Translator: Cinder Translations
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The Law Enforcement Hall investigated the dissecting cave for three days without finding anything and then withdrew from the dissecting cave.
As for whether someone was investigating secretly, Song Wen did not know.
In the past few days, he had been casually wandering around the market every day and had not noticed any investigation by the Law Enforcement team there.
However, he still did not sell blood in large quantities, only selling it in small amounts, one or two bottles at a time.
A month later, having confirmed that no one was investigating the matter, Song Wen resumed his previous activities.
He now took extra precautions every time he sold blood, running to several different shops, changing his scent, and using various disguises to alter his appearance.
Time passed, and it was now the sixth year since Song Wen came to the Corpse Demon Sect.
During these years, Song Wen had not left the sect's territory.
Every year, he took on sect missions that could be resolved with spirit stones.
Last year, he had a chance to change his job, but he chose to continue staying in the dissecting cave.
This day, Song Wen left his cave early in the morning, but instead of going to the dissecting cave, he went to the plaza outside the main hall of the sect located at the top of Corpse Demon Mountain.
This was Song Wen's first time coming to the main hall of the sect.
The main hall was the face of the Corpse Demon Sect, grand and majestic. As an outer disciple, Song Wen usually did not have the privilege to go to the top of the mountain.
Today, he came to the plaza outside the main hall because the withered blood secret realm located in the southwest of the Tuocang Mountains was about to open.
The withered blood secret realm was jointly controlled by the Corpse Demon Sect, the Profound Yin Sect, and the Red Blood Sect, opening once every thirty years.
The secret realm only allowed Qi Refining cultivators to enter. Most of the spiritual herbs growing there were first-grade herbs needed by Qi Refining cultivators, but there were also a small number of extremely rare second-grade herbs.
For instance, the two of the three herbs required for refining Foundation Establishment Pills, the Heavenly Spirit Fruit and the Jade Essence Grass, grew in the withered blood secret realm.
Because of the existence of the Heavenly Spirit Fruit and the Jade Essence Grass, every time the withered blood secret realm opened, the three major sects paid great attention to it, as Foundation Establishment cultivators were the cornerstone of each sect.
The secret realm did not limit the number of cultivators entering, but to ensure the sustainable use of spiritual herbs and to prevent overharvesting, the three sects agreed that each sect could only send one person to enter each time it opened.
Song Wen wanted to enter the withered blood secret realm to obtain the Heavenly Spirit Fruit.
To prepare for the danger from Shi Shou, Song Wen had been crazily extracting blood from the dissecting cave in recent years to exchange for a large amount of cultivation resources to enhance his own cultivation.
Half a year ago, after devouring a large number of wandering residual souls from the dissecting cave and occasionally purchasing cultivator souls from the market to practice the Divine Forbidden Technique, Song Wen was unexpectedly able to break through, overcoming the Qi Refining phase's bottleneck that had troubled him for a year and achieving the spiritual awareness of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
His cultivation also advanced rapidly due to abundant spirit stones, pills, corpse evil energy, and his own ample blood energy.
Eight months ago, after consuming the Snake Scale Fruit obtained from the ancient battlefield's underground cave, Song Wen's cultivation broke through to the ninth level of Qi Refining. After eight months of honing, his cultivation had reached the peak of Qi Refining ninth level, known as Qi Refining Great Perfection, just one step away from Foundation Establishment.
But this step was a chasm, not easily crossed.
To survive under the threat of Shi Shou, Song Wen needed to establish his foundation as soon as possible.
With the spiritual awareness of a Foundation Establishment cultivator but cultivation not yet breakthrough, Song Wen was essentially a half Foundation Establishment cultivator and clearly not a match for Shi Shou.
The simplest way to quickly establish his foundation was naturally to take Foundation Establishment Pills.
Generally, for someone like Song Wen, who was only twenty years old and in peak physical condition, taking Foundation Establishment Pills would have a high probability of success, at least reaching a high success rate.
As age increases, physical condition gradually deteriorates, and especially after forty, the decline becomes more noticeable, decreasing the likelihood of success in Foundation Establishment.
