Chapter 20: Foundation Establishment Pill

"It's here. The records in the notebook left by the ancestor are indeed correct. There is really a Water Spirit Fruit Tree here! More than a hundred years have passed, I think the Water Spirit Fruit should have matured." The two Liu elders behind Liu Tianlong seemed a bit excited.

The Liu family spared no effort to dispatch most of the family's combat power this time and spent a lot of money to hire cultivators from three nearby Qi Refining families, not just to kill the second-tier silver-armored crab monster just now.

The true purpose of the Liu family's trip was to sneak into the bottom of the pool to find a second-tier Water Spirit Fruit Tree recorded in the notebook on Liu Tianlong's body after eliminating the second-tier monster beast that occupied the water pool.

This notebook on Liu Tianlong's body was left by a Foundation Establishment ancestor of the Liu family more than a hundred years ago. It recorded that this Liu family ancestor accidentally discovered that there was a second-tier Water Spirit Fruit Tree here when he was hunting monster beasts in the Fuyun Mountain Range.

It was also relying on a Water Spirit Fruit that matured on the tree at that time that this Liu family ancestor exchanged for a Foundation Establishment pill from the Xiaoyao Sect, and subsequently succeeded in Foundation Establishment.

After this Liu family ancestor reached Foundation Establishment back then, he wanted to transplant this Water Spirit Fruit Tree to the Liu family's spirit mountain. It was a pity that there had never been a second-tier spirit planter in the family, and he did not dare to trust outsiders, so he could only give up for the time being.

This Liu family ancestor kept his mouth shut about this matter in the family and only recorded this matter in his own notebook. He did not want to die accidentally outside later, and other clansmen had never known about this matter. It was not until decades after he succeeded as patriarch that he accidentally discovered this notebook and sent people to the Fuyun Mountain Range to find the water pool recorded in the notebook.

Finally, after the Liu family patiently hibernated for nearly a hundred years, when the Water Spirit Fruit matured again, Liu Tianlong came here.

Since the riot of monster beasts in the northern border a hundred years ago, the Liu family lost the only Foundation Establishment cultivator in the family. For more than a hundred years, all Liu family cultivators have been thinking about how to restore the glory of being a Foundation Establishment family.

And to achieve this goal, the Liu family must find a way to cultivate a Foundation Establishment cultivator again. They are already very close to this goal now. After years of cultivation, the Liu family already has a seed that can reach Foundation Establishment hidden in the family. Now they are just missing a Foundation Establishment pill.

Except for the one-in-ten-thousand heaven-spirit-root cultivators, ordinary cultivators will encounter a big bottleneck when breaking through to Foundation Establishment. The number of cultivators who can successfully break through by force is less than half a percent.

Once the breakthrough fails, the violent spiritual power in the cultivator's meridians will instantly backfire on the fragile meridians, causing injuries that are difficult to recover.

Such cultivators who fail to break through will at least take more than twenty years for their injuries to fully recover, basically missing the opportunity to break through to Foundation Establishment again, and their path of cultivation will come to an end. If it is serious, they will explode and die on the spot after failure, and their cultivation will dissipate, and their death will be extremely painful.

This also makes many genius cultivators in the immortal cultivation world like Liu Tianlong, even if they can cultivate to the ninth layer of Qi Refining before the age of sixty, dare not easily take such a huge risk to force Foundation Establishment.

In order to improve the success rate of more cultivators breaking through the realm, after the research and accumulation of many top great power cultivators in the immortal cultivation world, many various elixirs and spirit items to assist cultivators in breaking through the realm have been slowly researched. Among them, the best effect and the most recognized by cultivators is the Foundation Establishment pill.

The Foundation Establishment pill is a second-tier elixir researched by a great power cultivator of the Soul Transformation stage in the ancient times to assist cultivators in Foundation Establishment. After being carefully improved and tested by countless generations of high-tier alchemists, it is now an indispensable item for cultivators to reach Foundation Establishment.

When a cultivator reaches Foundation Establishment, they need to inhale a large amount of spiritual energy to liquefy the spiritual power in their body. Taking a Foundation Establishment pill can reconcile the large amount of violent spiritual power in the body when the cultivator breaks through to Foundation Establishment.

The Foundation Establishment pill can not only greatly improve the success rate of ordinary cultivators reaching Foundation Establishment, but also protect the cultivator's meridians from too much backfire when the breakthrough fails, so that even if the cultivator fails to break through, they will not be too seriously injured, and they can recover in three or five years and have the opportunity to reach Foundation Establishment again.

Although the Foundation Establishment pill is only a second-tier top-grade medicinal pill, it is very rare in the Wei State immortal cultivation world. Except for the overlord of this place, the Xiaoyao Sect, it only occasionally flows out from the black market near the Fuyun Mountain Range. Its value is far higher than other second-tier medicinal pills, and even higher than some third-tier medicinal pills.

Refining Foundation Establishment pills is very complex. The main medicine requires two medicinal herbs with a medicinal age of more than eight hundred years, Jade Marrow Golden Branch and Five Elements Spirit Fruit, as well as more than a dozen auxiliary spirit medicines that take one or two hundred years to mature.

