Chapter 172: Choice

In the northern part of Jianzhou, on a desolate mountain bordering Yue Kingdom and Yuanwu Kingdom, stood dozens of yellow-clothed people of various heights. Their clothes fluttered in the wind, and their ages were different. The older ones had white hair and wrinkles, having reached the age of knowing heaven's mandate, while the younger ones had delicate skin and tender lips, not yet having shed their childishness, but all were silent, standing in order.

At the front was an old man who was imposing without being angry. The old man stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the sky leisurely, lost in thought. Behind him were four men and one woman, several people with solemn expressions, among whom was the Senior Martial Brother Wang who had introduced Han Li to the sect, and at this moment, he also had a solemn expression.

Behind the five people were two rows of neatly standing yellow-clothed disciples. These people had different expressions, some were nervous and uneasy, some were indifferent and looking around, and some were smiling without speaking, not revealing their thoughts.

In the corner of the last row, a dark-faced, ordinary-looking young man kept his eyes lowered, always looking at his toes, not daring to look sideways at all, seemingly very shy.

But no one knew that this guy, who looked like a yellow-haired kid, was slandering in his heart, full of resentment.

This young man was none other than Han Li, and this group of yellow-clothed people were the disciples of the Profound Heaven Sect participating in the "Blood Forbidden Trial."

Han Li finally joined this journey to death, and it was after he had two Foundation Establishment Pills, which had to be said to be a ridiculous and helpless thing.

More than a month ago, after Han Li learned the method of taking the Foundation Establishment Pill from Wu Feng, he was hit hard.

It turned out that after taking the Foundation Establishment Pill, the person who wanted to establish Foundation had to be in seclusion for three months to exhaust the medicinal power before leaving the seclusion; otherwise, the medicinal power would dissipate, and the effect would be greatly reduced. Therefore, whether Foundation Establishment could succeed or not would only be known after a few months.

But waiting for such a long time was very bad for Han Li.

According to his original idea of getting these two Foundation Establishment Pills, he would take these two pills first to see if he could succeed in Foundation Establishment, and then decide whether to participate in the trial. If he could luckily succeed in Foundation Establishment, then he would definitely not go to such a dangerous place as the forbidden ground. After all, the survival rate of one-fourth was too scary.

If he failed to take it, then the forbidden ground trip was imperative. If one or two Foundation Establishment Pills didn't work, he would refine three or four, or even more. He believed that no matter how bad his aptitude was, he could enter the Foundation Establishment stage after taking enough Foundation Establishment Pills.

But the restriction of being in seclusion for three months after taking the pill disrupted Han Li's plan, putting him in an awkward situation where he couldn't have both fish and bear's paw.

Either take the Foundation Establishment Pill now and give up the forbidden ground trip completely; or put the Foundation Establishment Pill away temporarily and take it after the Blood Forbidden Trial. There would be no more beautiful things that could take care of both.

After thinking about it for half a month, Han Li felt that with his terrible aptitude, even if he took two Foundation Establishment Pills in a row, the hope of successful Foundation Establishment was still very slim, so the Blood Forbidden Trial could not be given up.

Actually, it wasn't that Han Li hadn't thought about waiting for the next five years to participate in the Blood Forbidden Trial. By then, even if he hadn't established Foundation, his Evergreen Technique would definitely have been practiced to the top layer, so his ability to protect himself would be much greater.

But just after this idea of Han Li's emerged, the upper echelon of the Profound Heaven Sect announced a major event that shocked the entire Yue Kingdom cultivation world, making his idea vanish into thin air.

The content was: the forbidden ground of the Blood Forbidden Trial would be temporarily closed for sixty years after five years. During this period, the seven major sects would jointly send people to supervise, and no one would be allowed to enter to collect herbs.

This kind of temporary sealing of forbidden grounds was not a strange thing, and the seven major sects would do it once every three or four hundred years.

Because the frequent opening of the forbidden ground would cause a large amount of spiritual energy within it to flow away, and the speed of production and growth of spiritual herbs would slow down. This temporary sealing measure would change the density of spiritual energy again, allowing it to return to a normal level.