The consensus in the cultivation world is that after sixty, there is almost no possibility of establishing a foundation.
This is why major sects seek out talented disciples, as the younger one reaches Qi Refining Great Perfection, the greater the chance of successful Foundation Establishment.
Over a year ago, Song Wen began to inquire about the whereabouts of Foundation Establishment Pills.
As an outer disciple with only the cultivation level of the eighth layer of Qi Refining, it was impossible for him to obtain Foundation Establishment Pills from the sect.
After his inquiries, he learned that the only place nearby selling Foundation Establishment Pills was the Zhao Mountain Market, thousands of miles away.
There, a large commercial association called the "Kundi Business Alliance" held large auctions from time to time, where Foundation Establishment Pills were sold.
However, only two or three pills were auctioned each time. With more demand than supply, the auctions attracted many cultivators, including some smaller family sects.
The final price of Foundation Establishment Pills was usually above thirty thousand spirit stones.
Not to mention the enormous amount of spirit stones, which would be difficult for Song Wen to gather, even if he managed to collect them, it would be very dangerous to survive and return with the pills.
He, being weak, would clearly be no match for those powerful family sects.
Therefore, Song Wen decided to seek other methods to attain Foundation Establishment.
After all, Song Wen was different from ordinary cultivators; his spiritual power had already transformed into spiritual awareness. It was not necessarily required to rely on Foundation Establishment Pills to complete Foundation Establishment.
The Foundation Establishment process involves two steps.
The first step is to compress the spiritual power vortex in the dantian into liquid spiritual power.
The second step is to temper the spiritual power into spiritual awareness.
Currently, Song Wen had directly completed the second step and was only lacking in the first step.
Song Wen speculated that even without Foundation Establishment Pills, by following the cultivation process step by step, he could eventually achieve Foundation Establishment.
However, this process might take a long time, perhaps several years, or even a decade or more.
Since Song Wen did not have the luxury of time to slowly refine his cultivation, he needed to rely on external resources.
He learned from an underground alchemist that the main ingredient for Foundation Establishment Pills, the Heavenly Spirit Fruit, was used to help in the transformation of spiritual energy into liquid form.
Thus, his focus shifted from Foundation Establishment Pills to the Heavenly Spirit Fruit.
As the main ingredient of Foundation Establishment Pills, the Heavenly Spirit Fruit was extremely rare in the cultivation world, mostly controlled by major sects for pill refining and rarely available for sale on the market.
This led Song Wen to consider entering the Withered Blood Secret Realm.
Every time the Withered Blood Secret Realm opened, disciples of the three major sects fought desperately for more benefits, resulting in heavy casualties, with only a small fraction surviving.
Such a low survival rate made many disciples avoid it like a plague.
Thus, those who entered the secret realm were either highly confident in their own strength or had no choice but to do so due to various reasons.
The Corpse Demon Sect had also forced powerful disciples to enter, but these unwilling entrants mostly hid in safe corners until the secret realm closed to ensure their survival.
Although these individuals survived, their gains were minimal. For the Corpse Demon Sect, the low-level spiritual herbs they occasionally obtained, such as withered wood and dry roots, were of little use.
After that, the Corpse Demon Sect relaxed the requirements for disciples entering the secret realm. As long as a disciple's cultivation reached the mid-Qi Refining stage, they were allowed to enter the Withered Blood Secret Realm.
Since the number of powerful late-Qi Refining disciples was not enough to reach a hundred, it was better to send more people in, hoping that someone with good luck might bring out some rare spiritual herbs.
To encourage disciples to take risks in the Withered Blood Secret Realm, the sect would award them twenty percent of the harvest from the secret realm.
Song Wen was not after the twenty percent reward. He wanted to obtain the Heavenly Spirit Fruit, and the more, the better. If the effectiveness of the Heavenly Spirit Fruit was not as good as expected, having more would increase his chances.
Even if disciples obtained Heavenly Spirit Fruits, the sect would not award them as prizes but would exchange them for an equivalent amount of spirit stones.
To avoid the sect's investigation and secretly take out the Heavenly Spirit Fruits, Song Wen had already devised a plan.
(End of the Chapter)
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