Chapter 60

When Yang Chen had finally gone through that entrance, the spirit beasts chasing him choked up at the small entrance and weren’t able to enter. At last he was able to completely rest up.

Since he was a third qi layer disciple, he still did not have the ability to fly by himself, so after moving while defending against several hundred underground spirit beasts for half a month, Yang Chen was extremely exhausted.

A high level spirit beast with a large head, the size of a wild boar, was jammed between the stones on both the sides of the tunnel, it could neither go in nor come out, but because of this, all of the spirit beasts behind it were stuck on the outside.

The space inside the cave was very big, it had a large perimeter which provided a lot of space, Yang Chen could even spread his legs and take a nap. What would make people most speechless was that there was still an underground spirit vein here, which provided an unending flow of spirit power, making it a natural cultivation spot. Such a good region, it was very fortunate that someone in Yang Chen’s previous life had been able to find it.

At the moment, Yang Chen didn’t dare to be neglectful and immediately took out his obsidian jade mat, placed it on the mouth of spirit vein and sat down on it to meditate. He started restoring his spirit power and at the same time began to nourish his meridians.

He had to meditate for two days and two nights continuously to restore the spirit power and spiritual awareness he had exhausted in the fortnight he had been resisting the spirit beasts. Due to the plentiful spiritual influence from the underground spirit vein, Yang Chen did not need to waste a Profound Yang Fruit. Even the bottle of the Medicine Garden began to slowly replenish its spirit power when placed at the mouth of the spirit vein.

Originally the Immortal Falling Well was just an enormous cavity in the ground, nobody knew where its perimeter was, even the council of the five formidable elders was not able to discover its edge. As for why these underground spirit beasts appeared, nobody had even the slightest idea. Everyone was only aware that these spirit beasts killed endlessly without any reason and kept on attacking the Li Lou village, the only exit in an unending stream.

The high-spirited Yang Chen had accidentally come to know about these insider facts, but currently the most important task for him was to kill these underground spirit beasts and collect their spirit essences to increase his own cultivation and to fuse the will of the XianTai Stage.

The reverse Five Phases of Yin and Yang secrets were like two millstones, grinding at high speed. When it was focused on the spirit beast, it quickly sapped away all of the spiritual influence of that high level spirit beast, only leaving behind a few shiny spirit essences.

After that, the entrance became clear again and immediately he was attacked by another spirit beast whose head had also gotten jammed at the small entrance. This spirit beast also died under Yang Chen’s hand. In here, Yang Chen did not have to worry about the security of his life, one spirit beast would absolutely not be a menace to him. On the contrary, with sufficient spirit power and a safe environment, he could continue to kill the spirit beasts for an unlimited amount of time.

In case anyone in the Immortal Falling Well saw Yang Chen’s efficiency at killing the spirit beasts, he would certainly faint with shock. When someone tried to kill a spirit beast, first he had to take care of his own defence properly and then single mindedly concentrate on attacking the spirit beast with a magic weapon grade flying sword, even after that, if the spirit beast was killed within half a day, it could still be considered to be a great accomplishment.

It had to be known that this was originally the territory of the underground spirit beasts, so the spiritual influence here was quite plentiful and the spirit beasts who had suffered injuries could recover their injuries by themselves. The time they needed to recover their injuries was far lower, when compared to those disciples who had come to Immortal Falling Well to train. So where would one find a person like Yang Chen, who was effortlessly cutting off the necks of spirit beasts like this?

This became a regular routine of his life, sapping away their spiritual influence and killing the spirit beasts without stopping, then, when his spirit power was exhausted, he would sit down on the obsidian jade mat and meditate to replenish it again. Every day he would practice the Five Phases of Yin and Yang secrets once all the way through, then the three purities secrets and afterwards absorb the killing intent that had been evoked due to the incessant killing of spirit beasts and hammer his spiritual awareness into shape. After that, he would use the universal treasure raising secrets on the Profound Spirit Furnace and sword box to increase their grade and soon after that, he started killing those spirit beasts without stopping again.

Yang Chen had stored enough food and water within the Achievements Ring. He even had the luxury of using the Medicine Garden, where he planted some fruits and vegetables. Apart from the fact that he could not leave here when he wanted, his life could almost be called perfect.

The number of underground spirit beasts was endless, as soon as Yang Chen killed one, the next one arrived, it was basically not possible for him to kill all of them. Within the brief period of half a year, Yang Chen had already killed more than ten thousand spirit beasts and collected their spirit essences, which had had far surpassed the number of spirit beasts killed, because of Yang Chen’s superior killing method and the high grade of the spirit beasts. Currently Yang Chen had already collected more than thirty to forty thousand spirit essences, after some more time, he had managed to obtain fifty thousand spirit essences by himself.

