Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-282

Chapter 282: Place of Inheritance (2)

The earth suddenly sundered apart and from the huge cracks, Lu Ping could see the space void filled with twisted lights. A day had passed since he entered the broken space; it had become increasingly unstable, space rifts were emerging more frequently than ever, and signs of a spatial collapse had begun.

Lu Ping had been standing in the area that had just split off from the broken space. If not for his divine revelation alerting him in advance, he would’ve been shredded by the space rifts and fallen into the void with the debris.

The same couldn’t be said of the Auspicious Cloud—the space rift caught it at the last moment, causing it to shatter into four pieces, then swallowed up by the void.

Lu Ping didn’t have time to mourn the loss of his flying mystic instrument; he meticulously spread out his divine revelation and noticed the space rifts spread across the entire area. In desperation, he was forced to take a detour, spending two extra hours to reach the second mountain.

This mountain’s protective array formation extended all the way to the mountain base and stopped right before a small hall. Entering the hall, Lu Ping immediately felt a sense of restriction on his divine revelation and the information he received became distorted.

Lu Ping knew this was part of the test, so he went on to read the scroll on the table. This was the legacy of a Master Alchemist, and the first test was spirit herb identification. Within fifteen minutes, he had to identify two-thirds of the spirit herbs without using his divine sense or divine revelation.

Naturally, the reward for passing the test would be the spirit herbs. Lu Ping couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed. He was hoping the reward would be something else like a pellet recipe, cauldron, or even a spirit fire.

As he put down the scroll, more than seven hundred pieces of well-preserved spirit herbs suddenly appeared on the table. These were the ones he was tasked to identify. But there were countless spirit herbs in the cultivation world, some so exotic even Grandmaster Alchemists had never heard of. No alchemist would dare to claim they could identify all of the spirit herbs.

This test may seem easy, but it was in fact, extremely difficult.

Each time he identified the name and year of a spirit herb, the seal holding it would be automatically lifted, so Lu Ping could keep them as his reward.

“Golden Tomb Flower, 500-year spirit herb… Flying Frost Leaf, 500-year spirit herb… This is, is it a Luo Jia Grass? A 1000-year spirit herb…”

Lu Ping moved from one spirit herb to another. Gradually, he realized that more than half of the spirit herbs were 500-year spirit herbs, another hundred were 1,000-year spirit herbs, a few 100-year spirit herbs, and three 3,000-year spirit herbs.

Sadly, Lu Ping could only identify just one of the three 3,000-year spirit herbs, he didn’t know what the other two were.

By the end of the test, he’d barely identified two-thirds of the more than seven hundred pieces of spirit herbs. The remaining one-third were mostly 1,000-year spirit herbs, there were even five of them that neared the 3,000-year range. Lu Ping mourned deeply in his heart.

Suddenly, to Lu Ping’s astonishment, the seals on the remaining spirit herbs were also lifted. The table surface turned smooth as a mirror and a comprehensive list of the spirit herbs appeared. Most of the spirit herbs shown were 1,000-year spirit herbs, and many of them were exotic spirit herbs that he’d never even heard of.

Lu Ping was surprised and overjoyed. Since he’d been practicing alchemy on his own and had never received any proper teaching, his knowledge in spirit herbs had always been a weak point. This was an important accumulation for his alchemy improvement!

He hurriedly stored the spirit herbs, and the restriction on his divine revelation suddenly lifted. A small teleportation array appeared behind the table, which would lead him to the next test. However, Lu Ping resisted the temptation and left the hall to make his way to the third mountain.

This time, he didn’t encounter anything on his way.

When he reached the foot of the third mountain, two people suddenly sneaked out from the shadows and attacked him. The attackers were both in the Late Blood Condensation Realm, one of them wielded a pestle mystic instrument and the other a fan mystic instrument.

Although they were in the same cultivation layer as him, and had the element of surprise, Lu Ping never saw them as a threat. He merely put up his aegis energy.

The one with the pestle attacked the aegis energy, but not only did he fail to break through, the resulting backlash actually pushed him back!

The second attacker waved his fan mystic instrument to cast a burst of fire, which was quickly extinguished upon touching the aegis energy!

