After using the "Spirit-Communicating Dew," when Zhu Luomu was undergoing his Core Tribulation in the future, he would be able to further enhance himself by using a set of cultivation methods taught by Xing Ming.
It would allow his Foundation Establishment rank to be temporarily raised from the sixth rank to the seventh rank, "Cauldron-Ranked Foundation Establishment." This effect could last for half an hour.
As long as Zhu Luomu seized the opportunity and used this cultivation method at the critical moment, the rank of the Golden Core he finally formed could also be raised by one rank.
Although it was only a difference of one rank, for a cultivator, this was a huge gap in combat power.
This was why when facing a Mid-stage Golden Core cultivator, Lin Xinghe could crush Ning Ying if not for Xue Qianzong's help.
Xing Ming, who was meditating to recover, first furrowed his brow, then opened his eyes.
"He has finally appeared. Judging from the aura leaking from his body, even that impressive concealment technique of his couldn't suppress this leaking aura. This is caused by the Natal Magical Treasure not being fully integrated and smoothly circulated after being successfully refined and assimilated into the body."
A moment later, Zhang Ming stood before Xing Ming.
"Thank you, Senior, for the grace of lending me the Earth Fire. Only then was this junior able to finally fulfill my wish."
He bowed to Xing Ming, who was sipping tea above, and paid his respects.
"You don't need to call me Senior. Just address me as Sect Master. This can also be considered the sect fulfilling its promise to you. Now that you have a Natal Magical Treasure, your strength is even greater. Judging from your previous combat power, you are now qualified to serve as the sect's Guest Elder."
Xing Ming put down his teacup and said faintly, glancing at the young man below as if he didn't care, thinking to himself.
'He actually calls me Senior. Has he forgotten our other agreements?'
Zhang Ming once again bowed respectfully, but this time, he had already changed his form of address.
"Sect Master, this disciple has come this time with some matters to negotiate. Although my Magical Treasure has been successfully refined, it has not yet been thoroughly integrated with myself. I naturally have no problem with the matter of being a Guest Elder, but if there are any missions in the near future, I cannot carry them out. This disciple needs a period of time to nurture and refine the Magical Treasure."
After hearing Zhang Ming's words, Xing Ming nodded directly. From the aura overflowing from Zhang Ming just now, he could already see that the other party's Natal Magical Treasure had not been truly refined successfully; it should have only been simply refined into the body.
It made sense. The underground "Shattered Star Chamber" was not a good place to nurture a Magical Treasure.
Which alchemist or artifact refiner wouldn't leave immediately after finishing their refining? He saw a flush on Zhang Ming's face.
That was because he had stayed in the "Shattered Star Chamber" for too long, and a lot of Fire Poison had accumulated in his body. Just getting rid of this Fire Poison would take about three months.
'This kid's physical body is really tough. After staying for seven months with so much Fire Poison in his body, he actually wasn't half-crippled.'
He calculated in his heart that it would take Zhang Ming at least half a year to expel the Fire Poison and then refine his Natal Magical Treasure.
This amount of time was not too long for a cultivator, especially since nothing major had happened in Falling Star Valley recently.
What he didn't know was that the Fire Poison in this Zhang Ming's body was deliberately retained by him.
Otherwise, with Li Yan's Qiongqi Purgatory Art constantly squeezing and circulating his physical body, he would have long since expelled all this Fire Poison from his body, leaving not a single trace.
"No problem. Seeing that you still have a lot of Fire Poison in your body, the matter of the Guest Elder will be announced after you come out of seclusion. Also, you don't need to go back to the low-level disciple courtyard you used to live in. The Spirit Qi there is too thin, and it's no longer suitable for you to stay there. Here is a jade slip. Just go to the location marked in it. I imagine you wouldn't have left your personal belongings in your original residence."
When Li Yan walked out of Xing Ming's cave residence with the jade slip in hand, a faint smile hung on his lips.