These spirit medicines are very difficult to find in the wild when they mature. In the entire Wei State, ostensibly, only the spirit medicine garden of the Xiaoyao Sect can supply the various spirit medicines needed to refine Foundation Establishment pills for a long time.

The Xiaoyao Sect only refines a few furnaces of Foundation Establishment pills every ten years, and at most twenty or thirty pills are refined at one time. Most of them are divided up by the sect, and only a very small part will be taken out for sale to the major immortal cultivation families under its banner that have made contributions. Even Foundation Establishment families find it difficult to get this opportunity, let alone lower-level Qi Refining families.

Even if there is an opportunity to purchase a Foundation Establishment pill, the price of the Foundation Establishment pill is still not cheap. A Foundation Establishment pill normally costs ten thousand spirit stones to buy, and this is already considered very affordable compared to the price of Foundation Establishment pills auctioned in the black market.

The Song family where Song Qingming is located can only save a few dozen spirit stones a year after deducting expenses. If they encounter a disaster year, they still need to take them out to subsidize some. The treasury accumulated over a hundred years is only two or three thousand spirit stones.

For a bottom-level Qi Refining family like the Song family, even if a cultivator with excellent spirit root talent appears, they can only send the person to the Xiaoyao Sect to have the opportunity for Foundation Establishment.

It is precisely by firmly controlling the supply channel of Foundation Establishment pills in the Wei State that the Xiaoyao Sect can absorb a large number of cultivators with outstanding talents from the major immortal cultivation families under its rule and continuously enrich the blood of the sect.

The Water Spirit Fruit that Liu Tianlong is looking for on this trip is exactly one of the two main medicines needed to refine the Foundation Establishment pill, the Five Elements Spirit Fruit, and its value is extremely high.

The Xiaoyao Sect also long-term purchases various spirit medicines for refining Foundation Establishment pills from the outside. Anyone who can take out the main medicine of the Foundation Establishment pill with sufficient age can directly exchange for a Foundation Establishment pill within the Xiaoyao Sect. The Foundation Establishment ancestor of the Liu family a hundred years ago also reached Foundation Establishment in this way.

After the three Liu family members walked a few dozen steps toward the blue light, after passing through a low cave entrance, the passage suddenly became wide. The blue light emitted was exactly a small cyan tree in this cave.

Liu Tianlong walked closer and saw that this small tree was five feet in size, about the same height as him, emitting rich spiritual energy. There were five or six blue fruits on the tree. The fruits were crystal clear and emitted bursts of blue light, which was very attractive. The light that the three had just seen outside was exactly emitted by the fruits on the tree.

"Haha, this should be the Water Spirit Fruit. The time recorded by the ancestor is indeed correct. If we had come a few years earlier, I guess this fruit would not have matured yet." Looking at one of the fruits that was already completely transparent, a Liu elder laughed and said.

"Everyone be careful, try not to damage this fruit tree. We only need to pick the fruit that has already matured. After our Liu family cultivates our own second-tier spirit planter in the future, we will think of ways to transplant this Water Spirit Fruit Tree."

The Water Spirit Fruit Tree is a second-tier spirit tree. Without a second-tier or higher spirit planter, rashly transplanting it will easily cause the spirit tree's spiritual energy to be greatly damaged, lose its activity, and slowly wither and die, and the immature spirit fruits on it will also be lost together.

If this Water Spirit Fruit Tree can be successfully transplanted to the Liu family's spirit mountain secretly in the future, the Liu family can exchange for a Foundation Establishment pill every hundred years, and the family can prosper for a long time. This is also the greatest opportunity for all Liu family cultivators to change their destiny.

Liu Tianlong wanted to pick the matured Water Spirit Fruit with his hand, but found that the connection between the second-tier spirit fruit and the fruit tree was extremely tough and difficult to pick. He could only release a top-grade flying sword and cut off the fruit with one sword.

The Liu elder on the side hurriedly carefully packed the Water Spirit Fruit with a jade box that had been prepared long ago and handed it to Liu Tianlong.

Looking at this Water Spirit Fruit that carried the hope of the family's revival, Liu Tianlong couldn't help but feel a bit excited. The Liu family's path to revival had finally taken the first step in his hands.

The three had just picked a matured Water Spirit Fruit and were about to turn around and leave this place, but suddenly felt a terrifying spiritual power pressure emanating from a dark place on one side of the cave. A pair of huge red eyeballs suddenly opened in the darkness, staring dead at the three tiny humans in front of them.

"This is... how could there be another second-tier monster beast here? Not good, run!"

"Patriarch, go quickly, we will cover your retreat."

Looking at this huge black shadow in front of them, Liu Tianlong and the three couldn't help but tremble. The spiritual power pressure emitted by this second-tier monster beast was much stronger than that silver-armored crab just now. They had been in the cave for so long and hadn't noticed it at all.

After the Liu family found this water pool twenty years ago, they had sent cultivators to explore this water pool many times. Except for that silver-armored crab that had just advanced not long ago, they had never seen other second-tier monster beasts.

How could Liu Tianlong have imagined that there were two second-tier monster beasts hidden in such a small pool.

At this moment, Liu Tianlong suddenly understood that the monster beast skeletons they saw in the cave along the way were not eaten by that second-tier silver-armored crab, but by this other second-tier monster beast that emitted a stronger aura than the silver-armored crab monster.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 21 =====