Chapter 228: The So-Called Artifact Spirit

The death of the Three-Eyed Earth Toad caused the remaining frenzied counterattacking toad demon beasts to instantly scatter, and Li Yuanfan and Ning Sisi both breathed a sigh of relief.

But when they saw the Three-Eyed Earth Toad lying lifeless in the sand, their hearts were still filled with shock.

Especially Ning Sisi, she swallowed secretly, but her gaze toward Yunhe became even more full of spirit.

Even this innate variant late-stage third-level demon beast was slain by Yunhe—doesn't that mean as long as they don't encounter a fourth-level demon beast or a Nascent Soul old monster inside the secret realm, they're safe?

At this moment, both felt that hugging this thigh was truly the right choice.

As for saying, following Yunhe they cannot obtain good things.

But the fact is, without following Yunhe they might barely survive, let alone gain any benefit.

The "Luotian Secret Realm" was originally one of the demon race's main bases, so its danger is indeed high.

Moreover, this is merely that they cannot currently obtain what Yunhe needs; it does not mean they will forever be unable to obtain any good things.

As long as they pass through this Wu Earth Yellow Sand region and enter the core area of the desert, why worry about lacking good things?

And Yunhe naturally would not share the spoils he painstakingly obtained with them.

After all, even without Li Yuanfan and Ning Sisi, he is confident he could slay the Three-Eyed Earth Toad and the toad swarm here; it would just take a bit longer.

He has already provided them shelter, so there's no need to be polite.

So Yunhe directly stored the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's mountain-sized body.

Even if he changed his storage bag, loading such a third-level demon beast corpse would hardly fit much, so he still chose to use multiple storage bags.

He only placed the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's most valuable demon core, third eye, and poison sac into his Qiankun bag.

At the same time, he had already decided to try refining the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's nascent soul into a magic treasure to become the treasure's artifact spirit.

The so-called "artifact spirit" is divided into innate and acquired types.

And "acquired artifact spirit" means that each magic treasure, from the moment of its refinement, has one opportunity to refine demon beasts, ghosts, essences, etc., into the treasure.

Thus, when facing enemies, these essences can be driven to merge with the treasure, greatly increasing its power and allowing it to take on the form of the artifact spirit's former appearance, possessing its former divine abilities—this can be said to be a shortcut to quickly boost a treasure's power.

Moreover, whether the treasure's sealing of essences succeeds or fails, each magic treasure, from successful refinement to ultimate destruction, can only seal once.

If it fails, not only will that treasure never again have the chance to possess an artifact spirit, but it may even suffer irreversible damage to the treasure.

Therefore, sealing an artifact spirit in a treasure is something all cultivators take very seriously; in most cases, cultivators would rather not have a treasure artifact spirit than attempt to seal one.

Failure is minor; causing irreversible damage to a treasure painstakingly refined over countless years and carefully cultivated for who knows how many years is truly a loss not worth the gain.

As for "innate artifact spirit," it refers to only an extremely small number of magic treasures that, after long-term careful nurturing and refinement by a cultivator, may give birth to a unique "spiritual intelligence" belonging to the treasure.

Such artifact spirits may initially be inferior to the beast souls refined postnatally, but innate artifact spirits can grow together with the treasure, and their upper limit will undoubtedly be far higher than that of acquired artifact spirits.

Moreover, compared to acquired artifact spirits, innate artifact spirits are undoubtedly more in tune with the treasure's own nature.

However, magic treasures capable of giving birth to innate artifact spirits are exceedingly rare; to this day, the cultivation world has not mastered this method, and whether one is born depends entirely on luck.

In Yunhe's treasure collection, the ones that could match the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's earth attribute are none other than the "Subdue Demon Armor" and the "Thick Earth Cauldron."

But the "Subdue Demon Armor" is purely a defensive treasure, and Yunhe has high hopes for it; perhaps it could eventually be upgraded to fourth level or higher. Although the Three-Eyed Earth Toad has some peculiarities, it cannot meet Yunhe's requirements for the armor's artifact spirit.

What he most hopes for is that the "Subdue Demon Armor" gives birth to its own artifact spirit, which would undoubtedly be more in tune with the treasure itself than a refined acquired artifact spirit.

Then only the "Thick Earth Cauldron," a treasure originating from the He family ancestor He Wen, remains.

Although the "Thick Earth Cauldron" is also a defensive treasure, after his several reforgings it has undergone significant changes, greatly increasing its power.

Even though, as He Wen's natal treasure, Yunhe can at most exert seventy percent of its power, after his refinement it is already not inferior to a middle-grade third-level treasure in his hands; if the Three-Eyed Earth Toad is refined into an artifact spirit, its power will increase greatly once more.

The most important point is.

Even if refining the artifact spirit fails and the Thick Earth Cauldron suffers irreversible damage, he would not feel much regret.

Because after He Wen successfully forged this cauldron, its upper limit was basically fixed; even if Yunhe refines it several more times and adds precious materials, it will not change the cauldron's inherent lack of outstanding nature.

But if it succeeds, that would be a huge profit; if the Thick Earth Cauldron could possess the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's third-eye divine light, it would be even better—perhaps it could even serve as a deadly hidden weapon.

