Chapter 384

Han Li gently picked up a pill with two fingers, held it before his eyes, and stared at it intently for a moment, a trace of a smile appearing on his face. Net

At last, this desperate gamble was not in vain. With these few "Dust-Descending Pills," the probability of Qu Hun and himself reaching Core Formation should increase by another fraction.

After packing the pills away again, Han Li carefully placed the bottle back into his storage pouch.

Now, Han Li needed to find a place that had spiritual energy and was also safe, to hurry and form his Core.

Whether it was Qu Hun or himself, as long as one of them could enter the Core Formation stage, they would have a chance to fight back against the pursuit of Core Formation stage cultivators.

However, forming a Core was not something that could be accomplished in a fleeting moment.

Except for those cultivation geniuses with Heavenly Spiritual Roots, all other cultivators needed sufficient spiritual medicine and time to break through the bottleneck.

The "Snow Spirit Water" and "Heavenly Fire Liquid" he had originally intended to buy were the two spiritual items that cultivators must consume when forming a Core.

It was not that one could not form a Core without using them, but the success rate of forming a Core would be so low that it would make a cultivator vomit blood.

Although no one had officially kept statistics, it was said that the Core Formation rate was far lower than one percent.

Besides these two items, one could also consume other spiritual medicines during Core Formation; the more varieties, the greater the hope of forming a Core.

It was just that they did not have as significant an impact as "Snow Spirit Water" and "Heavenly Fire Liquid."

Of course, like these two spiritual items, repeated consumption was ineffective. After all, this was not Qi Refining meditation; different spiritual medicines were best consumed in moderate amounts, as too much might instead have the opposite effect.

But what was laughable was that other spiritual medicines were far inferior in effect to "Snow Spirit Water" and "Heavenly Fire Liquid," yet they were even harder to find and rarer.

Because most of them required one, or even several, thousand-year-old spiritual herbs as raw materials to be concocted.

Among ordinary cultivators, who could have such great resources!

At most, besides "Snow Spirit Water" and "Heavenly Fire Liquid," concocting one or two more was considered extremely extravagant.

Of course, for Han Li, this was not a big problem.

Except for a few rare spiritual herbs he truly did not have and had never even heard of, the others had long been ripened during those years of cultivation at Little Cai Huan Mountain, and he had used them to concoct over a dozen types of spiritual medicines to assist in Core Formation, which were safely stored in a certain storage pouch on his person.

What was most surprising was that these spiritual medicines did not require the refining of a cultivator's innate true fire; they only needed to be simply concocted like ordinary medicines in the mortal world.

And the medicinal formulas could be clearly found in various classic texts with ease.

This had puzzled Han Li for a long time back then, and he still felt somewhat confused about it to this day.

And the five Dust-Descending Pills he obtained should be a type of auxiliary medicine needed by cultivators in the Chaotic Star Sea when forming a Core, which was why they were so rare and hard to obtain!

But it was not to say that once these auxiliary spiritual medicines were consumed, the Core Formation rate would immediately be much higher than that of other cultivators.

Judging from the information Han Li had researched, even with such an extremely extravagant Core Formation method as his, it would at most increase the success rate by a fraction of ten percent compared to other cultivators forming a Core.

It was finally a little better than not consuming them; of course, these were just Han Li's own conjectures!

Additionally, the process of forming a Core was not something that could be finished in ten days or half a month.

According to various classic texts and the Core Formation experience Li Li Huayuan had once mentioned, the entire Core Formation process would last for a full three to five years.

The specific duration would depend on the individual's aptitude.

During this period, one must avoid great joy or sorrow in their state of mind, and even more so, must not fight or battle with others; at the same time, one needed to absorb a certain amount of heaven and earth spiritual energy.

Therefore, Han Li finding an island with a bit of spiritual energy to go into seclusion and form his Core was an imperative matter.

Thinking this in his heart, Han Li took out another jade slip from his body, which contained a map of the vast sea area centered on the three large islands including Kuixing Island.

Han Li sank his consciousness into it, and after a considerable amount of effort, he finally determined his approximate location, and only then did he search the entire sea map for small and medium-sized islands in remote areas with annotations.

After the time it takes to eat a meal, Han Li exited the jade slip, lost in thought.

Then, after gazing at the surrounding sea surface and the scorching sun in the sky, he narrowed his eyes slightly, adjusted his direction, and with Qu Hun, transformed into a streak of white light, disappearing into the horizon.

Along the way, whenever Han Li encountered a deserted island, he would temporarily land to recover his magic power; whenever he encountered an island occupied by cultivators or people, he would immediately avoid it and dare not stay for even a moment, fearing that he would leave behind clues to be tracked down.

After changing directions several times in this manner, Han Li then flew at extreme speed toward the place he truly intended to go.

