Spirit Refining

Heavy raindrops fell to the ground like a bullet, battering the roof of the sword bamboo houses, making the usual sound of a rain smashing down to a metallic roof.

The surface of the pond in front of the building was full of ripples, the fishes in the water swimming lively around, the aquatic plants swaying about at the bottom of the pond. The sky was overcast; a thick rain curtain obscured the field of vision as far as the eye could see.

In a dim room, the window was open, and Di Lan quietly watched the heavy rainfall.

"It has already been a week."

On the night a week ago, he had walked out of the village with two bottles of wine, searching around the surroundings. But when it was late into the night, it started pouring rain. Put aside him being drenched to the bones, the main point was that in the situation he could not go about searching anymore.

And, if he forced himself to search under such conditions, it might arouse suspicions to the villagers. Although previously, he pretended to become a depressed drunken person to cover up his real motives, but he knew to never underestimate the intelligence of others around him. Only a fool would think others were stupid.

Thus under this helplessness, Di Lan could only stop his search.

Not to mention that the moment it started raining, the rain had went on continuously. Sometimes it became heavier and sometimes lighter, but it never stopped.

"I guess in this way, I won't be able to find the demon monk's corpse for a short period of time. To be sure, I can only choose to start refining the Moonfang Spirit. While I refine it, if I can find the tracks of the Butterfree during the process, it would be the best, but if I can't then this would have to do.

But this matter is very common; a storm may arise from a clear sky, something unexpected may happen anytime. In life, who can do everything without obstacles in his way, having a perfect journey?"

Di Lan's thoughts were calm; his previous worldly experience had long made his patience very long in the first place.

He closed the door and window, and sat cross-legged on his bed. Then, he closed his eyes slowly and after breathing a few times, his state of mind has calmed.

In the next moment, the vision of his spiritual core appeared in his mind. The core may be positioned inside his brain but it was mysteriously unusual, limitlessly big and yet infinitely small. The outer layer of the core was a layer of of purple light. The light gave a thin impression, but it still supported the core well.

In the core was a sea of spiritual essence. The spirit sea looked like an orange fog. This was strange because the usual color should be either green. Di Lang have researched about it but can't find anything related with an unusual color of a spirit sea.

The fog level was about a quarter the height of the core. The entire volume of the sea occupied 20% of the core.

This was the fog sea of a Rank one Spirit Master, and every strand of the fog was spiritual essence. It was Di Lan's quarter stage cultivation; the condensation of his essence, vitality and soul.

Every condensed spiritual essence was precious, because it was the source of a Spirit Master's power. Spirit Masters need to rely on spiritual essence to refine and use Spirits.

As he retreated his mind from the spiritual sea, Di Lan opened his eyes, retrieving the Moonfang Spirit.

The Moonfang Spirit was simply standing still on his palm, resembling an elegant lower fang of a tiger, small and crystalline.

With a simple thought, the spiritual sea in his core tumbled and a jet of spiritual essence broke from the fog surface and transferred out of the body, finally rushing into the Moonfang Spirit.

The Moonfang Spirit suddenly radiated fiercely in deep blue light, slowly floating on Di Lan's palm, revolving as it was resisting the influx of spiritual essence.

Spirits are the essence of heaven and earth, carrying the secrets of the world, the bearers of the law of nature. They are living yet non living at the same time which live freely under the sky, each born with a will of its own. Right now with Di Lan trying to refine it, it would mean wiping out its will. Feeling the danger looming, the Moonfang Spirit naturally resisted.

The process of refining is a very difficult one.

The Moonfang Spirit was like a broken crescent moon. As the orange fog spiritual essence poured into the crescent, the sharp point of the broken crescent turned orange. Slowly creeping, the spiritual essence began to spread to the body of the moonfang.

In less than three minutes, Di Lan's face had become pale. A huge volume of spiritual essence continuously poured into the Moonfang Spirit, making him feel a weakness that rapidly attacked his heart.

1%, 2%, 3%… 8%, 9%, 10%.

Fifteen minutes later, Di Lan's spiritual sea had used twelve percent of his essence. Yet, on the blue crystalline Moonfang Spirit's surface, the refined tip of the broken crescent essence only expanded a tiny area towards the center.

The resistance of the Moonfang Spirit was immensely strong. Fortunately, Di Lan had anticipated this earlier and did not feel surprised. He persisted and poured in more essence into the Moonfang Spirit.

18%, 19%, 20%…21%, 22%, 23%.

