187: Chapter 187 How could a treasure raised for over two hundred years be anything less than exceptional?

Su Cheng returned to his Immortal Cave and sat down to brew himself a pot of spiritual tea. After staying in the Prefecture City for a month, this small Immortal Cave actually gave him a sense of groundedness, like reuniting with an old friend.

He organized the items in his Storage Pouch by category, placing various Spirit Medicine into the dedicated slots within the furnace space and stacking second-rank pills in jade bottles labeled by variety.

After nearly half an hour of tidying up, he finally sat down on a prayer mat with his tea cup.

The qiankun creation furnace glowed with a faint, light green light deep within his Sea of Consciousness.

The supply of Medicinal Pills to the chamber of commerce could not be interrupted.

With the storefronts of Zhenpin Pavilion in two prefectures operating simultaneously, the monthly consumption was not a small amount, so he had to continue replenishing the stock.

For now, the second-rank pills would only be consumed by internal personnel; if they wanted to expand and sell them to the public, they would have to wait at least until Fang Zhenhai made a Breakthrough to the Golden Core Realm.

Su Cheng moved his prayer mat to the innermost Alchemy room of the Immortal Cave, set up the Formation, took out the Spirit Medicine, and opened the furnace.

The creation furnace appeared in the room, and the three ancient inscriptions on the furnace lid lit up in sequence.

The first batch he put in was the qi recovery pill. With Su Cheng's current Divine Sense strength, controlling multiple portions at once was not a problem.

Qi of Creation was injected into the furnace chamber, and the Spirit Medicine automatically decomposed, purified, and underwent Fusion within the furnace fire. Before long, the fragrance of the pills seeped out through the gaps, and Su Cheng took the opportunity to divert some of his focus to perceive the drifting Creation Concept.

After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the furnace lid popped open, revealing five entirely emerald-green Medicinal Pills arranged quietly.

supreme grade, every single one was supreme grade.

Su Cheng had long since grown accustomed to this result, and he briskly collected the pills, cleaned the furnace, and changed the ingredients, followed by the qi gathering pill and body tempering pill in succession.

He could write down the Pill Formula for these Medicinal Pills from memory with his eyes closed; the proportions of the Spirit Medicine were known like the back of his hand, and the finished products emerged as soon as the furnace turned.

What truly drained his energy was his Divine Sense.

After ten batches, his temples began to throb faintly, forcing him to pause midway and close his eyes to circulate his Cultivation Technique, letting the Qi of Creation travel once through his Sea of Consciousness to alleviate the fatigue.

By the end of the day, he had refined quite a few first-rank top-grade qi recovery pills, qi gathering pills, and body tempering pills, as well as second-rank supreme grade foundation establishment pills, clear spirit pills, and qi sea pills.

He carefully placed the still-warm Medicinal Pills into a specialized Storage Pouch, saving them up to give to Fang Zhenhai the next time he went to the Prefecture City.

After finishing all this, Su Cheng took a bath, changed into the clean robes his mother had sewn, and fell fast asleep.

Cultivators rarely sleep soundly, but indulging once in a while was no harm.

The next day at the hour of chen, Su Cheng went up the mountain on time.

Upon reaching the mountain top, Su Cheng crouched down as usual to infuse the dragon beard vine with Qi of Creation.

Although the dragon beard vine's self-healing mechanism had fully activated and no longer required large infusions from him, giving it that tiny bit every day was like fertilizing it, a task that only took three to five minutes.

However, he would stop after another seven days; he was afraid that if he did too much, the dragon beard vine would undergo some special transformation, which would be difficult to explain then.

Elder Qingmu walked out of the house, holding a bowl of spirit fruit porridge and stirring it with a spoon.

"Want some?"

"Revered Master, I'll pass. Please eat it yourself."

"Oh."

Once one reaches the Foundation Establishment stage or higher, Bigu is possible, but cooking with ingredients containing spiritual energy is also beneficial for cultivation; besides, cultivation is cultivation, and whether to fast or not is entirely up to oneself.

"Come, follow me."

Elder Qingmu led Su Cheng around the dragon beard vine, through a gap behind a stone wall, and into an inner perimeter space where Su Cheng had never been before.

This area was not large and was surrounded by Formation barriers, with a Spiritual Qi concentration significantly higher than other areas on the mountain top.

Then, Su Cheng saw a flower; if there were no surprises, it should be the three-aperture soul nurturing flower.

