Chapter 121: Shen Lian’s Soaring Foundation and Might!

Off the coast of Yuanyan Immortal City.

On an unnamed small island, inside the stable No. 6 cave dwelling.

Under the cover of night, tiny, inconspicuous black-horned ants gazed at the sky and sea bathed in moonlight, occasionally using their two front claws to pick their teeth or shaking their heads to dispel the boredom.

The sky was high, the earth was vast, and the sea breeze drifted gently.

[Calm and composed, Insight Point +1]
[Calm and composed, Insight Point +1]
……
[Mind free of external objects, Divine Insight Point +1]
[Calm and composed, Insight Point +1]
……
[Calm and composed, Insight Point +1]

Shen Lian, sitting cross-legged in the cave, was like an unmoving statue, listening to the sounds resonating in the ethereal void.

It was not until the first light of dawn that the echoes in his sea of divine sense slowly faded.

Shen Lian opened his eyes, a flicker of sharp light flashing within them. His divine sense surged out like a rising tide, enveloping the small island.

His divine sense extended outward until it reached its limit at 1,690 zhang. At this moment, ripples appeared in his sea of divine sense, and a faint ache arose.

Immediately, the ripples originating from the sea of divine sense swept through his entire body, creating a tingling sensation and causing him to feel a momentary wave of dizziness.

Trading with Qian Dai for cultivation resources had been beneficial, allowing Shen Lian to acquire three Tier 2 early and mid-stage demon beasts over the past two years, which he used to practice the "Blood Refining Soul Derivation" secret technique.

The result was that his divine sense had grown significantly, to the point where his physical body was struggling to keep up.

At the fourth level of Foundation Establishment, he possessed nearly 1,700 zhang of divine sense.

Shen Lian dared not ask other fellow practitioners, "How much divine sense do you have?"

"I have 1,700 zhang of divine sense; what do you think of that?"

Asking those of the same rank was useless, and as for high-level Golden Core cultivators, not to mention having no channel to reach them, even if someone were to introduce him, he would not dare to ask.

The solution to his physical body being unable to bear his divine sense was simple: polish the body more diligently.

"Hoo..."

Slowly standing up to stretch his muscles and bones, Shen Lian retracted his divine sense bit by bit. Once he had stabilized his divine sense, he flickered and dived deep into the earth.

Inside the stable No. 7 cave dwelling.

Lightning and fire intertwined; the aura was like a suppressed volcano, exuding a strong sense of destruction.

Seventy-two No. 3 Heaven-Derivation Jade Talismans were present, with thirty-six embedded in the surrounding rock walls of the cave, and another thirty-six suspended in a crisscross pattern in mid-air.

Wisps of lightning and fire overflowed from the No. 3 jade talismans, forming a red and purple mist that slowly merged into the large No. 1 Heaven-Derivation Jade Talisman in the center.

The energy of lightning and fire churned, constantly battering the surroundings of the cave, but it was all contained by a multicolored array covering the area.

A Tier 2 high-grade Five Elements Minor Interdiction Array.

This array could isolate auras when used by oneself, and when facing an enemy, it could restrict the circulation of their spiritual power and the potency of their spells. It also possessed three methods of attack.

The power of a No. 2 Heaven-Derivation Jade Talisman was comparable to that of a Tier 3 artifact, let alone the No. 1 Heaven-Derivation Jade Talisman combined with seventy-two No. 3 talismans.

The effect of the Tier 2 high-grade Five Elements Minor Interdiction Array was simply insufficient to completely isolate the aura generated by nurturing the No. 1 jade talisman.

Therefore, Shen Lian, having been promoted to a Tier 2 high-grade Array Master, creatively applied "Small Five Elements Mutual Generation Talismans" to the array like a medicinal plaster.

This talisman could form a self-contained Five Elements talisman array, assisting Five-Element Root cultivators in their practice, and could also augment Spirit-Gathering Arrays and Five Elements arrays.

