Sword Sect Outer Sect

Chapter 318 Sun Spirit
Upon returning to the sect, Song Yan did not linger for a moment and went straight to Taiping Peak and the Hall of Affairs.

The hall was brightly lit, and several elders on duty were processing the scrolls and jade slips sent from various places.

The situation in the State of Chu has changed considerably recently.

On the one hand, the cultivators of the Demon Ruins ceased their activities, and many sect industries that had been temporarily closed, such as spiritual vein mines, spiritual plant gardens, and small markets, were restored to their original state.

Besides, there has been no news from Daozi's hometown for a long time. After the chaos caused by the Demon Ruins, there has been much less talk about it in the cultivation world.

Now that the war has gradually subsided, discussions about this matter have been brought back to the forefront.

Disciples often noticed something unusual and guessed that it was the reappearance of Daozi's hometown, and reported it to the sect.

It's also quite troublesome to deal with.

The arrival of Song Yan attracted the attention of the elders in charge.

These people all recognized him, of course.

Surprisingly, Xu Wenxuan, who was previously on duty at the library, was also there.

It would be best if you knew someone here, as it would save you a lot of troublesome procedures.

Song Yan simply gave him a concise and clear account of the matter.

The part about inner demons was omitted; it was only said that his disciple had discovered traces of demonic cultivators and that there might be evidence pointing to the Qin family of Southern Chu, and that the sect might also be implicated.

He then reported the Sacrifice Spirit Blood Pill to the sect.

In fact, in principle, it would have been enough to leave this matter to Fellow Daoist Zheng of the Sheyang Sect.

However, the relationships involved in this matter are somewhat complicated.

He is both a cultivator from the Demon Realm and a member of a mortal royal family, and he also has some connection with the Qin family.

Song Yan's status was quite special, and his words were highly credible. The group dared not neglect the matter and immediately wrote it down.

After bidding farewell and leaving the main hall, Xu Wenxuan saw Song Yan off at the door. The two exchanged a few pleasantries before Song Yan departed from Taiping Peak.

Now that the sect has been informed, there's no need for meddling in other people's business; just focus on your own cultivation.

After leaving Taiping Peak, Song Yan paused briefly before heading back to his cave. Instead of returning immediately, he went to Lingyuanze Market and Jubaoge.

Unfortunately, Zhou Baogui was not there.

Moreover, Song Yan used the water mirror hairband to change his appearance, so the waiter didn't recognize him.

It doesn't matter; what he wants to buy this time is relatively ordinary.

It consists of some auxiliary herbs such as cloud branches and green grass.

The transaction went smoothly, and Song Yan soon returned to his cave.

Wipe Sword Peak, character 21.

"Gurgle, gurgle..."

Just then, I ran into Xiao He in the yard, who was using a small shovel that she had gotten from somewhere to shovel dirt.

Song Yan was somewhat puzzled. He concealed his presence and quietly crept up behind She Bao to see what she was doing.

"Hey!"

The digging seemed to have come to a temporary halt. Snake Baby threw down the small shovel, plopped down on the ground, and began fiddling with the mud.

The little hands were kneading the mud while the little girl mumbled something under her breath.

"Two eyes, a nose, a mouth..."

"Um... um..."

A clay figurine sat beside her, which she would pick up and glance at from time to time, as if comparing it to something.

Unfortunately, just looking at it doesn't seem to be of much use.

"Oh no, no!"

She pinched two eyes of different sizes, and then gently wiped them away with her little finger.

He peeked around and took another look at the clay figurine.

Snake Baby was completely focused, and apart from occasionally touching its forehead when it was confused, it was not distracted at all.

Song Yan stood behind her for a while, then suddenly asked, "Xiao He, what are you doing?"

"Wow!"

Snake Baby shuddered and jumped up from the ground.

"When did you get back? You scared me to death!"

"I just got back."

Song Yan pretended not to care and walked over to pick up the shovel.

"What are you doing?"

"No, nothing, just shoveling dirt for fun, hehe."

Xiao He quickly rolled the mud into a ball, held it in her hand, and put it behind her back.

"Oh."

Song Yan didn't ask any further questions, but simply took out the Taotie Flute from his Qiankun Bag: "Here, I've brought it back."

"Wow!"

Xiao He's eyes lit up, and she reached out to grab it, only to find that both of her little hands were dirty and covered in mud.

He quickly wiped it on Song Yan's Taoist robe and then took the flute.

"How did you get it back?"

“Xiao Ju was traveling outside and happened to run into that scoundrel. I taught him a lesson and then brought him back to you.”

"well."

Snake Baby was overjoyed, seemingly having already forgotten about playing with clay.

He held the flute and giggled foolishly.

