Mortal: I have a Spirit Gathering Cauldron

Cultivating immortality makes one oblivious to the passage of time.

The stone gate to the cave remained closed for four whole years.

The Spirit Eye Spring was still bubbling up, its clear water shimmering faintly in the moonstone's glow. It flowed into a small pool below the spring, overflowed, and then flowed down the grooves in the stone wall, endlessly cycling without ever tiring.

The array plate of the high-level spirit gathering array hummed and rotated, and the six array flags trembled slightly, with spiritual energy continuously gathering into the cultivation room.

The spiritual energy was so dense that it formed a thin mist in the cultivation room, swirling around the figure sitting cross-legged.

The figure wore a dark blue Taoist robe, with sword-like eyebrows and bright eyes, and a handsome face. He was surrounded by a faint golden light, which was dazzling.

Four years have passed without leaving any marks on his face; his skin remains fair and delicate.

Lin Feng slowly opened his eyes, his gaze calm and clear, only more profound and composed than four years ago.

The golden magical power in his dantian had filled the entire dantian, like a golden ocean, surging and constantly crashing against the dantian's barrier.

With each surge of spiritual energy, the barrier in the dantian would tremble slightly, as if responding or resisting.

The peak of the initial stage of foundation building.

He is just one step away from the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.

Lin Feng exhaled a breath of turbid air, which condensed and did not dissipate, forming a white arrow of energy in the air in front of him, which flew three feet before dissipating.

He stretched his somewhat stiff body, his bones cracking and popping like popping beans.

"Four years," he murmured, his gaze sweeping across the training room.

Everything was as before. The Spirit Eye Spring and the Spirit Gathering Array. The only difference was that a crystal-clear spirit stone lay quietly in the Spirit Gathering Cauldron above the Spirit Eye Spring.

Top-grade spirit stone.

Lin Feng reached out and took the spirit stone from the Spirit Gathering Cauldron, holding it in his palm.

The spirit stone was only the size of a baby's fist, crystal clear and without any impurities.

The spiritual energy is contained within, almost imperceptible without careful sensing. However, once one probes with one's divine sense, one can feel the pure and abundant spiritual power contained within, which is many times more profound than that of a mid-grade spirit stone, and is also much purer.

"It's done." Lin Feng's lips curled up slightly.

Ten months ago, he put a mid-grade spirit stone into the Spirit Gathering Cauldron and began the long upgrade process.

During the three hundred days of waiting, he would use his divine sense to check the changes in the spirit stone every day, watching its spiritual energy gradually become richer and its texture gradually improve.

The speed at which spirit stones upgrade is directly proportional to the concentration of spiritual energy in the environment. The Spirit Eye Spring, combined with a high-level spirit-gathering array, is already the best condition he can provide at the moment.

It took three hundred days to upgrade a mid-grade spirit stone to a high-grade spirit stone. In a normal spiritual energy environment, this time would at least double.

"A high-grade spirit stone." Lin Feng weighed the spirit stone in his hand, feeling the immense spiritual power contained within it. "A high-grade item used by Core Formation and Nascent Soul cultivators. I, a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator, am actually using it."

He carefully put the high-grade spirit stone into his storage bag for future use.

"Including the one I upgraded before, I now have two." Lin Feng thought to himself, "Two high-grade spirit stones should be enough to restore mana in critical moments and deal with demonic invasions."

As for top-grade spirit stones, he calculated that if it takes 300 days to upgrade a mid-grade spirit stone to a high-grade one, then it would take at least 30,000 days, or nearly 83 years, to upgrade a high-grade spirit stone to a top-grade one.

Perhaps even more, after all, top-grade spirit stones only exist in legends, and their spiritual energy capacity may be more than a hundred times that of high-grade spirit stones.

"Eighty-three years." Lin Feng shook his head. "Let's forget about it. Let's wait until we get to the Chaotic Star Sea and find a better spiritual land. Besides, top-grade spirit stones are useful even to Nascent Soul stage cultivators. It's too far off for me to think about right now."

He then took out several fist-sized objects from his storage bag and held them in his palm.

Sand Beast Inner Core.

He bought this in the market near the Hurricane Desert in Wangshui Kingdom. It was the inner core of a level one sand beast, worthless, a few dozen low-grade spirit stones each.

When he bought it, he wanted to see if the Spirit Gathering Cauldron could upgrade the inner core of a demon beast, but he just didn't have the time.

Unfortunately, experiments confirmed that the Spirit Gathering Cauldron could not upgrade the Sand Beast's inner core.