On the twelve array bases of the Five Elements Minor Interdiction Array, Shen Lian had arranged a set of Small Five Elements Mutual Generation Talisman arrays, boosting the power of this Tier 2 high-grade array to at least a quasi-Tier 3 level.

As the Five Elements aura circulated, it absorbed the overflowing elemental energy, decomposed it through the cycle of the Five Elements, and turned it into auxiliary energy for the array's operation.

Shen Lian could be considered unique in this regard. The reason he called it "quasi-Tier 3" was mainly because it had not undergone actual combat, and he found it difficult to judge exactly what level of power it had reached.

His divine sense wandered through the cave, checking the status of each jade talisman, replacing those whose energy consumption was either too fast or too slow to remain in sync with the overall energy of the talismans.

After finishing all this, Shen Lian's figure vanished from the cave once more.

Stable No. 8 cave dwelling.

This was the place where the No. 2 Heaven-Derivation Jade Talisman was nurtured.

Eggs should not be placed in the same basket; similarly, Heaven-Derivation Jade Talismans could not be nurtured in the same cave, and distance had to be maintained between them.

From stable No. 8 to No. 12, all were places for nurturing No. 2 Heaven-Derivation Jade Talismans, distributed all around the island.

Shen Lian estimated that if all these jade talismans were to explode, the entire island might not sink, but sinking half of it should be sufficient.

Nurturing six Heaven-Derivation Jade Talismans at once was the limit of what he could currently control; any more, and should an accident occur, he would be unable to quickly recover the talismans.

After making his rounds, Shen Lian returned to his cave.

Practicing and checking the status of the jade talismans every day had become a habit he had recently cultivated.

Over these years in the Yuanyan Sea region, he had lived quite comfortably, earning spirit stones, collecting medicinal herbs and spiritual items, and receiving the benefits that resonated from the void.

Such a life of cultivation was very pleasant.

However, Shen Lian knew in his heart that even mortals encountered household trivialities or neighborhood quarrels; the path of immortality could not remain stable forever.

Leaning comfortably on the wide couch that Big Black had gnawed out and covered with thick dharma robes as a cushion, he narrowed his eyes and took a short nap.

[Shen Lian: Foundation Establishment Level 4]
[Five Elements Spirit Root: Fire 100, Earth 69, Metal 31, Wood 31, Water 31]
[Fire Element Divine Ability: Heaven-Derivation Fire Domain]
[Divine Sense: 1,690 zhang]
[Alchemist: Tier 2 Low-grade (1011/20000) Cannot break through]
[Talisman Master: Tier 2 Mid-grade (19789/30000) Cannot break through]
[Array Master: Tier 2 High-grade (101/50000) Cannot break through]
[Puppeteer: Tier 2 Low-grade (1425/20000) Cannot break through]
[Beast Tamer: Tier 2 Low-grade (1/20000) Cannot break through]
——Expand——
[Insight Points: 6521]
[Divine Insight Points: 23]

These were the achievements of the past few years.

He planned to save up enough Divine Insight Points before raising his Earth Spirit Root to perfection in one go.

Apart from not having advanced in his cultivation realm, his skills as an Array Master and Beast Tamer had improved, especially in arrays, where he had managed to elevate a Tier 2 high-grade array into the Tier 3 category by combining it with talismans.

After advancing to the fourth level of Foundation Establishment, his cultivation speed was slightly slower than before, but for Shen Lian, this slight difference meant nothing, as he usually consumed top-quality pills.

He had sold the mid- and low-quality ones to others, surrounded by their expressions of gratitude.

During this period, his frantic accumulation—mainly to solve the pill shortages for his fellow practitioners—meant he fired up his furnace to refine pills at least five or six times a month. Added to the time spent making spiritual ink and crafting talismans, his cultivation time had been reduced significantly.

Although his realm had not improved, for Shen Lian, the foundation he had accumulated was already catching up to that of Golden Core masters.

