17 Essence Cleansing Bone Tempering

The only thing that made Qin Feng feel regretful was that the Demon Refinement Kettle originally possessed nine levels of grottos but was now left with only one small patch of space at the lowest level. That meant that he was only able to nurture one spirit beast at the moment. If he wished to nurture other spirit breasts, he could only achieve that if he managed to fill in all the other eight levels of grottos.

Qin Feng sighed regretfully, however, he was able to collect his emotions in no time. It was best to not be too greedy. To have been able to obtain this good thing was a gift from heaven. If his greed caused him to be dissatisfied and solely focused on repairing the Demon Refinement Kettle with his current ability, that would be asking for a disaster.

Since he had yet to enter the Beastmaster sect, the matter of taming a spirit beast could be dealt with in the future. At the moment, the most important thing was to figure out how to use the Demon Refinement Kettle to advance his cultivation.

After all, the Demon Refinement Kettle had the ability to refine the physical body of demonic beasts into extremely pure spiritual energy that could assist in cultivation. If he could refine a few more demons, his own cultivation advancement would be off the charts.

However, where to find demonic beasts was an issue. As a cultivator at the second level of Qi Refinement Stage, he was still a low-leveled small cultivator. He had no qualification to hunt demonic beasts for cultivation.

Qin Feng summoned the Demon Refinement Kettle for fun but he quickly returned it back into his consciousness. He also secretly decided that if there was no need for it, he would not easily retrieve this treasure from his consciousness. If it was discovered that this small beginner stage cultivator could summon a treasure from within, it would definitely attract the suspicions of others.

At that moment, the sound of people talking could be heard from a room close by. It sounded like Qin Yang had managed to help Chen Hu and the others eliminate the Yin intent within their bodies. After they regained consciousness, they were showing their gratitude to Qin Yang.

As he thought, Qin Feng knew that in a moment, Qin Yang would head into the adjacent room to rest. As Qin Feng did not want to raise suspicions in Qin Yang as he used tiredness to excuse himself earlier.

Qin Feng stretched his hand towards the candlestick nearby and waved. In an instant, a breeze shot along his palm and extinguished the candle. The spiritual energy from the Demon Refinement Kettle's feedback allowed him to improve significantly. Even casting spells seemed so much easier.

As the room entered into darkness, Qin Feng decided that he wanted to cultivate cross-legged. However, his unanticipated acquisition of a valuable treasure made his emotions so excitedly flustered that there was no way he could calm down. Hence he was unable to cultivate. Since he could not cultivate, he might as well get a good night's rest and make new plans in the morning.

Qin Feng laid on the bed, his mind was a jumble of thoughts. One moment he would be excited for his grand future ahead, the next moment he would be fearful and scared that someone would discover the Demon Refinement Kettle within his consciousness.

After tossing and turning for half the night, he finally drifted off to sleep.

...

Three days later.

Qin Residence.

Qin Feng had finished cultivating and was just reading a book about a cultivator's travels to broaden his knowledge. It was at that moment when he suddenly heard his father's voice calling him from the courtyard, "Feng'er, I'm back."

His voice carried a sense of elation. Qin Feng followed the sound of his voice to greet him. He had only taken two steps before he saw that his father had already entered with great strides.

"Haha, Feng'er hurry over to take a look, see what good things I have brought home for you."

Qin Long's broad smile spread across his face and he reached his hand into the storage sack at his waist to retrieve a pile of bottles and cans. He retrieved the items while he smiled and said at the same time, "I bumped into our family patriarch in the county city on this trip. He had already helped us buy some medicinal pills and elixirs, including the Yellow Sprout Pill and the Barrier Breaking Pill. Take them along with the rest of these. You'll be able to use it when you tame your own spirit beast.

"These two bottles contain the Essence Cleansing Liquid and the Bone Tempering Pill. They are both great items that can raise your aptitude. I have already prepared a medicinal bath for you. You can use it right away later tonight, don't forget and cause me to worry.

"These things will yield better results when used at a younger age with lower cultivation level. If we waited until you reached a higher cultivation level before trying to raise your aptitude, it would be hard to do by then."

"Thank you, Dad," Qin Feng heard his words and similarly felt exuberant. Even though he already possessed a Demon Refinement Kettle that could help with his cultivation, it was still a foreign object and there would come a time when it reached its limit.

Once he achieved a certain level of cultivation, purely relying on the Demon Refinement Kettle to improve his cultivation was unrealistic. Furthermore, raising one's aptitude was the very foundation. Someone with excellent bone structure would not only save more time during cultivation, it could also reduce a lot of unnecessary constraints during cultivation advancements.

The Essence Cleansing Liquid and the Bone Tempering Pill may have the function of raising his aptitude, but in all honesty, the result was not great which was why a small family like the Qin family could get their hands on it.