"I'm going back to practice."

After waiting for a while, Song Yan walked from the small courtyard into the cave.

Xiao He watched him enter the stone gate and the restriction closed before she put away her flute and started sculpting clay figures again.

Looking at the mud in his hands, which resembled a dough ball or a pancake, Snake Baby couldn't help but sigh, "This is so hard..."

……

Meanwhile, Song Yan was sitting cross-legged in the training room, holding the jade bottle and examining it closely.

Whether you use the nectar within to accelerate the ripening of medicinal herbs or do something else directly, there is a prerequisite.

That means at least knowing how to replenish the nectar in this bottle.

Inside the Qiankun Bag was a small jade gourd, which contained this nectar.

The sheer number of them is beyond what this jade bottle can hold.

Therefore, it seems that the bottle should be able to continuously produce nectar.

I just don't know what to do right now.

Should we add water?

That seems a bit reckless.

Song Yan first poured all the nectar from the bottle into the gourd, and then placed it in the cave.

Several hours later, when I checked again, there seemed to be no change; the nectar in the bottle had not increased.

He carefully channeled his spiritual power to condense a pool of clear water, which he then poured into the bottle.

After several more hours in the cave, the liquid in the bottle had clearly changed slightly, but it was far from possessing the abundant vitality and spiritual power of the nectar.

"Could it be that the time was too short?"

Song Yan pondered that it probably wouldn't be that fast.

So Song Yan waited two or three days before going to check, and the water still hadn't changed much.

Weird.

Why is it so difficult?
Could it be that the nectar in this small gourd is all of Ke Huai's savings over the years?

It shouldn’t be.

After studying it for dozens of days, whenever he had a spare moment from cultivation, Song Yan would take out the jade bottle and tinker with it.

Unfortunately, there was no progress, and I was at my wit's end.

He couldn't help but imagine to himself that if Fellow Daoist Ke Huai liked to record his story as much as the author of the Evil Cultivator's Record, he could save himself a lot of trouble.

These days, I've been feeling a slight swelling in my meridians while practicing, which is a sign that my cultivation is about to reach a bottleneck.

However, he did not rush to go into seclusion for arduous cultivation or consume large amounts of elixirs.

Unlike the Qi Refining stage, the Foundation Establishment stage emphasizes accumulation and refinement. Breakthroughs in minor realms are not as difficult as the hurdles in the later stages of Qi Refining. Most of the time, they happen naturally.

Therefore, the more this is the case, the less impatient you should be.

On this day, Song Yan concluded his morning ritual of gathering qi.

Upon returning to his cave, he discovered that the jade bottle he had placed still in the training room had been moved.

There are also a few small mud handprints on the bottle.

"what?"

What truly surprised him was that the withered branches in the bottle were now emitting wisps of rich vitality and wood-elemental spiritual energy.

The amount of water that was previously contained has decreased, but the vitality and spiritual energy within it have greatly increased.

Although it is still far from being as good as the sweet dew, there has indeed been a noticeable change.

This is how the same thing?

Song Yan examined it from all angles for a while, but couldn't figure it out.

So they decided to go and ask the owner of these clay handprints.

Song Yan stepped into the courtyard and called out to She Bao, who was still playing in the mud, "Xiao He!"

"hold head high?"

Snake Treasure is no longer hiding anything; his human-making business has long been exposed, so he might as well be open about it.

She turned her head and saw that Song Yan was coming to confront her with the bottle. She thought he was there to interrogate her and felt a little awkward.

"Xiao He, what did you do with this bottle just now?"

Snake Baby felt guilty and hesitated, "Uh... I, I..."

But the honesty that Grandpa had taught him since childhood still prevailed over his guilty conscience: "I used it to mix with mud."

Song Yan didn't take this answer to heart.

Clearly, the change in this bottle is not likely related to Snake Treasure taking it and mixing it with mud.

"When?"

"Just now, when you were cultivating on the rock."

She was probably referring to herself gathering the morning sun's energy on the bluestone in the courtyard.

“I couldn’t find anything to put the water in, and you were practicing cultivation. I looked around, and this is the only thing we can use at home.”

Snake Treasure thought to himself, this thing must not be anything important, otherwise Yan Yan would definitely have hidden it in her Qiankun bag.

"Have you done anything to it?" Song Yan continued to ask.

"No."

Xiao He shook her head: "I just poured out the water and mixed it with mud."

What just happened really startled Snake Baby.

The bottle was placed to the side, and as I kneaded the clay, it inexplicably began to glow.

Snake Baby was worried that it might unleash some kind of power and destroy the yard, so it quickly put it back in its original place.

