After Qi Ping erased the Black-Robed Cultivator's Divine Sense imprint, he excitedly opened the Black-Robed Cultivator's Storage Pouch and was immediately stunned by its contents.
986 Low-Grade Spirit Stones!
1 Mid-Grade Spirit Stone!
This was the first time Qi Ping had seen a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone; one hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones were needed to exchange for one Mid-Grade Spirit Stone.
Moreover, it was usually impossible to exchange for them, often requiring a premium of twenty to thirty percent.
"Now, even without selling the blood ginseng, I have enough to buy a powerful Spirit Beast!"
An Animal Companion was of great significance to Qi Ping, so he would contract the best Animal Companion possible.
Now that Qi Ping had obtained the Wilderness Transformation skill, he could transform into Bees, greatly increasing his life-saving ability. Even if a Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator pursued him, Qi Ping had a certain chance of escaping, so he could be a bit bolder in his actions and choose a better Spirit Beast.
However, compared to the Spirit Stones, what surprised Qi Ping the most was a Pill Formula and a Cultivation Technique.
"Pill Formula Name: Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill"
"Grade: First-Order Intermediate Medicinal Pill"
"Medicinal Ingredients: Fire Spirit Grass, Yun Ling Fruit"
"Refining Method: Fire Refining"
"Pill Effect: Strengthens the Physical Body, stabilizes the Foundation, can slightly increase the body's Spiritual Qi affinity, and works better when paired with Fire-attribute Cultivation Techniques."
"Cultivation Technique Name: Wood Flame Art (Qi Refining First Level to Qi Refining Ninth Level)"
"Grade: Advanced"
"Cultivation Technique Characteristics: Wood and Fire dual-attribute Cultivation Technique, wood generates fire. While the spiritual power possesses the gentle characteristics of wood, the fire attribute is hidden within. Upon striking, the wood can generate fire, unleashing extremely strong combat power."
"Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill, Wood Flame Art!"
Upon seeing these two items, Qi Ping's heart was immediately filled with joy.
What made Qi Ping happiest, of course, was the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill!
In the Qi Refining Realm, taking Medicinal Pills that enhanced Physical Body strength had considerable benefits for Breakthrough in Realm.
In all Realms, the Physical Body was the Foundation. If the Foundation was weak, it would become increasingly difficult to Breakthrough later on.
Not to mention, the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill also had the effect of slightly increasing the Physical Body's Spiritual Qi affinity and stabilizing the Foundation.
"Nan Jie Cultivates Yun Ling Fruit, so I can just buy two fruit trees directly from her. Among the medicinal ingredients, except for Fire Spirit Grass, the others are not difficult to obtain. As for Fire Spirit Grass, I'll have to find a way to buy a batch of Fire Spirit Grass seeds, or purchase Fire Spirit Grass that is still active."
"The trouble is, if I want to practice Alchemy, a Pill Furnace is a problem. Even the lowest-grade Pill Furnace costs over a thousand Spirit Stones."
"Furthermore, I don't understand the Fire Refining method, and Spiritual Fire is also a problem."
After careful calculation, Qi Ping increasingly felt that being an Alchemist was a bottomless pit. Precious Fire Refining methods, Spirit Medicine extraction methods, Spirit Medicine Fusion methods... all sorts of Cultivation Techniques and knowledge were simply beyond his current means.
Therefore, Qi Ping had never considered being able to refine Medicinal Pills at this stage.
What he wanted now was simply to use the proportion knowledge from the Pill Formula, his Grand Brewer Talent, and the Jungle Druid's keen perception of plants, among other things, to experiment and modify the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill into a Fire Spirit Body Tempering Medicinal Liquid.
Even if it only had half the Medicinal Pill's efficacy, it would still be good for Qi Ping.
Anyway, if the efficacy wasn't enough, he could make up for it with the dosage!
Ideally, after researching it, he could also have the Brewer Big Belly Bee brew honey. In that case, he could mass-produce [Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill (Honey Version)], and Qi Ping would only need to Cultivate enough Fire Spirit Grass to have a continuous supply of the honey version of the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill.