Only then did Lu Ping see clearly that the two attackers were not people, but puppets!

After the two puppets failed to ambush him, they retreated to the side of a cave with their hands behind their back, where they stood motionless.

Lu Ping looked at these two puppets with some surprise—could they be the alchemical puppets often used among alchemists?

Alchemy was a complex and tedious process, and steps like choosing spirit herbs and controlling the fire setting could get very tiring and distracting. Hence, some alchemists would often cultivate trainees to help them out with less important tasks. Most alchemists started their alchemy journey in this way, as trainee alchemists.

However, there were also alchemists who preferred to work alone, unwilling to have anyone around them. As a result, alchemical puppets were created to replace the trainee alchemists. But they were notably difficult to make, and thus, extremely rare.

This cave was obviously an alchemy room, but the cauldron was missing and no medicinal pellets and spirit herbs were in the cabinet. A single futon and a jade scroll were the only items he could find.

Lu Ping read the jade scroll, and as he’d guessed, it was for the battle pellet. Then, he tore the futon as instructed to reveal dozens of spirit herbs and a jade box inside.

However, he didn’t use the spirit herbs to concoct another battle pellet. Instead, he took out the one he previously concocted for the Alchemy Conference.

Then, he broke the seal on the jade box and opened it—a green pellet flew out of the box and expanded into a vine net. The vine net restrained him from above, tightening its hold as if to strangle him alive!

Keeping calm, Lu Ping cast his battle pellet and a silver-golden light barrier raised up to protect him. The vine net wrapped around the light barrier but couldn’t break it at all. Instead, the light barrier expanded and shattered the vine net.

Lu Ping smiled and put away the spirit herbs. Then, he used his divine revelation to link up with the puppets, added two drops of his blood into the puppets’ eyes, then passed them dozens of mid-grade spirit stones. The puppets swallowed the spirit stones and their stiff limbs suddenly became flexible!

Lu Ping commanded the puppets to warm up their bodies while he inspected the pestle and fan mystic instruments.

The pestle was a high-grade mystic instrument, able to stimulate the medicinal efficacies of spirit herbs to a certain degree. After a brief glance, he stored it away. He then took out his pestle mystic treasure and gave it to the puppet as a replacement.

For a long time, he had been using this pestle mystic treasure as a weapon instead of for alchemy. But now that he had the Golden Scale Sword and his nascent Primordial Stars, he could finally put the pestle mystic treasure to its proper use.

The fire fan was a top-grade mystic instrument, mainly used to seal various fires inside. The fires could be unleashed at will, their intensity controlled by the fanning speed.

Lu Ping examined the fire fan, which had a mid-grade fire sealed inside it. He proceeded to seal the Scarlet Ibis Fire inside the fan, and other fires that he’d gathered in the past. He left out only the Black Prison Poison Fire as it would be a waste to seal inside the fan!

After sealing five fires inside, the fire fan gradually turned fiery-red in color. Lu Ping refined the fan and nurtured it with his arcane energy to strengthen it even further. However, the fire fan ultimately didn’t fit with his cultivation method, so he returned it to the puppet.

Then Lu Ping stored the two puppets away and left the cave without looking back.

By the time he reached the fourth mountain, his shirt was cut in several places, and his golden inner armor was damaged, with multiple wounds scabbing over on his body. If not for his stronger-than-average physical body, his injuries would be much more severe.

As it happened, Lu Ping had encountered another spatial collapse on the way here. A day and a half had already passed, and the broken space had become increasingly unstable.

The fourth mountain’s first test location was surrounded by a light dome of an array formation. After failing to find a way to get through, and seeing that time was running out, Lu Ping decided to force his way in.

He cast up his spiritual sword lights with the [True Origin One Essence Sword Art]. They merged into a massive light sword and heavily cleaved the light dome. With a shudder, it finally broke open!

A jade scroll flew out and Lu Ping caught it in his hand, but after he entered the test location, he only saw a road leading to the top of the mountain.

Wait, what? That’s it? So, breaking the light dome was the test? Wasn’t that too easy?

Lu Ping was disappointed that the reward was just a jade scroll. However, when he looked into the scroll, a satisfied smile broke out on his face!