Shi Feiyang's lower body dangled in the water, his upper body resting on the stone wall by the shore. The pine crow, wrapped in Dan Qi, hovered in front of him, no longer struggling.
He stared at the bird with its vacant eyes and knew it was affected by a Soul Capture spell, then gently tapped the bird's head with a Dragon Claw. "Speak!"
The pine crow opened its mouth and Sikong Xuan's voice came out: "Uncle! I'm at Dinghu Peak, harmed by a Demon Dragon. Now I've lost my physical body, my Primordial Spirit is bound and I can't escape. Uncle, come quickly to rescue me from this suffering!"
After repeating the message three times, suddenly blood streamed from the crow's eyes and mouth, and a wisp of green smoke rose from the top of its head. Then, with a final twitch of its legs, it died.
This spell used living beings as a medium to transmit messages, draining the creature's Essence Energy and Spirit. After casting, the creature turned into a zombie, retaining only a thread of life to maintain its instinct. Once the message was delivered, its life also reached its end.
The Heavenly Book Supplement also contained similar spells, stronger than those of Sikong Xuan, capable of making a mouse travel thousands of miles.
Shi Feiyang tossed the dead bird down the peak and turned to swim back to the bottom of the lake to continue his cultivation.
Sikong Xuan seeking help from his uncle was something Shi Feiyang had anticipated. Any normal person would try every possible means to escape.
In his opinion, Sikong Hu's strength was far inferior to Wei Fengniang's. This guy could serve as a perfect test for him. If he couldn't even defeat Sikong Hu, he shouldn't wait for Wei Fengniang but should grab a bucket and run immediately.
Of course, the outside world was more dangerous. Righteous and evil cultivators seeing a dragon of more than thirty feet long would generally not let it go. Everything depended on luck; if he encountered weaker ones, he might survive, but facing stronger ones would mean death. This was the law of the survival of the fittest.
He planned to master as many spells from the Heavenly Book Supplement first, then let Sikong Hu come to test his strength. If he could easily defeat Sikong Hu, he might stand a chance against Wei Fengniang in the future.
The techniques in the Heavenly Book Supplement came from fringe Earth Immortals, spells that were both righteous and evil and featured many extremely cruel methods. Merely imagining the scene of cultivation could be horrifying.
Shi Feiyang started with the easier techniques, then tackled the difficult ones, while also refining Sikong Xuan's Flying Sword according to the Sword Refining Technique in the book. He practiced swordsmanship in the water every day, his cold sword gleams rippling with the water, the dragon moving with the sword, playfully flipping up and down.
He also took time to concoct medicine and perform alchemy according to the book's Dan Recipes. Immortal Mountain was a famously blessed landscape, abundant with rare Spiritual Medicines, which Sikong Xuan brought back in large quantities every day.
The Dan Recipes in the Heavenly Book Supplement were advanced, using rare medicinal ingredients with difficult preparation methods, and the alchemy was even more challenging. It often required controlling the fire with the mind; a slight distraction could ruin the fire control, wasting a whole batch of medicine.
Dinghu Peak was vast; besides the central lake area, there were many rocky grounds and small peaks of varying heights around. Several caves had been carved out between these peaks by cultivators who had previously practiced in seclusion here.
Most of these caves contained weathered skeletons, all of whom had failed to achieve immortality and finally died here.
Shi Feiyang brought these skeletons down the mountain, digging graves on flat ground to bury them. He returned and then "inherited" their belongings with peace of mind, which included various styles of Pill Furnaces and Alchemy Furnaces.
With the furnaces ready, he followed the recipes from the book, starting with the simplest Five Carriages Eater.
The book contained both medicine recipes and food formulas. Medicine and food shared the same essence but were used differently. Dan mainly served for healing and treating diseases, such as the Calamity Relief Pill for injuries, which normal people wouldn't consume when not ill. Food formulas were more like consumables, eaten to improve constitution and suitable for long-term consumption, often used to replace meals after ceasing grain intake.
Five Carriages Eater mainly uses rehmannia and five nightshades as ingredients.
The book states that rehmannia possesses the virtue of "Lesser Yin" internally and receives the energy of the "Sun" externally, governed by the spirit of Earthly Branches, and accepts the essence of the glittering confusion. It nurtures Yin and Yang Qi both internally and externally, embodying the virtue of coordinating water and fire.
