"Fellow Daoist Li, it's been a few years, and you've become even more eloquent. How about visiting my humble Peach Blossom Island for a few days?"
"Hehe, I still have some important matters to attend to. If I have time, I will definitely visit Peach Blossom Island and pay my respects."
"Oh, really? You don't seem to have anything urgent."
"Hehe, wasn't it because I noticed some unusual spiritual energy here just now? Since I was passing by, I came to take a look. Isn't Madam doing the same?"
The young Confucian scholar chuckled dryly, rolling his eyes involuntarily, and then turned to look towards Zhang Ling's cave dwelling.
But in his heart, he cursed this flirtatious fox. He had dealt with this woman a few times, and this Madam Red's dual cultivation techniques were not easy to handle.
He had heard that several of his peers had fallen into her hands, and he had also heard that this woman had some connection with a Nascent Soul old monster. It seemed she had a considerable backing.
Although he was a mid-Golden Core cultivator, he was just a rogue cultivator and didn't want to deal with such cultivators.
These thoughts flashed through the green-robed Confucian scholar's mind. He cupped his fist at Madam Red. "I really have something to do, Madam Red. Farewell."
After the green-robed Confucian scholar finished speaking, a green light flashed on his body. Before the red-clothed beauty could speak, he transformed into a green light and left in another direction.
"Hmph, coward."
The beautiful woman looked in the direction the green-robed man left, licked the corner of her lips, and snorted. Then, she also glanced at Zhang Ling's cave dwelling, and her powerful divine sense naturally probed towards Zhang Ling's cave dwelling.
In an instant, it enveloped the surroundings of Zhang Ling's cave dwelling, but Madam Red frowned the next moment and muttered in a low voice.
"These people are so timid, they even set up formations… How boring."
Her divine sense entered within three miles of Zhang Ling's cave dwelling and was blocked by a layer of mist. With her knowledge, she immediately judged the power of the formation.
Madam Red stood in mid-air and pondered for a moment, then raised her jade hand, and a sound transmission talisman appeared in her hand. With a flash of spiritual light, she input a few words into it.
She threw the sound transmission talisman towards Zhang Ling's cave dwelling, and Madam Red's figure flashed and disappeared.
Zhang Ling knew nothing about these things.
……
At this moment, Zhang Ling was at the most critical moment of condensing his Golden Core.
As the elixir in his dantian continued to spin, it gradually began to solidify, with a large amount of spiritual energy absorbed from the outside world filling the elixir.
The increase in spiritual energy was enormous. At this moment, Zhang Ling was operating his cultivation technique with all his might, constantly refining this powerful spiritual power. Now, his speed of refining spiritual power had increased several times.
The spiritual energy refined by the cultivation technique would become strands of pure spiritual power, surrounding the elixir.
These spiritual forces were like invisible hands, constantly polishing the elixir.
Zhang Ling had lost all sense of time. In his opinion, this step had taken a long time, but it had only happened within a quarter of an hour.
And in the outside world, the surrounding spiritual fluctuations gradually weakened until, after an hour, they returned to calm.
And so, more than a month passed, and the door of the quiet room in the cave dwelling finally opened.
A figure flashed, and a figure wearing thin clothes walked out. This person had disheveled hair, and his face was unclear. A layer of yellow light enveloped his body.
"Haha, Golden Core stage." This person suddenly laughed wildly, seemingly falling into madness.
After laughing for a while, he stopped laughing and tidied his messy hair. From the dirty black hair, his face was revealed. It was Zhang Ling, who had closed the cave dwelling gate decades ago.
At this time, his aura was amazing, as if he had become a different person. Looking at the cave dwelling he was in, everything in his eyes had a strange feeling.
Zhang Ling wandered around the cave dwelling nervously for a while, then opened the restriction and walked out of the cave dwelling gate.
Hiss… Huff!
Zhang Ling looked at the outside environment and breathed in the air. He had a different feeling.
The direction of the condensed earth in the air, the scent of flowers and plants, and a somewhat hot fire all made him feel different.
He stood quietly in place for a long time until a few meows awakened Zhang Ling.
Without thinking, it was just his twin-tailed cat spirit beast, "Tiger." Zhang Ling looked at the spirit beast circling around his feet, squatted down, picked up the kitten, and stroked its soft fur.
"I don't know how many years have passed. The spiritual power in this little thing has increased so much. It seems that it will soon be promoted to a Tier 3 demon beast."
Zhang Ling stroked the kitten's head. At this moment, he did not use his spiritual eyes to probe the kitten, nor did he use his divine sense to observe it.
