Chapter 70: Gold-Silver Peach

“Sister, how many spirit stones for this cultivation technique?” He Pingsheng returned the summary to the woman.

The woman said: “Three hundred!”

“What?”

He Pingsheng immediately bristled.

Three hundred?

This expensive?

Ordinary elemental cultivation techniques usually cost only thirty to fifty spirit stones per volume.

This thing costs three hundred?

Right off the bat, ten times the price?

“Hehe…” the woman chuckled, “Young brother, don’t just see the high price—there’s a reason for it. To be honest, this body-refining technique and the spirit-refining technique are both extremely rare!”

“Out of a hundred cultivation techniques in the cultivation world, you might not find even one body-refining or spirit-refining method!”

“That’s why it’s expensive!”

“Moreover, my copy includes not just the Qi Refining stage, but also complete Foundation Establishment chapters!”

“Buy it, and you’ve made a fortune!”

He Pingsheng said: “One hundred spirit stones.”

“Though rare, this technique has low demand—among a hundred cultivators, maybe one would even be interested!”

He slashed two-thirds off the price.

The nun was stunned: “Young brother… this… is simply… too low!”

“This isn’t even a waist-cut—you’ve chopped right down to my heels!”

He Pingsheng said: “Sorry, this is my limit. If you sell it, I’ll give you the spirit stones. Anything more, I can’t afford—I simply don’t have enough.”

“Fine, fine…” the nun waved her hand, “One hundred it is—here you go…”

She tossed out a green jade slip.

He Pingsheng pulled out one hundred spirit stones from his hundred-treasure pouch.

Only then, before the woman, did he examine the jade slip; after confirming the technique inside was intact, he tucked it away and bowed before leaving.

“Young brother!”

Zhao Linger asked: “You really plan to cultivate this? It’s such a waste of time!”

“Exactly!” Xu Kunlun chimed in: “When do we even have time? I’d give anything to split each day’s twelve hours into twenty-four… and it’s still not enough…”

“Pfft…” Zhao Linger sneered at Xu Kunlun: “I don’t believe you.”

Tian Xiaoqing said: “I don’t believe you either… If you said twelve hours isn’t enough for sleep, I’d believe that.”

“Hahaha…” He Pingsheng was amused by them.

“Alright, alright…” Xu Kunlun looked embarrassed, “Forget me—Old Nine, this thing of yours is a total waste of time!”

He Pingsheng said: “Didn’t you all say before that Qi Refining cultivators eventually hit a bottleneck? My spiritual root quality is terrible—I might hit one right after reaching Level Ten!”

“I plan to start cultivating this body-refining method then!”

“After all, it’s useless to cultivate it now!”

Xu Kunlun said: “That does make sense…”

Zhao Linger said: “I heard there’s a spirit fruit in this realm called the ‘Gold-Silver Peach’—an ultimate treasure for body refinement!”

He Pingsheng asked: “What’s a Gold-Silver Peach?”

Zhao Linger said: “It’s a spirit fruit—a first-rank one. From afar, it glimmers with gold and silver luster, but it doesn’t directly boost cultivation. Yet if you ingest it and refine it with a body-refining technique, the results are astonishing!”

Here, she rolled her eyes and lightly elbowed He Pingsheng: “Old Nine, you don’t seriously think just getting a body-refining technique is enough to start refining your body, do you?”

“It requires auxiliary substances!”

He Pingsheng fell silent: Right—he’d truly thought simply practicing the technique would give him bronze skin and iron bones!

“Forget it, let’s drop it!” Zhao Linger said, “Come on, let’s go see ahead…”

A stall was surrounded by many people.

But what shocked everyone was that the stall’s vendor wasn’t a Qi Refining disciple.

It was a Golden Core elder.

Beside the Golden Core elder’s stall stood several disciples guarding him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our elder is a Golden Core powerhouse—he would never deceive you!”

“These maps were drawn by our elder after studying countless records left by past explorers!”

“Would you like one?”

He Pingsheng understood: So this was using a Golden Core elder as a guarantee to sell maps?

Maps were something every sect produced themselves.

They were compiled from years of route data—imperfect, but still useful.

“Should we buy one?” Xu Kunlun asked Zhao Linger.

Zhao Linger asked: “How much for one map?”

A disciple in green robes said: “Six hundred spirit stones!”

Hisssss…

That price!

Everyone was instantly deterred.

No wonder they needed a Golden Core elder to vouch for it—it was that shady!

“Forget it,” Zhao Linger said, “My master told us not to go to the core area, so we don’t need this map anyway!”

“Let’s go, let’s go!”

The four-person team returned to the Grand Void Gate’s area and each found a corner to sit.

He Pingsheng took out the newly bought jade slip and began studying it.

Even without the main text, the summary alone contained much to learn.

After reading through it once, He Pingsheng gained a faint understanding of this so-called body-refining method.

Body refinement, as the name implies, is forging one’s own body into a magic treasure—so in combat, one can stand invincible among peers.

Body refinement requires external aids, and the summary calls them “external supplements.”

These supplements fall into two categories.

One: rare treasures like the Gold-Silver Peach—ingest them, then refine them with body-refining techniques to strengthen the body and increase strength.

The second: blood.

Precisely, the essence blood of various beasts, spirit beasts, or even cultivators.

Using such substances as external supplements likewise strengthens the body and boosts strength.

After reading the summary, He Pingsheng did not proceed to practice.

He planned to place the “Bronze Skin Golden Bone Scripture” inside the Treasure Basin to strengthen it before cultivating.

Wait—it’s not urgent!

Soon, several more days passed.

That morning, eighteen Foundation Establishment disciples in golden robes stepped forward together.

One said: “Ladies and gentlemen—from now on, the realm is open!”

“For one month!”

“You may enter!”

“But… you must return within a month!” a golden-robed disciple shouted at the crowd, “I know some of you plan to stay inside after the realm closes, hiding to cultivate in secret!”

“Hehe…”

“If you think that, you might as well be begging for death!”

“Because when the realm ends, everyone must emerge—or die…”

“And how will you die?”

“We’ll release a Golden Core divine pet inside to slaughter every single Qi Refining disciple hiding within—not one will be left alive!”