Even ordinary Golden Core masters might not necessarily have such an accumulation of resources.

He had accumulated 173 portions of medicinal materials for the three commonly used Foundation Establishment pills: Spirit-Gathering Pills, True Spirit Pills, and Yuan-Returning Pills.

Combined with other less common medicinal herbs for pills like the Qi-Supplementing Three Treasures, Xuan-Yuan Pills, Stasis-Clearing Pills, Water-Returning Pills, Gold-Returning Pills, and Yuan-Ginseng Pills, he had 46 portions in total.

Additionally, he had 32 other Tier 2 mid-grade herbs and 3 Tier 2 high-grade herbs.

These herbs were not limited to refining a specific type of pill; when mixed and matched, they could serve as auxiliary ingredients for Tier 2 mid- and high-grade pills, and some could even be used in Tier 3 pills.

He had also collected two sets of main and auxiliary ingredients for Foundation Establishment Pills, with one set missing a suitable demon core and the other missing a Heaven Spirit Fruit.

He possessed two sets of Tier 2 mid-grade Five Elements spiritual items, two Tier 2 high-grade Five Elements spiritual items called "Cangling Sea Pearls," and one Gold-Eyed Jade Fruit.

As for talismans, he had one large No. 1 jade talisman, twenty-six No. 2 jade talismans, a pile of No. 3s, and a pile of No. 4s.

He also had upgraded puppet jade talismans; currently, only the Fire Element one had reached his conceptual design. To collect all five elements—Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth—he would have to wait until his Five Elements Spirit Root reached perfection.

Regarding arrays, he had two and a half sets of the primary Five Elements Minor Interdiction Array. The reason it was "half a set" was that the materials for the third set had not yet been gathered.

In terms of puppets, his Five Elements Spiritual Puppets had not improved over the past few years, but Shen Lian had increased the number of arrays embedded in them to 80,000, making them much more adept at control and extending their range to 3,200 zhang.

He had only added one ordinary puppet, a Tier 2 early-stage Sea-Swallowing Dragon Fish, primarily because complete demon beast corpses were hard to find.

Of the cultivator corpses inherited from Pei Huoyu, one remained intact.

As for magical artifacts, he had found a damaged Tier 3 defensive spiritual treasure, the Nine-Mystic Golden Umbrella. Although damaged, it was just right, as his divine sense was exactly enough to control it.

For this Nine-Mystic Golden Umbrella, Shen Lian still owed Qian Dai a large amount of "Joy Pills."

Regarding poisons, building upon his previous "Hundred Spirits Poison," he had innovated and developed a conceptual "Magnified Thousand Spirits Poison."

Currently, the main ingredient for this poison was a Tier 2 high-grade Gold-Eyed Ring-Pattern Demon Spider. However, this spider had too much fire attribute, and Shen Lian was not yet satisfied with the potency of the toxin.

In his design, since the Five Elements generate and overcome each other, he planned to develop a "Five Elements Poison." When five types of toxins were blended together, they would be non-toxic when mutually generating, but highly poisonous when mutually overcoming.

This would save him the trouble of even researching an antidote.

In times of crisis, he would release the poison and enter the toxic circle, while he himself would remain perfectly fine.

This was why Shen Lian had not been focusing on cultivation in recent years; he had spent a great deal of effort organizing his four means of attack and defense: talismans, arrays, poisons, and puppets.

Even so, this only initially fulfilled his previous "buy, buy, buy" strategy, which was the only way to ensure he could retreat unscathed when facing an early-stage Golden Core cultivator.

It was not that Shen Lian did not want to continue buying, but Qian Dai's potential had reached its limit; he had practically plucked him bald over the past few years.

Inside the cave, he stroked Big Black's head, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

Now that he had the means to contend with Golden Core cultivators, it was becoming difficult to continue accumulating his foundation.

It was not that he did not want to continue saving, but the environment did not permit it.

