Five-grade elixirs are rarely seen in the markets of major immortal cities. Ordinary cultivators have no use for them; they are typically used by Nascent Soul-level experts.
However, some sects specializing in alchemy have many grandmasters who experiment with elixir formulas, but the precious formulas they develop are never released, as they are part of the sect's inherited resources.
Collecting these is not so easy.
Of course, with his current Nascent Soul cultivation, if he were willing to join an immortal cultivation sect, he could obtain some of these things. Zhang Ling has been considering this matter for some time but has not yet made a decision.
There are many immortal cultivation sects in the Flowing Cloud Sea, the most powerful being the Ten Great Sects, and many mid-tier sects are also good choices. Even several immortal cities like Myriad Manifestation City could be considered.
He is only over two hundred years old, so he has plenty of time. There's no rush, Zhang Ling plans to consider it further.
After all, joining a force, while providing some benefits, also comes with certain constraints.
A Nascent Soul cultivator's lifespan is over a thousand years. Early-stage cultivators can live over a thousand years, and if they can break through to the late Nascent Soul stage, it is said that living over fifteen hundred years is not a problem.
Of course, each cultivator's lifespan varies slightly. However, it is certain that a Nascent Soul cultivator can live over a thousand years.
Zhang Ling has plenty of lifespan left, enough for him to plan his future cultivation. Now that he has reached the Nascent Soul stage, he has fewer concerns. His goal is naturally set on the higher Transformation God stage, wondering if he can reach that realm in his lifetime.
Zhang Ling sometimes has special feelings, often fantasizing about the Transformation God stage, and even ascending to the Spirit Realm. This is a kind of ambition, a cultivation goal, and an expectation.
He tended the medicinal field while letting his thoughts wander.
Meanwhile, in another quiet chamber within the cave, the Xuan Tortoise was in a state of arduous cultivation. A goose-egg-sized piece of Celestial Astral Silver floated above its head, constantly being scoured by streams of icy spiritual power.
The Celestial Astral Silver spun around and every so often scattered some starlight-like silver specks. With each breath the Xuan Tortoise took, all of it was absorbed into its body, causing its body to appear silver-gray, emitting some metallic spiritual light.
Suddenly, the Xuan Tortoise shuddered and opened its eyes, spitting out a ball of dark blue ice mist. Inside was a mass of black-red liquid.
This mass of liquid writhed like a living thing, rapidly shrinking, as if being devoured.
Upon closer inspection, it was indeed a mass of blood, only not as bright red as fresh blood, but a dark, dull black-red. A buzzing sound constantly emanated from within, as over a dozen beetle-like flying insects were devouring the blood.
After about fifteen minutes, the blood mass disappeared, and the flying insects wobbled and fell to the ground, motionless as if they had lost their vitality.
These flying insects were the Spirit Devouring Insects controlled by Zhang Ling. They were spat out from the Xuan Tortoise's body because the Spirit Devouring Insects were assisting it in cultivating the Gluttonous Spirit Devouring Art.
During the Xuan Tortoise's cultivation, absorbing Celestial Astral Silver would produce some impurities that could not be absorbed. If they accumulated in the body, they would cause some damage.
These impurities were very weak. The Xuan Tortoise had not noticed them during previous cultivation sessions until recently, when it felt some Qi stagnation in its body and discovered these harmful substances.
The Xuan Tortoise began to remove these harmful substances, but it was slow and time-consuming.
Zhang Ling, after carefully sensing with his second soul, thought of the Spirit Devouring Insects. After some experimentation, he found that the Spirit Devouring Insects' powerful devouring power could solve this problem well.
The Xuan Tortoise forced the harmful impurities into some flesh and blood, allowing the Spirit Devouring Insects to directly devour them. Although it would lose some Qi and blood, the clearing speed would be extremely fast.
If it were Zhang Ling himself, he could only slowly refine the impurities with his core fire.
The Xuan Tortoise belonged to the demon race and had a regenerative body, so this damage was basically negligible. The Spirit Devouring Insects could perfectly assist in cultivation.
After devouring the impurities in the Celestial Astral Silver, the Spirit Devouring Insects' bodies would become very heavy, but these ferocious insects inherently had the supernatural power to devour any spiritual power, so they would regain their vitality in no time. Moreover, their individual strength would also increase slightly.
During this time, Zhang Ling also often used low-level spiritual herbs and ores to cultivate the Spirit Devouring Insects. They devoured everything, making them extremely ferocious. Although they had not yet grown their second pair of wings, their strength was already comparable to mature Earth Spirit Bees.
Moreover, the Spirit Devouring Insects seemed to prefer devouring these kinds of spiritual insects.