This Xing Ming was extremely shrewd in his handling of affairs. All his subsequent arrangements had already been made for him.
With a sweep of his Divine Sense, Li Yan found that the two Foundation Establishment cultivators who had been following him earlier were long gone. How would those two dare to approach this place?
After seeing Li Yan approaching the Sect Master's cave residence without any hesitation, they had long since quietly left in shock, having lost all thought of prying.
Li Yan didn't pay any mind to this. He had a rough idea of what those two were thinking. It should be related to the deacon he met at the "Shattered Star Chamber." He had stayed down there for a bit too long.
Immediately, Li Yan soared into the air and flew towards a certain place.
Within a courtyard, he felt the Spirit Qi rushing towards him from all directions.
Although the concentration was not as good as the Little Bamboo Peak back then, for Li Yan who had been in the Forsaken Continent for several years, the Spirit Qi here was already considered very good.
He didn't know if Xing Ming did it on purpose, or if the areas with dense Spirit Qi in Falling Star Valley were only in this large area.
The courtyard Li Yan was now living in was only about a hundred li from Xing Ming's cave residence. For a cultivator like Xing Ming, this was basically right under his nose. A long-range technique could cover Li Yan's place.
Li Yan didn't care about this. As long as there was nothing too abnormal here, Xing Ming wouldn't be bored enough to scan over with his Divine Sense. He could still see this point.
After sensing the environment here for a while, Li Yan immediately activated the courtyard's protective restriction.
The restriction here was more than ten times stronger than the one in his original residence. A Foundation Establishment cultivator would not be able to break through it by force for a while.
"They really are treating me like a Guest Elder. Although the restriction here isn't ridiculously strong, even a Golden Core cultivator's Divine Sense can't easily penetrate it. If Xing Ming were to scan with his Divine Sense, the restriction should react. It seems Falling Star Valley is truly gentlemanly on this point."
Li Yan knew that this was the sincerity shown to him by Xing Ming and Tianxingzi.
Although there was a semi-coercive element in making him a so-called Guest Elder, after all, with the scheming nature of these two, they still put on a good show on the surface.
These two old foxes naturally knew the principle of giving a sweet date after a hard stick, so that he would be more willing to risk his life for them in the future.
After entering the cultivation room, Li Yan looked at the neat interior and nodded in satisfaction. Xing Ming had arranged everything here in an orderly fashion.
Although he knew the restriction here was effective at preventing others from prying, Li Yan still set up the "Great Dragon-Elephant Formation" in the room he entered after coming in. Here, he only trusted himself.
After doing all this, Li Yan sat down cross-legged on the rush cushion.
After thinking for a moment, he did not immediately start refining his magical treasure. A wisp of his Divine Sense entered the "Earthen Patch."
In the far west of the "Earthen Patch," waves of heat swept over everything.
In the sky, a five-colored halo continuously gathered the dense earth-attribute Spirit Qi of heaven and earth, then rapidly converted it into extremely pure fire-attribute Spirit Qi that gushed out.
Li Yan's faint, illusory figure looked down. In the center of the desert, directly opposite the five-colored halo, a crystal-clear eggshell was half-buried in the yellow sand, motionless.
The eggshell was as white as ivory, and occasionally a purple arc of lightning would flicker and travel across it, from time to time emitting a soft crackling sound.
More than a year had passed. Everything here was as it was before. Apart from the purple arc of lightning on the smooth, jade-like eggshell having deepened slightly in color, there were no other changes.
Li Yan couldn't even detect the slightest trace of life from within the eggshell.
But looking at the leaping purple arc of lightning, which gave a sense of life's vitality, Li Yan knew that the Lesser Purple Divine Dragon-Elephant was still in the process of burning its soul to refine its spirit.
After standing silently for a full half-incense stick's time, Li Yan's figure quietly disappeared.
And his arrival went completely unnoticed even by the Snow Mosquito King, who was currently enjoying the "joys of family life."
