Chapter 81: What Is the True Use of the Silver Gate?

The Qingdi Changsheng Gong only increases Wang Ping's cultivation speed as one aspect.

Additionally, there is an affinity for wood-attribute spiritual qi, one manifestation of which is gaining a boost when casting wood-type spells.

However, Wang Ping has never had the chance to use wood-type spells; aside from that initial entangling technique, he hasn't even learned a single wood-type spell.

Another manifestation is a great advantage in cultivating spiritual medicines and herbs, which also gives him a considerable edge in alchemy.

Furthermore, he can draw in the vital energy within a certain range, making him extremely sensitive to vitality.

All of these are merely incidental attributes of the technique.

The truly heaven-defying aspect of the Qingdi Changsheng Gong lies in its ability to extend a cultivator's lifespan by one third.

For example, if Wang Ping breaks through to Foundation Establishment, his lifespan increases by another hundred years, allowing him to live up to two hundred years old.

Increasing the lifespan by another thirty percent of two hundred years adds sixty years.

If he can break through to the Golden Core stage, he can gain an additional 150 years of lifespan, enough to live six hundred and fifty years.

As for the Nascent Soul stage, needless to say!

Its second heaven-defying aspect is that it can cultivate an acquired spirit body, a Wood Spirit Body.

The Wood Spirit Body is equivalent to the constitution of a top-grade spiritual root; at that point, his cultivation speed will increase. Moreover, possessing a Wood Spirit Body will make him even more affinitous with wood-attribute spiritual qi.

As for the third, it is the protective spirit light inherent to the technique.

As the technique's realm rises, the protective spirit light can transform into a full-body spirit armor.

The hardness of the spirit armor depends on how much and how high-quality wood-attribute spiritual qi the practitioner absorbs.

Heaven and earth spiritual qi is generally attribute-less as its main component.

However, in certain special places there is attribute spiritual qi; for example, deserts, volcanic regions, earth, fire-attribute spiritual qi is relatively thick, while deep ancient forests and vast forest seas have more wood-attribute spiritual qi.

Water-attribute spiritual qi mainly gathers in rivers, lakes, and sea areas.

Among them, the sea contains the greatest amount of water-attribute spiritual qi.

As for metal-attribute spiritual qi, it is extremely rare, mostly found in metal ores.

Besides that, there are attribute spirit stones; such spirit stones are not uncommon in the cultivation world, except that they are scarce in the Western Drooping Land.

Wang Ping spent three days exploring and clarifying every detail of the Qi Refining stage of the Qingdi Changsheng Gong.

Next, he will silently wait here for the silver stone gate to open again.

However, before that, he still has one matter to attend to.

Wang Ping slapped his storage bag, and eight white insect eggs appeared in his right hand.

Next, he will stay here for a long time, which is the ideal moment to hatch the soul-devouring butterflies.

Standing up, Wang Ping walked a few circles in his cave dwelling, and finally dug out a square hole about one and a half chi wide on the earth wall to the left of the bed.

With his left hand, he again slapped his storage bag; a porcelain basin roughly half the size of a washbasin appeared in his palm. He opened the lid, and the basin was already lined with a layer of reddish earth.

This earth belongs to Yang Earth; Yang Earth refers to soil that has been long exposed to sunlight, and it must not come into contact with water for at least a year.

The flying soul-devouring butterfly has a yin-leaning nature, yet its incubation requires Yang Earth.

He placed the porcelain basin on the ground, then took out a talisman brush about as thick as a chopstick and a small bowl of green liquid.

He first placed the insect eggs into the basin, then picked up one, and using his mental power drew a small droplet of the green liquid onto the tip of the brush.

Soon the needle-fine brush tip turned green; after a while, when the tip became dark green, Wang Ping took up the talisman brush and began drawing on the insect eggs, each about the size of a fish eye.

This is the Spirit-Devouring Rune recorded in the Insect Cultivation Notes; only by drawing this rune on the insect eggs can they absorb the insect fluid and hasten hatching.

Once the rune drawing begins, the brush cannot be lifted or paused until completion.

The entire rune must be completed in one continuous stroke; he does not know how many times he has practiced to draw it well.

Now, as he draws it again, he finds it flows as naturally as running water.

After two quarter-hours, he had covered all eight white insect eggs with green runes.

Then he placed the eight insect eggs into the basin one by one, pressing them down to a depth roughly equal to the first segment of an index finger.

