His cultivation did not rise, but his physique improved a lot. Considering what a sorry state his body was in before, it could be said that he made great progress just from that core alone.
He also used a profound technique to improve the quality of his Yang Qi in preparation for the future. The condition of his slumbering dragon improved as well, although there were no apparent changes, the effectiveness of the treatment in the future would increase.
As it was already night, he used a technique he once learnt in the beginning of his journey as a rogue cultivator, when he still had the need to sleep but could not be at ease as rogue cultivators make good targets. This technique helped one to sleep while keeping the body in a ready-to-move state as well as allowing for increased vigilance. It is a technique not necessary for someone who achieved Core Formation Realm and above, where a cultivator can completely discard the need to sleep, eat and drink, so he had not used it in who knows what time, but it was a neat technique nonetheless and he once went through great lengths just to obtain it.
He sat in a lotus position with his eyes closed, sleeping.
In fact he was not really worried about security as he knew that there were practically no beasts for a long distance from this place, and even if some approached, not all beasts would like this heat. If any other fire alignment beasts were present in the vicinity they would be constantly fighting over this territory with the Scorching Heart Wolves, so they would have approached the moment there was an abnormality here.
As for the wolves, although their intelligence is pretty low their perception of danger and survival instincts is extremely high as demonstrated by their behavior in their encounter. They ran in such a fright that they probably have not stopped running away even now. The young male that attacked him first is more of an exception as it was inexperienced and prone to impulsive behavior due to immaturity.
Over the next two days Wu Long traveled further into the depths of the spiritual land, but he was not as lucky as on the first day and was not able to find anything useful for himself.
While he took breaks, he also casually collected a few stalks of White Spirit Grass at a time to eventually bring back at least a decent amount for the mission.
He made sure to cut it at the base with the jade knife so that the root remained intact and unharmed by being cut with metal. It was a great taboo in the world of cultivation to completely destroy a spiritual treasure, and the tools his current sect provided were given precisely because of that.
Though this type of medicinal plant was not rare, and would naturally pop up in the spiritual land, it was more a force of a habit for him to treat any medicinal plant carefully.
He also spotted and harvested a few ingredients that could be exchanged for a decent amount of points just in case he needed them.
He killed any demonic beasts that attacked him, but as most of them were 1st tier beasts, there were no cores, only materials he didn't care about. He did have a barbecue with the meat of a Three Horned Bull, which benefited his body tempering a bit further though.
On the fourth day, he encountered an opportunity.
Wu Long stood on a long wall-like cliff overseeing a slightly lower plane. There was a bright blue flower that emitted a gentle blue glow growing on a mound in the middle of a rocky clearing. There was a high-level 2nd tier Blue Tongue Purple Lizard, a giant lizard covered densely in thick purple scales that gave off a metal luster, lazily lying a few meters away from it.
'Hmm, I won't be able to cut it with technique alone, as the sword just is not hard and sharp enough to cut its hide' Wu Long thought as he observed the lizard down the cliff
Blue Tongue Purple Lizard is a highly toxic and heavily armored beast, so the quality of his sword would not be enough to cut it no matter how skillfully he used it, and he was not able to manifest and use Spiritual Qi outside the body to assist the sword in cutting it, if he had that ability he wouldn't even need the sword to deal with it as he could easily cut it with a hand.
'Do I have to use Sword Intent? But with my current body, it is quite taxing… I will have to make sure I do not need to fight right after'
He came to a decision and spent a few hours scouting the situation around. The Blue Tongue Purple Lizard did not move but was getting restless since it noticed someone snooping around. However, it did not dare to go into attack as the flower could be stolen when it was gone.
After double checking that he would not need to fight off any other threats after dealing with the lizard he approached the clearing.
"Shhhh, shaaa"
When he got out of the trees and bushes surrounding the clearing the lizard stood up and issued a warning hiss, its blue tongue occasionally appearing in a snaking motion.
Wu Long calmly took out his sword and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, seemingly not caring about the lizard.
The beast did not miss this chance and rushed towards him with a surprising agility as it did not look that agile from its form.
When it was just about a few meters from him, Wu Long suddenly opened his eyes and a sharp aura enveloped the space for a split moment.
The lizard abruptly stopped moving, as stiff as if it was frozen in time. The surrounding turned unnaturally silent for a second, as if all sounds were severed and time slowed down to a crawl.
A gust of wind blew by as the sounds returned, and the lizard's head split in two, the wound as smooth as a mirror.
Any other animal would in fact be carried by inertia as it lost control and fall forward, but because of the unique leg movement of this lizard which effectively killed all speed with each step and jumpstarted it for the next step, allowing it to keep the center of its mass always stable and thus instantly stop at any point in time without being influenced by its own momentum.
Normally such immense control over its movements would be a strength but now it played a small part in its demise, as Wu Long made his move precisely at the moment the lizard killed its momentum from one step and was preparing for the next one, which happened in a fraction of a second. This amplified the effectiveness of Wu Long's attack.
Wu Long, on the other hand broke into sweat all over his body, weakness and numb pain assaulting all of his muscles. There was also a sharp pain in the entire arm he held his sword with up to his shoulder and even down to the shoulder blade. He placed his other hand on a tree he was standing by to support himself, as he gasped for breath.
"Fuuuu…, that was risky"
He muttered with a slight chuckle.
Sword intent was not strictly dependent on cultivation or the degree of body tempering, it was an obscure type of power that stemmed from one's understanding of the sword. One had to go through unimaginable lengths training with the sword or have a miraculously talented master who is unparalleled at teaching and whose understanding of the sword reached greater heights than one could imagine to even begin understanding sword intent, much less use it.
Wu Long, having all of his memories, experiences, knowledge and understandings naturally could use it.
But having said that it does not depend on cultivation base and body didn't mean it did not place a heavy burden on him, in fact it was quite crazy to use the lowest power of sword intent even in Qi Gathering Realm, let alone Body Tempering Realm. However, his sword would not be able to pierce its armor otherwise. He also currently did not have any ability to manifest Spiritual Qi outside the body, making it impossible for him to enhance the cutting ability of the sword with sword techniques using Spiritual Qi so he only could use this dangerous method to deal with it quickly.
Wu Long then looked at the corpse before him with a strange expression on his face.
'Not even the whole body huh?'
He thought as he only managed to split its head instead of dividing it in half.
'Well, at least I don't have to worry about cultivating here as this poor bastard's territory is quite vast and no other beasts dare to come even near it.'
He then sheathed his sword. While he used a sword this time, it was only because his cultivation was insufficient, to use sword intent at his level of sword mastery he usually didn't even need a weapon.
As he took out the dagger, he placed one hand on one of the scales at the side of the lizard, and with a slight grunt, as his body was still hurting all over, flipped it on its back, revealing larger, armor-like scales on its back. Using the dagger to work through the wound he made to its head down the neck to its stomach while detaching those larger scales from within.
When he made his way to a certain part of the stomach, Wu Long cut into the meat and soon took out a white ball with purple veins all over it looking like a marble ball.
This was the Blue Tongue Purple Lizard's Neidan. It was highly toxic and would normally need to be purified before it could be used.
He did all that all the while enduring the burden he put on himself using the sword intent, so he was still pained and slightly out of breath. The reason he needed to do it quick even if he had to postpone recovering, was because the Neidan would be drained of its energy by he corpse if it stayed inside much longer. He put away the Neidan and sighed with relief knowing that the urgent matters were done.