Martial World (Web Novel)
chapter-870

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Several months had passed since Lin Ming and Situ Yaoyue’s cataclysmic battle. Duanmu Qun left his sound transmission mark at the Forsaken God Clan and left. As for Yang Yun, Li Yifeng, the Holy Land Holy Sons, Princes, High Successors, and other such characters, all of them had left one after the other.

However, Lin Ming’s momentum was simply too great. When one great influence left, a smaller one would come again. Even though Lin Ming had already declined to receive visitors for a long time, there were still many representatives of smaller influences entering and leaving the dimensional realm. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t see Lin Ming; they never had this hope to begin with. It was enough for them to see someone from the Forsaken God Clan.

In any case, they did not need to personally hand over gifts to Lin Ming. They only needed to pass them through the Forsaken God Clan. According to the customs of the Sky Spill Continent, all gifts would be recorded in the register. While no one expected to form good relations with Lin Ming like this, they only wanted to express their friendly attitude.

After several months, although the gifts received from those small influences were rather small individually, there were just far too many. With every small influence sending 8000-10,000 spirit essence stones, several hundred of these gifts added up to two or three million spirit essence stones. Shibai sold or exchanged all of these gifts for more heavenly materials. Then, this formed a massive amount of medicinal herbs for Lin Ming.

As Shibai thought that the total value of all these materials was 16-17 million spirit essence stones, he was left speechless. Just what kind of physique did Lin Ming have? He was simply the same as a bottomless pit. With so many resources, it was enough to raise a martial artist all the way to the Divine Sea realm. Of course, this was all provided that they had sufficient talent.

Even so, all this was just for Lin Ming to attack the second stage of Life Destruction?

Shibai didn’t know that Lin Ming was opening the Gate of Pain; he only thought he was trying to cross another stage of Life Destruction. In his opinion, since Lin Ming had consumed resources to break through into the first stage of Life Destruction, he would have to consume an equal or greater amount of resources for future breakthroughs.

In the seclusion chamber, the Cosmic Melting Furnace was spinning around with the Burning Star Flame raging around it. Lin Ming casually threw a medicinal herb into it. A brief moment later, this herb was melted by the fires into a viridian bubble that was wrapped by true essence and slowly flew out.

With a pinch of his hand, a streak of red fire shot out and the green liquid evaporated, leaving behind a faint wisp of plant essence that had been refined by Lin Ming.

Success. This was the 920th ingredient.

Lin Ming let out a light sigh, not bothering to wipe the sweat off of his forehead. He used a million year wood spirit jade bottle to slowly store away this essence energy.

He was currently concocting a special medicine named the Myriad Spirit Pill. One had to withdraw the plant essence from thousands of medicinal herbs, fuse them together and then refine it multiple times, finally producing a Myriad Spirit Pill!

A normal alchemist would never choose to create such a pill. This was because the refining process was extremely tedious and cumbersome, and the consumption of soul force was also immense! Not just that, but it required a massive amount of wood spirit jade. Wood spirit jade was no less valuable than spiritual plants. Thus, there was simply too much unnecessary cost and waste involved in refining a Myriad Spirit Pill.

However, Lin Ming’s current situation was special. With such a massive pile of medicine herbs in front of him, this was the best time for him to refine the Myriad Spirit Pill. As for the massive amount of wood spirit jade required, he simply didn’t need to worry about that. The various influences had sent him so much wood spirit jade that it had piled into a little hill, and there were even more treasures that were carved from wood spirit jade.

Ho – -!

Another medicinal herb was melted by Lin Ming into a green bubble. This green bubble was carefully zapped by a lick of fire before turning into a wisp of plant essence.

This process required a great deal of care and concentration. The slightest fluctuation of soul force could cause the medicinal herb to be scorched into ash.

There was already a great deal of herb ash at Lin Ming’s feet. These were from the medicinal herbs he had used to practice. Even a top alchemist master could easily make a mistake; alchemy had a very high demand on one’s soul force.