"These things can't be helped, it's only because I'd agreed on this with the family patriarch earlier on that we got these items." Qin Long chuckled as he retrieved an inner armor from his storage sack and said, "This trip with Li Tianchou to escort Zhao Jinglei and the others back to the Zhao family in the county city resulted in the beginning of a friendly relationship. In fact, the Zhao family was very generous, and gifted us with many things.

"However, all these items are of no use to you. I'll swap them for some spirit stones and buy you a new spirit armor."

Mid sentence, Qin Long handed the inner armor to Qin Feng and smiled, "This armor is crafted from the thick hide of the rhinoceros beast to form an early-stage spiritual inner armor. If you encounter any danger, immediately activate the defense spell contained within the armor and a layer of earth element spiritual aura will form outside your body. That will be enough to help you resist a large portion of the danger.

"However, I didn't buy you armor with a stronger defense power not because I didn't want to, but because your power isn't strong enough yet. Even if I got it for you, you wouldn't be able to use the power within it and might even attract people who are covetous of your armor.

"This inner armor is one that I've carefully picked out for you. Even though it is a low-grade spiritual tool, as long as you're able to activate certain spells, you will be able to bring up your defenses. 

"This type of spiritual inner armor that can be used by early-stage Qi Refinement Stage cultivators are few and far between. The price is not cheap and if it wasn't for all the stuff that the Zhao family had gifted us, I wouldn't have bought it. Here, come and try it on."

"Ok." Qin Feng felt deeply moved but he did not say anything. Instead, he received the inner armor and put it on. As the spiritual energy within him flowed into the inner armor, in an instant, the originally loose-fitting inner armor started to shrink and become a perfect fit.

"Not bad," Qin Long could not help but let out an exhortation of praise at the sight of his son wearing the inner armor. "You have some of my good looks and style from my younger days."

Hearing his words, Qin Feng was torn between tears and laughter. That was because his appearance was wildly different from his father's. Apart from their eyes, that was where the similarities ended. At least he did not inherit his father's square face and beard. It could be said that he looked more handsome when compared to his father.

He had heard before that he looked more like his mother. It was a shame that his mother had passed on earlier than most. Qin Feng had almost forgotten what she looked like. After all, it had already been more than 10 years. He was only over one year old when he last saw his mother.

In the evening, Qin Feng immersed his entire body into the bathtub, the whole room was filled with a heavy and dense medicinal herb scent. That was the Essence Cleansing Bone Tempering medicinal bath that Qin Long had prepared for him so that he would be able to quickly use up the Essence Cleansing Liquid before the rest of the family found out about it.

Even though Qin Long definitely would not be willing to give the Essence Cleansing Liquid away but there was no need to argue with the rest of the family. The sooner he was able to help his son raise his aptitude, the more likely he would be able to dissuade those people who had intentions against his son. 

If they wanted the Essence Cleansing Liquid, they would have to get it themselves. Qin Long would not tolerate the stinking bad habits of certain people in the family. The Essence Cleaning Liquid did not just fall into his lap. It was a result of all his contributions and services to the family over all these years. All that led to the family patriarch agreeing to help him buy all those items.

In the bathtub, Qin Feng could not help but feel like he was like a frog in a pot of boiling water. His entire body was bright red from the hot bathwater. Even so, he dared not come out of the water because he did not want to waste all his previous efforts. This medicinal bath would be wasted if he got out now, so he continued to circulate his spiritual energy within his body. As he absorbed the medicinal properties, it also neutralized some of the heat causing a stream of continuous white steam to emanate from the top of his head.

As the water temperature rose, all the medicinal properties and spiritual energy within the bath liquid entered his body unceasingly with each circulation of his cultivation. A feeling of soreness and numbness spread through his body, making his entire body go weak.

"Open wide," Qin Long suddenly called out in a soft voice as he placed a Bone Tempering Pill into Qin Feng's mouth. 

As soon as the Bone Tempering Pill entered his belly, he instantly felt a rush of coolness spread across all his internal organs, limbs, and bones. The feeling was so pleasurable that Qin Feng almost let out a moan. After all, the numbing pain from earlier was quite difficult to endure.

It was a shame that the good times never last as that coolness quickly faded to become a strong medicinal power that surged closely and started to seep into his bones. That sensation was like being bitten by billions upon billions of ants, he was in anguish.

The Bone Tempering Pill could increase the strength and hardness of his bones, cleansing the innermost part of his bone marrow for impurities and allowing his bone structure to be elevated. 

However, the effect of the pill was far too strong. Qin Feng put on a brave face in order to prevent his father from worrying about him. If it were not for that, he might have cried out a long time ago.