In a concealed burrow, a dim yellow light flickered.
Yuan Ming sat cross-legged in the center of the burrow, in front of him a hollowed-out eggstone, filled with lamp oil made from jungle boa fat. The light it emitted was faint and some soot smoked up, exuding a mild sweet and cloying scent.
In his hands, he held a green leather book, reading it with rapt attention.
"No wonder Zhao Tong wanted the human-faced spider's skin, this Thousand Mechanism Mask is so useful, able to change into a thousand faces, indiscernible to cultivators below the Core Formation Stage," Yuan Ming muttered in awe.
During this period, his understanding of cultivation had gradually become clearer. He knew that after the Qi Refinement Realm, there was the Foundation Establishment Stage, followed by the Core Formation Stage, and beyond that, the Nascent Soul Stage which was akin to immortals.
However, beyond the name of these stages after Qi Refinement, he still had no clarity on their differences.
After a moment, he closed the Common Beast Atlas, silently recollecting the fierce beasts recorded within, and noted them in his heart.
"Stuck at this bottleneck of the Qi Refining Second Level for so long without progress, I don't know if this will be of any use," Yuan Ming put away the book, holding a palm-sized piece of meat Ganoderma and said to himself.
The Herborist states that meat Ganoderma older than ten years can rejuvenate white bones and eliminate rotten flesh.
Those over a hundred years can revive the dead, strengthen Qi-Blood, aid in cultivation, and when combined with Poria Grass, Red Yellow Spirit, Five Jialing, and similar herbs to refine into Lingzhi Pills, the efficacy can be doubled.
The one he held, judging by its shape and size, was already a century old. Yet Yuan Ming could not find someone to refine it into an elixir for him. Once it was taken out, it would likely bring disaster upon him.
After all, a man is not guilty for being unassuming, but the guilt lies in possessing a precious jewel.
"I can only consume it raw, better than not at all," Yuan Ming sighed and said.
Having said that, he sat cross-legged, adjusted his breathing, and began to silently circulate the second layer of the Nine Elements Technique, mobilizing the Mana within his Dantian and circulating it through his meridians. The reference version of this chapter is on *.
Once his Qi-Blood was activated, Yuan Ming slowly opened his eyes, picked up the meat Ganoderma, and bit down.
What felt like flesh to the touch gave off a wooden fiber texture upon biting, and a bitterness spread between his lips and teeth, making him involuntarily widen his eyes.
"This tastes horrible," Yuan Ming said silently to himself, but he didn't spit it out. Instead, he bore the discomfort and chewed on.
Before long, Yuan Ming had swallowed the entire meat Ganoderma.
Then, he continued to try operating the third layer of the Nine Elements Technique, carefully sensing the changes within his body.
To his disappointment, as soon as he started to operate the third layer of the Nine Elements Technique, that stagnant and stifled sensation struck again. The flow of Mana was blocked as if by a high wall, unable to be transcended.
"Is it not working?" Yuan Ming thought with a silent sigh.
Indeed, even the heavenly and earthly treasures of spiritual medicines required specific refinement to unleash their effects.
But just then, Yuan Ming suddenly frowned, pressing his hands onto his lower abdomen.
Following that, a stream of heat rose from his Dantian like a furnace being stoked in his belly.
Yuan Ming was puzzled when suddenly the temperature of the heat stream spiked dramatically, turning from an initially warm sensation to something scorching.
He felt as if a flood had broken out in the warm stove of his belly, the flames overflowing, causing dry pain within.
Yuan Ming became somewhat panicked and quickly undid his clothing to expose his chest and abdomen.
But even this did not relieve the heat. His skin turned red-hot, spreading towards his chest and groin.
Yuan Ming hurriedly removed all his clothes and sat naked on the ground before he felt slightly relieved.
Yet, the relief did not last long before he was overwhelmed by the heat again. His skin reddened throughout, resembling a cooked shrimp.
Yuan Ming even blew out the small oil lamp in front of him, but he still felt parched and restless, his heart pounding in his chest like a drum.
At the same time, he felt the Mana within his Dantian becoming restless, moving uncontrollably through his meridians, bringing a pain like needle pricks throughout his body.
He had never experienced such a state during his cultivation, and Yuan Ming couldn't help but panic.
However, he quickly forced himself to calm down and began to operate the Nine Elements Technique to try and manage and direct the Mana back to his Dantian.
Upon attempting this, he found his Mana was not out of control—it was still responding to his commands. Only, it was circulating faster and with more force.
With this realization, Yuan Ming felt an epiphany wash over him.
He quickly recited the third layer mnemonic of the Nine Elements Technique in his mind, guiding the Mana through the circulation of his meridians according to the cultivation method, and once again attempted to break through to the third layer of Qi Refinement.
In just a mere moment, Yuan Ming's eyes suddenly snapped open, shining brightly.
The bottleneck that seemed unbreakable before had now been easily overcome.
