Chapter 20: Spirit Root Transformation, Nascent Soul Realm Cultivator
The night sky was silent, occasionally filled with the cries of birds, and the mountain forest lay quietly in the darkness.
Gu An meditated within the life span barrier, appreciating the moonlight.
Tonight's moon was so beautiful, just like his mood.
His cultivation level had already reached the fourth layer of the Core Formation Realm, and he was getting closer to the end.
He planned to continue investing until he broke through to the Nascent Soul Realm, and then acquire an ultimate skill, as the Gale Shadowless Leg could no longer satisfy him.
What kind of Great Cultivator in the Nascent Soul Realm uses leg techniques?
He needed a sword!
Gu An decided to favor the Seven Swords of the Li Family. With the cultivation level of the Nascent Soul Realm, he also needed attacking techniques of the Nascent Soul Realm.
Yes, let's assume that Cheng Xuandan's master was a Great Cultivator in the Nascent Soul Realm!
Gu An had to overestimate his opponent as much as possible to reduce the chances of defeat.
After the cultivator he previously fought with left and did not return, Gu An's heart was completely at ease.
He was already a Core Formation Realm cultivator, and in the outer sect, he could walk unchallenged. Even if someone suddenly broke in, they wouldn't withstand a single kick from him!
Fifth layer of the Core Formation Realm!
His cultivation level increased again, and Gu An's divine sense also became stronger along with it!
The Core Formation Realm was completely different from the Foundation Establishment Realm; they were worlds apart.
The spiritual power was vastly different, and the divine sense disparity was also immense. Now, Gu An's divine sense could converge into a powerful impact.
Reaching the Core Formation Realm made him feel like a true cultivator.
If the Core Formation Realm was like this, how powerful would the Nascent Soul Realm be?
Gu An could not wait to invest his life span.
He had to wait patiently. After his cultivation level broke through to the sixth layer of the Core Formation Realm, he then brought up his attribute panel.
His gaze was involuntarily drawn to the spirit roots.
He once tried to enhance his spirit roots, but the results were negligible. This caused a psychological shadow, fearing it was a bottomless pit. Thus, he redirected his life span elsewhere, and deducing cultivation techniques could also improve spirit root qualifications.
Now that he was strong enough and his life span was abundant, it was time to retry enhancing his spirit roots.
After some time, when his cultivation level stopped increasing, Gu An directly invested two thousand years of life span into his spirit roots!
[You have invested two thousand years of life span into evolving and cultivating your spirit roots]
[You comprehend the essence of heaven and earth for a hundred years, and your perception power of the Five Elements Spirit Root increases]
[You comprehend the essence of heaven and earth for two hundred years, and your perception power of the Five Elements Spirit Root increases]
...
[You comprehend the essence of heaven and earth for a thousand years, finally capturing a trace of the Heaven and Earth True Meaning. Your spirit roots are cleansed by heaven and earth, and the qualifications of your Five Elements Spirit Root start to transform, with the Wood Spirit Root being the most prominent]
[You comprehend the essence of heaven and earth for twelve hundred years, and your perception power of the Five Elements Spirit Root increases]
...
[You comprehend the essence of heaven and earth for two thousand years, finally capturing a trace of the Heaven and Earth True Meaning. At the same time, you understand the earth's river veins. Your spirit roots are cleansed by heaven and earth, and the qualifications of your Five Elements Spirit Root start to transform. The qualifications of your Five Elements Spirit Root all transform into top-tier mortal qualifications, with the Wood Spirit Root and Earth Spirit Root being the most prominent]
One line after another of prompts appeared before Gu An.
Seeing the earlier prompts about the Five Elements, his heart started to bleed.
He was careless!
As expected, this thing was a bottomless pit!
Seeing the final prompt, where all Five Elements Spirit Root reached top-tier qualification, improved his mood, yet he still felt heartache. After all, previously understanding the Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill had already elevated his Wood Spirit Root to top-tier qualification.
He could not think like this!
He ought to consider that the Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill took a thousand years to elevate one spirit root to top-tier qualification. To elevate all five spirit roots to top-tier qualification, it would have taken at least five thousand years.
