Yet, all the great noble houses seemed to sense a different shift in the air, and for a time, they all stood aside, watching with cold detachment. Even more astonishingly, since the Tiannan army returned to the capital, His Majesty the Supreme Emperor of Tianxiang had remained cloistered away, completely ignoring all matters great and small, sitting tight like an angler on the riverbank, letting the winds and waves rage as they would. His attitude was essentially: "I'm playing deaf and dumb; I won't manage a single thing. Riot all you want!"
This veiled stance only fueled rampant speculation and gossip.
Since the astonishing efficacy of the Ye Gu Pill was revealed, Tianxiang City had, in an instant, become the most sought-after prize. Almost daily, cultivators from the Xuan Qi noble families arrived in droves, the ruts left by their carriages deeply scored into the road surface, a clear testament to the considerable gold and silver they carried within.
Many others arrived lightly equipped, but they were busy exchanging huge bank notes for gold and silver throughout Tianxiang City. Within just a few days, the vast majority of the cash reserves in the major banks of Tianxiang City had been transferred to the various inns.
And those approaching from distant roads continued to arrive without pause.
Since returning home, whenever Jun Mo Xie found a spare moment, he would retreat into the Eight Desolations Grandmaster Pagoda, absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth day and night, converting it into True Essence, and then expelling it.
Everyone knew that Young Master Jun Mo Xie was at home, yet absolutely no one managed to see him. No exceptions...
During this period, Jun Mo Xie was simultaneously accelerating his frantic cultivation and, conversely, investigating medicinal formulas with even greater fervor. The Primal Creation Technique contained tens of millions of recorded formulas. Among such densely packed millions of formulas, surely there must be one suitable for immediate refinement that could boost his power?
Jun Mo Xie refused to believe otherwise!
Yet, some truths were hard to deny. It was genuinely difficult to search; he meticulously scoured nearly the entire text from beginning to end, yet found nothing!
In truth, this situation was hardly surprising. The Primal Creation Technique, heralded as the paramount mystical art since the creation of heaven and earth, was never meant for the grasp of mortals; it was, in fact, the ultimate cultivation method for true Immortals. To use an analogy: if you search for elementary school knowledge within a supreme, high-grade encyclopedia, while the information will certainly be present, the coverage will inevitably be exceedingly superficial. It is not that the book’s grade is insufficient, but rather that the level of the reader’s query is simply too basic!
Young Master Jun was unfortunately stuck in this awkward predicament. The formulas recorded in the Primal Creation Technique were all treasures, but regrettably, either he could not refine them, or refining them yielded no benefit. Some potent medicines could indeed be refined and produced, but consuming them resulted in only one outcome: instant, explosive death.
Of course, as a super-encyclopedia, it would not disappoint or drive one to despair entirely. The Ten-Year Pill, for instance, was an exception found within it. He was certain that this "encyclopedia" must contain other exceptions, but finding them would certainly require time!
The young master Jun now had a stock of over a hundred bottles of fine medicine like the Ten-Year Pill, and several dozen bottles of the Ye Gu Pill were also prepared—surely enough for consumption. If the purpose was refining elixirs for the Demonic Beasts of the Heavenly Punishment Forest, other tonics, such as those for general health maintenance, were utterly useless, even completely meaningless.
Because in the eyes of the Demonic Beasts, the first priority is strength! The second is strength! And the third remains strength!
This is what they demand; it is their sole pursuit!
The hundreds of types of spirit herbs that Young Master Jun Mo Xie had scraped together from the Heavenly Punishment Forest were certainly not few. Young Master Jun’s original intention was to use these spirit herbs to boost his power. Now, he possessed a large quantity of rare medicinal ingredients, but what was lacking was a suitable formula for refinement—what a waste!
In reality, any rare herb that had aged sufficiently, if consumed directly by someone with established Xuan Gong who then circulated their energy to refine it, could aid in power advancement. For example, ginseng—any ginseng over a hundred years old, when taken directly, could increase one's power and enhance Primal Energy.
However, on one hand, the effect is relatively insignificant. After all, it is only the inherent vital essence accumulated by the ginseng over the years, not True Essence power fully converted into a form easily absorbed by the body through alchemical refinement.
On the other hand, as the common saying goes, "Every medicine carries a degree of poison." Taking only a single type not only yields suboptimal results but can also easily lead to consequences like Yin-Yang imbalance. Taking ginseng as an example, its properties are inherently vigorous and lack Yin softness. While it can greatly replenish vital energy and has always been the preferred medicine for reviving life in medical practice, its inherent nature is too potent, easily leading to the negative effect of excessive Yang breeding imbalance, causing a reversal.
Take the greatest harvest from the Heavenly Punishment Forest before, the Thousand Evils Poison Fruit. From the perspective of the mortal world, this item is exceedingly precious. But in the top-tier formulas recorded in the Primal Creation Technique, it ranks as merely something that falls short of the best but surpasses the mediocre. The reason Jun Mo Xie valued it so highly was that although its grade, along with some other rare herbs, was not exceptionally high, it qualified for inclusion in the formulas of the Sixth Layer of the Primal Creation Technique and, crucially, could be utilized by ordinary people—this made it priceless!
The properties of the Thousand Evils Poison Fruit, viewed from a human perspective, are extremely polarized: utterly Yin and utterly Evil. Even if obtained at the correct time interval and its supreme toxicity removed, its vast medicinal properties are still difficult for ordinary beings to bear. Even a being like the Heavenly Punishment Beast King, with its unique constitution, might not be able to handle it. Of course, if one could successfully bear it, a breakthrough would surely follow, and cultivation would advance greatly. But if things went awry, the result would be instant, explosive death!