Lin Ming’s alchemy technique certainly couldn’t be considered at the top; there just hadn’t been enough time since he had begun learning alchemy. But, Lin Ming had inherited the memories of that Divine Realm alchemist, including all of his attainments and experiences. All of these were things that could not be taught. After Lin Ming had inherited these memories, he was able to integrate them within himself, making his progress in alchemy surpassingly quick.

And the most important factor was that Lin Ming’s understandings into the Concepts and Laws of Fire were top notch, as was his control of the power of fire. With the Burning Star Flame at his command, he could twist the flame into whatever shape he wanted, or even divide it several times. This was something that a normal alchemist would find impossible difficult to do.

“The next one!”

With the support from the Gate of Healing, Lin Ming’s ability to sustain his true essence was freakishly abnormal. After such a long time of expending true essence, he still didn’t show any signs of running out of true essence. Instead, it was his soul force that began to lag behind.

The Gate of Healing could only restore physical strength and true essence, also increasing the rate at which someone recovered. But as for the consumption of soul force, it simply couldn’t do anything at all.

Chi!

A medicinal herb worth several thousand spirit essence stones turned to ash in Lin Ming’s palm.

“My soul force has reached its limit; it will be hard to continue.” Lin Ming did not stop because of this failure. He continued to refine for some time, but eventually the success rate became far too low. Then, Lin Ming finally stopped refining the medicinal herbs. He stoppered the wood spirit jade bottle and temporarily ended his creation of the Myriad Spirit Pill, instead taking out the lowest level medicinal herbs from his spatial ring and starting to practice with them.

In a situation where he had seriously overdrawn his soul force, Lin Ming nearly failed every time he tried to refine a pill. Piles of ashes grew on the ground. Lin Ming felt a splitting headache and then his vision suddenly went dark as he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Alchemy was a very good tempering technique for one’s mental strength and soul force. Every time one overdrew their divine soul, after recovering, their divine soul would be more formidable than before. This was the reason that most martial artists chose to learn a secondary skill as an occupation.

As Lin Ming was sleeping, although he was unconscious, the ‘Overbearing Soul Tactic’ was still running of its own accord, subtly revitalizing Lin Ming’s soul.

He quickly entered into a deep sleep and rested like this for several days.

After an unknown period of time, Lin Ming awoke from his slumber, feeling spirited and well rested. His mindset was extremely clear and energetic. He took out the wood spirit jade bottle without pause and began to refine medicinal herbs again. After he exhausted his soul force, he fell asleep once again.

This process continued again and again. Like this, over half a year passed.

Jin after jin of superior wood spirit jade had its essence refined out and then combined with the plant essence of the 1000-2000 medicinal herbs, fusing together as one before being placed in the wood spirit jade bottle. At this time, the Myriad Spirit Pill was 80% complete.

Lin Ming’s soul force had also made considerable progress in this past half year. At the start he was only able to perform alchemy for three days before sleeping, but now he was able to last for five days. After crossing Life Destruction, the potential of his soul had been completely dug out and exposed, and it was only continuing to increase.

Although soul force could not directly influence a martial artist’s strength, it was actually one of the main limiting factors of what realm a martial artist would reach. If one didn’t have a powerful soul force then they wouldn’t be able to control too much true essence. If a Revolving Core powerhouse’s soul force was combined with the body of a Divine Sea master, their body would probably burst apart in an uncontrollable explosion of energy.

During this process of using up massive amounts of true essence while continuously restoring it, Lin Ming was rapidly approaching the second stage of Life Destruction. This was also reasonable. Lin Ming’s foundation was just far too stable, making it so that he reached the peak first stage Life Destruction as soon as he made his breakthrough. At that time, he had only been a step away from the second stage of Life Destruction.

Crossing from the first to the second stage of Life Destruction was much easier than opening the Gate of Pain. This was because where he had once been limited to disintegrating his body through exploding his dantian, Lin Ming could now store energy throughout his body, detonating it everywhere in order to destroy himself. It would not be as difficult as breaking into the first stage of Life Destruction, thus Lin Ming was not worried at all.