So the question was, why did he not cultivate techniques of the other four elements?
One had to try to walk the most perfect path.
As Gu An reflected on himself, the earth spirit energy surged again. This time it was not to enhance his cultivation level, but to temper his muscles and bones.
Pain!
Gu An felt an unprecedented pain, forcing him to grit his teeth and endure.
To divert his attention, he began to think about the attribute panel.
It seemed spirit root qualifications were the hardest to improve, which made sense. Spirit root qualifications were akin to the limit of one's life span, while cultivation level was the current life span. Breaking the limit was the hardest.
Efforts made postnatally would never be as difficult as breaking through the predetermined fate.
This was why the Supreme Sect treated geniuses with such reverence. Dual spirit roots like Ji Xiaoyu were far more important to the Supreme Sect than a single Core Formation Realm cultivator.
For ordinary people, the fewer spirit roots they had, the higher the qualification. If one's total talent value was a hundred, dual spirit roots could each have fifty, but if it was Five Elements Spirit Root, each root's talent value would only be twenty, and being well-rounded sometimes meant being average.
Gu An's situation was now different. By improving his spirit root qualifications, he was effectively raising his talent value from one hundred upward.
Unfortunately, spirit root attributes could not be individually invested to enhance cultivation. Now, the other spirit roots were not very helpful for his cultivation of Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill. Thus, his cultivation speed increased somewhat, but not significantly.
However, he noticed the prefix "mortal" before "top-tier qualifications" in the prompts.
Could there be Holy Body and Spirit Body as well?
Lost in these thoughts, Gu An noticed the consumption speed of the life span barrier starting to slow. From the moment he began his breakthrough until now, he had already consumed a hundred and thirty-four years of life span.
As his spirit root qualifications continued to improve, Gu An felt the myriad of spiritual energies grow clearer, altering his perception of the entire world.
The pain was being replaced by a sense of wonder!
Some time passed.
Gu An's body stopped absorbing spiritual energy. The Five Elements Spirit Root in his attribute panel changed to top-tier Five Elements Spirit Root. Instead of getting up, he invested two thousand years of life span into his cultivation.
The shadow of a failed tribulation weighed on him, so he decided to go all out. If he invested a thousand years into his cultivation and got stuck at the ninth layer of the Core Formation Realm, he would surely be vomiting blood.
This was a real possibility!
After failing a tribulation, it would take fifty years to attempt again. In reality, failing a tribulation meant either death or severe injury, and recovering from injuries definitely took time.
Moreover, the heavenly tribulation for the Nascent Soul Realm must be even harder. The number of failures would likely be numerous!
Begin!
[You practiced Qi absorption for a hundred years, and your cultivation broke through to the seventh layer of the Core Formation Realm]
[You practiced Qi absorption for two hundred years, and your cultivation broke through to the eighth layer of the Core Formation Realm]
[You practiced Qi absorption for three hundred years, and your cultivation broke through to the ninth layer of the Core Formation Realm]
[You practiced Qi absorption for four hundred years, and with great mastery of the Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill, you forcefully impacted the Nascent Soul Realm and began your tribulation. You did not survive the three profound heavenly tribulations and failed the tribulation]
...
[You practiced Qi absorption for fifteen hundred years, and with great mastery of the Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill, you forcefully impacted the Nascent Soul Realm and began your tribulation. You did not survive the three profound heavenly tribulations and failed the tribulation]
[You practiced Qi absorption for sixteen hundred years, and with great mastery of the Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill, you forcefully impacted the Nascent Soul Realm and began your tribulation. You finally survived the three profound heavenly tribulations, succeeded in your tribulation, and were promoted to the Nascent Soul Realm]
[You practiced Qi absorption for eighteen hundred years, and your cultivation broke through to the second layer of the Nascent Soul Realm]
[You practiced Qi absorption for two thousand years, and your cultivation broke through to the third layer of the Nascent Soul Realm]
Damn!
Failed twelve times!
When Gu An saw that he had failed the tribulation six times, his heart sank. By the time he failed ten times, he was seeing blackness in front of his eyes.