Afterwards, he took out a bowl of black spiritual liquid from his storage bag and poured it all into the porcelain basin.

Finally, he placed a spirit stone inside, covered the basin lid, and put the whole thing into the square hole.

The spirit stone's main function is to activate the Spirit-Devouring Rune and provide it with energy.

At the start of incubation, a small bowl of spiritual liquid is enough for it to absorb for a year.

During this period, it suffices to occasionally check the eggs' condition with one's divine sense.

Now, in Wang Ping's divine sense, the Spirit-Devouring Rune has begun to take effect; an infinitesimal green light point invisible to the naked eye is slowly being drawn into the eggs.

Everything is normal; Wang Ping puts his mind at ease.

Having finished all this, he then begins closed-door cultivation.

The wounds he sustained in Jin Garden have not yet healed; he intends to use this time to restore his condition to its peak.

Time drifted by, and the battle at Shopping City has already passed two months.

After the Soul Refining Hall contracted its defensive perimeter, it also halted its decline, and its battles with the cultivators of the Hundred Nations Alliance became indecisive.

Foundation Establishment cultivator battles, once rare, have since erupted in numbers no less than a hundred after the Shopping City battle, tempted by the two major rankings.

Such high-density battles have attracted the attention of many belligerent elements from the Alliance's interior, who have now set out en masse for the Western Drooping Land.

For a time, among low-level cultivators, the Soul Refining Hall's practitioners were already showing signs of being unable to hold up.

In such a situation, the Hundred Nations Alliance never issued an order to attack the Soul Refining Hall's main base.

Yet all cultivators view the Soul Refining Hall unfavorably, believing its destruction is merely a matter of time.

During this period, many Foundation Establishment cultivators have been searching for a cultivator named Lan Ming.

Among them were cultivators who had tracked secret arts, but after a month of pursuit they lost Lan Ming's trail.

This search operation caused quite a stir, drawing the attention of many cultivators.

After learning the identity of this Lan Ming and what he did in Shopping City, cultivators who had never been to Shopping City all regarded it with suspicion.

Although doubts remained, the wealth and treasures possessed by this cultivator named Lan Ming stirred many cultivators, who secretly sought his whereabouts.

Many cultivators among them had learned of several of Lan Ming's close friends, but upon discovering that they were the masters of the Hundred Arts Garden, they all abandoned their efforts.

The Treasure Gathering Pavilion is now too powerful to provoke; of the cultivators who caused trouble in the Market City earlier, one-third have already been slain over the past two months.

Now, the Treasure Gathering Pavilion's might in the Western Drooping Land causes all cultivators to give way.

However, all of this has nothing to do with Wang Ping.

He now stands before the Silver Gate, preparing to cross into the Spirit Realm.

At the end of the Silver Light Path, that silver gate seems to have become somewhat taller.

Once again, dense symbols and some pictures appeared on the stone gate.

This time he can freely choose any location in the Spirit Realm to enter.

But he is at a loss; knowing almost nothing about the Spirit Realm, how could he know where to go?

Previously visited places, aside from the wormhole of the soul-devouring flying ants, seemed to have nothing particularly special.

Just as he was about to make another random choice, recalling the phrase that allowed him to specify a destination for the crossing, a sudden flash of inspiration struck his mind: although he knew nothing about the Spirit Realm's information, he could set some requirements!

For example, having the Silver Stone Gate send him to a spirit stone vein in the Spirit Realm, or to the herbal gardens of some major powers, or to the Treasure Storing Pavilion—wouldn't that make him rich?

Needless to say, such fantasies are easy to get lost in, and Wang Ping was no exception.

Perhaps the fluctuation of Wang Ping's divine sense was so strong that the Silver Stone Gate captured the information, and a voice sounded in his mind:

"Please, host, act within your limits; do you really want to attract the attention of cultivators at the Unity Stage Great Expert level and above?"

The words of the Silver Stone Gate brought Wang Ping back from his fantasies; although it was a pity, he was still rather glad, since those places were off-limits, he could at least go to a lower-level location!

"Silver Gate! Is it possible to send me to a place where I can study the path to the culmination of Qi Refining and break through to Foundation Establishment?"

As Wang Ping's words fell, the voice of the Silver Stone Gate sounded in his mind:

"This is easy; in ten breaths, the crossing will begin—host, please prepare!"

It really works!

Wang Ping felt somewhat excited, as if he had truly discovered the genuine use of the Silver Gate.