A year later, somewhere in the mountains and forests, Zhang Ling stood with his hands clasped behind his back on a large rock. A wisp of faint yellow light surrounded him, constantly coiling and solidifying.
After a moment, it condensed into a strand of deep yellow light as thick as a thumb, and shot out with a whoosh, hitting a small tree dozens of feet away.
The small tree shook slightly from the impact of the light, the impact force wasn't strong, and it didn't break, as if this light didn't have any attack power.
But the entire tree trunk instantly turned grayish-white, as if covered with a thick layer of dust.
A streak of azure sword light flashed past, and the small tree was chopped into several pieces, falling to the ground with a series of thuds. The cut surfaces of the tree trunk were also grayish-white, looking petrified, no longer like wood.
"It seems the power is not bad. After a month of hard work, I've almost mastered this technique," Zhang Ling said, waving his hand, and a section of the wooden stake that had turned into stone flew in front of him.
He was using a high-level spell called the Earth Spirit Petrification Technique.
This is a secret technique from the Earth Element True Spirit Sutra, the cultivation method he is currently focusing on. It is somewhat different from ordinary petrification techniques, and it is more powerful and petrifies to a greater extent when cast.
Ordinary petrification techniques can actually achieve the effect of petrifying a small tree like this, but to petrify the inside of the tree trunk completely would take a long time.
Ordinary petrification techniques are also not easy to cultivate, and are difficult high-level spells. Even among cultivators who are proficient in earth-attribute techniques, not many have mastered it.
Fortunately, he has now entered the Nascent Soul stage, and his spiritual power is much more abundant. He had already mastered petrification techniques before in order to enhance the power of the Heavenly Star Sand, so cultivating this rather special petrification technique now is quite easy.
This technique can be used for both defense and attack. It is quite comprehensive, but its power is not considered very profound.
If it attacks a cultivator, it will also have some effect, but it is difficult to achieve complete petrification. It is easiest to petrify inanimate objects such as tools.
After all, cultivators possess spiritual power, which can resist petrification to some extent. It's okay to use it against cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage.
Zhang Ling estimates that if he uses this petrification technique with all his strength now, he can completely petrify Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators without any problem, but he cannot completely petrify Golden Core cultivators or above, at most only temporarily sealing their movements.
If a Golden Core cultivator has one or two decent defensive magic weapons, they can barely resist the petrification.
But to use it against Nascent Soul cultivators, this technique is a bit lacking.
Although he has only just entered the Nascent Soul stage, he can deduce from his own situation that this technique has little effect on Nascent Soul cultivators.
Nascent Soul cultivators can block this kind of attack with just their spiritual power shields.
The Earth Spirit Petrification Technique is recorded in the Earth Element True Spirit Sutra, a cultivation method passed down from an ancient great sect, so naturally its power is not limited to this.
This technique is just a prerequisite spell for another divine ability called "Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit."
Zhang Ling silently recited the incantation for casting the Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit. He opened his mouth and spat out a ball of hazy yellow essence, and strands of pure spiritual light wrapped around his hands.
With a series of hand seals, countless deep yellow runes shot out from his fingertips. These runes quickly gathered into a yellow ball the size of a fist.
At the same time, the Two Instruments Gourd appeared beside him, spewing out a large amount of Heavenly Star Sand, which quickly flowed and transformed into a sand dragon about ten feet long.
The yellow ball flashed and fell into it. Instantly, the sand dragon made of yellow sand petrified, turning into a stone dragon.
With a thought from Zhang Ling, the stone dragon instantly burrowed into the ground. Dull thuds came from underground. In an instant, the ground within a ten-foot radius of him shook.
He stomped the ground fiercely with one foot, and instantly a huge stone dragon fifteen or sixteen feet long shot out from underground, lifting his body into the air.
The stone dragon opened its huge mouth and shot out sharp earth thorns, and a large area of trees in front of it suffered, all being attacked into a pile of fragments.
The earth dragon hissed silently and swam on the ground. Wherever it passed, it left behind horizontal trenches, as if swimming on the surface of the water.
This earth dragon was lifelike, like a real creature. Upon closer inspection, a shining yellow orb was embedded in the center of its head, flashing with bright light.
Zhang Ling chuckled. He cast a spell on the earth dragon's head, and the golden-yellow orb flew up, transforming back into a strand of pure spiritual power that entered his body.
Then, after drawing out the spiritual power, the earth dragon under his feet seemed to lose its power, shaking a few times before stiffening and turning into a real stone sculpture.
With a light wave of his sleeve, a loud boom echoed as the earth dragon, formed from earth and stone, instantly disintegrated, and pieces of gravel fell to the ground.
A rustling sound rang out as a large amount of Heavenly Star Sand emerged from the earth and stone and was collected back into the Two Instruments Gourd.
Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit is a divine ability in the Earth Element True Spirit Sutra that can only be cast when one reaches the Nascent Soul cultivation stage. The pure spiritual power that controlled the earth spirit just now was also the specially cultivated Earth Spirit Essence. He had only condensed a trace of it, and it was still incomplete.
The condensed Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit was only barely formed. It could only unleash some ordinary earth-attribute attacks, and it was not considered successfully cultivated.
A complete Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit has an attack power that is at least one or two times higher. As long as the core Earth Spirit True Essence is not broken, it can continuously condense the power of earth and stone and will not be truly defeated.
The complete Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit can also cast petrification divine powers. During battle, the continuous stream of petrifying spiritual light, even if it does limited damage to Nascent Soul cultivators, can still cause considerable restraint.
The Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit is not limited to condensing just one. According to the cultivation method, this divine ability is only considered successfully cultivated when more than five earth spirits are condensed.
Moreover, once more than twenty-four Earthly Fiend Earth Spirits are condensed, they can cooperate with each other to form a set of Malignant Earth Array, and its power will increase exponentially, and it will also have a good enemy-trapping effect.
Even Nascent Soul cultivators of the same level, when trapped within, can be confined for a short period of time.
And this is actually just an array corresponding to the cultivation of earth-attribute spiritual power. Within the Earth Element True Spirit Sutra, this top-tier inheritance cultivation method, there are also arrays matched with other attributes.
There is the Flowing Fire Array matched with the fire attribute, the Azure Wood Array matched with the wood attribute, the Golden Light Array matched with the metal attribute, the Vast Sea Array matched with the water attribute, plus the Malignant Earth Array matched with the earth attribute.
With the five elements of spiritual power cooperating, an extremely powerful Five Elements True Spirit Array can be cast.
This array was originally intended to be cast by five Nascent Soul cultivators who cultivate the five elements attributes. It is the inheritance of the ancient sect, the Profound Spirit Sect.
It is said that when five early-stage Nascent Soul cultivators cast it, they can trap late-stage Nascent Soul great cultivators.
One must know that those who can advance to the Nascent Soul stage are all patriarchs of their respective factions. After reaching the Nascent Soul cultivation stage, the time and experience it takes to advance further are extremely high.
It is possible to stagnate in place for hundreds of years of hard cultivation. Advancing to the middle stage of cultivation is extremely difficult.
Even fewer old monsters can reach the late stage of Nascent Soul, they are called great cultivators, and everyone fears them, because this level of strength can already kill ordinary Nascent Soul old monsters.
Nascent Soul cultivators also have strengths and weaknesses. It is not difficult to defeat a Nascent Soul cultivator, but to kill one, even with a much higher level of strength, is very difficult.
After all, if a Nascent Soul old monster is determined to escape, the chances of escaping are very high. Moreover, after the Nascent Soul leaves the body, it has the divine ability of teleportation, making it even more difficult to kill.
Even if the physical body is destroyed, as long as the Nascent Soul does not lose too much vitality, it can quickly seize another body and recover its strength. Being able to kill a Nascent Soul cultivator naturally qualifies one to be called a great cultivator.
Basically, no array can trap this kind of existence, but this Five Elements True Spirit Array can actually trap late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators, so the power is conceivable.
This is still what five early-stage Nascent Soul cultivators can do. If five late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators cast it, who knows how great the power would be.
The Earth Element True Spirit Sutra that Zhang Ling obtained was originally the inheritance cultivation method of the ancient sect, the Profound Spirit Sect. It is extremely complete, and these arrays are recorded on it.
However, he cannot cast this array either, so he only paid slight attention to it.
The most important thing now is to cultivate the Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit corresponding to the earth attribute, condense twenty-four earth spirits, and achieve the effect of casting the Malignant Earth Array.
This is not easy. To condense twenty-four earth spirits, one must cultivate hard for a long time.
In addition to this divine ability, Zhang Ling also selected several high-level earth-attribute spells to cultivate, in order to increase his strength.
Now that he has become a Nascent Soul cultivator, his future enemies will also be these cultivators of the same level. These old monsters have lived for at least hundreds of years and are highly skilled. Ordinary methods cannot deal with them.
Of course, Nascent Soul cultivators will not easily become enemies with cultivators of the same level. As long as there is no conflict of interest, he believes that no other Nascent Soul old monsters will provoke him.
But if he really encounters danger, having a few more methods will allow him to deal with it calmly.
After cultivating high-level spells for several hours, Zhang Ling returned to the mountain cave where he was temporarily staying.
The mountain cave is located in the forest, under a pitch-black cliff face. There are no spiritual veins around it. Apart from being quite secluded, it is no different from an ordinary mountain cave.
