13: Half a year, Qi Refining Level 8

Leaving the Mission Hall, Su Ling turned and walked towards the Artifact Hall on the other side.

When Xuanming Sect Disciples go out on missions, they will definitely harvest other resources besides what is required for the mission.

The Artifact Hall is the hall specifically used by the Sect to recycle various Materials such as Spirit Medicines, Yao Beast remains, and minerals.

There were Mountain Drilling Beasts stripped of their scales, Bloodfang Ghost Bats, Mantis Beasts, Lava Beasts, and various other miscellaneous Yao Beast corpses.

Plus the bits and pieces of Spiritual Plants and minerals collected.

In total, they were exchanged for over three thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

However, Su Ling deliberately kept some Materials to refine special arrows.

Overall, the harvest this time was truly massive!

Of course, the generous deliveries from Zhong Er's group of three and Qian Zheng's group of three were also part of the reason.

The Yao Beasts Su Ling killed himself only amounted to over one thousand two hundred Spirit Stones when converted.

The main reason was still the Ghost Soul Arrow's ability to counter Yao Beasts.

If he were like Qian Zheng and the others, relying purely on Spells and weapons to kill Yao Beasts, Su Ling would earn two or three hundred Spirit Stones at most from one trip out.

There might even be a risk to his life.

When leaving the Artifact Hall, the way that Foundation Establishment Deacon looked at him truly made Su Ling feel like there were needles in his back.

With so many Yao Beast corpses, Spiritual Plants, and minerals, he should have exchanged them in several batches.

Exchanging so many Spirit Stones at once was indeed a bit reckless.

"Cultivate, Cultivate with all my might!"

"Until I reach the Tenth Layer of Qi Refining, or even Foundation Establishment, I'm absolutely not going out again!"

Holding a huge sum of money, Su Ling felt a strong sense of urgency to improve his strength.

If the three thousand-plus Spirit Stones and nine hundred and twenty contribution points were exchanged for Medicinal Pills, it would be enough for him to quickly advance to the Great Perfection of the Qi Refinement Stage.

As for Foundation Establishment, Su Ling couldn't guarantee he would succeed in one go.

If all else fails, I can only try exchanging for a Foundation Establishment Pill... After buying several hundred Spirit Stones' worth of cultivation pills at the Pill Refining Room, Su Ling finally managed to return to the outer Sect courtyard.

Zhong Er, Zhao Yan, and Li Weifeng were all Disciples of the same courtyard.

But they would never return.

Walking into the courtyard, Su Ling discovered that the outer Sect courtyard meant for ten people actually had no one in it.

He thought for a moment and understood.

Among the ten Disciples originally in the courtyard, he and Zhong Er had the lowest cultivation.

Half a year ago, two Disciples at the Seventh Level of Qi Refining had perished while out.

Adding the deaths of Zhong Er's group of three, half of the residents were gone.

Presumably, the other four had also gone out on missions during this time.

In this world, as long as one possesses a Spiritual Root, they can become a Spirit Seed.

The cultivation world isn't only willing to nurture Disciples with excellent talent; it's simply a difference in cultivation speed.

As long as one has the ability, there are plenty of cultivation resources to make up for this lack.

Therefore, with Su Ling's three-spiritual-root Aptitude, even if he was much slower than fellow Disciples with the same Aptitude due to practicing the Nine Nether Secret Record...

He could still be considered middle-of-the-pack among all the Outer Sect Disciples.

Many Disciples with four or five-spiritual-roots, who had Low Grade Spiritual Roots, were still struggling at the fourth or fifth layer of Qi Refining.

Taking advantage of the absence of others, Su Ling took out the fiend soul flying daggers and began to refine them.

Magical Artifacts seized from others could be used directly.

But because of the difference in spiritual power, there would always be a barrier, making it impossible to exert their maximum power.

For example, with the previous blazing iron shield, even if it was already damaged, if Zhao Yan had been the one to use it, there was no way it would have been shattered by a single hit from a dark bone thorn, leaving no chance for repair.

Several hours passed, and the nine fiend soul flying daggers shuttled back and forth under the control of Su Ling's spiritual power, emitting bursts of ear-piercing shrieks.