Several more months passed. Lin Ming had already closed up for an entire year!

The Forsaken God Clan had finally calmed down. As for Situ Yaoyue, per the original agreement she had been housed in the Realmheart Great Hall, unable to take even half a step out.

This appeared as if it were to prevent Situ Yaoyue from escaping. However, Situ Yaoyue was only a Life Destruction martial artist. There was simply nothing she could do against the layers upon layers of array formations that covered the Forsaken God Clan.

No, this was mainly to protect Situ Yaoyue. If she were to somehow die here within the Forsaken God Clan, then the consequences would be disastrous.

Although the Realmheart Great Hall was known as the cornerstone of this world that even the highest under the heavens couldn’t break, the Asura Divine Kingdom still sent a Divine Sea powerhouse to constantly protect Situ Yaoyue.

Since this guardian had to stay in the same room as Situ Yaoyue and accompany her at all times, it was best for them to be a woman. Also, they had to be absolutely trustworthy, which meant that they would need to be a direct descendant of the Situ Family Clan. Beside the malicious and sinister Situ Yaoxi, who would likely get into all sorts of trouble at the Forsaken God Clan, the only other choice was Situ Haotian’s younger cousin – Situ Qingzhao.

Situ Qingzhao was 2000 years old, only half the age of Situ Yaoxi. In addition, due to her nature of loving beauty, she had been willing to consume some of her cultivation to maintain her youthful appearance, thus she looked as if she were Situ Yaoyue’s big sister.

“Yaoyue, you are being too harsh on yourself. If you continue to overdraw your energy you will damage your soul and possibly leave hidden wounds in your spiritual sea.” Situ Qingzhao couldn’t help but say as she watched her niece bitterly cultivate with dedication. It could even be called self-torture.

“Aunty Qingzhao, you don’t have to try persuading me. Even if there are some hidden wounds left over, I still have ways of eliminating them after I reach the Divine Sea. Lin Lanjian is the shame of my life and I must return this loss to him. He is indeed a peerless genius. Now that I was defeated by him, he has surpassed me and it is no longer possible for me to catch up to him, all that will happen will be me falling further and further behind. The only chance I have is to break into the Divine Sea! As soon as I break into the Divine Sea I must challenge him again! That is my final chance as well as my only chance!”

Although Situ Yaoyue was arrogant, she wasn’t so delusional as to think she could stand shoulder to shoulder against Lin Ming in the future. But this life or death struggle was her life’s greatest disgrace; she had no choice but to avenge her loss.

She had been publicly pounded into the ground like a stake in front of the world’s heroes, leaving an eternally unforgettable shame in her heart. Then Divine Emperor Haotian had stepped forwards for her sake, but even he had been suppressed by Old Man Good Fortune. The Asura Divine Kingdom had been forced to pay out a price of over 10 million spirit essence stones for her, making it so that these events would haunt her forever.

If she wanted to defeat Lin Ming, she only had a single chance. And that was to break through to the Divine Sea while Lin Ming was still at Life Destruction!

Old Man Good Fortune had given Lin Ming three years of time. This was because he predicted that Lin Ming would have the qualifications to tussle with or at least preserve his life against a weak Divine Sea Supreme Elder at that time.

That meant that her time left remaining… wasn’t much at all!

As Situ Yaoyue was bitterly cultivating, in the seclusion chamber, Lin Ming’s refinement of the Myriad Spirit Pill had reached its final stage!

Refining the Myriad Spirit Pill was a very laborious task with many steps, and required a massive amount of medicinal herbs. Even though Lin Ming had an extremely high regenerative ability, it still required a full year for him to complete it.

Of course, his harvests for this past year had been tremendous. After overdrawing his energy again and again and again, Lin Ming was ready to break through to the second stage of Life Destruction at any moment. At the same time, he had built a solid foundation of his soul force for when he needed to impact the Divine Sea in the future.

Lin Ming carefully took the small wood spirit jade bottle that contained the plant essence of thousands of medicinal herbs, and then gently tossed it into the Cosmic Melting Furnace…