Five nightshades are the essence of the stars of the Five Carriages in heaven; metal corresponds to the Five Lakes, humans correspond to the Five Virtues. The green essence enters the stem, symbolizing the liquid of the Eastern region. The white energy enters the nodes, symbolizing the fluids of the Western region. The red energy enters the flowers, representing the light of the Southern area. The dark essence enters the roots, representing the residuals of the Northern area. The yellow smoke enters the bark, representing the spirit of Earthly Branches.
On Immortal Mountain, these two items are not scarce at all; one can easily find dozens of kilograms of each, and all of them are two to three hundred years old. Furthermore, adding lotus seeds, poria, rehmannia, and seventeen other kinds of spiritual medicine, they are combined into medicine cakes.
Five Carriages Eater greatly replenishes the Primordial Qi of the five internal organs. Humans can eat three thumb-sized pieces daily to stave off hunger, and with prolonged consumption, chronic diseases are eliminated, the body becomes light and healthy, the skin fair and beautiful, and the teeth and eyesight strong. It is ideal for aiding cultivation.
It was not difficult to make. Shi Feiyang initially used a small amount for testing, achieved success, and then produced it in large quantities, eventually obtaining over a hundred kilograms.
Being a dragon over thirty meters long, these hundred kilograms stuffed into his mouth wasn't enough for one meal. Moreover, he had already cultivated two inner cores, allowing him to harvest the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and absorb the essence of the sun and the moon, and he could go hundreds of years without feeling hungry.
This Five Carriages Eater was just for fun, a practice exercise, but after making it, he couldn't just waste food, which presented him with a dilemma.
He quickly thought of a solution. The Heavenly Book Supplement includes the technique "Inversion of Five Elements." Here, the Five Elements refer to North water, South fire, East wood, West metal, and Central earth, representing space. Inverting the Five Elements means twisting space, changing South to North, and moving East to West – essentially, a type of spatial manipulation spell.
This spell was difficult to master, and even if one managed to master it, deploying it usually required the use of Magical Treasures, or even an Array.
Once he mastered this technique, he could create a "Qiankun Bag," a small pouch, which has its own universe inside, with the smallest dimension being the size of a pocket, and the better ones comparable to a room.
Shi Feiyang, having cultivated using the mana from a Black Dragon for three thousand years, first mastered the spell then studied how to create a Magical Treasure. He used the Jade Box that carried the Heavenly Book as the pouch, planning to refine a "Qiankun Box."
The Jade Box was seven inches long and three inches wide. The lower two layers hadn't been opened yet. The first layer was only an inch deep, only fitting a narrow book. He spent seven days and nights, blending and twisting the internal Five Elements, stretching and enlarging it, eventually making it large enough to stuff a model hill inside.
He stuffed all the prepared medicinal ingredients and the produced Five Carriages Eater into it; there was plenty of space left.
Shi Feiyang diligently practiced cultivation daily. Meanwhile, Sikong Xuan, from the other side, anxiously awaited his uncle each day, thinking that with his uncle's swordsmanship, it wouldn't take a few days to travel from Chongming Island to Dinghu Peak. Since he hadn't arrived, the message must not have been delivered, and the bird delivering the message might have been caught by a predator en route. So he caught new birds to send the message by magic, doing this five or six times, yet still not seeing his uncle come to his aid.
That night, Shi Feiyang was on the peak refining Dan, when Sikong Xuan hurried back, his face full of excitement, "Senior, great news! Great news! I found the Queen Mother Grass!"
There was plenty of Queen Mother Grass on Immortal Mountain; he had previously also gathered quite a bit, but they weren't very old, with the best being only three hundred years old.
Shi Feiyang asked, "Is this one a thousand years old?"
"Not just a thousand years! Not just a thousand years!" Sikong Xuan said excitedly, "I saw it with my own eyes; that thing has already cultivated into a human form, can run around on the ground, and is almost faster than me. I didn't dare delay, I noted the location and rushed back to report."
"Good! Lead the way, we'll go harvest it now," Shi Feiyang said. "If you haven't lied to me, once I retrieve the grass, I will set you free to go home. If it's false, you will feel the consequences!"
"It's definitely true! There's not a single lie!" Sikong Xuan stated categorically, "If there's no Immortal Grass, may my soul scatter to the winds!"