After his moment of contentment, Wang Yu did not seek further news on the negotiations between Chasing Moon Prefecture and the two hegemon factions. He knew full well that such situations could not be resolved within five or six years.
The last negotiations involving Gui Ling served as a stark warning. This time, involving the ransom of Nascent Soul cultivators, the duration would only be longer.
Although the war in Chasing Moon Prefecture had stalemated, no one knew if it would resume once talks concluded.
Only eight years of the twenty-year agreement had passed.
Yet he had already accomplished so much, leaving his spirit unavoidably weary and in urgent need of a period of rest.
Ancient Fang City in You Prefecture was perfect for his seclusion. It wasn't far from Chasing Moon Prefecture, so he would be among the first to learn of any major events.
Furthermore, the place also had a business renting out cultivation cave dwellings.
Several days later.
A second-grade cave dwelling in Ancient Fang City.
For this seclusion, Wang Yu's goals were quite clear. The first was the **[Malicious Demonic Dragon Armor]** currently being nurtured within the divine marrow of his Dragon Spine.
This object was a Bloodline True Artifact, connected to his heart's blood.
Based on the "Black Malice Armor" condensed through the Soul-Devouring Evil Armor Art, it provided defense for spiritual sense, true essence, and physical body alike. It incorporated Soul-Devouring Blood Gold, Ten-Thousand-Year Scholar Tree Bark, and the Dragon Vein Treasure Pearl.
Its potential was beyond question. According to the current nurturing progress, at most five more years, it would truly transform into a lower third-grade True Artifact.
By then.
To continue its improvement would relate to the third-rank cultivation methods for Body Refiners. According to the records in the *Netherworld Demonic Dragon Art*.
After the third rank, the method to enhance divine marrow, besides supplementing with spirit medicines, also required the refining of Malice Energy.
Corpses refined Malice Energy, seeking the transformation of Earthly Malice.
For cultivators, unless pursuing a special divine ability, only Body Refiners would extensively interact with Malice Energy.
The Netherworld Demonic Dragon Art could refine Yin-attribute Malice Energy and Dragon-attribute Malice Energy.
Lunar Malice happened to belong to the Grand Yin position within Yin. With the Grand Yin Malice Corpse at hand, Wang Yu had ample experience in this area; he could simply draw it freely from the world.
If that wasn't enough, he could also absorb it from the Grand Yin Malice Corpse itself.
This thing was about to advance to the mid-third rank. Wang Yu couldn't quite suppress it for now, so artificially restraining it a bit was excellent.
Dragon-attribute Malice Energy, however, was a different matter. It could further transform Wang Yu's blood qi into dragon form. True Dragons belonged to True Spirit bloodlines, extinct in this world.
Flood Dragons were quite numerous. Upon their death, they could give birth to the most basic Dragon Malice. He was about to enter seclusion, making it inconvenient to search for them, and finding Flood Dragons was difficult anyway.
Beyond that, the Feng Shui configurations between heaven and earth also had so-called Malice Formations, a variant of Earth Formations. If Wang Yu could find one, his Body Refinement cultivation could also skyrocket.
For this, he needed to slowly elevate the *Earth Mother Scripture* and gather the energies of the four directions and four seas to refine the **[Feng Shui Compass]** first.
For now, using only Lunar Malice was sufficient. As long as he absorbed enough Dragon Malice before breaking through to the fourth rank, there would be no problems.
He planned to search for it after resolving the matter of Zhuo Shouqing.
This was the first point.
Secondly, he would use the spirit medicines in hand to refine the third-rank **Soul Dream Origin Pill** from the *Ancient Soul Art*, aiming to break his spiritual sense through to the mid-third rank in one move and gain complete control over the power of the Three Corpses.
For this pill formula, five years was sufficient for perfection.
Conversely, the **[Frostscale Pill Refining Art]** contained far too much information. To restore it to its complete third-rank state required a full one hundred and twenty years.
This pill refining art had miraculous effects for Wang Yu, who cultivated an ice-attribute technique. He could not possibly abandon it. He would even persist in deducing it to the fourth rank.
