Chapter 1198: Closed-Door Cultivation

In a secret chamber of the Mother-Son Peaks in the Cloud Dream Mountain Range, the surroundings were a sheet of white mist; it seemed the entire chamber was under a restrictive barrier.

In the center of the chamber, a person sat cross-legged with green light flickering all over their body. Surrounding them were five human-shaped skeletons, white as jade, also sitting cross-legged.

These skeletons were shrouded in a layer of faint, grayish-white demonic Qi, but each had their mouth slightly agape, with black, white, blue, yellow, and green flames flickering incessantly within.

The green figure sitting in the middle had both hands held together in front of their chest, and a ball of blinding purple flame appeared between their palms, flickering in and out of existence.

This was none other than Han Li, who had been in closed-door cultivation for who knows how many years.

Suddenly, a flash of silver light appeared on the wall, and a green figure emerged strangely from the restrictive barrier. With a flash of an afterimage, the person stood quietly to the side, motionless.

Half a day later, Han Li suddenly opened his mouth, and that ball of blinding purple flame transformed into a wisp of purple fire, which was instantly sucked into his mouth.

The five skeletons nearby, conversely, closed their mouths, and the flames within them vanished in a flash. Then, the grayish-white demonic Qi on their bodies rapidly dissipated, and the white bones actually turned into the same faint color as the flames.

At this moment, Han Li slowly opened his eyes, but his face was blank. Only after a good while did a look of clarity appear in his eyes.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze falling upon the green figure to the side, and his brows furrowed slightly.

The green figure was naturally the human-shaped puppet he had always left outside the cave dwelling to act on its own. For these years, aside from assimilating with the Second Nascent Soul that controlled the puppet every so often, Han Li had always let it take care of everything in the cave dwelling. Now that it had suddenly appeared here, there was naturally some major event that it could not decide on and required him to make the call personally.

Han Li felt somewhat strange; with the Second Nascent Soul's supernatural abilities, which were no less than those of a Great Cultivator, what could possibly be beyond its ability to decide? He immediately moved his divine sense, which now directly invaded the human-shaped puppet, and began to assimilate with the Second Nascent Soul's divine sense.

A full quarter of an hour later, a strange look appeared on Han Li's face. The human-shaped puppet, which had been motionless, raised its hand, took an object out of the storage pouch at its waist, and calmly handed it over.

Han Li took it without hesitation; it was actually half of a palm-sized, broken jade talisman!

After injecting a bit of spiritual power into it, dense, tiny blood-colored characters appeared on the surface of the jade talisman.

After Han Li only looked at it for a while, a contemplative expression appeared on his face.

"Fellow Daoist Tianlan, you've woken up too! Our closed-door cultivation time this time hasn't been short, has it?" He spoke in a low voice, though his words were slightly stiff from not having spoken for such a long time.

"It's only been a hundred and twenty or thirty years, two sixty-year cycles, not that long! Why, do you want to end your closed-door cultivation now? Your Cold Flame Concentric Demon is just reaching a critical moment; in just another ten years or so, you could truly successfully refine the five types of extreme cold flames into the five demons. Isn't it a pity to leave now?"

With a flash of spiritual light, a small tripod flew out from Han Li's sleeve. After circling once, it hovered in front of Han Li, and the figure of a young boy appeared on the tripod. This spirit, who now looked two or three years older than before, shook his head and spoke.

"It can't be called a pity; I can just come back and continue refining it later. But this Myriad-Mile Talisman brings news from the Chaotic Star Sea. I once made a deal with the Heavenly Star Sages, and now that woman Ling Ling Yuling is in trouble, I cannot just turn a blind eye." Han Li shook his head slightly.

"The Heavenly Star Sages? Are they that couple of late-stage cultivators from the Chaotic Star Sea? Back then, I used a secret technique to look at their complexions in the tripod; although their magic power was not low, their Qi and blood were not flourishing, and they looked like they didn't have much lifespan left. Even if they had been safe and sound all along, they would have likely passed away by now. Otherwise, with that couple sitting in command, what could possibly require them to ask you for help?" The young boy's eyes rolled as he spoke.

"From the news Ling Ling Yuling sent, there was indeed no mention of the Sages; it seems that couple is likely no longer in this world. However, this is also an opportunity. I am very interested in the Star Palace's Magneto-Divine Light. Back then, the Sages gave me several methods useful for advancing to the Spirit Transformation stage, which I studied in detail. Other methods are unreliable; only by mastering the Magneto-Divine Light is there any real use for advancing to Spirit Transformation. Going there this time is just the right chance to get my hands on the cultivation method." Han Li said slowly.

"I have never heard of a cultivation method like the Magneto-Divine Light in the Spirit Realm. It is likely an original creation of the cultivators of this realm. But Fellow Daoist, isn't it a bit too distracting to plan on cultivating this method? Be careful not to hinder your Great Dao." The young boy reminded him.

"I have my own plans. Before cultivating this Profound Magnetic Divine Light, I will first cultivate my magic power to the late-stage Great Perfection. I will use the Extreme Cold Flame method to break through the Spirit Transformation bottleneck once; if I succeed, that would be best. If it doesn't work, I will have no choice but to cultivate the Profound Magnetic Divine Light. Otherwise, there is no other method for me to advance to the Spirit Transformation stage," Han Li said solemnly.

"Since Fellow Daoist has said so, I have nothing to say. It is a pity that although I also know many methods for breaking through to Spirit Transformation, the spiritual energy here is too thin, and they are ineffective in this realm. By the way, how has Fellow Daoist's cultivation been these past hundred years? It seems your magic power has increased quite a bit." The young boy's gaze swept over Han Li's body and asked indifferently.

