Wanfa Daojun, starting from the Little Cloud and Rain Technique

Chapter 831 Seven Luminaries Golden Branch (Bonus Chapter for 3K Chapters, Still Owed)
After bidding farewell to Ping Tian Zhenjun, Ji An sped off according to the map.

As far as the eye can see, smoke often rises from the chimneys of towns where mortals gather, and it seems that the population has recovered quite well.

After flying for two hours, the sun set over the green mountains, and the sky behind them was full of crimson. The sunset was like a giant red carp swimming in the sea of ​​the sky.

Ji An landed, found a secluded spot, buried the array plate and inserted the array flags, and then activated the Xuanwu Armor Formation.

The water rippled at the edge of the magic circle, transforming into several short trees that stubbornly grew in the crevices of the rocks.

He held the gourd-shaped stone in his hand, extended his divine sense to touch the silver spots inside, and his body suddenly disappeared from the spot, entering the small world the next moment.

At that moment, Qin Yan was resting cross-legged under the Gathering Yuan Tree. Upon seeing him enter, he immediately stood up, smiled, and cupped his hands in greeting:

"Greetings, True Lord. Have you encountered any troubles outside these past few days?"

Ji An nodded slightly. "Yes, we encountered several Buddhist cultivators from the Western Continent. They were hunting down a fellow Daoist we had met a few times before, so a battle ensued."

These past few days, I've been staying with Peaceful Heavenly Lord, and haven't had a chance to return to the small world to cultivate.

He briefly explained the situation in Central Continent and gave instructions:
"If you leave the small world to travel outside, do not leave the area of ​​the Immortal City."

Those Buddhist practices are unique; they can subtly distort people's minds, turning them into puppets of the temple.

In his view, the actions of Buddhist monks are no different from those of demonic monks, and controlling the minds of others is tantamount to being a cult.

"I understand, but is the major sect in Central Continent really going to ignore this?"

"How could we ignore it? We just haven't made up our minds yet."

The Central Continent suffered heavy losses in the great calamity. I heard from True Lord Pingtian that more than 240 True Lords from various sects died in the battle, nearly half of the True Lords perished.

Although the True Demon Clan also suffered heavy losses, it is an undeniable fact that the Central Continent was severely weakened.

The Buddhist sects have already established a foothold on the shores of the East Sea, making it extremely difficult to eradicate them completely. Furthermore, if another bloody battle were to break out, many sects in the Central Continent might lose their lineage.

Under these circumstances, it is impossible to gather forces to attack Shi Xiu. If the True Lord who participated in the war were to die unexpectedly, causing the lineage to be cut off, what would be the point of winning the war?
Everyone is willing to make small contributions, but no true sage would be willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others.

Ji An sighed softly, thinking to himself that the longer he delayed facing Shi Xiu, the greater the losses he would suffer in the future.

The monks were originally in the East Sea, but a Sangha King appeared in the west of Central Continent, which proves that Central Continent's control over the situation is weakening.

The True Lords of other sects were not unaware of this, but with their concerns, it was difficult for them to unite as one.

Qin Yan frowned and pondered for a moment, then asked:
"True Lord, will the flames of war spread to the Western Continent?"

Ji An turned his head to gaze at the glistening leaves of the Gathering Yuan Tree, and said calmly:

"If Zhongzhou cannot put enough pressure on Shixiu, it is only a matter of time before Shixiu enters Xizhou."

"But don't worry, as long as the number of Nascent Soul level cultivators is not large, they will surely not return alive."

The sect has three Nascent Soul level warriors, so they are not afraid of any challenge. Even a Nascent Soul level cultivator cannot withstand his powerful attacks.

He took out the jade slip containing the map that True Lord Pingtian had given him, made a copy, and handed it out, saying:
"This is a map of the Western Continent. With this, we can conduct intercontinental trade."

At this moment, A-Yun landed on her spirit shuttle and sent a telepathic message asking:

"Master, would you like some spiritual food cooked?"

"Of course I need it. I'm going to have a few more drinks tonight, and I want more stewed meat."

The meat of the golden-feathered chickens and musk cattle raised in the small world is more delicious and contains more spiritual energy, making it wonderfully flavorful after cooking.

Ah Yun bowed slightly, turned and left, going to instruct the other puppets to get to work.

Ji An turned to look at Qin Yan and said:

"I obtained a lotus seed, and I planted it by the pond."

"I'll accompany you, True Lord, so I can see how you cultivate them."

The two rode on clouds to the edge of the pond. Ji An hovered in the air and made a water-avoiding spell to drain the water below his position.

The edge of the pond is a shallow area, only a little over six feet deep. A short distance further ahead is a steep, cliff-like slope that leads directly into a deep area of ​​two hundred feet.

The Pure Water Lotus lives at the bottom of the water and is the only spiritual plant that grows completely submerged in water, so the unknown lotus seed in his hand needs to be planted in a shallow water area.

Ji An took out a lotus seed with golden patterns, planted it, and used a magic seal to release the Dragon Soaring and All Things Grow.

The silver moon, like a jade plate, cast its cool light down, while the clouds, shimmering with lightning and sparks, rolled and the roar of a dragon echoed in all directions.

Black and blue dragons formed by magic tumbled within, occasionally revealing a scale or claw.

The Azure Dragon, formed from the Azure Lotus Banner, also joined in the fun, flying into the clouds and playing around.

The spiritual rain, as large as soybeans and as clear as jade, poured down, with cyan light spots following closely behind. The divine will of water and wood intertwined, as if they were originally one.

Ji An suppressed his spiritual pressure, allowing the rain to fall into the mud at his feet. A moment later, a small lotus with curled leaves emerged, revealing a faint golden hue at its tip.

