Chapter 49

True Person Fenhai hummed a little tune all the way back to his residence. He went straight to the study, first rummaging through the shelves, taking down several of the most precious magic treasures, pills, and heavenly materials displayed in the center, finding boxes to pack them carefully, and then meticulously labeling their uses, materials, and prices. After finishing this, he rummaged everywhere in the room, and only after much effort did he find a jade toad in the corner of the storeroom.

Judging by a True Person's status, the texture of this jade toad was average, the craftsmanship was ordinary, and apart from being able to slightly improve feng shui and add good luck, it was useless. But what place's feng shui could compare to Konggu Xuanqing?

Yet True Person Fenhai placed this jade toad, which was considered redundant even as an ornament, in the center of the treasure shelf with great solemnity, and even wiped it a few times.

Originally, this shelf held three small immortal swords, but now they had been moved to the side.

The news of Wei Yuan successfully manifesting his visualization map caused a small ripple among his classmates, and then there was no more sound. His visualization map had been personally sealed by Fenhai Zhenjun Xuanyue, and no one below the Fenhai Zhenjun could peek into it, so the classmates naturally had no way of knowing the truth.

Although the classmates were curious, they put the matter behind them in the blink of an eye.

According to history, the limit of the Jade Toad Gazing at the Moon map was twelve zhang, with medium anomalies. Although Bao Yun's eleven-zhang visualization map was a bit small, it came with supreme-rank anomalies, actually surpassing all the sages. Although Cui Yu's visualization map was only six zhang, the anomalies were also close to supreme-rank, and the gift he received was a strand of immortal sword Qi, so his comprehensive combat power was not low. Moreover, with the support of the Cui family, it could be further elevated, so it could be said that he had already reserved a spot in the heaven-rank.

The time Wei Yuan spent expanding his visualization map was unprecedented, which was clearly due to insufficient comprehension and talent, hence his slow cultivation. Wei Yuan's foundation talent was seven feet nine inches, which was an arrogant genius outside, but among the Taichu Palace disciples, it could only be considered medium. He also came from a poor background, had no secret methods for opening wisdom, and had not refined his bones, so it was tacitly assumed among his classmates that Wei Yuan was currently relatively stupid and would need a few years for his intellect to fully mature.

Adding the two together, if the cultivation technique was not suitable, it was not impossible to spend a year just manifesting the visualization map.

If the Jade Toad Gazing at the Moon map were placed outside the Taichu Palace, there were plenty of mediocre people who couldn't forge a Dao Foundation even after cultivating for decades.

The classmates tacitly assumed this was something Wei Yuan found difficult to talk about, so they tacitly stopped mentioning it. In fact, even if they hadn't seen similar examples, they had heard plenty of them. Countless disciples from poor backgrounds were stunning when they entered the palace, but then gradually were caught up to and even surpassed by disciples from noble families during the long cultivation process, and many even lost their Dao hearts because of it. There were not many who truly started from humble beginnings and finally achieved the status of Fenhai Zhenjun.

The class was calm but tense; all the students had started body forging, each one running wildly on the path of cultivation with all their might, fearing being surpassed by others.

The students were already arrogant, and Seeing Ji Liuli fanned the flames every day, constantly comparing them to the Zhigu Sect, saying every time they had class that someone from the Zhigu Sect had made a breakthrough, or someone had obtained some treasure from their family, forcing everyone to cultivate for their lives. Everyone's ears were calloused from hearing the phrase "Look at how the Zhigu Sect is doing."

After Fenhai Zhenjun Xuanyue sealed the destiny from beyond the heavens, Wei Yuan finally embarked on the path of body forging.

Returning from the Tianqing Palace that day, Zhang Sheng explained in detail to Wei Yuan the various details that needed attention during the body forging stage. The first step of body forging was to refine the tendons and muscles, step by step changing the physical body into the base material for an immortal embryo. This stage was the beginning of shedding the mortal and entering the immortal, and the body would undergo clear changes, with strength and speed greatly increased, and it would also be more resistant to strikes.

Wei Yuan had already deeply experienced this during their last fight; the classmates had all started body forging, each with surging strength, and even Wei Yuan, who was born with natural divine strength, couldn't withstand it.

After explaining the precautions, Zhang Sheng put down three bottles of Foundation-Nurturing Pills, told Wei Yuan to cultivate on his own, and then left in a hurry.

These three bottles of Foundation-Nurturing Pills were not a three-month supply, but a ten-day supply. From now on, the Foundation-Nurturing Pills were changed from one pill every three days to three pills every day.

After Zhang Sheng left, Wei Yuan didn't stop for a moment and directly began to cultivate. This time, he was still incarnated as a jade toad, but looking at the clean full moon in the sky, Wei Yuan was more or less unaccustomed to it. However, what followed was familiar content: inhaling and exhaling moonlight.