"Um……"

Song Yan had initially thought that Xiao He had injected some kind of demonic power into the bottle, which caused this change, but it seems that was not the case.

"What happened? I didn't drop it, it just turned into this on its own."

"Oh, it's nothing, it's fine."

After pondering for a moment, Song Yan returned to his cave.

Wash away Xiao He's muddy handprints and pour out all the liquid inside.

He poured a fresh stream of clear water into it, then left it to its own devices and began cultivating.

The next morning, the rising sun gathered its energy.

After finishing his meditation, Song Yan sat cross-legged on the blue stone, holding the jade bottle in his hand.

At first nothing happened, but around 7 a.m., the jade bottle did indeed change.

But then, faint points of light appeared around it.

Upon closer inspection, one can feel the warmth emanating from these points of light.

As time went by, more and more light spots appeared around the bottle, and some of them slowly merged into the withered branches of the jade bottle and disappeared.

It seems to have been absorbed by it.

At Chen Shi (7-9 AM), the light spots around the jade bottle seemed to have reached their peak, with many light spots condensing into light threads and rushing to merge into the withered branches.

Song Yan's entire focus was on this object, and whether it was an illusion or not, the withered branch seemed to be breathing slowly.

This process lasted for about half an hour, after which the light spots disappeared.

Upon closer inspection, it was found that more than half of the water in the bottle had been removed, but it now contained a rich vitality and spiritual energy.

Song Yan was filled with a thousand thoughts.

It seems that this is the true way that nectar is produced. I never thought that this thing would need to absorb the essence of nature.

If it weren't for Xiao He's "brilliant idea," I don't know when I would have realized it.

I still suffered from my lack of knowledge.

The so-called essence of the sun and moon, it is unknown whether this thing will undergo such changes again at night.

He plans to give it a try.

However, this was not what Song Yan was really concerned about.

"This withered branch...could it still be alive?"

Judging from what we just saw, the withered branch in the bottle doesn't seem to be an inanimate object...

After pondering it for a while, he put it away.

That evening, Song Yan went to the courtyard again, took out the jade bottle, and held it up to the moonlight.

But after sitting there all night, the jade bottle showed no reaction.

It seems that the jade bottle can only undergo such changes by absorbing the essence of the sun during the early morning hours.

For the time being, Song Yan did not touch the spiritual liquid inside. In the following days, every morning when Song Yan was gathering Qi, he would ask his illusory avatar to bring the bottle to the courtyard.

To prevent the surrounding bamboo forest from blocking its view, the illusory figure was also instructed to hold it high above its head.

Although it looks a bit silly, it's not the real thing anyway.

For several days in a row, the jade bottle exhibited that strange phenomenon. The spiritual liquid in the bottle was decreasing, but the vitality and spiritual power it contained were becoming increasingly concentrated.

On the ninth day, things started to change.

On the morning of the ninth day, the strange phenomenon of the jade bottle absorbing light spots only lasted for a quarter of an hour before the surrounding light spots dissipated.

Xu Xiang brought the bottle to Song Yan, opened it, and saw a crystal-clear golden-blue spiritual liquid lying quietly inside.

It was exactly the same as the previous nectar.

Song Yan was overjoyed and immediately returned to his cave.

This attempt was merely to confirm that the nectar could be produced sustainably; what he was most eager to try after his return was what he needed to do next.

He walked back to the training room and took out the bronze cauldron used for medicinal baths.

Then they began to pour in various medicinal liquids and auxiliary elixirs.

In Song Yan's view, the most important things for sword cultivators are nothing more than these few things.

The natal flying sword that represents sword intent, the divine thought and consciousness that wield the flying sword, and the flesh and blood body that propels the sword energy.

There is no shortcut to Song Yan's current understanding of sword intent. He has already improved his spiritual sense and consciousness with the Five Star Pulse-Grasping Technique and the visualization of the Correct and Transformative Bright Diagram.

The only way to strengthen the physical body is through the nameless incantation and the essence of powerful demonic beasts.

But after much thought, Song Yan realized that the purpose of refining the demon blood with this nameless incantation was precisely for the powerful vitality and spiritual energy within it.

It might even have some side effects, namely, the presence of demonic energy.

Besides, where else could one find something as precious as Qilin blood to squander every day?

Compared to demon blood, the nectar in this bottle seems much purer...

Since they were all about the same, Song Yan decided to try the Sweet Dew Bath using the nameless incantation.

After preparing the auxiliary elixir for the medicinal bath, he gritted his teeth and poured out about half of the nectar from the small gourd.

Shedding all her clothes, she revealed a well-proportioned, slender yet strong and powerful body.

He slowly stepped into the medicinal liquid inside the cauldron.

(End of this chapter)