The snow mosquito clan had also suffered heavy casualties in the last battle. In recent months, the Snow Mosquito King had been working hard to reproduce, enjoying it immensely.
The moment his Divine Sense returned to his main body, Li Yan's body trembled slightly, but he did not open his eyes.
Then, a silver light erupted from his body, and his joints crackled like popping soybeans, a continuous and dense series of explosions.
As the silver light on his body flickered continuously, streams of red smoke emerged from his body. This smoke contained a large amount of black impurities and had a nauseating, fishy stench.
And this red smoke became thicker and thicker, soon filling the entire cultivation room.
This phenomenon continued for a quarter of an hour before the sound of Li Yan's cracking joints gradually disappeared. He suddenly opened his eyes, and a sharp glint shot out, like a bolt of lightning in the red mist.
Then, with a wave and a sweep of his large sleeve, all the red mist that filled the entire cultivation room was gathered together by him.
After sensing the outside world for a moment and finding no other Divine Senses roaming nearby, he then forcefully flicked his large sleeve, and a powerful airflow erupted from his body.
The doors and windows of the cultivation room were all thrown open at once, and the red mist rolled up in his sleeve was directly scattered outside with this strong airflow.
Then, it quickly dissipated and merged into the Spirit Qi in the courtyard. Subsequently, all the doors and windows closed with a 'snap'.
Li Yan, sitting cross-legged, had his complexion return to normal. A divine light flowed over his skin, and the aura of his whole body was rapidly retracting into his body.
If Xing Ming knew that the Zhang Ming before him had completely expelled the Fire Poison from his body in just a quarter of an hour, he would definitely have the thought of performing a Soul-Search again.
He had predicted that it would take at least three months for Zhang Ming to expel the Fire Poison from his body. From this, he could immediately guess that this Zhang Ming had hidden at least fifty to sixty percent of his true strength.
After doing all this, Li Yan immediately entered a state of meditation, letting his aura become more and more stable. After an hour, Li Yan reopened his eyes.
He once again waved his large sleeve, and two black lights shot out from his sleeves like swimming fish. They then stopped in front of him, quietly suspended in the air.
These were two long spikes, only six inches in length, with a black light radiating from their entire bodies.
The middle of the spikes was about the thickness of an adult's middle finger, suitable for being held in one's hand. The two ends became thinner and thinner.
The tips were extremely fine and sharp needles. A hint of red light shone through the center of the black, glossy light, like two venomous snakes, faintly flicking their red tongues.
This item was the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike that Li Yan had finally succeeded in refining after much hardship. The whole body had a smooth, streamlined feel, as if black water was constantly flowing over it.
Li Yan reached out his hand, and the two Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes separated, each held in the middle by his two hands.
The feeling in his hands was exceptionally comfortable. With a gentle separation of his hands, Li Yan spread his palms, and the two Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes began to rotate rapidly in his palms.
In an instant, they transformed into two black light shadows. With a light flick of Li Yan's Divine Sense, a low-grade great axe magical treasure appeared not far away.
The moment the great axe appeared, it caused the entire cultivation room to buzz and tremble. The surrounding restrictions began to resist the tyrannical pressure that was wildly emanating from the great axe.
Golden light flickered and scattered from the great axe. This was a metal-attribute magical treasure known for its indestructibility, which Li Yan had obtained from a Black Demon Clan cultivator on the Windy Cool Mountain battlefield back then.
The magical treasures of the Black Demon Clan had always been focused on attack, giving up most of their defensive functions. Therefore, their magical treasures were more powerful and domineering.
Li Yan took out this item at this time for a self-evident purpose.
He had quite a few magical treasures and pills in his storage space. Although he wasn't particularly fond of these magical treasures used by Foundation Establishment cultivators.
He preferred to end fights with enemies in the most trouble-free way, but using them to trade for Spirit Stones, or to self-detonate at a critical moment, was something that even Golden Core cultivators would not want to face.