"Although my magic power has improved, I am still far from late-stage perfection! It will take at least fifty or sixty years of hard work. And that is the result of constantly swallowing various spirit pills; if I relied solely on sitting in meditation and hard cultivation, I'm afraid it would take another hundred years to reach this point." Han Li sighed.

At this moment, he thought of the Crimson Cloud Pills he had refined in that mysterious medicine garden space back then. If he could still have a sufficient quantity of these spirit pills, it would be enough to compress his cultivation time by several times.

It was a pity that a certain type of spirit herb for refining the Crimson Cloud Pills had been exhausted, and it was impossible to transplant this spirit herb out of the space to force its growth. The other pills he was taking now had very limited auxiliary effects for his current realm, and he could not be satisfied with them.

However, over these years, he had not wasted the green liquid in the mysterious small bottle. On the basis of satisfying his pill refining needs, the remaining spirit liquid had all been used by him to cleanse his spirit eyes and force-mature his spirit insects.

But the spirit eye cleansing had stopped after continuing for more than twenty years.

Because after countless cleansings, the Bright Clarity Spirit Water finally had no effect whatsoever, and continuing would just be a waste of the green liquid.

But compared to before, Han Li's spirit eyes were now worlds apart.

After infusing his eyes with powerful spiritual power, not only could he pierce through clouds and fog, but when fully exerted, he could see things a thousand feet away as clearly as if they were right in front of him without using his divine sense. In this way, if he were in some restrictive barrier that blocked divine sense, this supernatural ability would be extremely practical.

As for the Six-Winged Frost Centipede, after a hundred years of catalysis, it had finally evolved a second pair of wings, and its supernatural ability had evolved from around a Rank 5 demonic beast to the level of a Rank 7 perfection, and it could now simultaneously drive the power of wind and snow. When all twelve centipedes exerted this together, it was enough to instantly turn ten or so miles of land into a glacier.

The batch of Gold-Devouring Beetles that Han Li had specially cultivated showed no signs of being able to advance yet. Although he held the cultivation method borrowed from the Heavenly Orchid Saintess to use the Five Elements Spiritual Qi for the final step of force-maturing, it was clearly not yet at the level where this method could be used, and it seemed these spirit insects would need to be cultivated for who knows how many more years.

As for the Earth Armored Dragon that was good at finding heavenly treasures obtained from the Great Jin, under the condition of having a large number of demonic cores to swallow, it was also cultivating on its own in the cave dwelling with great peace of mind. However, looking at its cultivation, it was still a long way from breaking through to Rank 8 and taking human form.

In terms of cultivation methods, while Han Li was cultivating the Azure Essence Sword Art, he was also concurrently cultivating the Great Expansion Art.

Whether it was due to the change in his spiritual root aptitude or because he truly had great talent in divine sense cultivation, he had actually cultivated the Great Expansion Art to the final layer in one go, and it seemed even smoother than the cultivation of the previous layers.

In this way, his divine sense was a full double stronger than before. If he could also complete the cultivation of the final layer, the strength of his divine sense would not be much weaker than that of a Spirit Transformation cultivator.

Besides his divine sense, Han Li's current body was also unimaginably powerful.

To cooperate with the cultivation of the Gale Nine Transformations, he had cultivated the third layer of the Bright King Art. Although it didn't take much time, the difficulty of the cultivation and the intensity of the pain made Han Li almost give up halfway. No wonder that even in the Spirit Realm, few people cultivated it to the third layer or above.

But after the third layer of this cultivation method reached perfection, the power of his body after marrow-cleansing was far beyond Han Li's expectations.

He could now withstand ordinary magic treasure attacks with his physical body alone without exerting protective spiritual light and remain unscathed.

As for the cultivation of the Gale Nine Transformations, it was extremely simple; he only spent a mere year or so to fully comprehend it and could exert it at will.

Han Li had also refined several treasures during his closed-door cultivation.

The Wood-Life Bead, which could exert the supernatural ability of the Indestructible Body, was naturally the first to be refined. The most important auxiliary materials needed for this bead were actually the "Soul-Nourishing Wood" and the "Spirit-Verifying Tree" among the three great spirit woods.

For others, these were things that were extremely difficult to find in the mortal world, but for Han Li, they were not a problem at all.

In this way, he easily refined the Wood-Life Bead and refined it into his body.

Of course, besides this bead, during his closed-door cultivation, he also took the opportunity to refine a pair of poison hooks from the Two-Tailed Human-Faced Scorpion and the Fire Dragon Pillars obtained from Mount Mount Kunwu into two sets of magic treasures with decent power.

Han Li silently thought over the gains of this closed-door cultivation in his heart. Suddenly, his sleeve shook, and a pitch-black jade bottle was thrown out, while he chanted incantations.

Immediately, the bodies of the five skeletons nearby trembled, and grayish-white demonic Qi suddenly emerged, transforming into five ghost heads the size of cartwheels, spitting demonic fire, looking exceptionally ferocious.

"Go!" Han Li raised his hand and cast a spell.

The few ghost heads spun around, rapidly shrinking, and finally became the size of fists, and were sucked into the pitch-black jade bottle by a ray of rosy light it spat out.

Han Li put away the jade bottle, his body swayed, and he actually stood up.

He flicked his long sleeve toward the white light of the stone chamber, and immediately after the spiritual light flickered, the restrictive barrier of the stone chamber rapidly collapsed and vanished, revealing the stone door at the entrance.

Han Li walked over with an expressionless face, while the human-shaped puppet flashed with silver light in the secret chamber and vanished into thin air.

【End of Chapter】