Book 2, Chapter 92 - The Spirit Force That Disappeared

Instructor Zhou was taking Zhao Jiuge back.

Zhao Jiuge was in a pretty good mood while he felt the breeze blow against his face. He felt refreshed and he had a big smile on his face. This was the first time cultivation had brought him such happiness. It turned out that even cultivating could become addicting.

As Instructor Zhou looked at the happy Zhao Jiuge, his usually serious expression was gone. He also felt happy for Zhao Jiuge.

“Jiuge, you stayed inside the spirit vein for almost a month and broke a record among the recent generations of disciples. Right now, you may not feel its effect, but once you reach Spirit Core Realm, you will know the advantage of having an attribute.”

Zhao Jiuge nodded and then remembered a question in his heart. “Instructor Zhou, I heard that given how vast the Hua Xia Dynasty is and how it contains countless mountains and rivers, there are various big and small spirit veins. If I encounter a spirit vein in the future when I go out, can I still absorb the attribute from it?”

Instructor Zhou pondered a bit and said, “Normally it's possible, because there are many different large and small spirit veins, as well as all kinds of strange spirit veins. In general, the more attributes you absorb, the better, but you must remember two things. First, you must use the attribute you absorbed this time as the primary focus. If you absorb other attributes, they will only be auxiliary. Second is avoid absorbing spirit veins that retrain your current attribute. Not only will it not increase your cultivation, it will also damage it. Other than that, there isn’t anything else to pay attention to. Once your cultivation level increases, you won’t even look at those rank 8 or 9 spirit veins.”

After hearing Instructor Zhou’s words, Zhao Jiuge memorized those two points. At the same time, he yearned for the vast outside world. Unfortunately, he was too weak to go out and experience the world on his own.

Instructor Zhou dropped Zhao Jiuge off at home. Before he left, he profoundly said, “Jiuge, cultivate well. There is only a bit over a year left. Consolidate your cultivation and then go take missions to hone your experience. Don’t just have cultivation you don’t know how to use. Remember, in a life or death battle, victory is often decided in just a moment.” After he finished speaking, he turned to leave.

Zhao Jiuge suddenly opened his mouth and exclaimed, “That’s right, Instructor Zhou, can you tell me the second layer of the Mysterious Heaven Sword Art? I should be able to cultivate it now.”

Instructor Zhou was stunned for a while. He hesitated for a bit and then slowly said, “You can only learn that when you enter the inner sect. Improve your cultivation first, there is only a bit over a year left.” With that, Instructor Zhou left on his flying sword. Zhao Jiuge was left feeling a bit unsatisfied.

Zhao Jiuge stood there for a bit, then he felt bored and returned to his room. The familiar scene of the two wooden beds on each side of the room appeared before him. The room was still the same as the day he arrived. The only difference was the person—some relationships had faded over time.

He looked at Luo Xie’s bed, and it looked like Luo Xie hadn’t been here in a long time. Luo Xie was likely out on some mission as well. Zhao Jiuge just didn't know if Luo Xie had fixed his lazy habit. He looked around for a bit and felt bored, so he decided to sit on his bed to cultivate.

Right now, his cultivation was at the mid stage of the Foundation Realm, and his body had undergone an earth-shattering change. His sword art had reached the limit after the battle with the Three-Tailed Yin Cat. He had thought that he could get the second layer of the sword art, but he didn’t know that he had to get into the inner sect first. However, Zhao Jiuge thought that this was reasonable. After all, the sword art was the foundation of the sect. If anyone who joined could learn it, it would be a complete mess. Zhao Jiuge was about to quietly cultivate to increase his spirit force when he suddenly remembered something.

Now that he had reached the Foundation Realm, he could cultivate the third golden dragon. His breakthroughs had been so fast that he had almost forgotten about it. Now that he remembered, he was suddenly very excited to cultivate the Sanskrit Divine Body.

He read the Sanskrit Divine Body that Ye Wuyou had left him, but the more he read, the bigger the headache he felt. After reaching the Foundation Realm, the golden dragon was not so easy to cultivate.

The first dragon was formed naturally like water flowing down a river stream. The second dragon was condensed using sheer spirit force. The third dragon required exponentially more spirit force than the second golden dragon and was much more difficult to condense. At the Spirit Core Realm, the fourth golden dragon would require various treasures to condense. After that, the requirements for each golden dragon would become even more difficult.

There was a total of ten realms in cultivation. Each of the nine golden dragons corresponded to each of the realms. After reaching the last realm, you could cultivate the true body of the Sanskrit Divine Body. The conditions for this were even more absurd.

Sure enough, nothing was easy. Zhao Jiuge revealed a bitter smile and let out a sigh. He then regained his mood and decided to take things step by step. After all, he could only worry about the present for now, and he needed to find a way to form the third golden dragon first.