As soon as the jade toad opened its mouth, the moonlight poured down, filling the jade toad's big mouth in the blink of an eye, and quite a bit overflowed. With such a large toad mouth, even this gulp was a bit difficult to swallow. After swallowing the moonlight, the jade toad gave a "gurgle" and let out a hiccup.

Such a large amount of moonlight was naturally the divine effect of the three Foundation-Nurturing Pills. But moonlight alone was not enough to release the medicinal effect of the Foundation-Nurturing Pills, and a torrential downpour began in the visualization map.

The jade toad adjusted its posture, aligning the full moon, its mouth, and its butt in a straight line, then looked up and opened its mouth, catching another mouthful of moonlight. This gulp was much more comfortable; the moonlight went directly through its throat into its belly, saving the intermediate steps.

Just like that, he was drenched in moonlight all night, and before he knew it, the sky was bright.

Waking up from meditation, Wei Yuan felt subtle itching in many places in his body; that was his flesh and blood beginning to grow again. The visualization map in his sea of consciousness also changed, with a small patch of ground turning from virtual to real. Just looking at the size, I'm afraid it would take at least six or seven hundred days for the entire ground to turn from virtual to real.

This was the result of taking three Foundation-Nurturing Pills. Now the medicinal power had reached the limit of what Wei Yuan could withstand; if there were any more, the jade toad wouldn't be able to swallow it. But three Foundation-Nurturing Pills a day was equivalent to dozens of days of hard cultivation; logically, it shouldn't be this slow.

Wei Yuan found the copied version of True Person Inhaling Moon's insights and read it carefully again, finally confirming that there was still a problem with his cultivation.

Only a small portion of the heaven and earth spiritual energy and Foundation-Nurturing Pill medicinal power converted from inhaling and exhaling moonlight was used for body forging, while the rest vanished into thin air, and he had no idea where it went. But Wei Yuan could be certain that all this spiritual energy and medicinal power was within his body, not dissipated or lost; it was as if there was some invisible thing in his body that had absorbed most of the medicinal power and spiritual energy.

In his first cultivation session, judging by the volume of filling the visualization map, Wei Yuan's cultivation speed could be considered far exceeding that of ordinary disciples; after all, he was eating Foundation-Nurturing Pills like meals. However, Wei Yuan's visualization map was truly outrageous; calculated by proportion, the progress was agonizingly slow. Ordinary students could generally complete tendon and muscle forging in three or four months, and it wasn't unheard of for those with good talent and sufficient pills to complete it in one month.

Wei Yuan could only stop thinking about his progress.

After this, Zhang Sheng no longer met him once a month, but every ten days, each time bringing three bottles of Foundation-Nurturing Pills, and he said quite a bit more to Wei Yuan, which was good news.

The bad news was that the taste of the Foundation-Nurturing Pills was truly not great, permeated with a strange smell, and eating them was like eating...

He hadn't felt much when he ate little before, but now three pills a day was a different story; the taste was additive and surging upward, and it lingered for a long time. Wei Yuan couldn't swallow them after just a few days, and he felt like vomiting the moment he saw the Foundation-Nurturing Pills, which was even more uncomfortable than inhaling and exhaling moonlight.

Although they tasted bad, one Foundation-Nurturing Pill was equivalent to more than ten days of Wei Yuan's hard cultivation, and three pills were equivalent to accelerating the body forging progress by forty or fifty times, so Wei Yuan had to eat them.

Wei Yuan guessed that quite a few people must have complained about the taste of the Foundation-Nurturing Pills, but the Creation Temple just wouldn't change it.

Wei Yuan maliciously speculated about the thoughts of the old rascals at the Creation Temple; anyway, no matter how many Foundation-Nurturing Pills were refined, they would all be bought out, so why bother spending extra effort to improve the taste? The Creation Temple wasn't a restaurant.

Wei Yuan cursed the Creation Temple in his heart every day before cultivating, and cursed them again after cultivating. But cursing was cursing; the medicine had to be eaten, the moonlight had to be inhaled and exhaled, and the days passed like this, day by day.

There was one more thing Wei Yuan hadn't expected, which was that the refining of his foundation by the Senior Martial Sister once every seven days had to continue.

Wei Yuan had also asked Seeing Ji Liuli when the refining would be completed, but unexpectedly, the Senior Martial Sister changed her tune, saying that the path of refinement was endless, not to mention that Wei Yuan's foundation was still very flimsy, so he should just keep being refined.

So, in addition to eating medicine and inhaling and exhaling moonlight, he also had to be refined.

Wei Yuan discovered at this moment that the immortal path was not only long, but also boring, repetitive, and required enduring many strange things.

He also wondered if the mental states of those high-and-mighty True Lords and True Persons were still okay.

Just like that, month after month passed, and Wei Yuan felt that time was passing slower and slower, as if every night could have a few extra hours.

(End of chapter)