At a glance, he could see the spiritual power fluctuations on the spirit beast. This was because he had now become a Golden Core cultivator.
And the spirit beast was still at the Tier 2 level, and the gap was already very large.
Zhang Ling held the twin-tailed cat, and a yellow light flashed on his body. He stood in mid-air several feet above the ground.
Flying through the air, the symbol of a Golden Core cultivator.
As Zhang Ling's figure continued to rise, in a few breaths, he reached a hundred feet in the air. Gusts of wind whistled in his ears.
The Fire Cloud Island below had only become a small dot.
Meow meow!
The twin-tailed cat was also very curious, opening its round eyes in his arms and looking around.
Suddenly, Zhang Ling seemed to sense something. As if he had discovered something, he flashed and instantly reached ten feet away.
With a wave of his hand, a palm-sized little thing was caught in his hand.
After catching the thing, Zhang Ling reacted. With a sweep of his eyes, he could see clearly that the thing in his hand was actually a small bird with cyan feathers.
The little bird was not big, constantly flapping its wings. It had a long, black beak, and its spiritual power was actually a Tier 1 demon bird.
Zhang Ling stared at the cyan bird for a while, and suddenly the cyan bird seemed to feel his power. Its body stiffened, and it stopped moving.
Feeling the powerful spiritual power surging in his body, Zhang Ling felt very happy. He had a feeling of controlling life and death.
"Go."
With a chuckle, he waved his hand and released the cyan bird.
After Zhang Ling released his hand, the cyan bird fell more than ten feet before reacting. It quickly flapped its wings to regain its flying instinct and flew away into the distance.
Zhang Ling then flew around for a while before returning to the cave dwelling below.
Looking at the Fire Cloud Island, which was constantly getting bigger as Zhang Ling descended, Zhang Ling put away his arrogant thoughts.
Although he had now advanced to the Golden Core realm, this was only a small step. There were many powerful forces in the cultivation world.
There were more than a hundred Golden Core cultivators in Myriad Manifestation City alone, and there were also several Nascent Soul old monsters.
He had inquired about this information when he first arrived in Myriad Manifestation City.
Before, when he was at the Foundation Establishment stage, these cultivators naturally had nothing to do with him, but now that he had reached the Golden Core stage, the cultivators he would deal with in the future would mostly be these experts, so he naturally had to maintain his previous cautious attitude.
After returning to the cave dwelling, Zhang Ling first discovered a few sound transmission talismans trapped in the restriction. After checking them one by one and reading the other information, he also knew that when he broke through, several cultivators had come to Fire Cloud Island.
Moreover, they were all Golden Core cultivators with no weak cultivation bases. The sound transmission talismans were left by some of them.
The information mostly congratulated him on his successful Golden Core formation, and some were recruitment messages from various forces. But now he didn't have time to pay attention to these.
He closed up again. Having just broken through, his realm was not stable, so he naturally had to use some time to consolidate his cultivation.
……
A year passed in the blink of an eye.
In the quiet room, Zhang Ling sat cross-legged, surrounded by a thin layer of spiritual light.
He was running the Dry Earth Art. This cultivation technique obtained from the Hao Yuan Sect corresponded to the fifth layer of the technique after reaching the Golden Core realm.
This was not comparable to the previous layers of the technique. Cultivating it could be said to be progressing slowly.
After a year of hard work, Zhang Ling hardly felt any increase in his cultivation. Of course, he had just broken through. In the past year, he had been consolidating his cultivation and had not taken any pills.
Each small realm after forming the Golden Core would take a hundred years of hard work, and he might not be able to break through.
However, during this period, Zhang Ling had studied the fifth layer of the Dry Earth Art dozens of times. He didn't dare to say that he had fully understood it, but there was naturally no problem in cultivating it step by step.
He used the fifth layer of the technique to consolidate the Golden Core he had cultivated in his body.
At this time, a round, yellow pellet in his dantian, only the size of a thumb, was constantly spinning.
This was the Golden Core he had condensed.
Looking closely, some mysterious spiritual patterns were very obvious on it, and the Golden Core was not pure yellow. There were also some dark white spiritual patterns and black spiritual patterns on it. Apart from this, in a corner of Zhang Ling's dantian, a ball of cyan spiritual power was also spinning.
Zhang Ling was very clear about the situation of the Golden Core.
The white spiritual patterns and black spiritual patterns on it were formed by the small amount of metal and water spiritual power absorbed by his spiritual roots.
He had metal, water, and earth spiritual root aptitude, so the condensed Golden Core was like this.
This was because, although cultivators could use cultivation techniques to condense spiritual power, the five elements of spiritual energy between heaven and earth were constantly devouring and transforming each other, and also nourishing each other.