"Moreover, as long as the Fire Spirit Grass and Yun Ling Fruit are of sufficient age and quality, it might even achieve an effect comparable to or even surpassing the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill."
Qi Ping had a clear understanding of his own situation. Before Foundation Establishment, obtaining even the most ordinary Alchemy method was impossible.
Therefore, what he had always wanted was to use a Pill Formula plus ordinary Alchemy knowledge as a basis to try brewing honey with special effects. This Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill was a very good experimental opportunity for Qi Ping.
Now, this Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill not only showed him a direction but also happened to be a Medicinal Pill of great use to him.
This put Qi Ping in a great mood.
"Not bad, not bad!"
After studying the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill Pill Formula, Qi Ping turned his attention to the "Wood Flame Art."
Compared to the Pill Formula, the Wood Flame Art was something Qi Ping was more conflicted about.
If he didn't have a Fire Spiritual Root, it would be fine, but he did, yet it was so low that it was almost undetectable.
His Wood Spiritual Root Talent was already very low, and his Fire Spiritual Root was only discovered by Old Zhou after careful observation for a long time.
"With my slight Fire Spiritual Root Talent, plus the characteristic of wood generating fire, it's not impossible for me to Cultivate the Wood Flame Art."
"And this is an Advanced Qi Refining Cultivation Technique. The Wood Shield Skill is only an Intermediate Cultivation Technique."
Among Qi Refining Cultivation Techniques, they are generally divided into Advanced, Intermediate, and Low Grade.
Low Grade Cultivation Techniques often have flaws, making Breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment Stage almost hopeless. Most Loose Cultivators practice Low Grade Cultivation Techniques.
Intermediate Cultivation Techniques are generally unremarkable, without any particularly powerful characteristics, but they are sufficient to support Cultivation until Breakthrough to Foundation Establishment. However, Intermediate Cultivation Techniques are much more difficult to obtain.
Advanced Cultivation Techniques are clearly a notch higher in strength, possessing stronger characteristics. For example, the Wood Flame Art not only has solid and profound spiritual power but also extremely strong burst power.
There might be stronger Qi Refining Cultivation Techniques, but Qi Ping did not understand these. In any case, Intermediate Qi Refining Cultivation Techniques were sufficient for Breakthrough to later Realms. Those elusive Divine Rank Cultivation Techniques were not something Qi Ping could speculate about.
"Should I switch to Cultivating the Wood Flame Art?" Qi Ping became somewhat conflicted.
Both Cultivation Techniques had their own benefits for Qi Ping.
After much deliberation, Qi Ping decided to wait until he had contracted a second or third Animal Companion.
With his current Talent, even with abundant golden marrow honey, Cultivating to the Qi Refining Late Stage would become more difficult unless a lot of First-Order High-level Spirit Medicine was used.
However, Cultivation achieved purely by accumulating Spirit Medicine had many drawbacks, which Qi Ping could not avoid. Otherwise, the major Sects would not have such strict requirements for Talent when recruiting Disciples.
So, no matter what, Qi Ping still wanted to solidify his Foundation.
"I'll wait until I contract a second or third Animal Companion and gain a Talent that helps with Cultivation."
"For the next Animal Companion, I will try to choose one with Wood or Fire attributes, and then decide based on the shared Talent!"
"Anyway, with the Gold Marrow Bee and the mutated Bee species now, I can also transform into Bees to escape, so for now, my requirements for the combat power of other Animal Companions are not that high."
"So, the next Animal Companion must either possess extremely high cultivation potential or have the chance to share a suitable Talent with me."
In a few more days, Qi Ping was confident he could Breakthrough to Qi Refining Fourth Level.
Once the number of High-Speed Ring-Cutting Bees accumulated a bit more, Qi Ping planned to go to Qing Shi Market to ask Boss Gao about Spirit Beast information and see if he had found a suitable Spirit Beast seller.
At this point, there was nothing of high value left in the Black-Robed Cultivator's Storage Pouch, mostly just miscellaneous items of low value.
Except for one token that caught Qi Ping's attention.
This was a strange bronze-colored metal token with a mysterious character "concern" carved on it. An extremely evil and strange aura emanated from the character "concern".
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