"Sorry to disappoint you, Master; that man was unfathomably powerful, and I was defeat by him. If it weren't for the intervention from the Heavenly Guard in the end, I would've perished by that man's sword." As soon as the green wyrm appeared, the man hurriedly lowered his head in a respectful manner.
"Your opponent is only an early-Deity Transformation cultivator, and I even lent you my Thousand Soul Bell; how did you manage to lose? When did you become so useless?" The green wyrm's expression darkened significantly.
Cold sweat immediately began pouring down the man's face as he explained, "I did everything I could, Master, but there seemed to be no end to the tricks that my opponent could pull out of his sleeve. He had a cauldron spirit treasure, and he's also achieved complete mastery of the Vajra Arts."
"He also has a spirit treasure? And he's completely mastered the Vajra Arts?" The green wyrm was rather surprised to hear this.
"Indeed, I speak only the truth, Master." The man was slightly relieved upon hearing the hint of intrigue in the wyrm’s voice.
A contemplative expression appeared on the green wyrm's face before it suddenly extended a claw toward the man.
A ball of black light shot forth from his body, carrying the Thousand Soul Bell into the wyrm's grasp.
It carefully inspected the bell for a while, following which its expression immediately darkened again.
The man was feeling quite uneasy upon seeing this.
The green wyrm chuckled coldly, and scoffed, "So that means this man is walking the path of simultaneous cultivation. Hehe, such a style of cultivation was popular once back in ancient times, but barely anyone pursues this path now. Body refinement and cultivating magic power both take an extremely long time; doing both works to a certain extent at low cultivations bases, but over the long term, one's cultivation would inevitably trail behind their peers if they were to continue down this path. On top of that, body refinement requires a certain level of aptitude. As far as I'm aware of, there are only a small handful of people who have reached the Body Integration Stage while pursuing this path, including the Heavenly Yuan Holy Sovereign. All of these people were body refinement warriors to begin within, and only became cultivators after consuming some type of spirit medicine. Otherwise, walking this path will only ruin one's future cultivation."
"This man has already achieved full mastery of the Vajra Arts; are there any other body refinement techniques for him to use to continue strengthing his body?" the man asked with furrowed brows.
"Attaining full mastery of the Vajra Arts is already the pinnacle among mortal body refinement warriors. The next step for him to progress is to naturally begin using some demonic cultivation arts to further refine his body. However, those cultivation arts naturally aren't meant for humans, so it'll be very perilous for him to engage in such practices. For him to be able to cultivate both his magic power and his body to such an extent makes it no surprise that you were no match for him. However, that doesn't explain how he was able to break free from my Thousand Soul Bell. Not only was the main soul in the bell destroyed, around 60% to 70% of all of the other Yin souls within are also missing." The wyrm's voice suddenly cooled as he spoke.
"I don't know how he managed to do this, either. I trapped him in that space, but he managed to escape not long after that, and I wasn't able to witness what he did in there," the man hurriedly explained.
The wyrm scrutinized the man for a long time before withdrawing his gaze with a cold harrumph. "Hmph, the Thousand Soul Bell isn't a powerful enough treasures to make it onto the Chaotic Myriad Spirit Roll, but it's more than powerful enough to crush a late-Deity Transformation cultivator. It appeared that this man either possesses a treasure that is the bane of all Yin souls or has mastered an extremely powerful Yang-attribute cultivation art. So be it, I'll just have to capture some more beast souls to replenish the ones that are missing. However, we can't give up on the treasures left behind by that person."
The man was elated that the wyrm wasn't pinning any further blame on him, but a hesitant look then appeared on his face as he mused, "Thank you for sparing me, Master. The problem is that the plot of Spirit Land already belongs to that man. If he sets up restrictions around the plot of land, it'll be rather difficult for us to go in and search for treasures there."
"That will indeed be rather troublesome, but the plot of Spirit Land is quite large, and he won't be able to set up so many powerful restrictions in a short time. Go to where my true body is residing in seclusion, and I'll give you something for you to take to my good friend, Gongyang Gui. He possesses a Heavenly Five-Colored Flag that has extraordinary concealment abilities. Borrow that from him and we'll sneak into the Spirit Land at the right opportunity. In doing so, we'll be owing Old Devil Gongyang a big favor," the green wyrm grumbled.
The man didn't dare to say anything in response, and could only nod emphatically with a respectful expression on his face.
Meanwhile, Han Li had just flown out of Deep Heaven City, and was traveling toward the plains outside of the city.
Following the conclusion of that battle, he was heading straight toward the plot of Spirit Land he had chosen rather than returning to the Flying Spirit Palace.
With Han Li's current abilities, he was able to fly extremely quickly, and it only took him an uneventful journey spanning around three to four days to reach a massive set of lush mountain ranges.
This was the so-called Glorious Sound Mountain, and Han Li stopped in the air above one of the mountains in the mountain ranges. He scanned his gaze over this massive mountain, which was hundreds of thousands of kilometers in size, and his narrowed with a contemplative expression.