However, refining an artifact spirit is certainly not something to do now.

After handling the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's corpse, Yunhe flashed toward the previous direction of the "Earth Essence Fruit."

Soon.

He found the "Earth Essence Fruit" in a pile of sand; although its surface is pitted, that is also one of the fruit's characteristics.

The fruit before him, having grown under the protection of the Three-Eyed Earth Toad and its offspring, not only grew extremely well but also is very old; if refined into a "Broken Mirror Pill," its effect would undoubtedly be even better than imagined.

The fruit's growth in the desert relies not on stems or leaves, but on a solidified brown-yellow clump of earth.

If one opens the clump, one will find that beneath it grow numerous roots finer than hair, tens to hundreds of zhang long, firmly rooted in the sand layer, drawing spiritual qi from all directions and even Wu Earth qi.

Yunhe harvested the "Earth Essence Fruit," but did not move that clump.

As long as the clump remains, it is estimated that when the "Luotian Secret Realm" opens again, another "Earth Essence Fruit" may appear.

If this clump could be planted in the demon beast world, he might as well take it along, but clearly the environment of Huanhu Dao is insufficient for the clump to grow, so there's no need to go to extremes.

After taking the "Earth Essence Fruit," Yunhe glanced aside.

Beside the clump, where earth-attribute spiritual qi accumulates, lie many small round balls the size of chicken eggs.

"This is."

Yunhe narrowed his eyes, casually picked up one, and immediately felt the surging vitality within.

His eyes suddenly brightened.

"Three-Eyed Earth Toad's eggs?"

If they were ordinary toad eggs, they could not be so large nor be carefully placed beside the "Earth Essence Fruit"; only the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's eggs could be.

"Perhaps these eggs, when hatched, could produce tadpoles that inherit the Three-Eyed Earth Toad's three-eyed trait?"

If that is the case

Yunhe gently rubbed the toad egg in his hand, feeling the faint warmth transmitted, he slightly narrowed his eyes, and a thought arose in his mind.

Toads, after all, can also be refined into gu worms.

If cultivated using the "breeding gu" method from the "Thousand Insect Myriad Insects Technique," all the toads hatched from these eggs might possibly be nurtured into a gu worm closer to the three-legged three-eyed golden spirit toad.

He looked at the toad eggs on the ground and counted them.

"Twenty-two. It's not completely without a chance to operate."

With a flick of his sleeve, he gathered all twenty-two eggs into the spirit beast bag.

The cost of raising gu worms, he doesn't worry.

After his divine sense scanned the area several times thoroughly and confirmed nothing was left, he returned to the sand layer.

And the depression here was quickly filled in by the quicksand.

By the time he returned to the sand layer, Li Yuanfan and Ning Sisi had also almost cleaned up the corpses of the ordinary toads.

Although these ordinary toads and the three-eyed earth toad are incomparable, they are still decent demon beast materials.

Normally, to harvest so many demon beasts, one would at least risk encountering a third-rank demon beast, but this time the late-stage third-rank three-eyed earth toad was blocked by Yunhe, thus giving them the chance to slay these toads.

After returning, refining and extracting them should also yield a decent amount of material.

This also counts as a gain.

Besides, there were many corpses of crimson-shadow gold-winged bees piled on the ground, some numbering two or three hundred.

If it were another cultivator who uses insects as a means, losing this many spirit insects would surely cause heartache.

But falling on Yunhe it's not too bad.

This batch of crimson-shadow gold-winged bees are six-winged war bees, already within Yunhe's prepared replacement range; losing some won't make him too heartbroken.

Moreover, the crimson-shadow gold-winged bees he previously summoned were only one-third of what he carried.

Given his current divine sense strength and the profundity of the "Thousand Gu Myriad Insects Technique", not to mention controlling thousands of crimson-shadow gold-winged bees, even double or more he could handle.

But he still collected the corpses of these spirit bees.

No matter what, crimson-shadow gold-winged bees have the trait of cannibalism among their kind, so these aren't wasted.

After finishing the matter, Li Yuanfan and the two looked toward Yunhe, seeming to wait for his decision.

In response, Yunhe could only smile and clasped his hands.

"Yun Mou truly knows nothing about this place, but I suspect Daoist Ning is more familiar than the two of us. May I ask, Daoist, where should we go next to find treasures?"

Upon hearing that, Ning Sisi didn't refuse, merely showing a thoughtful expression.

After a moment, she slowly said: "This junior actually only knows a little about this place, but since Daoist Yun has asked, after crossing this Wu earth yellow sand region, one enters the center of the desert region; there should be an oasis where some decent treasures might be found."

Indeed, Yunhe leaving her was correct; this woman knows the desert region better than they do.

However

"Oasis?"

So there actually exists an oasis in this desert?

"Since that's the case, let's first restore our mana, then go together to the oasis."

Yunhe made the decision.

Moreover, this place was originally the territory of the three-eyed earth toad; even if it died, its residual prestige remains, so in a short time no blind demon beast would dare approach here.

The previous battle consumed a lot for each of the three; if there is danger at the oasis Ning Sisi mentioned, then now is clearly the best time to recover.

(End of chapter)