Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-289

Chapter 289: Breakthrough (1)

Lu Ping handed over a bunch of spirit stones to Wu Yan to extend the lease on the cave-dwelling for another year. Meanwhile, Hong Ying carried the large number of spirit herbs he acquired in Qian Yuan City, and escorted Yue Jiang-Rui back to the islands at Fallen Rift. Chilian Ying, who had also advanced to the Core Forging Realm also followed them back.

Most cultivators failed to break through to the Core Forging Realm mainly due to their inadequate cultivation foundation. Eventually, cultivators learned to moderate the consolidation of their foundation before attempting the breakthrough. In this aspect, Lu Ping was much more meticulous and careful, even slowing down his cultivation pace multiple times to consolidate his foundation to the limit.

Thanks to the free laborer Yue Jiang-Rui, Lu Ping didn’t have to concoct medicinal pellets on his own anymore, allowing him more time to prepare for the breakthrough. His cultivation was slowly but steadily progressing thanks to the Three Jade Pellets.

However, Yue Jiang-Rui wasn’t tasked with concocting Essence Extension Pellets, Vein Reinforcement Pellets, and Blood Extraction Pellets. Since Lu Ping had a higher success rate, his spirit herbs wastage was much lower.

Without Chu Ting’s high-grade cauldron at hand, Lu Ping managed to concoct five to six pellets per cauldron. He owed this success to his recent alchemy breakthrough, the Azure Spirit Fire, and the [Spirit Explosion Technique] he’d recently learned.

If he were to use the Amethyst Bee Royal Jelly, he could even bring his success rate up to seventy percent, similar to the Northern League’s alchemical genius, Zhou Chuang.

Although these three types of pellets were helpful to one’s consolidation, only the first three pellets of each type were considered efficient and effective. After consuming the first three, the body would develop an immunity against the pellet, removing its efficacy.

Lu Ping consumed three Vein Reinforcement Pellets, then three Essence Extension Pellets. He could clearly feel his blood veins becoming tougher, and his arcane energy becoming denser. This simply meant his body had more room to contain even more arcane energy!

Hence, Lu Ping spent the next half year in closed-door cultivation and raised his arcane energy to the limit. At the end of this period, he was overjoyed to find that his arcane energy had increased by at least a third!

Now, Lu Ping could cast the Primordial Stars more skillfully and with ease. But this was only temporary—upon completing the nascent weapon set, they would require even more arcane energy to wield. Even so, his prowess had made a massive leap in improvement.

After that, Lu Ping consumed three Blood Extraction Pellets in a row. Once again, his foundation bloodline showcased its weirdness.

The Blood Extraction Pellet extracts and purifies a cultivator’s essence. However, the pellets seemed to have no effect, as if his bloodline was already at its purest and there was nothing more to improve.

Hence, his body only absorbed the spiritual energy in the pellets, and whatever medicinal efficacy remained was wasted.

Lu Ping was puzzled but didn’t bother to think too deeply about it. He lifted his hand and took out a jade bottle from the interspatial ring.

The bottle contained three purplish pellets—these were the Seven Step Striped Pellets that the Li Clan requested from him.

Back then, because of Chu Ting’s arrival, the Li Clan had yet to trust Lu Ping. Thus, they split the spirit herbs between the two and requested that Lu Ping concoct one Seven Step Striped Pellet for Li Xiu-Zhu. After producing a total of four pellets out of the two cauldrons of spirit herbs, he handed one to the Li Clan and gladly kept the remaining three for himself.

Furthermore, because Lu Ping took the Reverie Pellets before, the experience of being an Enlightened Master was still vivid in his mind, which only heightened his desire to break through.

After Lu Ping consumed the three Seven Step Striped Pellets and absorbed their medicinal efficacies, a powerful force awoke within him and started circulating in his body. Then, the nine Condensed Blood Beads in his heartspace began to rotate at a faster rate!

With every rotation, a layer of blood essence was separated from the Condensed Blood Beads and formed into a golden drop of water. This was his true energy!

The Condensed Blood Beads rotated at an increasingly faster speed, and eventually, they were unable to sustain the formation of his true energy anymore. At this time, a sense of hunger suddenly emerged in Lu Ping’s foundation bloodline again.

The time had come!