After another thirty minutes, the spiritual sea in Di Lan's body was only left with 6%. The spiritual essence on the Moonfang Spirit had expanded slightly, the tip of orange essence have finally reached 1/3 of the Moonfang Spirit's body. The rest of the Moonfang Spirit's surface was still the original color of sapphire.

"Damn, refining a Spirit is so hard," Di Lan sighed as he looked at it. He broke the influx of spiritual essence, stopping the refining process.

Up until now, he had been refining for almost an hour, the spiritual sea in his aperture consumed over more than half, with only 4% of primeval essence left.

To make matters worse, the Moonfang Spirit was still emitting its faint deep blue halo. Even though Di Lan had stopped refining, the Moonfang Spirit did not stop resisting; it was still driving out Di Lan's orange fog spiritual essence.

Di Lan could clearly feel that the spiritual essence that he poured into the Moonfang Spirit was being pushed out, bit by bit by the Moonlight Gu out of its body. On its surface, the orange essence at the tip of the moon crescent was slowly shrinking.

Based on this speed of reduction, in about eight hours later, the Moonfang Spirit would be able to completely expel all of Di Lan's spiritual essence. At that time when he needed to refine this Spirit, it would make no difference from starting over again.

"Every time when refining a Spirit, it is just like a war between two armies, enacting every tactial move just to gain control. Even though I refined 1/3 of the Spirit, I wasted more than three quarters of my spiritual essence. When refining Spirit, a Spirit Master has to replenish his spiritual sea while continuously engaging the refinement process, consolidating his victory. The refinement of a Spirit is a test of one's skill in manipulating his spiritual essence and the patience of an enduring battle."

Di Lan took out a piece of spiritual stone from his moneybag as he pondered.

A Spirit Master had two ways to replenish the consumed spiritusl essence. The first way was natural recovery. After a period of time the primeval sea would naturally replenish the primeval essence. In the case of a mortal grade talent like Di Lan, it would take about one hour to replenish 3% of primeval essence. In six hours it could recover 18% points of the total quantity primeval essence.

The second way was to absorb the natural essence directly from a spirit stone.

The spirit stone is a treasure from nature itself. As condensed natural spirit essence, while absorbing it the fog level of the spiritual sea was rising with a continuous speed that could be observed with the naked eye.

After about half an hour, the spiritual sea had been replenished back to its original volume of 25%. At this level, the rising fog level of the sea stopped abruptly. Even though there was still space inside the core, Di Lan could not store any more spiritual essence. This was the limit of his mortal grade talent.

Thus from here, one can see the significance of the grade of one's cultivation talent. The higher the talent, the more spiritual essence the core can hold, and the faster the natural recovery of the spiritual essence will be.

In Di Lan's case, to refine a Spirit and solidify his results, he would have to absorb spiritual stones because his spiritual essence natural recovery rate cannot defeat the rate of the Moonfang Spirit expelling it out.

However, in the case of the Gold grade talent Di Lang, she could replenish 9% of primeval essence every hour. In six hours he would recover 54% of primeval essence, and in the same time frame the Moonfang Spirit could only expel away 3% points of spiritual essence. Di Lan did not require the external help of a primeval stone. He could go on refining with a few rests in the process and successfully refine the Moonfang Spirit in a few days.

So, to refine the Moonfang Spirit he never have the chance to obtain the first position from the beginning. It had nothing to do with a person's actual strength, as the first factor was the grade of talent.

The second factor would be spiritual stones. If there was an abundance of spiritual stones, without hesitation to consume, a silver grade talent could also surpass a Gold grade talent and obtain the first position.

"In my hands are seven pieces of spiritual stones. I cannot compare to Mu Mo Chen or Mu Shi Chi, these kinds of people who have their elder family members supporting them from behind. My talent is mortal grade, and cannot be compared to Di Lan who has a Gold grade talent. I never had a chance of winning in this test. Why not divert my energy and go look for the Demon Monk? If I can make the Butterfree into my vital Gu it would be so much better than the Moonfang Spirit.

Hmm? The sound of rain outside the window has gotten lighter, there seems to be a sign of ceasing. The rain has been ongoing for a week with just 2 to 4 hours of interval per day, it should be time that it stopped."

Di Lan kept the Moonfang Spirit back to the box and got down from his bed. As he was about to open the window, there was a knock on the door.

Outside the door came his servant Chu Zi Mo's voice, "Young master Di Lan, its me. It has been raining almost straight for a week, so I brought you some food and wine. Young master can eat and drink and ease some depressed feelings."