He came here before just to consolidate his newly formed Nascent Soul. Now that the Nascent Soul in his body has basically stabilized, Zhang Ling has also begun to consider his next plans.
Now that he has formed the Nascent Soul, it is no longer appropriate to stay in the Demon Wind Mountains. He should return to the human territory as soon as possible. But before going back, there are still some trivial matters to deal with.
After returning to the mountain cave, Zhang Ling went directly to the medicine garden. He had opened up a half-acre of medicinal fields in the cave, where many rare spiritual herbs were planted, all of which were rare third and fourth-grade spiritual herbs.
Among them, a black sapling two feet tall had some red-black leaves growing on it. Under some of the leaves, you could occasionally see some crimson flower buds, like round balls. This tree looked like some kind of spiritual wood, but it was a Sunflame Fruit Tree.
The Sunflame Fruit is a rare fourth-grade spiritual fruit that is hard to find outside.
These were the few Sunflame Fruits that he exchanged with the intelligent seventh-grade Crimson Fire Ape for that fire bow and another fire-attribute magic weapon. He used the mysterious pearl to accelerate the growth of the spiritual fruit tree.
This Sunflame Fruit Tree has already been accelerated to more than three thousand years of age and had recently condensed more than thirty Sunflame Fruits. Using the mysterious pearl to accelerate growth, he can accelerate a batch of Sunflame Fruits in three or four days.
Spiritual fruit trees are also different from ordinary spiritual plants. The longer the age, the better the spiritual fruit produced.
He has accumulated thousands of Sunflame Fruits in his hands, enough for his usual use. Accelerating the growth of Sunflame Fruits, the main purpose is to refine several fire-attribute spiritual pills.
Like the Condensing Fire Pill and the Fire Essence Pill, which are refined using this spiritual fruit as the main raw material. The medicinal effects are very strong, and the Fire Essence Pill is a valuable fourth-grade spiritual medicine that is very suitable for Nascent Soul cultivators who cultivate fire attributes to take.
Zhang Ling himself mainly cultivates earth-attribute spiritual power, so fire-attribute pills are naturally not suitable. Refining several fire-attribute pills is also for the Double-Tailed Cat to use for cultivation.
In addition to the Sunflame Fruit, there are also Blood Sun Flowers, Yellow Dawn Grass, and seven or eight other third and fourth-grade spiritual herbs, all of which were exchanged with that seventh-grade Crimson Fire Ape.
In addition to the rare spiritual herbs such as Purple Vein Fruit and Frost Wind Grass collected from the Heavenly Abyss Secret Realm before. He can refine several top-tier pills.
Among them, the Purple Jade Pill refined with the Purple Vein Fruit is also a valuable fourth-grade pill and is a spiritual pill from an ancient pill formula. The Purple Jade Pill has no attribute distinction and is very suitable for Nascent Soul cultivators to take.
At the same time, another fourth-grade White Radiance Pill that he refined before also still has the effect of increasing cultivation.
Zhang Ling is currently taking the Purple Jade Pill and the White Radiance Pill during his meditation. Apart from these two pills, the other pills he refined during the Golden Core stage no longer have much effect now.
Even with the assistance of these two rare pills, Zhang Ling felt that the increase in his cultivation was extremely slow during cultivation.
The speed at which Nascent Soul cultivators usually absorb the spiritual power of heaven and earth during meditation is also much faster than before, which is actually not much different from taking pills for cultivation.
Basically, no pills can quickly increase the cultivation of Nascent Soul cultivators, they can only rely on accumulated cultivation and continuously condense the Nascent Soul to increase cultivation.
It's just that the spiritual power in the pills is more precise, saving the time of refining spiritual power.
At this rate of cultivation, Zhang Ling estimates that it will take at least a hundred years for him to break through to the mid-stage of Nascent Soul. Even longer than he estimated.
This also made him realize that after reaching the Nascent Soul stage, it was indeed as recorded in the classics, difficult to quickly increase cultivation. Pill assistance and hard meditation cultivation, the increase in cultivation is no longer so obvious.
This is also the reason why many cultivators, after breaking through to the Nascent Soul realm, always remain at the early stage of cultivation.
Although Zhang Ling has this feeling, he has the assistance of the mysterious pearl, so naturally, it is still most appropriate to cultivate with pills. Accumulating small amounts can shorten the cultivation time by a lot.
At the same time, he thought in his heart that after returning to the human territory, he would continue to collect rare pill formulas and spiritual herbs, hoping to collect several suitable fifth-grade pills for cultivation.
Apart from the Nascent Soul Pill refined with the Earth Spirit Fruit, which is a fifth-grade pill, he can no longer gather the spiritual herbs to refine other fifth-grade pills.
He has only collected a few fifth-grade pill formulas, and most of the required spiritual herbs have also become extinct.
