Chapter 102: Old Ailments

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With a shift of thought, Xu Zhe flipped open the All-Phenomena Jade Tablet and accessed the Spirit Network interface to see if anything significant had happened recently.

The discussion on the Spirit Network was all about Gu Jia’er’s return and the impending opening of the Divine Elixir Realm.

Other than that, the topics related to Chu Xiaotong and Qu Hongxiu were all about past events.

This implied two possibilities: either nothing had happened to them, or something had just occurred but the news had yet to spread.

“Gu Jia’er...” Xu Zhe frowned deeply. Was it a mistake to send Gu Jia’er to find Chu Xiaotong?

After pondering for a moment, he sent a communication request to another person—Lu Yangyun.

This time, the call was answered quickly.

“Hey, Brother Zhe? You’re out again?” Lu Yangyun exclaimed in surprise.

“Where are you?” Xu Zhe asked.

“I was just about to leave the Southern Sky Continent. What’s up, Brother Zhe?” Lu Yangyun replied curiously.

“Chu Xiaotong and Qu Hongxiu have lost contact; their communication requests were rejected. Do you know anything?”

“I do. It’s completely normal—they went with Senior Mistress Gu to the Divine Elixir Realm. There’s no Spirit Network there. If they could be contacted, that would be a miracle.”

Xu Zhe fell silent and ended the call with the Jade Tablet, feeling speechless.

He had been speculating for so long, only to find out they had gone to the Divine Elixir Realm.

Thinking back, it was all because of Li Chungan and that divine consciousness causing trouble lately—conspiracy theories everywhere, to the point Xu Zhe was starting to treat such theories as a habitual mindset.

“Well, it’s just as well. I can take this opportunity to see if those heavenly elixirs said to form naturally in the Divine Elixir Realm really exist, and maybe find some medicinal herbs I need.”

After a moment of contemplation, Xu Zhe made up his mind and set off southward.

Having re-entered the Golden Core stage and condensed a Heavenly Elixir, he had yet to face anyone in combat. But after killing two crocodile-headed pythons with a single palm in the Tomb Immortal Valley, Xu Zhe clearly felt a tremendous leap in strength.

However, no matter how powerful the Heavenly Elixir was, it still only meant he was at the Golden Core stage. To advance further, he needed to find a way to break through the core and form a Nascent Soul.

Xu Zhe was not worried about this. Once he perfected the Golden Core stage, there were plenty of ways to break the core and sculpt the Nascent Soul.

He could slowly cultivate and breakthrough naturally, but that would take several years.

Xu Zhe was unwilling to linger long at such a minor realm because it had little significance. The great Dao truths he needed to comprehend should have been fully grasped in his previous life.

This life was about rebuilding and reviewing the old to gain new insights, which only required a few days of focused thought. Spending several years on such comprehension would be overkill.

After all, he was barely at the Nascent Soul stage—there was hardly any great Dao left to perceive.

Thus, the fastest, most efficient, and safest method was to use a pill called the “Soul-Forming Pill,” which accelerated the Golden Core’s transformation by generating vast spiritual energy within the body, helping the core to break through and form the Nascent Soul.

Xu Zhe knew how to concoct the Soul-Forming Pill, and provided he had high-quality ingredients, he was confident in producing top-grade pills.

The problem lay in acquiring the necessary medicinal herbs.

Xu Zhe searched the Spirit Network on the All-Phenomena Jade Tablet but found most of the herbs required for the Soul-Forming Pill were unavailable.

Some were missing due to cultural and traditional differences between the various Heavenly Domains, leading to discrepancies in herb names.

Others were too rare, possibly extinct or undiscovered, and thus lacked any record on the Spirit Network.

He even investigated the pills used by cultivators on the Qingci Continent when advancing to the Nascent Soul stage, hoping to find alternative ingredients, but the formulas were completely different.

The Soul-Forming Pill aimed to promote the Golden Core’s natural transformation.

In contrast, the “Core-Binding Pill” from the Qingci Continent was made by stacking numerous herbs rich in spiritual energy. When consumed, it produced a surge of spiritual energy flowing through the meridians into the Golden Core, forcibly bursting it to forge the Nascent Soul.