Just the fifty percent bonus for ice-attribute spirit pills and the potential fourth-rank Frostscale Pill Flame were already outstanding enough, making it a top-tier pill refining legacy extremely suited to him.
He remembered placing it during the 16th year of his steward career. It was now the 5th month of the 44th year. In just two more years, it would have been placed for nearly thirty years.
With his current pill refining skill, after the formula was perfected, producing top-grade pills was unlikely, but he could strive for high-grade ones. After resolving his spiritual root aptitude issues, his obsession with top-grade spirit pills had also diminished considerably.
However, cultivation pills were still best at top-grade. Following the top-grade Frost Spirit Pills, the second cultivation pill he obtained after leaving Gui Ling City—**[Frost Lotus Pill]**!
—was also one of the goals of this seclusion's refinement.
He was only three Frost Spirit Pills away from developing pill resistance. The Frost Lotus Pill would perfectly take over. The time until he reached the peak of Foundation Establishment, and even condensed his Golden Core, was not too far off.
Before formally entering seclusion.
He deliberately wore the Earthly Nether Ghost Mask and purchased two types of spiritual materials at the Golden Prosperity Tower in Yellow Sand City, You Prefecture, before returning to Ancient Fang City for seclusion.
It was a small hook.
As the saying goes, within the mountains time holds no meaning; through cold winters, one loses track of years.
The higher one's realm, the longer a cultivator's seclusion tended to be. Except for those who encountered bottlenecks, one could always make some gains.
Wang Yu was currently in a period of rapid advancement. Insights flowed in daily, and his cultivation base grew swiftly, steadily advancing towards the ninth layer of Foundation Establishment.
...
...
In the blink of an eye, the seasons turned.
As if in a moment, it reached the end of the 5th month in the 50th year of Steward Wang's career. He had sat in meditation for six years.
His original goals were largely achieved, and one additional, anticipated event had occurred.
**[Slot 1: Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art (Third Rank)]**
**'Heavenly Cold Yin Blood Art (100/100): No further derivation possible.'**
This was the Foundation Establishment technique obtained from the Cold Blood Peak.
Besides increasing true essence capacity, perfecting its cultivation granted a significant one-time effect of elevating the quality of Yin-cold True Essence.
Once the quality was elevated, the extreme cold power contained within would naturally increase greatly, and Wang Yu's cultivation speed would surge.
The placement slots were based on his own existence to deduce these techniques. He could receive feedback each time, meaning...
Advancement simultaneously meant perfection.
It was no different from him deducing and creating it himself.
The effect of a perfected third-rank technique caused his true essence to almost turn black. The black, solid ice that previously required concentrated effort to condense could now be formed with a mere thought.
It truly elevated his true essence to a higher level.
This would be greatly beneficial for his future breakthrough to Core Formation, at least reducing the difficulty of condensing magic power. Perhaps it wouldn't compare to the massive amount of Mystic Essence Flowers used during the Qi Condensation stage, but it could still add a ten percent chance.
Accumulating little by little, it was worthy of joy.
His cultivation base also surged significantly. His technique advanced in the fourth year. The speed of condensing true essence increased from "100 strands/day" to "200 strands/day" (dual placement slots).
It had literally doubled. The benefits brought by a perfected third-rank technique were far greater than those from a perfected second-rank technique, indicating there would likely be similar pleasant surprises later.
Over six years, he refined three Frost Spirit Pills and formally consumed the first Frost Lotus Pill, totaling an increase of 450 drops of true essence. Self-cultivation improvement reached a new high of 240 drops.
Besides the amplification from the Lake of True Essence, frequent and intense battles contributed significantly. The technique and the Profound Ice Bed also noticeably increased speed.
The dual placement slots increased true essence by 360 drops. Over six years of cultivation, his true essence capacity had increased by a full 1050 drops.
Eighty-seven and a half years old, eighth layer of Foundation Establishment, 5050 drops of true essence capacity.
Even without consuming pills, given eleven or twelve years, he could still break through to the ninth layer of Foundation Establishment. He might not be able to form his Golden Core before a hundred years old.