The thing grew on a spiritual jade base the size of a fist. It was translucent and pale purple, with seven petals layered like a lotus yet not a lotus.

Three apertures were distributed deep within the stamen; they were three points of light as tiny as toothpicks, each emitting light at a different frequency from within the small points.

The first aperture was the brightest, with a warm light that looked exactly like the last ray of sunlight at dusk.

The second aperture was slightly dimmer, intermingled with blue and white, appearing very stable.

The third aperture was the most faint, its color nearly transparent. If it weren't for the fact that Su Cheng's Creation Spiritual Power was naturally sensitive to spiritual plants to a freakish degree, the naked eye would not have been able to capture it at all.

The three rays of light were independent, yet they wove an indescribably dense spiritual network in the center of the stamen.

Su Cheng's first feeling upon probing with his Divine Sense was not shock, but comfort.

Under the coverage of the spirituality emitted by the flower bud, Su Cheng's Sea of Consciousness completely relaxed, and the subtle fatigue accumulated from daily cultivation and Alchemy was peeled away layer by layer.

Of course, the effect wasn't that strong; this was just to describe how formidable this thing was.

"How is it? Not bad, right?" Elder Qingmu was showing off beside him while holding his bowl.

"It is indeed not bad," Su Cheng gave these four words from the bottom of his heart.

"This is a treasure that I, this old man, spent a great price on and have nurtured for over two hundred years. Could it possibly be bad?" Elder Qingmu set down his bowl and pointed to a spot about five feet in front of the flower. "Sit down right there. Remember, five feet—no closer. Just circulate your Cultivation Technique and focus on your Sea of Consciousness; don't think about anything else."

Su Cheng sat down cross-legged as instructed and closed his eyes to circulate the Qiankun Creation Art.

The circulation of the Qi of Creation in his Meridians was almost spontaneous, requiring little effort from him to regulate.

The dao foundation furnace in his Dantian rotated slightly, and the Qi of Creation was drawn out to complete a Great Cycle along the technique's route before flowing into his Sea of Consciousness.

The spirituality of the soul-nurturing flower seeped into the surrounding space like a trickling stream, and Su Cheng's Sea of Consciousness was within this space.

The two forces produced an extremely subtle resonance at the edge of the Sea of Consciousness; the soul-nurturing flower's spiritual effect on nourishing the Divine Soul was tangible.

Su Cheng felt the boundaries of his Sea of Consciousness expanding by a tiny margin, each circle slightly stronger than the last by a tiny, tiny bit.

Given the characteristics of the soul-nurturing flower, it should have had no effect on a Divine Soul that was daily permeated and stabilized by the Creation Concept; they were not on the same level.

Su Cheng didn't need to stabilize his Divine Soul; what he needed was improvement. Fortunately, it was indeed useful, though it would require accumulation over time.

After an hour, Elder Qingmu called him to get up.

Su Cheng opened his eyes and sensed the state of his Divine Soul.

It had only grown a tiny bit, but it was faster than natural growth.

"That's it for today. Come once a day from now on. There's no rush; take it slow."

Elder Qingmu stood up with his bowl, preparing to leave.

Su Cheng did not follow him but instead cupped his hands.

"Revered Master, the Spiritual Qi here is much denser than in my Immortal Cave. This Disciple would like to stay a while longer and Cultivate here for a bit."

Elder Qingmu looked back at him and, after thinking for a moment, saw nothing wrong with it.

This inner perimeter space next to the soul-nurturing flower was protected by Formation barriers, and the Spiritual Qi flow was indeed much more abundant than in the Immortal Cave halfway up the mountain. It was a proper thing for a young man to want to Cultivate more.

"Fine. Just leave on your own when you're done. Don't touch this old man's flower."

"This Disciple understands."

Elder Qingmu walked away along the stone path with his bowl.

He had no less than dozens of types of spiritual plants to manage every day—the dragon beard vine, the newly planted third-rank medicinal seedlings in the spiritual fields, and so on. Every single one was waiting for him to tend to them, so he had no time to keep staring here.

The sound of footsteps on the stone path gradually faded away.

After confirming his Revered Master was far away, Su Cheng closed his eyes again; he suddenly wanted to make an attempt.

A wisp of Qi of Creation seeped from his fingertip, as thin as could be.

Su Cheng extremely carefully let it approach the edge of the soul-nurturing flower's root system and pressed it against the spiritual jade base.

But the reaction of the soul-nurturing flower made Su Cheng almost lose his composure.