However, even if the seven major sects took this measure, the spiritual herbs in the forbidden ground were still decreasing year by year, becoming more and more difficult to find, especially the finished spiritual herbs that met the refining requirements were even fewer.

According to the deductions of certain knowledgeable individuals among the seven great immortal sects, if one wishes to truly restore the normal quantity of spiritual medicines within the Forbidden Land, the sealing time must be extended to a full thousand years. Otherwise, this kind of temporary closure merely delays the exhaustion of the spiritual medicines in the Forbidden Land; after all, the origin and growth of spiritual medicines are not a matter of a day or two.

Although this truth, combined with the actual situation in the forbidden ground, made no one able to deny its correctness, the people in power of the seven major sects still couldn't make this decision.

The quantity of Foundation Establishment Pills was closely related to the rise and fall of their seven major sects.

If there was a shortage of these pills for fifty or sixty years, the seven major sects would only lose some skin and flesh, without hurting their muscles and bones. But if there were no Foundation Establishment Pills for hundreds or thousands of years, then not to mention the seven major sects, the entire Yue Kingdom cultivation world would face life and death.

After all, a place that could no longer allow cultivators to establish Foundation, could it still be called a cultivation world? I'm afraid that by then, all cultivation families and loose cultivators would leave Yue Kingdom and go elsewhere to seek survival. The seven major sects would be no exception.

Therefore, knowing that this frequent opening of the forbidden ground was a stupid act of killing the chicken to get the eggs, the people of the seven major sects still had to bite the bullet and do it.

They only hoped that before the spiritual herbs in the forbidden ground were truly extinct, they could find other places that produced spiritual herbs or find other ways out for the sect.

This also caused the old monsters of the Core Formation stage, and even the Nascent Soul stage, of the major sects to frequently go out in the last few hundred years, in order to search for other origins of spiritual herbs or find other ways out for the sect, and they must not let the sect's orthodoxy decline.

Han Li couldn't know these things so clearly. But after this news was announced, Han Li wouldn't consider the Blood Forbidden Trial five years later even if he was beaten to death.

Even if it was a dull person, they would understand that the opening of the forbidden ground five years later would definitely be extremely bloody. The major sects would send out all their elite disciples in order to make a final big profit before the sealing, making Han Li join such a trial, wasn't that looking for death!

Although after this news was announced, the difficulty of this forbidden ground herb-collecting trip would also increase, and the fighting would be more intense, but no matter what, it would definitely be much stronger than the next one.

As for the stupid thing of participating in the Blood Forbidden Trial fifty years later, Han Li hadn't even thought about it.

Missing the best age for Foundation Establishment, even if he barely entered the Foundation Establishment stage later, he definitely wouldn't be able to go far on the road of immortal cultivation, which was not the result Han Li wanted.

Han Li signed up for the herb-collecting group with this mentality. And the one responsible for the registration was actually that Senior Martial Brother Wang, which made Han Li very surprised and a bit regretful.

And Senior Martial Brother Wang was even more stunned when he saw Han Li.

On one hand, he was surprised that a newcomer like Han Li came to participate in the Blood Forbidden Trial; on the other hand, he was a bit incredulous about Han Li's rapid progress in cultivation. With Han Li's aptitude, being able to make such rapid progress in cultivation in such a short time, from the ninth layer to the eleventh layer, was too surprising.

If Han Li were some disciple with outstanding natural talent, it wouldn't be strange. It wasn't that there weren't disciples whose cultivation progress was faster than his. But Han Li's false spiritual root identity was tested by him personally, how could he cultivate so rapidly?

For someone with false spiritual roots, Han Li's ninth-layer cultivation technique when he first entered the sect was already surprisingly high.

Usually, it was because elders had instilled magic power, or often ate some spiritual herbs, plus diligent cultivation, to have such achievements. But now, Han Li with the eleventh-layer cultivation technique was standing in front of him alive, which made him surprised!

Senior Martial Brother Wang, since he had doubts in his heart, didn't stand on ceremony and pulled Han Li to the side to test his attributes again. As a result, the conclusion was the same as before, and no spiritual root mutation that he had guessed had occurred.

This made Senior Martial Brother Wang even more confused.

Net ===== CHAPTER 173 =====