This kind of cycle wasn’t dependent on day or night. Under this kind of extremely intensive cultivation, Yang Chen had already forgotten the time. When he had barely killed the spirit beast at the entrance, the next one immediately jammed the tunnel. Soon he would be exhausted of spirit power and return to the obsidian jade mat to start cultivating in order to recover.

After performing ten heavenly circulations, the spirit power in his body almost recovered, but he still didn’t show any signs of stopping. The pressure of this routine also passed on to his meridians, one pull, one push, seemingly as if expecting something, the spirit power began to build up with his meridians. At last, the spirit power that had been surging forward was unable to proceed further and began to be compressed to an extreme point.

Bang!

As if some kind of shield inside his meridians had broken, the spirit power began to surge forth violently within his body, like a runaway horse. The sensation was as if the strength stored in his whole body had been liberated. Yang Chen noticed that this was his own spirit power, once again trying to overcome an obstacle, to breakthrough to the fourth qi layer.

Originally the spirit power was being forcefully built up inside of the meridians but now it was as if his whole body had become completely empty. The obsidian jade mat underneath him was the source of an unending stream of spirit power, which began to fill the hollowness created because of his breakthrough to another level.

From the third qi layer to the fourth qi layer, although it was just an increase of one minor layer, this was also a qualitative change from the initial qi realm to the middle qi realm. This implied that Yang Chen was no longer a rookie at the initial qi stage, but rather a proper cultivator at the middle qi stage.

This certainly did not mean that it was just an increase of one type of spirit power, but rather an increase for all of the ten types of spirit power of the Five Phases of Yin and Yang. The underground spirit vein of the Immortal Falling Well basically had all types of spirit power, otherwise it would have been impossible to nurture all attributes of spirit beasts. An enormous amount of spirit power began to rush forth, violently entering Yang Chen’s body. Under Yang Chen’s meticulous guidance, the Five Phases of Yin and Yang secrets rotated to their maximum limit and began to strengthen his internal organs.

This was a necessary course of events everyone had to experience after entering the middle qi layer, actually, the purpose of the entire qi stage was to transform the body so that it would be able to resist even more pressure from spirit power and finally build the foundation.

Although Yang Chen’s body had already been strengthened by the essence of the flesh and blood of countless immortals, that kind of devil cultivation transformed the body from outside to inside, but currently, the enormous amount of spirit power was strengthening the body from the inside to the outside. Under the violent rush of the large amount of spirit power, Yang Chen could not even deal with the underground spirit beasts and began to concentrate on consolidating himself.

The state of consolidating was a necessary process after making a breakthrough. Even compared to the process of increase in attack, the state of consolidating was more important.

A good analogy to compare both states would be to consider the process of breaking through in attack power as being equivalent to hammering a nail into the rooftop of one’s house, if the attack power was enough, it would easily pierce through. But, the consolidating process was comparable to consolidating the foundation after the nail had pierced through. The more profound the foundation, the bigger the house it can support.

Currently Yang Chen looked exactly like a person who was building their foundation, frantically absorbing the spiritual influence from the spirit vein to lay his own, solid and firm foundation.

During the absorbing process Yang Chen encountered one problem. When he was at the initial qi stage, the five phases were complete and were in an equilibrium in Yang Chen’s body and it was not much of a concern, but in the middle qi stage, to continue maintaining this kind of display, it would be universally shocking. In the future, he had to deliberately give prominence to his fire attribute cultivation, otherwise a lot of people would be able to make the connection .

This time, absorbing the spirit power to strengthen his foundation had taken almost two to three times more time than usual, only then was it completed. As for Yang Chen, since there was no disturbance and the area also had plentiful spirit power, there was basically absolutely no chance of some unexpected accident and he could smoothly consolidate the fourth qi layer’s state.

Once he had made the breakthrough, Yang Chen immediately took out a flying sword and attempted to execute the second refining by the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets.

The Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets was a very good technique, it could allow him to generate a Heavenly Stars spell formation on every kind of spirit power. Due to the Heavenly Stars spell formation, his defense and attack had become a lot more formidable when compared to an ordinary cultivator’s defence and attack. Although currently he had only executed the first refining, but after probing with his formidable spiritual awareness, because he could judge his own strength very precisely, he knew that his strength had been increased by at least three times compared to before. In other words, just activating the thirty six threads of spirit power together would immediately increase his strength. The only question was whether the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets increased his strength by two to three folds or ten folds.