Thus, the Core-Binding Pill truly destroyed the core to form the Nascent Soul, discarding the Golden Core’s shell entirely.

The Soul-Forming Pill of the Vast Heaven Domain, however, emphasized gradual transformation and fusion of the core with the Nascent Soul, providing an extra layer of protection beyond the Nascent Soul itself.

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In summary, both pills helped cultivators break into the Nascent Soul stage. If it were the previous Xu Zhe, he might not have pursued the Soul-Forming Pill.

At that time, as a first-grade Golden Core cultivator, using the Core-Binding Pill from the Qingci Continent to shatter the core and form the Nascent Soul wasn’t a big deal.

But now, as a “Heavenly Elixir” cultivator, breaking and discarding his Heavenly Elixir would be a wasted effort and counterproductive.

Therefore, he had to choose the Soul-Forming Pill from the Vast Heaven Domain to retain the Heavenly Elixir’s advantages, advancing to the Nascent Soul stage with ease.

This journey to the Divine Elixir Realm was also a chance to solve the ingredient problem for the Soul-Forming Pill.

From Dong Fang’s introduction, Xu Zhe learned about the Divine Elixir Realm and checked the Spirit Network again.

According to descriptions, the Divine Elixir Realm was a legacy from ancient times, cultivating vast medicinal fields surrounded by powerful sealing formations.

Over the years, many cultivators tried various methods but could not break the seals. At most, they could forcibly snatch some weeds growing near the medicinal herbs in the fields’ margins.

Even these weeds, nurtured by the influence of the medicinal herbs and having grown for a long time, possessed considerable medicinal properties comparable to many precious herbs.

This further convinced Xu Zhe to visit the Divine Elixir Realm.

He felt there was a high chance of finding the ingredients for the Soul-Forming Pill there, along with other rare medicinal herbs.

...

A few days later, Xu Zhe successfully crossed into the Southern Sky Continent.

This was his first time entering the Southern Sky Continent since awakening.

Standing still, he took a deep breath, sensing everything about this continent.

Chu Xiaotong and Qu Hongxiu had urged him several times before to come, but he never found the right opportunity.

Now that he was here, he realized the Southern Sky Continent was not much different geographically from the Eastern Dry Continent or the Western Kun Continent.

He didn’t linger and quickly located the Putuo Sacred Land via the Spirit Network on the All-Phenomena Jade Tablet, then rode swiftly toward it.

However, before reaching the Putuo Sacred Land, he found the path blocked.

Within the jurisdiction of the Putuo Sacred Land, nearly all ancient cities were crowded with people, most of whom had come for the Divine Elixir Realm.

But since the Divine Elixir Realm had not truly opened and entry was restricted, most visitors were there for the Divine Elixir Tournament.

Xu Zhe inquired and learned that before the opening of the Divine Elixir Realm, the Four Continents Council hosted the Divine Elixir Tournament.

The tournament was a contest where various factions sent pill refiners to compete in live pill concocting.

At the end, authoritative experts from the Four Continents Council scored the pill refiners based on their refining techniques and the quality of their final pills, ranking them and allocating spots into the Divine Elixir Realm accordingly.

Although spots in the Divine Elixir Realm were precious, this was not the main reason for so many cultivators to flock here.

The tournament rankings also determined the resource allocation among the four continents for the next hundred years, influencing the future development of the factions.

The Four Continents Council, composed of powerful figures from each continent, set rules to maintain order and impose mutual checks, preventing full-scale wars between the continents.

This inevitably involved matters of interest.

Numerous resource sites existed along the borders between continents—spiritual stone mines, medicinal fields, and secret realms.

These resource sites were often the source of conflicts and disputes.

Hence, the Four Continents Council had to allocate resources through various competitions and rotate control to avoid direct partitioning.

For example, this Divine Elixir Tournament involved the distribution of medicinal field resources along the borderlands.

Three hundred years ago, the Southern Sky Continent, led by Gu Jia’er with the Putuo Sacred Land, consistently achieved excellent results in the Divine Elixir Tournament.

The Southern Sky Continent benefited greatly, securing a large share of medicinal fields.

Part of the reason Chu Xiaotong’s Vermilion Bird Army grew so rapidly and powerfully was due to the abundant supply of medicinal herbs.