The Heavenly Punishment Beast King was fully aware of this immense danger. In pursuit of a breakthrough in its own strength, it was willing to risk death ten times over to attempt this—an act that, in the eyes of Young Master Jun, who possessed superior avenues, was naturally a wanton waste of heavenly resources.
Certainly, there were some spirit herbs formed by heaven and earth that could directly increase power upon consumption. However, almost without exception, these miraculous medicinal ingredients were the primary components required for certain high-tier elixirs. If refined into pills, their efficacy would not only be enhanced but could benefit dozens of people simultaneously. To consume them rashly was simply wasteful. For instance, a single Thousand-Year Snow Ganoderma could increase one's power by a century, but if refined into a pill, it could grant dozens of people a century of power increase!
The priority is self-evident, and further elaboration is unnecessary!
Day followed day in this manner, and Jun Mo Xie’s Xuan Gong cultivation continued to grow. By the standards of Xuan Qi, he was gradually breaking through the Mid-Heaven Xuan stage and marching steadily toward the peak of the Heaven Xuan realm!
During this period, whenever Jun Mo Xie was not cultivating, he was invariably engrossed in a large pile of medicinal formulas, pondering and meticulously reviewing them. As the saying goes, effort yields results; over time, Jun Mo Xie finally began to see progress. From the ocean of formulas, he managed to select several elixirs.
While elementary knowledge within the encyclopedia might be sparse, it was not absent. Furthermore, because the knowledge was rare, its content was bound to be extraordinary, just like the Thousand Evils Poison Fruit, which, being a secular spirit herb, managed to qualify for the formulas of the Sixth Layer of the Primal Creation Technique.
Previously, Young Master Jun always refined elixirs by reading the formula name and following the instructions mechanically. But this time, he studied every component of the formula and the densely packed accompanying explanations.
For elixirs that increased power, aside from the Ten-Year Pill he had already refined, after painstakingly searching through thousands of complex formulas—like finding a needle in a haystack—he finally discovered seven or eight others, all of which promised extraordinary effects! This discovery filled Jun Mo Xie with extreme joy!
However, he naturally disregarded the pills requiring only First or Second Layer refinement. Since the Young Master was now at the Third Layer, he naturally aimed to refine advanced ones.
These three formulas were the Essence Circulation Pill (Tong Yuan Dan), the Essence Gathering Pill (Ju Yuan Dan), and the Celestial Essence Pill (Tian Yuan Dan)!
These were the three elixirs Jun Mo Xie had painstakingly filtered out through Herculean effort! Sifting through the dense array of formulas, one by one exploring, one by one analyzing, one by one cross-referencing—this workload had cost Young Master Jun immense effort!
He was even absolutely certain that if he had possessed this diligent spirit of research in his previous life, getting into Tsinghua or Peking University would have been as easy as picking something up from his pocket, mastering every global language would have been effortlessly achieved, and obtaining every doctoral and master’s degree in the world would have been within easy grasp, accomplished with startling speed and ease...
The Essence Circulation Pill (Tong Yuan Dan) is an elixir that enhances the speed of True Qi flow within a person's meridians, naturally including both continental Xuan Qi and Heavenly Punishment Primal Energy. While this elixir cannot directly boost power, it can greatly enhance the speed of True Qi circulation!
Imagine a river one zhang wide with the same volume of water flowing through it. One river flows gently and slowly, without haste; the other flows torrentially, with ceaseless rapids. Which river possesses greater destructive force?
And the efficacy of the Essence Circulation Pill extends beyond this comparison. If we use the previous analogy, a normal cultivator's meridians are like a gentle plains river, but the meridians of someone who has consumed the Essence Circulation Pill are equivalent to a high mountain waterfall!
The water flow remains the same, but the fundamental nature has changed entirely!
The effect of the Essence Circulation Pill is precisely to transform that plains river into a high mountain waterfall!
Consider a master who could normally unleash three moves within a single breath; after this transformation, they could unleash a full nine moves, and still have reserve energy! In a duel where life hangs by a thread, a difference of three times in apparent power translates to a destructive capability increased by at least ten times—this illustrates the principle of a minuscule deviation leading to a massive divergence! Especially for the Beast Kings of the Heavenly Punishment Forest who rely on speed, this elixir is almost tailor-made for them, a veritable immortal draught that usurps the creation of heaven and earth!
Even Jun Mo Xie himself sensed the terrifying nature of this astonishing transformation. However, high returns are often accompanied by high risks. This elixir contains inherent extreme dangers: cultivators whose meridian flexibility or Xuan Gong has not reached the level above Divine Profound will instantly have all their meridians violently ruptured by the internal impact, with absolutely no hope of rescue!
The Essence Circulation Pill truly lives up to its "Circulation" (Tong) character!
Essence Gathering Pill (Ju Yuan Dan)!
This elixir also cannot directly increase power, but it can rapidly consolidate the Primal Energy, Spiritual Energy, Xuan Energy, and Internal Energy throughout the body, serving the Dantian and the hundred meridians more effectively. Furthermore, it enhances the absorption and conversion of the spiritual energy from the outside world. Moreover, after consuming the Essence Gathering Pill, the speed of cultivation will surge forward even further beyond the original foundation; compared side-by-side, the original cultivation speed can only be described as that of a tortoise crawl.