Cultivation Starts with Rejuvenation

This time upon meeting again, Alchemist Mo had changed his appearance once more, now resembling a fierce, intimidating man, making people hesitate to approach easily.

With his Qi Cultivation 9th Layer cultivation and a lifetime dedicated to alchemy, his divine soul was naturally stronger than ordinary late-stage Qi Cultivators. After the disguise, ordinary late-stage Qi Cultivators could not see through his true appearance.

Except for Foundation Establishment Taoists, at least in the desert, ordinary late-stage Qi Cultivators probably couldn’t see through, which might be one reason he represented the Zheng Family in secretly leaving the desert.

After following him for half a day and seeing him visit several commerce associations, without being in a hurry to leave, Li Ji’an once again placed a mark and returned.

”Uncle Li, I broke through!” As soon as he entered the courtyard, Xiaoqiao, who had been cultivating Qi for a year, finally brought good news.

Last year, when Xiaoqiao turned fifteen, Li Ji’an measured her spiritual roots.

The result was somewhat unexpected.

Originally, when Xiaoqiao was twelve years old, Li Ji’an found her unusual and thought she might have extraordinary talent, perhaps even excellent spirit roots. He could sense she had already taken a Nourishing Source Pill and had always lived in the Immortal City.

But in the end, none of the five-element spirit roots exceeded ten strands of spirit charm.

However, there was something special; all five elements possessed nine strands, just one short of reaching the middle grade.

Afterward, Li Ji’an was troubled over which cultivation technique she should primarily focus on.

Ultimately, based on her unique sensing of the Earth Spirit Mechanism, and consulting her own wishes, he purchased the best cultivation technique available with spirit stones on the market at that time for her, a nearly upper-grade Earth Element technique.

However, this year of cultivation did not meet expectations.

Progress was extremely slow, even slower than his previous life with two strands of spirit charm learning the lowest grade techniques. He even provided her with premium nourishing elixirs during this period.

”Could it be a Divine Favored? And there’s no benefit to cultivation, perhaps even some negative mystical influence?” Carefully sensing Xiaoqiao’s dantian, confirming she finally broke through to Qi Cultivation 1st Layer, becoming a real cultivator, Li Ji’an was deep in thought.

”En, your spirit root talent is a bit lacking, and you need to work doubly hard in cultivation. A year to reach Qi Cultivation is somewhat slow relatively, but don’t be discouraged, just do your best. The cultivation realm is a place where miracles can happen.

Once you break through to the middle stage of Qi Cultivation, try Granny You’s array inheritance.” Li Ji’an truthfully informed her of the real situation, and finally spoke softly to comfort her.

Xiaoqiao seemed somewhat disappointed.

In fact, this year, her cultivation could be considered diligent and hardworking, even reducing the time spent playing with Gugu and the Fire Spirit.

It wasn’t that she had any grand ambitions; she was merely concerned about becoming a burden to Li Ji’an.

Due to her tragic childhood experience and growing up living alone with Granny You, having little contact or communication with outsiders, Granny You also needed to frequently cultivate and study arrays and had no time to accompany her, resulting in an incomplete character. It wasn’t until she was entrusted to Li Ji’an at the age of twelve, with Gugu as a companion, that she became slightly more cheerful.

Nowadays, she had only one wish, to stay with Li Ji’an forever.

”Don’t worry too much, just correctly understand yourself, and I’ll always be with you.” Seeing her disheartened expression, Li Ji’an chose not to put pressure on her and encouraged once more.

Whether it was the transaction for Granny You’s array inheritance or the favor of receiving the Fire Spirit, even the four years of day-to-day companionship, Li Ji’an would treat her like a junior and take care of her.

Achievement was unimportant, as long as he implicitly let her understand the fundamental logic of this world, comprehend her own situation, and then live according to her own ideas, she didn’t need to have too much of a profit-driven mindset.

Three days later.

On this day, when Li Ji’an was refining pills in the alchemy room, he suddenly felt a surge of vast demon power spreading out.

He immediately left the alchemy room and saw at a glance the water in the courtyard pool swirling, with Gugu, half the height of a person, lying in the pool with its back exposed. Its originally emerald green skin was constantly changing colors.

The colors shifted from green to blue, then purple, red... black... yellow... becoming increasingly pale until nearly transparent, then continuously cycling.

”Why can’t you be more composed?” Li Ji’an slightly frowned, but it was not the time for criticism. He quickly drew out three Restriction Talismans from his storage pouch and activated them instantly, doing his best to prevent the spiritual qi fluctuations from attracting attention.

Then he tossed out several Spirit Supplement Pills to Gugu to prevent lack of spiritual qi from causing it to fail in advancement.

Originally, after obtaining the Blood Pill, he planned to wait until Gugu had nurtured it for a while longer, reaching its best state, and then take it to the Inner City to rent a cave mansion filled with spiritual qi for a secluded breakthrough.

After all, although demon beasts do not fully rely on spiritual qi for cultivation, when impacting a great realm, the more abundant the spiritual qi, the better the effect of bloodline transformation, and it is easier to save its life after a failed impact.

Gugu, being a crucial life-saving means for his ”Rejuvenation,” was very important.

He hadn’t expected that a spirit beast, after all, is still a beast. Its willpower and nature were not as sound as a human’s. Probably feeling its state had reached a peak, its instinct compelled it to swallow the Blood Pill.

With matters at this stage, thinking about other things is useless, Li Ji’an took out a few life-saving pills specially refined in the past few days, constantly monitoring Gugu’s condition, prioritizing life-saving if any danger appeared.

Gugu remained still, only the color changes persisted for half a day.

Unfortunately, Li Ji’an, busy these years with cultivation, alchemy, and delving into talisman making, had no extra energy for deep research in beast taming, and was thus unaware of what to discern in a spirit beast’s impact on the Second Tier.

Half a day later, its color finally ceased changing, becoming a muddied hue in the pool. Without looking carefully, it seemed to blend together naturally with the pool water, as if they were one entity.