In the Ten Thousand Star Sea region, Tier 2 mid-grade spiritual items were relatively common, but Tier 2 high-grade items—whether raw materials or magical artifacts—were hard to find.

Even at Qian Dai's place, Tier 2 high-grade items did not appear often.

To get Tier 2 high-grade spiritual items, he would have to rely on searching and hunting for them himself.

Therefore, for the next two or three years, he would focus primarily on improving his cultivation realm.

The first step was to find a suitable method to improve his physical body.

Otherwise, if he broke through to the fifth level of Foundation Establishment, his divine sense would continue to increase, potentially leading to a situation where his divine sense was too strong for his physical body to bear.

In the world of immortality, there was indeed the path of Body Refining.

In the ancient era, spiritual items were everywhere, and practitioners who cultivated both magic and body were common, and they could reach very high realms.

In the medieval era, body refining still flourished for a time.

But that was its final glow.

The last batch of powerful body refiners had exhausted the limited spiritual essences in the world of immortality that were suitable for body refining, effectively cutting off the path for their successors.

Nowadays, resources were scarce; there were no longer any proper body refiners, and the legacies of those glorious body-refining sects had even lost their names.

In short, when the treasures were gone, no one could play anymore.

Today, it was not that no one tempered their tendons, bones, skin, flesh, and internal organs to follow a "body refining" path, but it was all to practice some secret technique, similar to Shen Lian using it to reinforce his body because his divine sense was too strong.

Without body-tempering treasures, it was just going through the motions.

Shen Lian only wanted to temper his body along the way so his physical body wouldn't collapse under his strong divine sense; he wasn't going to look at what era this was for "Body Refining."

When the predecessors of the medieval era cut off the path for their descendants, they hadn't thought about all this.

Hmm... perhaps the next era would become the Age of Dharma Decline, and there would be practitioners sighing and cursing just like him.

"Let's go see how Sanqian is doing."

In the newly opened spiritual beast room, Sanqian was still in a deep sleep. The Tier 2 early-stage demon core, which had been riddled with small holes, was almost completely absorbed.

After carefully checking Sanqian's condition, Shen Lian nodded. With the energy of a Tier 2 early-stage demon core absorbed and Sanqian still not awake, it indicated that the bloodline power within its body was even stronger.

In a few days, if this demon core was completely absorbed and Sanqian had still not woken up, he planned to take out the Tier 2 mid-stage demon core he had and use it for Sanqian.

Compared to letting Sanqian advance to Tier 2, Shen Lian valued the potential of its bloodline more, as even if Sanqian advanced to Tier 2 now, it wouldn't be of much use to him.

Looking at Sanqian, then at Big Black standing on his shoulder, he sighed.

This unlucky child had a bloodline that was worse than average; he didn't know how many times the resources of Sanqian it would take to cultivate it.

Returning to the cultivation room, Shen Lian threw Big Black out to stand guard.

He sat back down cross-legged; it would take some time to finish nurturing the remaining Heaven-Derivation Jade Talismans, so he would have to continue staying on this desolate island for a while.

……

The *Sea Wind Thunder*.

The dilapidated old ship was still traveling along the old route.

"The minimum consumption for this session is four spirit stones. Give the heavens some face, and give... my old man, who is at the peak of the mid-stage Golden Core and nearing the late stage, some face."

After the sales pitch on the deck, the small trading session began in the spiritual ship's quiet room.

When there were no other practitioners left in the room, the attendant Mo'er waved her hand, and the seven-layered communication spiritual tree appeared before Qian Dai.

The communication talisman labeled "Alchemist Lu," which had previously hung on the lowest first layer, had now been moved to the third layer.

And on the third layer, there were over fifty jade talismans in total.

"Hum."

At this moment, one of the three purple jade talismans at the very top of the treasure tree lit up.

Qian Dai, who had been sitting with his eyes narrowed and silent, suddenly became spirited.

Requesting subscriptions.

(End of chapter)