In the Blood Condensation Realm cultivation, the foundation bloodline must consume the spiritual energy of other bloodlines in the cultivator’s body, as well as absorb external bloodlines of the same kind to strengthen itself.

Right now, Lu Ping had reached the last stage of the Blood Condensation Realm; his foundation bloodline had to absorb the last external bloodline to finally achieve his Golden Core.

Lu Ping took out a jade bottle containing the ten Core Division Pellets made from Enlightened Master Jin Li’s Golden Core.

The Core Division Pellet was also a half-step Core Forging Realm pellet, but Lu Ping’s alchemy wasn’t strong enough to concoct them without wasting energy. The pellets were actually concocted by Grandmaster Alchemist Yan Wu-Jiu.

After entrusting Luan Yu to Lu Ping, Yan Wu-Jiu taught Lu Qin a whole set of cultivation techniques. He deliberately stayed in Lu Ping’s cave dwelling for several days, as if waiting for Lu Ping to do something.

Lu Ping naturally wouldn’t let this chance slip and he quickly asked the Grandmaster Alchemist to guide him in his alchemy. He also requested Yan Wu-Jiu to help him concoct the Core Division Pellets.

This was also Lu Ping’s first time seeing the Grandmaster Alchemists in action.

Yan Wu-Jiu casually took out a top-grade cauldron and an Earth-class high-grade wonder fire, the Nine Arched Mystic Fire. Throughout the entire process, his movements were offhand and relaxed, as if he was merely taking a stroll in the park.

In just a few moments, the alchemy was completed, and ten Core Division Pellets were successfully concocted. The spectating Lu Ping and Yue Jiang-Rui were left dumbfounded and shocked!

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There was nothing to compare between him and them. Lu Ping felt the only thing that could match up to the Grandmaster Alchemist was his spirit purification technique.

While the two were still preoccupied from Yan Wu-Jiu’s amazing alchemy, Yan Wu-Jiu gave a small smile and quietly left the cave-dwelling. When they came back from their senses, they realized that Yan Wu-Jiu had already left. Only the jade bottle containing the ten Core Division Pellets remained.

Lu Ping had requested for Yan Wu-Jiu’s aid because only a Grandmaster Alchemist could fully preserve a Golden Core’s essence. For some reason, Lu Ping instinctively knew that the more complete the absorbed bloodline, the better his cultivation would fare.

For this same reason, Lu Ping absorbed an entire Condensed Blood Bead during his breakthrough from Early to Mid, and Mid to Late Blood Condensation Realm. Now, he was about to absorb an entire Golden Core for his breakthrough from Late Blood Condensation Realm to Core Forging Realm.

Half a year had passed since he consumed the Seven Step Striped Pellets. The Condensed Blood Beads had already been fully extracted into 1,296 drops of true energy. At this point, there was really nothing much left in him, so he knew it was time to consume the Core Division Pellets.

As the partial bloodline and true energy in each Core Division Pellet entered his body, his foundation bloodline quickly absorbed and refined both. Lu Ping didn’t notice that an increasingly oppressive aura had begun to emanate from him.

After taking all ten Core Division Pellets, the true energy from the pellets flowed into his heartspace. The absorbed true energy didn’t form new drops but fused with the existing 1,296 drops of golden true energy. The golden drops grew larger and brighter, illuminating the heartspace with their golden lights.

At this time, Lu Ping heard a loud rumble inside his body, as if an ancient beast had awakened from its slumber, and his entire being was taken over by this wholly new sensation.

While the foundation bloodline awakened its spirituality, his heartspace expanded alongside the fusion of the true energy droplets. As they fused, they increased in size and strength, and eventually, there were only nine huge droplets left.

The twelve Primordial Stars in Lu Ping’s heartspace that were slowly rotating suddenly sped up, a powerful force of attraction sucked his body’s spiritual energy into the heartspace, while the nine true energy droplets began gathering towards its center.

In the cave-dwelling, outside of the cultivation room, Wu Yan didn’t dare to move an inch. Lu Ping’s oppressing aura pressed onto him, the pressure not only coming from Lu Ping’s divine revelation, but from an inexplicable force oddly similar to the bloodline suppression that naturally subdued him.

Suddenly, a powerful force radiated outwards from the room, and Wu Yan’s jaw dropped upon sensing a huge spiritual energy vortex forming above the cave-dwelling.