But at most around a hundred and twenty or thirty, he could truly condense his Golden Core and enjoy eight hundred years of lifespan!
If one factored in pills, various bonuses, and searching for spirit medicines that could increase true essence along the way, reaching the cultivation speed of a Heavenly Spiritual Root was not a delusion.
Looking at his own advancement speed and then at the Three Young Masters of the Reverse Spirit Sect, he was already quite satisfied.
However—
"The efficiency of the dual placement slots is getting worse. Should I upgrade to three slots?"
Wang Yu merely pondered this question.
He felt it was better to wait until after forming his Golden Core. To obtain the seventh machine, one of spiritual sense, magic power, or physique needed to break through to the fourth rank.
The most promising was spiritual sense, but no dawn was visible in the short term.
Such were the gains in cultivation.
One of the greatest benefits Wang Yu obtained during this seclusion period was still the Bloodline True Artifact—**[Malicious Demonic Dragon Armor]!**
The Dragon Vein Treasure Pearl originally inlaid upon it was completely assimilated.
A lower third-grade True Artifact had truly taken form.
With but a thought, this dragon armor stored within his Dragon Spine covered his entire body, even his head, forming a ferocious and savage fully armored figure.
A slight surge of blood qi could release endless cold and dragon roars. It perfectly complemented the Demonic Dragon Fist and also had excellent compatibility with the Minor Asura Killing Fist.
In the armored state, Wang Yu could feel his physical capabilities increased by at least sixty percent. It was an entirely different concept from being unarmored.
The Demonic Dragon Fist could also be unleashed at 200% effectiveness because of this armor.
Moreover, this was a suit of armor. The defense improvement was most obvious, capable of withstanding spiritual sense, true essence, and physical collisions. The Malicious Demonic Dragon Armor was one with him.
After undergoing tempering by Grand Yin Lunar Malice for a period, it gained many lunar shadow patterns, inexplicably adding a touch of softness. The growth of divine marrow, however, wasn't much.
It only increased by a fingernail-sized amount, merely solidifying his realm and advancing slightly. He was still far from the mid-third rank.
The Starfall Frost Cauldron, previously dented badly by the Blood Demon Ginseng, was after all a mid-grade magic treasure and greatly assisted his pill refining.
After re-refining with the Frostscale Pill Flame, it slowly returned to its original state.
Now.
It was time to refine the **[Soul Dream Origin Pill]**.
He had obtained some materials in the ancient Heavenly Soul Sect's medicine garden and had traveled between several cities in You Prefecture, finally gathering enough for two batches.
"Third-rank spirit pill materials are this hard to gather. I wonder what difficulty fourth-rank spirit pills will pose. Cultivation is truly difficult~"
Sighing briefly, Wang Yu formally began refining.
With the experience of a perfected pill formula and the assistance of the Starfall Frost Cauldron, even if his pill refining skill was slightly lacking, other methods could make up for it.
The extraction and refinement step had almost no difficulty.
All of Wang Yu's configurations exceeded the standard. The difficult part was the pill condensation step. How many pills could be formed depended entirely on the proficiency of the pill condensation seals.
This step was constrained by his pill refining skill.
He condensed a total of six pills.
This indicated top-grade was hopeless; high-grade was the best he could manage. Even so, Wang Yu exerted all his skill, spending more time on the final pill nurturing step.
The first batch took a full twelve days to refine.
One low-grade, three mid-grade, two high-grade pills. It barely met the standard.
The second batch took thirteen days, producing seven pills: three high-grade, four mid-grade.
The variation between these two batches lay in the Starfall Frost Cauldron.
After all, the self in the placement slot did not have access to a high-grade pill furnace. The feedback was based on the most basic type. A slight variation was not too bad.
Five high-grade **[Soul Dream Origin Pills]** were sufficient for his spiritual sense to break through to the mid-third rank after refining and absorbing. After all, they were third-rank spirit pills and perfectly matched the *Ancient Soul Art*.
There was no reason for failure.
"Let's begin."
*(End of Chapter)*