Ji An raised his position and stopped maintaining the water-avoidance spell, and the water flow filled the area.

Qin Yan watched as the lotus grew taller in the clear lake water and asked with a smile:
"True Lord, do you know what kind of spiritual seed this is?"

There are no low-level spiritual plants in this small world; all the ones he saw were of the third rank or higher.

Ji An scratched his head. "I don't know either. It's very likely a mutated seed."

He had never seen a lotus seed with golden patterns before, and there was no description of such a lotus seed in his memory, so he believed it to be a mutated spirit seed.

However, it may also be a lotus variety unique to the Western Continent. Judging from the spoils obtained from Kongwen, the Buddhist practitioners really liked to plant Bodhi trees, Vajra Bodhi trees, and lotuses.

After enjoying their meal, A-Yun and the puppets tidied up the table, while Qin Yan flew away on a cloud to the small island in the center of the lava lake.

It feels very comfortable under the hibiscus tree, second only to staying under the Gathering Yuan Tree.

Ji An was tipsy. He sat down cross-legged, circulated his cultivation technique to refine the spiritual food, and then continued to maintain his cultivation state.

Three hours later, his magical power was fully restored. He stopped cultivating and summoned the Flame Banner and the Apricot Yellow Banner.

These two magical treasures were pierced by Kongwen's Vajra hoe and suffered relatively serious damage.

The other magical treasures only had a few cracks on the flagpole, which could be easily repaired.

The damage to the natal spirit treasure was relatively minor; there was a hole in the edge of the flag.

The Flame Banner was in a worse state; it was pierced in the center, damaging the phoenix's embroidery. The magical treasure could no longer take form, and its spiritual essence was also damaged. It would take time to slowly recover.

The Wuji Apricot Yellow Flag Spirit Treasure was refined with Transforming Yuan Divine Mud, and the Lidi Flame Light Flag was refined with Phoenix Stone. Both of these materials possess unique memory functions, which can help repair damaged magic weapons or spirit treasures.

However, recovery will take time, and he should try to minimize the use of these two magical treasures for a period of time.

Ji An sighed deeply and said with a wry smile:

"Every time we encounter a powerful enemy, our spirit treasures get damaged. We need to upgrade their grade as soon as possible."

If a spirit treasure reaches the middle grade of the fourth rank, it will not be too seriously damaged even if it was damaged in the last battle. If it can reach the upper grade of the fourth rank, even if the enemy's Buddhist treasure is comparable to a top-grade fourth-rank attack spirit treasure, it will not be able to penetrate the defensive field.

After storing the two spiritual treasures in his dantian, he activated the Melting Gold Divine Fire Technique. The brightness of the Yuanming Fire increased significantly, and wisps of life energy flowed into the spiritual treasures, accelerating their repair process.

Half an hour later, Ji An stopped activating the magic incantation and flew to the center of the white spiritual field on a cloud.

After a few days of growth, the spiritual plant grew nearly a foot taller, with much more lush foliage. What made him even happier was that the spiritual plant was finally showing its distinct characteristics.

The spirit plant is a shrub with many branches and relatively few leaves. Each branch, regardless of length, has only seven leaves, which are different colors: green, red, yellow, white, black, silver-white, and light gold. The colors are also very light.

The color revealed distinct characteristics, and Ji An finally figured out what kind of spiritual plant it was—the Seven Luminaries Golden Branch, also a spiritual root of heaven and earth.

This spiritual plant is similar to the Star Tree, both of which can produce metallic fruits, but the Star Tree is an earth-element spiritual plant, while the Seven Luminaries Golden Branch is a metal-element spiritual plant.

As a spiritual root of heaven and earth, the Seven Luminaries Golden Branch has a certain prestige. It produces a greater number of fruits, with seven different varieties. The spiritual fruits can be used as high-level materials after simple refining.

With the Seven Luminaries Golden Branch, Ji An will never lack fourth-tier or higher metal materials.

Thinking of this, he took out the corpses of the two guardian Vajras, activated the Azure Lotus Burning Heart Flame to burn them, and obtained two piles of shimmering silver ashes with a special texture.

He placed the ashes into urns, marked them, kept the ashes of the fifth-level Nascent Soul cultivator, and put the ashes of the other urn into the Cave Void Stone.

Ji An focused his mind on his dantian, connected with the stone tortoise, and gave the command:

"Refine the Dao essence to upgrade the Seven Luminaries Golden Branch to the highest grade of the third rank."

If the quality of the spiritual plant is too low, one would not dare to use the ashes of a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator as fertilizer.

The stone tortoise appeared above the spiritual plant, and the ground around the spiritual plant showed innate Bagua patterns, which were dark in color.

The silver threads of spiritual energy wove into a cocoon of light in a very short time, and the spiritual plant's grade was upgraded in just two quarters of an hour.

[Daoyun: Gold 1636.4→927.5]

The spirit tree grew to over fourteen feet tall, with many branches, and its leaves were much darker in color, radiating a strong spiritual light.

Ji An nodded in satisfaction, and then opened a crack two feet away from the Seven Luminaries Golden Branch, scattering a handful of ashes into each crack.

I dare not put too many, for fear that the spiritual plants will not be able to benefit from them and will instead be harmed.

Only after the spiritual plant's grade is raised to the fourth-tier low-grade will we dare to increase the 'fertilization' efforts.

He left the urn containing the ashes beside the sacred plant, rode the cloud back to the Gathering Yuan Tree, lay down on a chair, closed his eyes to rest, and after a moment, peacefully drifted off to sleep.

The battle with Shi Xiu had exhausted too much of his divine sense, leaving his nascent soul with a lingering sense of fatigue. He hadn't had time to rest in the past few days, and deep sleep would allow him to recover quickly.

　3 words still to go
　　
　
(End of this chapter)