Zhang Ling's Earth Spirit Bees had long exceeded three hundred thousand, but they could only be used to deal with early- to mid-stage Golden Core cultivators at most. They were no longer of much help to his current strength.
Even if three hundred thousand Earth Spirit Bees besieged a Nascent Soul cultivator, they would be killed or injured in an instant, unable to exert any effect.
Although he felt some regret, he could only give up cultivating Earth Spirit Bees and use them as food for the Spirit Devouring Insects.
Although the Spirit Devouring Insects had become much more ferocious, they were not easy to control. Based on his divine sense strength, he could only control five or six thousand Spirit Devouring Insects at the same time. In fact, releasing them to fight against Nascent Soul cultivators would not have much effect. Instead, it would consume a lot of divine sense.
As for how to reproduce the Spirit Devouring Insects, Zhang Ling had not yet figured it out. Among the two hundred or so Spirit Devouring Insects he controlled, there was no queen, and they were all identical, seemingly without any distinction between male and female.
However, some insects are hermaphroditic, so he didn't know if the Spirit Devouring Insects were like this. As for that special insect egg, it still hadn't hatched. He once suspected it was a dead egg, but the vitality emanating from it was getting stronger and stronger, wondering what it would eventually hatch into.
Zhang Ling didn't expect these spiritual insects to exert any powerful effects, but their devouring ability alone could play a role in certain situations, so their cultivation value was still considerable.
Cultivating so peacefully, he and the Xuan Tortoise cultivated in this hidden mountain forest for several more months.
During this time, Zhang Ling focused his energy on cultivating the Earthly Fiend Earth Spirit supernatural power and several high-level spells. At the same time, he also cultivated many spiritual herbs needed for alchemy.
This day, Zhang Ling was sitting cross-legged in the quiet chamber, with a red-black pill furnace about ten feet in size floating in front of him. His hands flicked repeatedly, shooting out strands of bright flames, constantly burning the pill furnace.
This pill furnace was also a good magic treasure. Three air holes were opened on the furnace, and one could see several balls of different colored liquids burning inside, emitting various fragrances and pure spiritual power.
These were medicinal creams refined from spiritual herbs. When they reached a certain balance and constantly fused, they could form pills.
After entering the Nascent Soul stage, the power of his core fire had increased several times. This core fire was generated from the Nascent Soul and was called infant fire by cultivators. It was a pure Yang energy.
Whether it was the innate true fire of Foundation Establishment cultivators, the core fire of Core Formation cultivators, or the infant fire, they were not pure flames, but a pure spiritual power catalyzed by the body's essence, Qi, and spirit.
Using this method to refine pills was actually purer, and the pills refined were most suitable for oneself to take. However, it consumed a lot of spiritual power.
Therefore, the most common method of refining pills was to use earth fire, the demon fire of fire-attribute demon beasts, and some heaven and earth spiritual fires, which could last longer.
Of course, the spiritual power of Nascent Soul cultivators was vast. Even with his current early-stage Nascent Soul cultivation, he could continuously spit out infant fire for ten days without any problem.
In addition, he had many pills to assist him, so the duration could be even longer.
It would only inevitably deplete some vitality afterward, requiring several days of quiet cultivation to recover.
The art of alchemy actually had several branches. The most common was to use spiritual fire to refine pills, and some cultivators also used water-based methods to refine pills. The pills refined were gentler and contained fewer impurities. However, the steps of water-based pill refining were extremely cumbersome, and even alchemy grandmasters did not master many of them.
In addition, some materials were extremely delicate and could only be treated with corresponding spiritual energy.
At this moment, the main material used in refining this furnace of Purple Jade Pills, the Purple Vein Fruit, was quite delicate. It had to be handled with extreme care, and gentle spiritual power had to be used to slowly soften the Purple Vein Fruit until it turned into a liquid.
If it was directly refined with earth fire, the Purple Vein Fruit would be vaporized, wasting a lot of spiritual power inside.
"Rise!"
Zhang Ling suddenly shouted in a low voice, and a spiritual light hand seal struck the pill furnace. With a clear bang, the entire pill furnace trembled, and a purple light flashed from one of the air holes, and three purple pills flew out.
Two of them were as crystal clear as jade, emitting a rich medicinal fragrance. The other pill was purple-black, and although it also emitted a medicinal fragrance, it was shrouded in a layer of black spiritual energy.
Zhang Ling smiled wryly, put the two crystal clear purple pills into a jade bottle, and although this dark-colored pill was also formed, it was a waste pill and was not successfully refined. He threw it directly into a black jar in the storage bag.
Through continuous refining of Purple Jade Pills, the current pill formation rate has reached about 30%. In the past, these waste pills were of no use. But these waste pills can also be used to cultivate Spirit Devouring Insects.