The sound was like the constant wailing of wronged souls who had died in vain, making one feel annoyed.

Of course, this was Su Ling's perception from the perspective of the artifact's owner.

If it were an opponent, the so-called 'Soul-Stunning' effect would likely influence their spiritual sense and even interrupt their spiritual power flow.

Thereby seizing the initiative in battle.

The refining of the fiend soul flying daggers would still take some time; Su Ling swallowed a qi refining pill and began his daily cultivation... Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.

Su Ling pushed open the door and stepped out, stretching lazily.

At this moment, he already had the strength of the Peak of the Eighth Layer of Qi Refining.

He couldn't help but feel a sense of emotion.

The so-called Law, Companion, Wealth, and Land.

Regarding Cultivation Techniques, although the Nine Nether Secret Record was a fragment, it pointed directly to the Peak Core Formation Stage.

Before reaching the Nascent Soul stage, he wouldn't have to worry about Cultivation Technique issues.

Companion didn't refer to so-called Dual Cultivation companions, but rather cultivation partners.

Like-minded Fellow Daoists, Protectors, and so on could all become Dao Companions.

Being in a demonic Sect, Su Ling had no thoughts about this.

Wealth: his current net worth was much richer than that of an average Qi Refinement Stage Cultivator.

For half a year, various auxiliary cultivation pills were never interrupted, allowing him to quickly advance to the Peak of the Eighth Layer of Qi Refining.

Because of practicing the Nine Nether Secret Record, Su Ling's Dantian was originally three to four times the size of Cultivators at the same level.

This could be inferred from the number of Spell releases.

Cultivators of the same level could generally release six to eight Spells consecutively at full capacity.

But Su Ling had tried it; he could continuously cast the Flowing Wind Technique for fifteen minutes more than twenty times.

With his Spiritual Qi reserves, he was not inferior even compared to the Great Perfection of the Qi Refinement Stage.

However, the degree of spiritual power condensation was much worse.

The power of the Spells cast would also differ.

As for 'Land,' Su Ling's predecessor had been abducted to the Underground World before he even started to Cultivate.

He had no way of judging the level of Spiritual Qi concentration in the Underground World.

However, there was a Spirit Gathering Array within the Xuanming Sect, making the concentration much higher than outside the Sect.

Su Ling could still judge this much.

"I really want to go outside and see!"

Su Ling sighed inwardly and walked toward the Artifact Refining Hall.

The two mid-grade magical artifacts, the dark bone thorn and the fiend soul flying dagger, were both quite compatible with the Nine Nether Secret Record he practiced in terms of attributes.

Adding the Low Grade white bone bow, his offensive Magical Artifacts were somewhat excessive.

Previously, he had planned to repair the severely damaged Vajra Bracers and Rock Shield, but then he remembered he hadn't purchased these two Magical Artifacts within the Sect before.

Going to repair them rashly would inevitably leave traces.

Moreover, holding over three thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones, there was no need to repair these two Magical Artifacts, which were only worth twenty Spirit Stones each.

Directly spending Spirit Stones to purchase a mid-grade magical artifact was clearly more cost-effective.

With this plan in mind, after consolidating his Realm, Su Ling decided to take a break and visit the Artifact Refining Hall.

On the way, Su Ling suddenly noticed five or six wandering soul boats flying toward the outside of the Sect together.

After a brief thought, he vaguely guessed the reason.

"The time hasn't come yet, so why has a batch of Spirit Seeds been abducted?"

External Sects generally conduct Spiritual Root tests in various Imperial Dynasty prefectures every three years to recruit new members.

Whenever this time came, the Xuanming Sect would set out to conduct targeted abductions.

For instance, the Great Jade Dynasty where Su Ling's predecessor was from, and the Liyang Dynasty where Li Weifeng was from, held tests every three years.

Only three months before Su Ling's first outing, a batch of about a hundred Spirit Seeds had arrived.

It's only been a year, and yet another batch has come.

When things are strange, there must be something amiss!

Unable to figure out the reason for the moment, Su Ling temporarily set aside his thoughts.