with his Pseudo Spirit Root aptitude, if he were to have children, unless his Dao Companion was a genius with a Heaven or Earth Spirit Root...

...otherwise, there was a high probability that his descendants wouldn’t even have a Spirit Root.

If he were to father a mere mortal...

Chu Mu didn’t even dare to imagine what that would be like.

’In that case, I’ll have to patch up the Grand Array...’

Chu Mu stood at the gap in the Grand Array, lost in thought.

A moment later, he took out a Sound Transmission Order. Although he was very far from the surface, he was thankfully still within the transmission range of the order he had refined.

Dozens of messages from Xu Yuan had accumulated.

Without exception, they were all inquiring about his whereabouts.

He mulled it over for a moment, then sent a message to report that he was safe. He didn’t say much, only that he couldn’t return for a short while and asked Xu Yuan to continue watching over Wangcai’s metamorphosis and breakthrough.

Immediately after, he sent similar messages to a few Foundation Establishment Cultivators he knew, as well as to the Vice Hall Master of the Artifact Hall.

Once all the arrangements were made, he looked again at the gap in the Grand Array before him.

He obviously lacked the ability to repair this Grand Array.

But if it was just a matter of sealing it off, a full repair wasn’t necessarily needed.

He could set up an Isolation Array at the gap. If that wasn’t enough, setting up a few more could hold for a period of time.

As for Isolation Arrays, they were a skill that almost every Cultivator had to master.

The only thing to consider was that the Spiritual Qi concentration was too high and would put a great deal of pressure on the Isolation Array. He would need to reinforce it with some other protective arrays...

...