At the beginning, I cleaned the Sutra Library and completed the incomplete skills.

Eight spirit bean soldiers surrounded Li Lan.

They slowly proceeded towards the depths of Immortal Trace Valley.

The closer they got to the central area, the more intense the spiritual energy of the heavens and earth became.

Li Lan knew that the closer he was to the very center, the faster he would be able to cultivate.

However, without confirming whether the Foundation Establishment cultivator had left or not,

he remained cautious and vigilant, not giving in to greed.

Following the valuable experience gained from his last exploration,

Li Lan stopped only in the area adjacent to the central region this time.

Even so,

the spiritual energy of the heavens and earth here was already quite rich.

Using the spirit vein at Guangji Temple as a reference,

the spiritual energy here was far superior to the 'D' grade cultivation cave.

He had not been to the other grade cultivation caves, so he had no way of knowing how different this place was from the 'A', 'B', or 'C' grade caves.

Li Lan was not a greedy person.

He was already very satisfied with this.

Finding a hidden and safe spot behind a stone slope, Li Lan carved out a simple cave.

The space inside was extremely small, similar in size to his bamboo and wooden house at the foot of Guangji Temple.

It only had a stone bed covered with straw.

Afterward,

he sent out four spirit bean soldiers, distributing them around the area with a certain safe distance between them.

The remaining four, Li Lan directed to gather spiritual herbs in the nearby outer areas.

The herb-gathering tasks assigned to outer disciples by Guangji Temple were not difficult to complete.

However, the required spiritual plants were numerous and varied, and finding them took a considerable amount of time.

Li Lan had spirit bean soldiers to do the work for him, which was quite convenient.

After setting up the sentries,

he didn't idle himself.

He took out the seeds he had obtained from Zhang Jingyuan's storage bag and scattered them all by the stream.

It would be a waste not to use such abundant spiritual energy of the heavens and earth to plant and cultivate spiritual plants.

After doing all this,

Li Lan returned to the cave and sat cross-legged to begin his daily cultivation.

Over the years,

he had ingrained the habit of cultivation into his very bones.

Absorbing the spiritual energy of the heavens and earth was as familiar as breathing.

Now, he would no longer be like he was when he was still a mortal, meditating for a long time but unable to enter a meditative state.

As soon as he closed his eyes,

the surrounding spiritual energy of the heavens and earth surged into his body.

Li Lan used his divine sense to guide this spiritual energy, circulating it through his eight extraordinary meridians.

With each circulation, the impurities in the spiritual energy were stripped away bit by bit.

Finally,

the spiritual energy was cleansed of all impurities and transformed into a strand of pure mana.

In the past, Li Lan would usually directly merge this purified mana into his dantian.

But this time, he did not do so.

Instead, he guided this strand of mana to the Judge's Pen imitation he held in his hand.

After the mana had circulated within this imitation treasure, Li Lan incorporated it into his dantian.

The verdant pen shaft of the Judge's Pen seemed to flow with a green luster under the nourishment of mana, appearing even more vibrant.

The snow-white bristles seemed to stretch out one by one, appearing even softer and smoother.

According to the jade slip left by Zhang Jingyuan, this was the method for tempering imitation magical treasures.

Tempering this item was not difficult; in fact, it was extremely simple.

The real difficulty was persistence.

Only by tempering the magical treasure every time he circulated his cultivation could he truly achieve a connection with the item in his hand, making them inseparable.

It was rumored that true magical treasures could be absorbed into the body and tempered internally.

But pseudo-treasures and imitation treasures could not.

Li Lan cleared his mind of distracting thoughts and began to circulate his cultivation again.

Time flew by like an arrow, and a month passed in the blink of an eye.

During this time,

Li Lan spent most of his time cultivating, except for necessary sleep and meals.

In the beginning,

no matter how much divine sense Li Lan poured into the Judge's Pen imitation, it was like a mud ox entering the sea, without the slightest effect.

Although it was an imitation, it was still made by imitating a magical treasure.

It still possessed the effects and characteristics that a magical treasure should have, albeit in a superficial way.

After a long period of continuous tempering and nurturing,

he finally felt a slight connection with the Judge's Pen imitation.

Now, when Li Lan urged his divine sense,

the Judge's Pen imitation would give some response.

Although he couldn't control it as easily as his own limbs, nor could he display the power of the imitation treasure like Zhang Jingyuan,

he had still made some progress.

Li Lan had always been calm and steady, and he was not impatient at all.

He believed that as long as he persisted in continuous tempering, there would eventually be a day when even water could pierce stone.

During this month,

in addition to tempering the imitation treasure,

Li Lan also intentionally collected materials for making the 'Earthbound Thousand Machine Diagram' and the 'Artemisia Annua Sky-Burning Talisman' using the spirit bean soldiers.

After all,

these were his two biggest trump cards for survival, besides the Judge's Pen imitation.

The raw materials for talismans and array diagrams were mostly spiritual plants.

Basic materials such as spiritual paper and spiritual ink were easy to find near Immortal Trace Valley, which was once used specifically for cultivating spiritual plants.

The spirit elm wood and bone-corroding vines that were over ten years old, which were needed to refine the Earthbound Thousand Machine Diagram, were rare, but not completely absent.

At most, some of them were still a little short of the required age, and he just needed to wait a little longer.

What really gave Li Lan a headache were the non-spiritual plants, or the auxiliary spiritual materials that were rare in this place and could only be found in the market.

For example, the refined aged cold iron needed for the Earthbound Thousand Machine Diagram.

This thing could only be found in iron ore veins in special environments.

Even if he turned the spring-like Immortal Trace Valley upside down, he wouldn't be able to find this material.

Another thing was the core material for refining the Artemisia Annua Sky-Burning Talisman: the spirit-attracting artemisia annua.

Li Lan finally understood what Miao Chenfeng meant when he said that this thing was extremely precious.

He had been intentionally searching for it with the spirit bean soldiers for a month, but he hadn't even seen a seedling of the spirit-attracting artemisia annua, let alone one that met the age requirements.

Without these two things, Li Lan couldn't make a single trump card.

This really gave him a headache.

In the end,

Li Lan decided to temporarily suspend his hard cultivation and return to Guangji Temple to take a look.

In addition to submitting the herb-gathering task assigned by the sect and receiving rewards and his monthly eight taels of spirit sand salary,

he also wanted to stroll around Qing Shifang and, by the way, freeload off Miao Chenfeng.

Having made up his mind,

Li Lan set off back to the sect.

Now, with the improvement of his cultivation, his speed of travel was no longer the same.

Even without immortal boats, flying boats, flying swords, or other means of transportation, he returned to Guangji Temple in a very short time.

Li Lan never let down his guard.

Before stepping into the sphere of influence of Guangji Temple,

he probed Miao Chenfeng's tone with a reasonable excuse through a sound transmission talisman.

Li Lan didn't want to escape from the tiger's mouth only to throw himself into the tiger's den.

If Guangji Temple had been completely occupied by the evil cultivators of the Demonic Path, he would immediately flee far away without looking back.

Fortunately,

Li Lan didn't hear anything unusual from Miao Chenfeng's tone.

Cautious, he contacted Zhou Huairen of the Sutra Depository again.

However, the old man ignored him.

It was likely that he was afraid that he would ask to borrow spirit sand again.

Li Lan circled around the edge of Guangji Temple's sphere of influence twice.

After secretly observing several times and seeing that the passing fellow disciples were not abnormal,

he completely relaxed and returned to Guangji Temple.