Fantasy was very beautiful, but reality was extremely cruel, even if Yang Chen had already entered the middle qi stage, he was still unable to execute the second refining. Apart from using the method to increase it by one grade to reach the middle stage, the second time he started executing it, he would feel the spirit power being blocked every time, unable to proceed an further. Yang Chen had no option other than stopping resentfully.

Since the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets were out of question, Yang Chen directly turned to the Earth Fiend Sacrificial Formation Secrets. The seventy two layers of Earth Fiend Sacrificial Formation Secrets, could similarly increase the grade of a magic weapon, previously Yang Chen’s cultivation was too low, but after making a breakthrough, he could give it a try.

The outcome was far beyond his expectations, under the first refining by the earth spell, the flying sword was successfully branded with the seal of the earth spell. But still Yang Chen was only able to barely accomplish it. His whole body was profusely sweating and all of his spirit power had been consumed, he even had to use the spirit power of a Profound Yang Fruit, not to mention the fact he was already sitting on top of an underground spirit vein, only then was he able to accomplish this.

But although the process was very exhausting, its success made Yang Chen delighted. A bright light flashed from the flying sword, anyone could tell at one glance that it was not an ordinary object. Only Yang Chen did not know whether to laugh or cry at it, upgrading the magic weapon was a good thing, but this kind of flashiness was not something he was fond of. Unfortunately, this was not something under Yang Chen’s control. Yang Chen knew that refining by the Heavenly Stars Treasure Raising Secrets and Earth Fiend Sacrificial Formation Secrets was not a complete refining. Refining a magic weapon was only complete when it could be properly controlled. Only then could it become a peerless gem of magic weapon grade.

Although the transformation of the flying sword made Yang Chen happy, the transformation of his own spirit energy made Yang Chen absolutely ecstatic. Not even Yang Chen had anticipated that, when he had completed the first level refining of the Earth Fiend Sacrificial Formation secrets, the spirit power of every type in his body, which had been divided into spirit power threads by the Heavenly Stars spell would once again split, and an earth fiend spell formation was added. But these two types of spell did not mutually influence each other and existed by themselves, not having fused the earth spell and the Heavenly Stars spell.

Even if it was like this, the transformation within his body still made Yang Chen go wild with joy. Immediately he began to restore his spirit power and soon he went to test his offensive power.

The unlucky spirit beast which was stuck at the entrance became the first pitiful victim of his test, it could not move at all and could only blankly stare at Yang Chen attacking its body. After around ten strikes, it finally took its last breath, leaving behind two spirit essences. Yang Chen’s initial way of killing the high level spirit beast would have left behind five spirit essences, but attacking like this only gave two.

After several attacks, Yang Chen finally determined how much damage he could cause. With the Heavenly Stars Treasure Refining Secrets, every layer increased his strength by three times. According to this, if he could completely cultivate the Heavenly Stars Treasure Raising Secret and the Earth Secret, his attack power would increase by three hundred twenty four times, and even if he didn’t completely cultivate them, his power would still increase by thirty two times. This was still when the Earth Spell and the Heavenly Stars Treasure Raising Secrets were working alone. If Yang Chen was able to completely fuse them, then he would get even more of a surprise.

Yang Chen who had the experience of two lives was naturally aware of the saying: ‘Learn to walk before you can run’. In any case, right now, obtaining these kind of outcome was already more than enough, Yang Chen didn’t let greed take him over. On the contrary, after sufficient preparation, he took out the Profound Spirit Furnace and the Sword Box separately and also executed the Earth Secret’s first layer refining.

After having done the refining on the flying sword earlier, the refining of the sword box and the Profound Spirit Furnace went without a hitch and also wasn’t as exhausting as the first time, but compared to the first time, the use of the Earth Secrets was somewhat better.

After the refining of the Sword Box was completed, Yang Chen began to kill the spirit beasts in a different way. In any case, he had already collected fifty thousand spirit essences, which were more than sufficient for his immortal cave in the future, so obtaining spirit essences was no longer his main objective. What he needed to do now, was to kill the spirit beasts by beheading them.

This method was the most preferred method for executing immortals at the XianTai Stage and also was most capable of provoking the fusion of the will of the XianTai Stage with his own. Immediately, without wasting any time, Yang Chen took the Sword Box, which had the appearance of his Immortal Execution Blade and raising it high, he beheaded a spirit beast in one slash. This marked the beginning of his new regular routine with the new method for killing and beheading beasts.

Having a sharp weapon increased the efficiency of killing when compared to doing it empty handed, with just three slashes Yang Chen had chopped off the head a spirit beast stuck in the entrance.