The five elements generated and restrained each other. Although he mainly cultivated earth spiritual energy, in the long-term absorption of heaven and earth spiritual energy, there would naturally be a small amount of other spiritual energy incorporated into the dantian.
These other attribute spiritual energies were generally very small and had already mixed with the largest spiritual energy. They were basically impossible to expel.
Although his Golden Core only showed earth spiritual power and a small amount of metal spiritual power and water spiritual power, in fact, if he carefully sensed it, there was also some wood spiritual power and fire spiritual power on it.
It just didn't show.
And the ball of cyan spiritual energy in the dantian came from the parasitic strange vine. The total amount looked small, but it was also equivalent to around the late Foundation Establishment stage.
Zhang Ling didn't originally know these experiences. He had realized them from the Golden Core formation心得 he had obtained from the Myriad Dharma Tower before.
It was said that this involved the rules of heaven and earth, and there were rumors that in ancient times, cultivators from the upper realm preached the Dao, and some words and phrases that were passed down mentioned that after the Nascent Soul stage, some realms had to achieve the unity of the five elements to break through.
These insights flashed through Zhang Ling's mind. Now was not the time for him to consider such things.
As long as there was no problem with the Golden Core.
And this second time he had attacked the Golden Core realm, a full twenty-nine years had passed since the first time.
While studying the art of refining, he had taken out a lot of time to cultivate earth spirit bees. This spirit insect had finally evolved again. The honey produced reached the level of condensing true essence.
Zhang Ling had completely condensed all the true essence in his body once. After his spiritual power had reached three or four times as much as before, he began to condense the core for the second time.
In fact, he only spent three or four years to break through the Golden Core stage. The remaining time was spent using honey to condense true essence.
In fact, Zhang Ling was only trying this breakthrough. He only used the Cold Jade Pill, Fire Toad Liquid, and Yuan Spirit Water. He didn't use any other auxiliary spiritual objects. But this second breakthrough was quite smooth.
From the perspective of his current realm, the smooth breakthrough was still because the miraculous effect of the earth spirit bee honey was better than he had imagined.
At least it increased the chance of forming a core by 10%.
In addition to these external objects, some insights on his state of mind, as well as years of hard work, were also the reasons why Zhang Ling was able to break through.
The Golden Core's strength was much stronger, and his lifespan had increased to five or six hundred years. Calculating his age, Zhang Ling was only ninety years old and had plenty of time to use.
So much lifespan naturally made him very happy.
However, the next goal was the Nascent Soul realm. Only by reaching the Nascent Soul realm could he be said to be a true expert.
These old monsters each had a thousand years of life, and their strength was even more terrifying. They were either the lords of immortal cities or the ancestors of sects.
With a goal, Zhang Ling planned his future cultivation affairs.
The first step was to solve the problem of the cultivation technique.
The "Dry Earth Art" he was currently cultivating, although not weak, was a defective technique with only six layers. He could only cultivate to the mid-Golden Core stage. It also didn't have a method for refining a natal magic weapon.
Zhang Ling didn't know if this technique really didn't have a matching natal magic weapon.
After all, when he obtained the Dry Earth Art at the Hao Yuan Sect, he had only just broken through to the Foundation Establishment stage. Perhaps that was why the elder who passed on the technique didn't pass it on to him at the time.
But it didn't matter now.
The Dry Earth Art was inherently defective and couldn't allow him to reach a higher realm. Zhang Ling had already decided to find another complete technique.
Unless he had obtained a top-level and complete technique from the beginning of his cultivation, otherwise, changing cultivation techniques was also very common in the cultivation world.
Generally, changing cultivation techniques was mostly like Zhang Ling now, breaking through to a major realm before changing.
Often, this kind of major realm breakthrough was accompanied by more profound cultivation techniques. At this time, changing cultivation techniques was the least expensive.
As their cultivation increased, cultivators' experience and knowledge were not comparable to before.
As long as the change in cultivation technique wasn't a change in spiritual power attributes, cultivating techniques with the same spiritual power would waste some time, but it wouldn't be difficult.
Two hours later, Zhang Ling had run the fifth layer of the Dry Earth Art for a major cycle.
Stretching his waist and lightly exhaling a turbid breath, Zhang Ling stood up.
As he got up, a cyan-black circular shield was constantly spinning outside his body. He flicked his finger, and a strand of spiritual power was injected into it.
Immediately, a layer of cyan-gold spiritual light appeared on the circular shield, and the shield became half a person tall, with yellow light flowing on it.
"Black Gold Shield"
