Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit

"What is Junior Uncle Xuan-Yuan planning to do? You've made it clear that you aren't accepting disciples yet, but he still sent them here? If you reject them, it will be seen as you refusing his request. Although Junior Uncle Xuan-Yuan isn't strong, he is a respected elder in the same generation as our teachers.

"Your reputation in the sect has caused many to be jealous, those people will definitely make a fuss and talk nonsense about this matter. This could influence the seniors into thinking you are arrogant and disrespectful to your elders."

Lu Ping laughed and comforted her, "You’re too suspicious. Perhaps, Junior Uncle Xuan-Yuan just doesn't want to let these disciples lose the opportunity to advance further. After all, they were the only ones who withstood my suppression, so both their talent and will are considered exceptional in this regard. Junior Uncle Xuan-Yuan just wants the best for the younger generation."

Hu Lili felt that she might have been overthinking; she smiled, and asked, "What will you do then, are you really going to accept them?"

Lu Ping didn't answer. Instead, he waved his sleeves and the By-Lake Cauldron in front of him opened its lid, letting out a billow of steam. The steam gathered above the cauldron and condensed into a skyblue water. This was the Magnificent Wave Water, an Earth-class low-grade wonder water.

After that, an unusually big medicinal pellet the size of a lychee flew out of the cauldron, which Lu Ping kept inside a jade bottle. He passed the bottle to Hu Lili, and said, "This is the Spirit Water Vein Nourishment Pellet I've upgraded into a Core Forging Realm pellet. It will help you recover the damage to your cultivation foundation. You'll be fine, I promise."

Hu Lili kept the jade bottle away, while Lu Ping continued, "As for the disciples, let them be for now. According to the sect's rules, they need to reach the Mid Blood Condensation Realm to be eligible for a teacher. It will take years for them to get there, long enough for us to see their true nature. If they can withstand the loneliness and persevere on their own, then why not accept them?"

Hu Lili no longer dwelled on the matter after seeing that Lu Ping had already made plans, and instead asked, "You've been concocting pellets recently, are you going out again, or is this going to be another long closed-door cultivation session?"

Lu Ping knew he couldn't hide anything from Hu Lili, and laughed, "Truly nothing can be hidden from you. I had already felt the opportunity to break through to the Mid Core Forging Realm before we reoccupied Huang Li Island, I just didn't have time to do it. But now that you’re here to help me out with the island's affairs and Zheng Jie is here to assist you, I finally have the opportunity to do so. In terms of the island's safety, I've asked Chen Lian to come over to guard the island and I have also told the others about my absence so that they can keep a watch over the island. Finally, I’ve also left Lu Qin by your side to keep you safe. In around three years, I will be a Mid Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master."

Hu Lili was happy to hear that, "Focus on your breakthrough, don't worry about the island, I'm here for you."

…

In the cultivation room, Lu Ping sat quietly.

In the past few years, Lu Ping had multiple attempts to break through to the Mid Core Forging Realm without success. However, just before the operation to reclaim Huang Li Island, Lu Ping came across a deer monster's Golden Core and obtained it from Qu Xuan-Cheng.

The decision to acquire the Golden Core was simple. When he touched it, the bottleneck that resisted his breakthrough quivered and turned brittle like a thin piece of glass that could easily shatter.

At that instant, Lu Ping knew the key to his cultivation breakthrough – bloodlines!

Typically, cultivators would enhance their bloodlines in the Blood Condensation Realm. In the Core Forging Realm, they would work on enhancing the spirituality in their Golden Cores; Lu Ping hadn’t thought that he was an exception.

But his body's natural reaction to the deer monster's Golden Core proved him wrong. Somehow, his bloodline still deemed itself incomplete and refused to break through.

Snake's body, crocodile's leg, carp's whiskers and tail… could it be…?

Lu Ping recalled the weird image of the Jiao's in his heartspace as an exciting thought occurred in his mind. However, he needed more evidence to confirm his guess.

Before entering closed-door cultivation, Lu Ping told Hu Lili to direct the spiritual energy of two of the three small spirit veins to his room. Hence, the spiritual energy in the room was so concentrated that it compressed into mist form and almost condensed into water droplets.