Instantly, the Mana within his Dantian surged, and the circulation speed of his Mana also increased, halving the time it previously took for a complete Circulation, significantly enhancing the efficiency of his cultivation.
Yuan Ming absorbedly cycled his cultivation technique, circulating the Circulation over and over, his body drenched in sweat like rain, and a faint white mist rising above his head.
As he cultivated, the hot feeling inside his body gradually subsided, the red hue of his skin began to fade away, and the circulation of Mana in his body gradually stabilized, but the amount stored in his Dantian had significantly increased.
After a few hours, Yuan Ming slowly opened his eyes, revealing a hint of a smile on his face.
Thanks to the stimulating effect of the hundred-year-old meat Ganoderma, he had finally made a breakthrough, advancing to the third layer of the Qi Refinement Realm.
After the joy of his breakthrough, Yuan Ming didn't stop cultivating but continued to meditate cross-legged, aiming to stabilize his new realm.
By a jungle stream, a figure rapidly weaved through the woods, draped in a White Ape Beast Skin and holding an Ancient Bronze Sword—it was Yuan Ming.
At the moment, he wasn't using the Fur Cloak Technique, and even just running in human form, his speed was not slow at all.
Behind him, trees in the dense forest kept falling down, with the sounds of collisions rising in succession.
Through the billowing dust, a gray-green jungle boa, seven fathoms long and as thick as a bucket, was quickly twisting its body, charging through the forest in pursuit of Yuan Ming.
Its eyes were amber yellow, and with a gaping mouth that revealed two sets of sharp, massive fangs, a six-foot-long crimson snake tongue flicked out.
As Yuan Ming sprinted, he glanced back and saw the jungle boa closing in. Suddenly, he accelerated, and with a leap, he jumped seven or eight fathoms away.
Seeing this, the jungle boa's head thrust forward vigorously, and its body also shot straight up through the air, continuing to chase after Yuan Ming.
While Yuan Ming was midair, he grabbed a vine hanging down from an old tree and pulled down sharply. Instantly, a vine trap on both sides of him rapidly constricted.
The jungle boa had half its body caught in a rapidly shrinking loop of vine and, before it could fully escape, was tightly bound by the constricting vines, leaving half of it suspended in the air.
It struggled fiercely, pulling at the vines and causing the thick branches above to shake violently, looking like they were about to break off.
However, at that moment, Yuan Ming, who had circled back, leapt high into the air, gripping the Green Fish Sword tightly with both hands and slashing fiercely at the jungle boa's head.
Just as the jungle boa was about to be finished off in one strike, its six-foot-long tongue suddenly coiled around and trapped Yuan Ming.
The horizontal branch of the old tree could not withstand the weight of the jungle boa's body and collapsed with a crash.
With a flick of its long tongue, the jungle boa dragged Yuan Ming into its mouth.
Before Yuan Ming could react, everything went dark as his upper body was swallowed by the jungle boa, entering a damp, sticky cavity.
The upper and lower jaws of the jungle boa closed, and a tremendous pressure tried to crush Yuan Ming's bones.
Yuan Ming immediately felt a crushing force on his chest and ribcage, making it difficult to breathe, and the foul stench inside the jungle boa's belly surged up, nearly causing him to pass out from suffocation.
As the jungle boa's mouth muscles moved, pushing Yuan Ming bit by bit into its belly, a green light suddenly appeared at its lower abdomen area. A section of the Green Fish Sword, glowing with a greenish light, unexpectedly pierced through the jungle boa's skin from the inside, stabbing outward.
With the continuous movement of the jungle boa's mouth muscles, Yuan Ming's body was slowly pulled deeper into the snake's belly. The Green Fish Sword split open the boa's stomach, creating a large opening.
Yuan Ming emerged from the injury in the jungle boa's abdomen, covered in slime, one hand holding the Green Fish Sword and the other clutching a dark green, papaya-sized fleshy pouch.
That was the jungle boa's Snake Gallbladder, the most valuable part of it besides its Beast Blood, and specifically what Zhao Tong had hoped Yuan Ming would bring back.
Yuan Ming had previously slain three jungle boas, but each time after killing them and opening their bellies, he found their gallbladders already shattered, with dark green bile corroding the abdominal cavity beyond recognition.
He initially thought they had been inadvertently shattered during combat, only to later realize that the jungle boas destroyed their own gallbladders when facing death to prevent hunters from taking them.
Left with no choice, he decided to be swallowed by the jungle boa and extract the gallbladder from the inside.
The jungle boa, deprived of its gallbladder, didn't die immediately; its twisting body swept its long tail from side to side, attempting to struggle before death, but it was all in vain.
After collecting the Beast Blood in a Blood Storage Bag, Yuan Ming, holding his sword, went to the riverbank to wash off the filth from his body.
He had just reached the water's edge, and before he could stoop to clean himself, he saw a strange distortion in his reflection in the water, and as he was about to take a closer look, he felt a sudden jolt in his heart.
His own face reflected in the water twisted suddenly, turning into a gruesomely fierce snake face.