Even though this was the most inferior of the three mountain ranges displayed by the Heavenly Jade Pavilion, it was still a set of mountain ranges that could be used for cultivation by Deity Transformation cultivators, so it naturally possessed high spiritual Qi density. Compared to so-called cultivation holy lands in the human world, the difference was night and day.
After inspecting the mountain for a while, Han Li gave a content nod before descending into the mountain ranges as a streak of azure light.
Not long after that, he had already covered a distance of over 50,000 kilometers.
Even though he was racing ahead at an astonishing speed, his powerful spiritual sense allowed him to detect everything within a radius of over 5,000 kilometers.
Along the way, he had already passed by four or five shimmering restrictions, which were clearly where the cave abodes of other cultivators were situated.
Han Li paid no heed to these neighbors and continued to fly on ahead.
After passing through almost the entirety of the mountain ranges, Han Li finally found the plot of Spirit Land on the map that belonged to him. The plot of land stretched for over 10,000 kilometers, and there was no end to it in sight. Furthermore, there was not even a single cultivator here aside from himself.
Han Li was quite elated, but he wasn't in a hurry to build a cave abode. Instead, he flew in a circle around the annotated border on the map, which indicated the boundaries of his plot of Spirit Land. During the process, he would toss out white formation flags at regular intervals, all of which burrowed into the ground and disappeared.
These formation flags were only treasures of the lowest grade and only possessed a very lackluster illusionary effect. They were only there for symbolic purposes, informing other nearby cultivators that this plot of land now had an owner, thereby serving as a warning against trespassers, intentional or not.
After that, Han Li began to travel through this area in a leisurely manner.
Over half a day later, he discovered several small spirit mines and a few naturally occurring spirit medicine patches.
Of course, the spirit stones and spirit medicines that could be found at those locations were all quite low in caliber, and it was most likely the case that the previous owner of this land couldn't even be bothered to excavate and farm those sites.
These sites naturally didn't really catch Han Li's eye, either, but they came as a minor pleasant surprise to him.
After inspecting the entire area, Han Li hovered in the air high above the center of the plot of Spirit Land with a contemplative look on his face, feeling a little perplexed.
He didn't discover anything special about this place, but his opponent had gone to such extreme lengths during their battle. Could it really be the case that he was simply targeting this place because it was beneficial for the cultivation of one of his secret techniques?
Han Li shook his head to reject the notion as soon as it appeared in his mind.
His opponent's reaction to losing the battle indicated that things definitely weren't as simple as that. Furthermore, the Spirit Land was such a vast area; why was he willing to go so far for this particular plot of land, to the extent that he was prepared to kill Han Li? It appeared that this place would have to be carefully searched again. Otherwise, Han Li felt as if there was something constantly nagging at him, and he wouldn't be able to cultivate with a calm heart.
After making his decision, Han Li began to consider constructing a cave abode.
Even though the land here was all quite similar, there were naturally a few locations were spiritual Qi was especially rich and abundant.
After some careful consideration, Han Li finally made a decision. As such, he immediately rose into the air as a streak of azure light, and flew toward the location he had chosen.
Not long after that, Han Li appeared between two massive mountains, in a place with tumbling five-colored mist.
This place seemed to be a massive swamp, and the vibrant five-colored mist emanating from it reached altitudes of thousands of feet. It didn't possess extremely toxic properties, but inhalation was far from advisable, even for cultivators.
Most importantly, there were some unknown constituents in this mist that restricted Han Li's spiritual sense to a certain extent, making him unable to detect what lay deep within the mist.
Only after using his Brightsight Spirit Eyes was Han Li able to discover that several kilometers into the mist, there was a natural valley that connected the two massive mountains.
Such a naturally obscure location was perfect for Han Li's cave abode.
As such, Han Li flew deep into the mist before easily carving out a hole in the side of a certain nondescript rock face within the valley. He then released his flying swords to dig out two extremely long passageways that led directly into the bellies of the two giant mountains.
He was planning to construct two cave abodes at once.
One of them was a hoax that would be used as a diversion, while the other one was the cave abode in which he would cultivate, as well as nurture his spirit insects, spirit beasts, and spirit medicines.
As for that Hidden Fortune Abode, it was too small, so there was naturally no need to use it now.
After constructing his cave abodes, Han Li immediately transferred the spirit herbs and spirit medicines he'd taken here from the human world into the medicine garden. The Gold Devouring Beetles were also placed into an enclosure. After being nurtured for so many years, all of the Gold Devouring Beetles had reached astonishing sizes, and appeared to be extremely menacing. They were clearly already close to full maturity.
As for that, Leopard Kirin Beast, Han Li also prepared a comfortable nest for it so it could cultivate on its own.
However, after walking into a particularly eerie empty beast room, a solemn look appeared on Han Li's face.
He gently waved his spirit beast bracelet toward the beast room, following which a burst of black light swept forth, and a black object that was around 10 feet tall abruptly appeared.