Zhao Jiuge took out his remaining 1,000 spirit stones from his storage ring. He looked at the colorful spirit stones and felt his heart ache. These were money! He could buy two garbage treasures with this! All cultivators used spirit stones when buying spirit animals, materials, or treasures. However, in order to cultivate his third golden dragon, Zhao Jiuge could not be stingy. After all, increasing his strength was the top priority. As long as he had strength, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting more treasures!

These spirit stones were given to him by Wang Baiwan, but now they had split ways. Thinking about what had happened, Zhao Jiuge’s mood dimmed. But then he calmed himself and faced the spirit stones with determination. He closed his eyes and prepared to condense the third golden dragon!

The Sanskirt Heart Sutra activated once more and the spirit force inside his body cycled rapidly. There was a visible ice-blue, cold energy mixed with his spirit force now. The two golden dragons were still motionless and being nourished by the spirit force. Zhao Jiuge began using the Sanskrit Divine Body to condense the third golden dragon.

The spirit force inside his body was being consumed like crazy and the golden dragon was slowly forming. His spirit force was being consumed at a rapid rate, and the difficulty was much higher than the last two times. Zhao Jiuge failed again and again, but he remained calm and kept trying.

Every attempt came at the cost of a large amount of spirit force. At the Foundation Realm, he had much more spirit force and recovered spirit force much faster than before. However, even now, his recovery couldn’t keep up with the consumption of attempting to condense the third golden dragon. After many attempts, he only had 30% of his spirit force left, but Zhao Jiuge was not discouraged. He could always recover his spirit force, he just didn't believe he couldn’t condense the third golden dragon.

Time slowly passed. Zhao Jiuge's remaining 30% spirit force was still being consumed, but there was a sign of success. The shadow of a small, golden dragon slowly emerged. The other two golden dragons seemed to notice something and looked at the shadow. The shadow of the golden dragon became more and more clear. As the shadow became more clear, Zhao Jiuge’s spirit force began to deplete rapidly and soon showed signs of completely drying up.

Without too much hesitation, Zhao Jiuge waved his right hand and a dozen or so spirit stones flew into his hands. The bright spirit stones all became dim as the spiritual energy inside them was absorbed by Zhao Jiuge. At the same time, the spirit force Zhao Jiuge had just recovered was sucked dry by the shadow of the golden dragon.

Soon, the dozens of spirit stones lost all their color and were no different from ordinary stones. Zhao Jiuge threw them away and waved his hand to grab dozens more. He didn’t care about the cost—as long as he was able to condense the third golden dragon, he was willing to use up all the spirit stones here.

Because Zhao Jiuge became distracted, the shadow of the golden dragon dissipated—it failed again. Zhao Jiuge was very frustrated and sighed in pity. He had almost succeeded.

Although he had failed, Zhao Jiuge wasn’t anxious, as he never expected it to succeed right away. He let out a mouthful of foul air and his whole body felt weak. Not only was his spirit force completely exhausted, he had also wasted almost 100 spirit stones.

He somewhat disappointedly put the remaining spirit stones into his ring and gave up trying to condense the golden dragon today. He would try again tomorrow, but now he needed to cultivate to recover his spirit force. After all, in the end, his own cultivation was the most important. If he had no spirit force, even if someone gave him an immortal treasure, he wouldn’t be able to display its might.

As his cultivation method cycled, spirit force filled his entire body. Zhao Jiuge felt relaxed and very comfortable while spirit force refilled his body. Ever since he reached the Foundation Realm, he found that his cultivation speed had increased. Even when he was not deliberately cultivating, the vortex in his dantian was automatically absorbing spiritual energy.

As Zhao Jiuge sat on the wooden bed, he thought about stuff while cultivating to recover his spirit force.

Soon, Zhao Jiuge noticed that something was wrong. He had absorbed spiritual energy very fast, but his spirit force was recovering very slow. This made him a bit depressed.

When he originally broke through to the Foundation Realm and cultivated on the Lotus Peak, his spirit force did not grow this slowly. This happened after he tempered his body inside the spirit vein. Although his spirit force was growing slowly, at least it hadn’t stopped. He was filled with doubt, but he didn’t understand the problem, so he just let it be.

However, Zhao Jiuge didn’t know that every time he cultivated, the black Pi Xu Jade Token would shine and absorb spirit force from him. He didn’t notice this shocking change. It has to be said that ever since Zhao Jiuge first stepped onto the path of cultivation, the Pi Xu Jade Token had never reacted to anything. Now that he had reached the Foundation Realm, it would occasionally shine from time to time!

As Zhao Jiuge continued to cycle his cultivation method, his breathing became steady. Although the speed of his spirit force recovery was slow, it was still recovering bit by bit.

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