Two months later, above an extremely remote island, the figures of Han Li and Qu Hun appeared.

This island was far from being as vast as Kuixing Island, but it was also much larger than ordinary small islands, barely managing to squeeze into the ranks of medium-sized islands.

This was the destination of Han Li's long journey, "Sea Ape Island."

Apart from a small number of mortals on the island, most were low-tier cultivators who had not reached Foundation Establishment, and there was no such thing as an island master; it was completely a free land that could be entered and exited at will.

The reason this island had such a name was because the nearby sea area produced a very peculiar type of low-tier demonic beast, the "Sea Ape."

These demonic beasts looked no different from ordinary apes; the only difference was that this type of demonic beast could not only use the low-tier spell "Water Arrow Technique," but also possessed quite high intelligence.

Adults almost reached the intelligence of a seven or eight-year-old child, and they could dive into the deep sea to catch fish for food; they were truly the favorites of some cultivators to subdue and use as servants in their cave dwellings.

And although "Sea Apes" were listed as demonic beasts, in reality, a Qi Condensation stage cultivator at the fifth or sixth layer could easily defeat and capture them, so every year, small boats from various places would dock here to hire low-tier cultivators to capture some and sell them.

Some small merchants simply pooled their funds to set up magic arrays on this island and established long-term storefronts, year after year purchasing live "Sea Apes" at low prices, and then transporting them away in large quantities after a certain period when sea ships arrived.

As a result, this island naturally gathered some low-tier cultivators who were trying to earn spirit stones.

But other rogue cultivators quickly came to live here long-term after the magic arrays were established, entirely because "Sea Ape Island" actually had a mediocre but vast spiritual vein.

Although the quality of the spiritual vein was truly not very good, it had the advantage of being large and wide, allowing low-tier cultivators to cultivate almost anywhere on this island.

And the so-called spiritual eyes and the few places where spiritual energy was slightly denser did not differ much from other parts of the island, so there would be no high-tier cultivators coming here to fight over them.

A remote island with such thin spiritual energy and only a few Sea Ape specialties was, of course, not in the eyes of those major powers; it was completely a world of free and unconstrained low-tier cultivators.

Although occasionally Foundation Establishment or Core Formation stage cultivators would come to this island, most were just passersby.

It was exactly the perfect place for Han Li to hide and form his Core!

Two days later, Han Li stood in a deserted mountain in a corner of the island, looking at the temporary cave dwelling he had newly opened, feeling extremely satisfied in his heart.

Apart from a simple medicinal garden and two secret chambers, the new cave dwelling had no other complex structures.

Of course, Han Li used a set of array-setting tools and set up an ordinary concealment array to seal the cave entrance, and carefully released the two "Blood Jade Spiders" from the leather pouch specially used for holding spirit beasts, letting them guard the entrance of the cave dwelling.

After these years of training, the size of these two white spiders had grown to the size of a human head, and they had also risen two ranks, reaching the level of Rank 1 upper-tier, which was no problem for dealing with ordinary Qi Condensation stage cultivators. They were also the only strange insects Han Li had brought with him from the Little Cai Huan Mountain cave dwelling.

As for the other strange insects and demonic beasts, they remained in the true cave dwelling on Little Cai Huan Mountain.

Han Li guessed that if those guys with ulterior motives were still unwilling to give up and wanted to kill him to silence him or avenge that cultivator surnamed Gu, they would definitely track him down to his cave dwelling on Little Cai Huan Mountain.

Although there were three major arrays blocking the outside of the true and false cave dwellings, they presumably could not withstand the fierce attack of a Core Formation stage cultivator for long.

There was no need to ask about the true cave dwelling; it would definitely be exposed.

And as for the false cave dwelling, according to Han Li's calculations, the probability of it being discovered or not should be fifty-fifty!

Because the tunnel leading to the true cave dwelling was not concealed using any easily detectable magic array, but used mortal world mechanical arts, cleverly using a stone chair carved from a giant boulder to block the tunnel entrance.

If the person coming only searched the mountain peak where the false cave dwelling was located, Han Li was confident that the other party would absolutely not notice anything unusual.

But if the person coming was a guy with a meticulous mind who liked to investigate to the end, then it was hard to say!

After all, the unique aura of those strange insects inside the other mountain peak could not be hidden from the powerful spiritual sense of a Core Formation stage cultivator.

As a result, although Han Li felt a bit reluctant to part with those strange insects that had always been impossible to tame, he could only leave it to fate.

Of course, if they were not discovered and were not fed for five or six years, with the toughness of those poisonous insects, they presumably would not die. They had precedents of living for several years without eating!

Thinking this faintly, Han Li and Qu Hun each walked into a secret chamber.

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