Lin Feng still remembers that two years ago, he excitedly threw a sand beast inner core into the Spirit Gathering Cauldron, looking forward to the spiritual energy starting to cleanse the inner core.

One day, two days, three days...

Seven days passed in a row.

The Sand Beast's inner core remained unchanged.

It lay quietly at the bottom of the cauldron, its color, size, and concentration of spiritual energy exactly the same as seven days ago.

He had anticipated this outcome. After all, the Spirit Gathering Cauldron couldn't handle substances with life force, a characteristic he had verified during his Qi Refining stage, but he was unwilling to give up without personally verifying it.

It seems that although the Sand Beast's inner core is a product of a demon beast, it is essentially born from a living being and contains the essence of life, which is why the Spirit Gathering Cauldron cannot be upgraded.

"I wonder if demon cores from monsters would work?" Lin Feng thought of another question.

Only demonic beasts that reach level five or higher can develop a demon core. A level five demonic beast is equivalent to a Core Formation stage cultivator in humans; its strength is terrifying, and it is extremely rare in Tiannan. Even if he encountered one, it would be far beyond what a mere Foundation Establishment stage cultivator like him could handle.

"I'll try again when my cultivation level is higher and I reach the Chaotic Star Sea." Lin Feng put the Sand Beast's inner core back into his storage bag and stopped worrying about it.

For the past four years, the main task of the Spirit Gathering Cauldron has been upgrading spirit stones, along with occasional upgrades to Qi Harmony Pills; it has hardly been idle. However, Lin Feng is quite satisfied with its efficiency.

In terms of cultivation, the supply of Qi-Harmony Pills has never been interrupted. With the double blessing of the Spirit Eye Spring and the high-level Spirit Gathering Array, his spiritual power growth rate is several times that of ordinary early Foundation Establishment cultivators.

In just four years, Lin Feng went from the early stage of Foundation Establishment to the peak of the early stage of Foundation Establishment. This speed is terrifying among cultivators with four spiritual roots.

If it weren't for the need to focus on cultivating the Great Evolution Technique and the Puppet Technique, it could have been done much faster.

When the Great Evolution Technique was mentioned, Lin Feng couldn't help but smile.

He seemed to have some talent in cultivating the Great Evolution Technique; in just over a year and a half, he mastered the first level of the Great Evolution Technique.

After successfully breaking through the first level of the Great Evolution Technique, his spiritual strength doubled.

Previously, his divine sense could cover an area of ​​about one mile in radius, but now it can cover nearly two miles. His perception is more acute, and he is more adept at controlling magical artifacts. Before, it was somewhat difficult to control three magical artifacts at the same time, but now he can easily control four or five.

"The Great Evolution Technique truly lives up to its reputation as the strongest divine sense cultivation method in the human realm," Lin Feng exclaimed.

To facilitate his cultivation of the Great Evolution Technique, he even emerged from seclusion once.

He emerged from seclusion two years ago, shortly after breaking through the first level of the Great Evolution Technique. He went to Tianxing Market and bought a batch of puppet materials.

He then spent several days wandering around the Taiyue Mountains, hunting down some low-level demonic beasts. Using the "Soul-Trapping Technique" and "Soul-Condensing Technique" from the Great Evolution Manual, he extracted the souls from the demonic beasts and then refined them into souls to drive the puppets.

Over the past four years, he has intermittently crafted some puppets in his spare time during his cultivation.

Dozens of first-tier wolf-shaped puppets and a dozen first-tier leopard-shaped puppets were all low-level puppets with limited combat power. They were more than enough to deal with Qi Refining stage cultivators, but they were no match for Foundation Establishment stage cultivators.

As for the second-tier puppet, limited by the availability of materials, and more importantly, requiring a more powerful demonic beast soul to unleash its true power, he didn't attempt it due to time constraints.

"Let's make do with these for now." Lin Feng put the puppets back into his storage bag. "More than twenty first-tier puppets, combined with the divine sense control of the Great Evolution Technique, are more than enough to clear out some miscellaneous enemies and scout ahead."

He stood up, walked to the Spirit Eye Spring, scooped up a handful of spring water and washed his face. The cool spring water flowed down his cheeks, taking away some of the fatigue from cultivation.

"My cultivation is close to the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage, I have mastered the first level of the Great Evolution Technique, and I have entered the Puppet Technique," Lin Feng thought to himself, taking stock of his achievements over the past four years. He nodded in satisfaction, "Not bad."