This was already better than the environment on Tian Ling Mountain. After all, Tian Ling Mountain's large spirit vein was shared by all the cultivators on the mountain, but Lu Ping had two small spirit veins just for himself here. 24062

This was also the main reason why many cultivators preferred to set up their own cave-dwellings outside of Tian Ling Mountain or be stationed on the sect's other islands that had small spirit veins.

However, there were no medium spirit veins in Zhen Ling Sect's territory because they had all been fused with Tian Ling Mountain's large spirit vein during its evolution to a colossal spirit vein. Hence, there were only small spirit veins nearby.

After a few moments of meditation, Lu Ping took out a jade box that was sealed tightly by a few charms to prevent any spiritual energy leakage.

As he swiped his hand across the jade box, the charms turned to ash. He carefully opened the box, revealing a shining Golden Core.

The Golden Core's surface was calm and quiet, suggesting that the spirituality in it had completely faded. The only things left inside were an abundance of spiritual energy and bloodline essences.

Lu Ping was going to use the core to concoct Core Division Pellets. This was a type of pellet he had learned about during the Alchemy Conference in the East Ocean. He had even seen Grandmaster Alchemist Yan Wu-Jiu concoct them before.

Naturally, with Lu Ping's current alchemy level, he had no difficulty in concocting this Fifth Layer Core Forging Realm deer monster's Golden Core into ten Core Division Pellets.

Another reason for his confidence was the Spirit Fueled Mystical Heavenly Fire that he acquired from the Pavilion of Alchemy's place of inheritance. Thinking about the Pavilion of Alchemy, Lu Ping wondered when they would finally notice that he had already subdued and taken away the wonder fire and how they would react when they found out about this.

After a period of nurturing the wonder fire, Lu Ping had completely left his branding in it, making him its only master. Besides that, his cauldron had been switched from the River Unification Cauldron to the By-Lake Cauldron.

Even though both were top-grade cauldrons, the By-Lake Cauldron was a hair weaker than the River Unification Cauldron. However, the difference was so negligible that even Lu Ping barely noticed it at all.

After using the [Spirit Explosion Technique] with a few high-grade spirit stones, Lu Ping successfully concocted ten Core Division Pellets. At the same time, he was now also running out of high-grade spirit stones.

Most of his spirit stones had come from the medium spirit stone mine he quietly excavated under the nameless island in the Fallen Rift. The rest of his spirit stones came from the cultivators that he had killed and looted.

It wasn’t surprising that Lu Ping was running out of spirit stones after all the recent usage.

As Lu Ping started consuming the Core Division Pellets one by one, his foundation bloodline became agitated like a ravenous beast that had been woken up from its hibernation. It devoured the deer monster's bloodline that was refined inside the Core Division Pellets.

Like before, Lu Ping's foundation bloodline swiftly absorbed the deer monster's bloodline essences, while the deer monster's spiritual energy was converted by the [North Ocean Wave Listening Scripture] into true energy.

However, Lu Ping's Golden Core was already saturated with bloodline essence after absorbing one-third of the deer monster's bloodline essence. As a result, the remaining two-thirds started to flow out of his heartspace and into his body.

As the bloodline essence rampaged in his body, he gradually turned red and fumes started to rise out of his skin. This was not a normal occurrence, nor a good sign.

Lu Ping knew that he had reached the critical point of no return; either he absorbed the bloodline essence and entered the Mid Core Forging Realm, or he expelled the bloodline essence out, seriously injuring his body and cultivation.

The key to crossing this last obstacle lied with the wonder water. If Lu Ping was able to fuse a wonder water with his Golden Core, the Golden Core would be greatly enhanced and would then be able to accommodate the massive bloodline essence accumulating in his body.

Usually, the Mid Core Forging Realm breakthrough was to fuse a wonder item into the Golden Core so that the Golden Core could accommodate more bloodline essence and true energy.

However, in Lu Ping's case, he wasn't just trying to accommodate more bloodline essence or true energy, but rather his bloodline was experiencing another evolution after consuming the deer monster's bloodline.

However, there was a problem with the wonder water that he had prepared for his Mid Core Forging Realm breakthrough!