Luckily, he finally succeeded in breaking through to the Nascent Soul Realm.
Was the Nascent Soul Realm truly so difficult to break through?
Gu An thought, collapsing mentally. He realized why the life span consumed by evolutionary cultivation was larger than the actual consumption.
Evolutionary cultivation was equivalent to naked cultivation. Normal cultivation would involve taking elixirs and using formations to gather spiritual energy, which could help with tribulations. Not to mention the mystical effects of rare treasures.
Once again, the spiritual energy in the world surged madly, and the consumption rate of the life span barrier increased.
Gu An calmed his heart and began to enjoy the enhancement of his cultivation.
...
The rising sun shone over the mortal world, and Mystic Valley gradually brightened. Gu An stood atop the mountain, overlooking the autumnal forest. His robe fluttered, and the sunlight bathed him, as if he could ascend to become immortal at any moment.
He had already condensed the Nascent Soul, becoming a true Nascent Soul Realm cultivator!
To reward himself, he elevated his surface cultivation level by one layer, reaching the fourth layer of the Energy Cultivation Realm. In the future, he would raise it by one layer each year, stopping at the ninth layer of the Energy Cultivation Realm, so he would not be summoned away.
Unable to resist, he brought up his attribute panel to check again.
[Name: Gu An]
[Life Span: 22/4502]
[Spirit Root: Top-tier Five Elements Spirit Root (Wood and Earth attributes more prominent) (Can invest life span for evolutionary cultivation)]
[Cultivation: Third layer of the Nascent Soul Realm (Can invest life span for evolutionary cultivation)]
[Techniques: Fire Control Art (Unlearned), Divine Wood Pure Yang Skill (Mastery), Dragon Strength Divine Primordial Skill (Mastery), Alchemy (Initial Insight) (Can invest life span for evolutionary cultivation)]
[Ultimate Skills: Gale Shadowless Leg (Accomplished), Seven Swords of the Li Family (Unlearned), Eight Directions Step (Unlearned) (Can invest life span for evolutionary cultivation)]
Gu An then planned to favor the Seven Swords of the Li Family again, then continue to save his life span, amassing up to the hundred thousand mark before using it.
For now, he needed to rest for a few days to calm his excited heart.
With his Nascent Soul Realm cultivation, he could indeed go to the Supreme Sect to obtain a decent position and treatment, but when he thought of the Supreme Sect sending him to slay demons, combat the Demon Path, and the potential for internal conflicts, he calmed his wandering thoughts.
Stay true to your original aspiration to achieve the ultimate result!
Nobody could change his mind; he planned to hole up in Mystic Valley to the end!
He could occasionally seek out heavenly materials and earthly treasures, but he would never shift his focus from Mystic Valley.
A higher position might accelerate the increase of his life span, but the danger would rise proportionally. Anyway, without enemies, why rush?
Gu An turned and walked down the mountain.
The Nascent Soul Realm could already fly, but he chose not to. He chose to walk down the mountain instead.
When he reached Medicine Valley, Xiaochuan and others gradually came out.
"Senior Brother, you were up the mountain so early?" Ye Lan greeted Gu An. She oddly felt that today's Senior Brother looked even more attractive.
Gu An smiled and said, "I went to check on the seeds. Today, you will lead their training."
Ye Lan nodded in agreement and wanted to ask more, but Gu An had already headed towards the pavilion.
Not far away, Wuxin watched Gu An's figure, thinking to himself, "There must be some mystery in the mountain forest! I will definitely find it!"
Gu An walked up the stairs and pushed open the door. As soon as he entered, he saw the White Spirit Rat lying on the table, its body swollen like a balloon, while the Green Vine Fruit had disappeared.
Still breathing, not dead!
He immediately used life span detection on the White Spirit Rat.
[White Spirit Rat (First Order): 12/120/180]
Hmm?
Its life span had increased by seventy years. Initially, the White Spirit Rat's life span was only fifty years.
Was the effect of the Green Vine Fruit this potent?
Gu An immediately went to the wooden cabinet, took out a Green Vine Fruit, and started to eat.