Spirit Devouring Insects devour all kinds of spiritual power, and the pill toxins contained in the waste pills do not cause them any harm. After putting away the pills, Zhang Ling waved his hand and took out another batch of spiritual herbs, intending to continue refining pills.
But at this moment, his expression moved slightly, and he waved his hand again to put away the pill furnace and spiritual herbs, and walked directly out of the stone cave.
As soon as he reached the outside of the cave, a meowing sound entered his ears, and a beam of fire rushed out of the distant forest, it was the Twin-Tailed Cat.
This guy often went to the nearby mountains and forests to play during this time, and also hunted some demon beasts. Once, he even hunted a sixth-order Wind Splitting Bird and asked him for credit.
This time, he didn't know what demon beast he had brought back. Zhang Ling touched his forehead with some helplessness, and swept towards the direction of the Twin-Tailed Cat.
"Oh, it's a cultivator."
The Twin-Tailed Cat turned into a giant cat two feet in size, majestic like a giant tiger, and galloped over. The two tails behind him were wrapped around a disheveled figure.
The Twin-Tailed Cat flicked its two tails and threw the wrapped figure to the ground, meowing twice.
"Hey, why did you bring back a person, little thing?" Zhang Ling glanced at the cultivator on the ground and patted the Twin-Tailed Cat's head. The Twin-Tailed Cat raised its head proudly and meowed a few times, circling around the cultivator on the ground twice.
Zhang Ling smiled and ignored the Twin-Tailed Cat, and looked at the person on the ground.
This person was a male cultivator, quite handsome, but his face was pale, and he didn't look very old, he was a young man. He was wearing a dark blue robe, but it was mostly damaged, and it seemed that he had experienced a great battle.
There was also a long wound on his chest, and a piece of blood that had seeped out had stained his robe red.
"Where did you find him?"
Zhang Ling asked the Twin-Tailed Cat again, and he immediately knew after communicating with the Twin-Tailed Cat with his divine sense. It turned out that half an hour ago, the Twin-Tailed Cat was hunting a few low-level green-skinned toads nearby the creek.
He found a giant piece of ice in the river, and this person was sealed in the ice. The Twin-Tailed Cat became interested and directly sprayed demon fire to melt the ice, and then brought this person back.
Zhang Ling couldn't help but frown. This was the Demon Wind Mountain Range, although it was not the hinterland of the Demon Wind Mountain Range, it was tens of thousands of miles away from the human race area, and ordinary cultivators would not come here.
When his divine sense swept towards this person, he could sense that his aura was extremely chaotic and very weak, which was obviously a situation of being seriously injured. At the same time, he instantly judged this person's cultivation level, which was only about the early stage of Foundation Establishment.
"Hmph, come out."
Suddenly, Zhang Ling snorted coldly as if he had discovered something, and looked at the young cultivator with cold eyes. "Why, are you unwilling to come out? Then don't blame me for destroying this wisp of your soul."
He said these words inexplicably, and at the same time, his left arm shook slightly, and a cyan-black vine wrapped out and directly whipped towards the unconscious young man.
Seeing that the vine was about to hit the young man, a piece of jade pendant on his waist suddenly flashed a gray light and flew up all of a sudden, blocking the attack of the vine.
With a soft bang, the jade pendant was smashed into pieces by the vine, but a cloud of gray-green vortex emerged, and quickly shrank, turning into a vague human figure.
The figure was blurred, but his face was quite clear, and he looked like a middle-aged man with gray hair. This person didn't seem to expect that his parasitic magic weapon would be broken in an instant, and his face showed horror.
Zhang Ling stared at the phantom expressionlessly, flicked his finger and shot out a yellow light again, which transformed into a ten-foot-sized spiritual light hand and grabbed directly towards the phantom.
"Fellow Daoist, spare me!" The figure's face changed drastically and he begged for mercy. The spiritual light hand grabbed down without any politeness. His face showed a look of panic, and he quickly opened his mouth and spat out a green round bead the size of a thumb, which looked like a pill.
The green pill instantly released a dazzling green light, and a rich wood-attributed spiritual power radiated from it, immediately forming a semi-circular mask in front of him, seemingly trying to defend against it.
But the yellow light hand on the top of his head patted lightly and crushed the green light all of a sudden. At the same time, the green pill seemed to have been severely damaged, and a cracking sound was heard, and cracks appeared on it.
The figure quickly swallowed the green pill back into his mouth again, but his figure became more and more blurred, obviously suffering damage. He was pinched in the air by the yellow light hand without any resistance.
"You are Nascent Soul...Senior, spare me!"
