Shennong Sequence

"As for the continuous improvement of cultivation realm, at most it can only increase the size of acquired primordial essence, acquired primordial energy, and acquired primordial spirit - it cannot increase the true innate origin by even the slightest bit."

"Therefore, our cultivation is nothing more than relying on the vast acquired origin accumulated day by day to slow down the depletion of the innate essence, vital energy, and spirit rooted in the origin of life, so that they are always kept in a relatively abundant state and do not wither quickly due to cultivation or the passage of time."

"And in the cultivation process of the third stage of Foundation Establishment, 'Gathering Lead and Mercury,' what needs to be gathered and refined is the core power that is deeply rooted in the human body and is innate—the true innate primordial essence, primordial energy, and primordial spirit!"

"However, the total amount of this innate essence is already scarce. If one rashly extracts it, one may face the predicament of depletion of essence as soon as one extracts a trace. This will have an irreversible impact on the fundamental essence of the entire human body."

"Therefore, demonic cultivators often harvest fetuses and placenta..."

However, these are not reliable methods of cultivation. How can one easily refine the innate qualities of others?
Therefore, Xin Ruyin suggested the safest method to Zhao Yun: find innate-level spiritual objects or secret realms containing innate spiritual energy, and use these things that truly originate from the innate to refine and devour, so as to nourish the innate essence, vital energy, and spirit within his body.

Once a sufficient quantity has been accumulated, the lead and mercury required can be extracted and refined from it. In this way, the loss to one's own essence will be negligible.

Furthermore, if the refined innate spiritual objects are pure enough, they can even enhance the innate essence within the physical body, not only extending lifespan but also subtly improving one's innate talent, physical constitution, and the intensity of one's comprehension of the Great Dao.

It is evident that the key to this "lead and mercury extraction" lies entirely in the "innate elements".

The innate nature of things can be easy to find, or difficult to find.

They are hard to find because innate things will disintegrate and be downgraded in the acquired environment due to the erosion of the laws of the Great Dao!

Just like the difference between the innate primordial weak water that Zhao Yun obtained and the primordial weak water.

Therefore, these innate objects either need to be wrapped in layers of extremely sophisticated sealing techniques to be preserved for a long time, or the innate objects themselves need to be of a high enough grade to possess the characteristic of 'divine objects concealing themselves' in order to resist the erosion of the acquired environment and not disintegrate on their own.

Regardless of the situation, the word "innate" means that it originated from the beginning of creation and carries the special energy of the original Dao rhythm, and each one is extremely precious.

In this ancient world, especially under the special circumstances of the Wanling Yudao Sect's century-long closure—allowing only outsiders to enter and forbidding insiders from leaving—the scarcity of various cultivation resources has become increasingly prominent:
If the supply of one type of spiritual material decreases by a fraction today, the price of another type of pill will rise sharply tomorrow. This is one of the reasons why Zhao Yun was able to frequently profit from the price difference of materials and quickly accumulate fifty top-grade spirit stones in just over a year.

Therefore, in such a situation, the scarcer a product is, the higher its price will naturally be.

Innate-level spiritual objects are the most coveted treasures for all Foundation Establishment cultivators—regardless of whether you follow the path of humanity, earth, heaven, or the Great Dao to establish your foundation, as long as you are in the Foundation Establishment realm, you need to seek out these special substances.

Otherwise, if you rely solely on collecting the acquired essence forged within your body to condense lead and mercury, you will not obtain the level of true mercury and true lead. Even if your foundation is solid and profound, from the moment you extract acquired mercury and lead, the expansion of your subsequent cultivation realm and the accumulation of higher potential will be completely cut off.

“Innate things, even innate energy, are probably quite difficult to find.”

Zhao Yun gazed at the spiritual material shops on the streets of Yudao Immortal City and couldn't help but sigh softly. You should know that his smooth entry into the Foundation Establishment Realm of the Great Dao was due to two special innate substances: a strand of the original essence of Tai Su and Tai Ji from the Five Primordial Elements bestowed by the Sect Master, Ling Daoren.

It was these two strands of innate essence that forged the foundation of his Great Dao Foundation and brought about a fundamental transformation in his material transformation method. Now he can directly analyze and condense the structure of various spiritual objects at or below his own realm, as well as other substances.

"It's a pity. If my cultivation level were high enough, I might be able to directly analyze and condense these innate energies and substances using the material transformation method."

"But at this moment, the quality of these innate objects has far exceeded my current cultivation level. They are the innate essence left after the creation of the world. Even immortals need to spend a lot of effort to find them, let alone me, who has not even reached the threshold of the Golden Core stage and is only a small cultivator in the Foundation Establishment stage of the Great Dao."

Xin Ruyin also said with some helplessness:
"There's nothing I can do. The innate items I obtained earlier were all based on luck. I bought an antique at random, but unexpectedly, I bought the box and returned the pearl. I found the innate jade that came with the antique and absorbed the innate creation contained within it, which allowed my early accumulation in the 'Lead and Mercury Mining' realm to be complete."

"In addition, this Dao Gong Treasury actually contains real innate resource reserves, but exchanging for such resources requires a lot of 'Dao Gong'."

You've only recently entered the Daoist cultivation repository, so you haven't accumulated much Daoist cultivation yet.

"All my cultivation over the years has been devoted to spiritual practice, and I haven't saved any of it. Therefore, it's really difficult for me to help you exchange these innate items from the cultivation repository in the short term."

At this point, Xin Ruyin frowned slightly, clearly worried about Zhao Yun's predicament.

However, there is another way to find innate treasures:

Those aristocratic families that possess cultivators at the Great Dao Golden Core stage must have a certain reserve of strategic resources such as innate materials.

Unfortunately, many aristocratic families with Golden Core cultivators harbor ulterior motives, wanting to form marriage alliances with our side and steal the great fortune they possess.

However, after she repeatedly refused, she joined forces with Zhao Yun, which inadvertently created enmity with some powerful families, making it difficult for Zhao Yun to obtain innate treasures by relying on the help of these families.

"By the way, you just said that these innate resources existed at the beginning of the world. Do you think that our inner world can also give birth to some innate resources?" Zhao Yun asked Xin Ruyin.

Xin Ruyin had already investigated this matter, so she was able to give an answer immediately:

"It can generate innate energy. But that little bit of innate energy is far from enough for the inner world to grow and evolve even a little, so how can it be used for our cultivation?"

"In fact, if too much innate fortune is collected from the inner world, it may cause the inner world to degenerate and even collapse."

At that time, wouldn't all the foundations and the very source of cultivation collapse? This would be a losing proposition. (End of Chapter)