Since Gu Jia’er’s disappearance for several centuries, the tournament continued every hundred years, though the Divine Elixir Realm spots were no longer awarded, the resource sites were still redistributed.

Due to Gu Jia’er’s absence and the lack of outstanding figures from Putuo Sacred Land, the Southern Sky Continent failed to achieve good rankings in the last three centuries.

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This negatively impacted the Vermilion Bird Army, causing a shortage in pill supplies and forcing them to spend heavily on external purchases.

However, strategic resources like medicinal herbs were not easily sold by other continents for money.

Thus, over these centuries, the Vermilion Bird Army’s strength gradually declined.

Now that Gu Jia’er had returned, Chu Xiaotong was taking it seriously and personally went to welcome her.

The aim was to secure a good ranking in this Divine Elixir Tournament and reclaim the rights to those medicinal fields for the Southern Sky Continent.

“Seems the Divine Elixir Tournament is quite significant, at least in terms of continental influence,” Xu Zhe realized after gathering the information.

“So, when I previously encountered Li Chungan’s avatar chasing Dong Fang, could it have been to ensure she would participate in the tournament?”

Xu Zhe’s expression turned somewhat strange at this thought.

If that was the case, Li Chungan wasn’t just a sycophant, but why didn’t he explain it back then or even mention the tournament at all?

Moreover, Dong Fang’s fleeing manner... well, her face was too dirty to discern her expression clearly.

Xu Zhe shrugged and stopped pondering it further.

His purpose for coming to the Southern Sky Continent was to ask Chu Xiaotong about Gu Jia’er and get her opinion on Li Chungan.

He also wanted to ask her for a spot in the Divine Elixir Realm to obtain some medicinal herbs.

As for the Divine Elixir Tournament itself, he was definitely not interested.

Based on his understanding of the pill qualities on the Qingci Continent, he could easily judge the pill refiners’ levels in just two words: “Truly weak!”

If he personally competed against them, it would be like a mathematician competing with elementary school students on basic arithmetic.

Xu Zhe had always prided himself on not bullying the weak or taking advantage of the small.

He would never stoop to participate in such a contest.

After further inquiries, Xu Zhe learned that Gu Jia’er, Chu Xiaotong, and Qu Hongxiu had long ago entered the Divine Elixir Realm.

As the Sacred Lord of Putuo Sacred Land, Gu Jia’er had certain authority over the Divine Elixir Realm, especially since she held the key to its secret entrance.

If she wanted to bring people in, even the Four Continents Council could not stop her.

But Gu Jia’er’s absence also meant the Southern Sky Continent would likely forfeit this tournament cycle.

This puzzled many factions.

Xu Zhe was curious and used the All-Phenomena Jade Tablet to contact Lu Yangyun again.

“Brother Zhe, this matter wasn’t convenient to discuss over the Jade Tablet before, and Sister Tong also told me not to tell you. But now that they’ve entered the Divine Elixir Realm, there’s no need to hide it anymore.”

After some hesitation, Lu Yangyun revealed the reason.

“When you went to the Mo family, Sister Tong also intended to cross the border to assist but was blocked by some powerful enemies, leading to a fierce battle. Although most opponents were severely injured, Sister Tong’s old ailment flared up and she had to go with Gu Jia’er to the Divine Elixir Realm to find a main medicinal herb to suppress it again.”

“Originally, Sister Tong insisted that Gu Jia’er secure a good ranking in the tournament before entering the Divine Elixir Realm. Unfortunately, this time her ailment couldn’t wait any longer, or it would damage her root source and cause more severe consequences. So she had to give up the tournament and enter early.”

“But I don’t think it’s a big problem. Although the tournament involves the distribution of medicinal fields along the continental borders, the Vermilion Bird Army has managed to endure for these centuries. Another hundred years is nothing. The key is to suppress Sister Tong’s ailment; otherwise, the Vermilion Bird Army would lose its leader and face real trouble.”

...

That day, Xu Zhe found a young man from the Vermilion Bird Army, extracted his name and other details, then knocked him unconscious and hid him away.

The next day, Xu Zhe altered his appearance and attire, adopting the alias “Yu Song,” and appeared among the registrants for the Divine Elixir Tournament.

...

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