Hermit in the Mountains

After returning from buying cattle down the mountain, Gu Changsheng devoted himself to cultivation. Every day, he systematically absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to cultivate, tried to deduce magic, cleansed the tendons and marrow of Dahuang and Qingniu, and occasionally dug the ground to relax.

Within the sea of ​​consciousness, the 'Dao Tree' changes with each day's growth cycle.

Ten days later, at dawn, the first rays of the eastern sun leaped over the horizon.

Inside the wooden house, Gu Changsheng, sitting cross-legged facing east, fully activated his divine sense. In an instant, he captured three strands of purple energy and pulled them into his sea of ​​consciousness without hesitation.

The pale purple spiritual energy was instantly absorbed into the body of the 'Dao Tree'.

An hour later, the three wisps of 'purple energy' were completely refined, and the 'Dao Tree' dissipated piece by piece from its roots, turning into gray halos that converged around the 'withered and flourishing Dao Seed' at the tree crown.

An opportunity for a breakthrough came to mind, and Gu Changsheng shouted with a loud voice.

"break--"

The 'Decline and Flourishing Dao Seed' rippled outwards, instantly shattering the gray aura.

"Click...click...click..."

"Click—"

A shattering sound rang out, audible only to those with divine sense.

The gray halo condensed by the 'Dao Tree' transformed into countless points of light that flew into Gu Changsheng's body.

In the hazy sea of ​​consciousness, only a crystal-like 'Seed of Withering and Flourishing' remained, its surface shimmering with a mixture of gray-black and emerald green.

Gu Changsheng experienced the changes of decay and prosperity, and the changes of the physical body.

Before long, gray-black and emerald-green gas was born outside the 'Seed of Withering and Flourishing', slowly rotating like yin and yang fish swimming around the 'Seed of Withering and Flourishing'.

After refining the skin and flesh, this time the breakthrough will be in refining the bones.

The withered and flourishing armor condensed from the "withered and flourishing tree" merged into his entire skeleton, and the sound of "clanging and banging" echoed in Gu Changsheng's body, just like the sound of blacksmithing.

In an instant, the bones were tempered to be as hard as jade and as tough as steel, and a layer of withered and flourishing armor-like membrane formed on the bones, thus creating iron bones.

When the entire skeleton forms a withered and flourishing armor, it becomes connected with the withered and flourishing armor of the skin and flesh, mutually reinforcing each other and bearing the brunt of external attacks.

With the combined efforts of the three top-tier experts, Gu Changsheng's physical strength, defense, reaction speed, resilience, and endurance have reached a new level.

His physical strength reached 3,000 jin, his divine sense covered a radius of four meters, his perception covered a radius of forty meters, and his traction force doubled.

The upper limit of the power of life and death within the sea of ​​consciousness surged to ten strands, and the number of attacks and healings tripled.

The hair did not grow back, but as expected, the white hair on the left side became 30%. After two more breakthroughs, Gu Changsheng's hair will become half pure white and half jet black.

Aside from becoming harder, the nails on both hands remained unchanged in color and length.

The biggest change from this breakthrough is that Gu Changsheng can sense his own lifespan. He can sense the life essence hidden within his body and its lifespan by concentrating his mind.

The changes in the life essence within him may be related to the "Ku Rong Dao Jing" he practiced, which manifested as the shape of tree rings.

Suspended within the space of the origin of life is a circular glass plate, engraved with 120 growth rings. The outermost 30 rings are grayish-black, while the innermost 90 rings are emerald green.

When Gu Changsheng saw the crystal disc of growth rings inside his body, he understood immediately.

One growth ring represents one year of lifespan. A grayish-black growth ring means that he has lost 30 years of lifespan, which is consistent with his age.

The remaining 90 emerald green growth rings represent that he has 90 years left to live, meaning he can live another 90 years.

Having only refined his skin, flesh, and bones, he already possesses a lifespan of two 60 years, which is quite long.

If his self-created "The Dao of Withering and Flourishing" is discovered to have extraordinary lifespan-enhancing properties, it would not be a good thing for him.

Gu Changsheng made up his mind to be as sneaky as possible, to hide and not to be reckless. He would avoid using his martial arts skills if possible, and he would resolutely and absolutely not use any magic techniques.

With his current strength, he is not afraid of ordinary swords, but he probably cannot defend against the "peanut" attack, let alone other "firearms".

To live freely on Blue Star, one needs at least the strength of a Golden Core Realm expert to ensure their safety, and only those comparable to a Nascent Soul Realm expert can roam Blue Star freely.

Cultivators are only strong individually; their physical strength, magical power, and mental strength will eventually run out, while the firepower of Blue Star is countless.

After absorbing the breakthrough insights, Gu Changsheng got up and left the bedroom. He took a cold shower in the bathroom to cleanse his body of the impurities.

Cold water and hot water from Baidu are the same to him; he won't need to boil water for bathing anymore.

He stood under the eaves at the doorway, wiping his long, wet hair, which was dripping with water droplets. Part of his mind was used to sense the growth of the vegetable roots in the field ahead through the Rooting Technique.

In the past few days, he has discovered that the ability to establish roots has unparalleled applicability to planting plants. He can clearly perceive how many roots a plant has, how long the roots are, which direction the roots are growing, whether the roots are diseased, and so on.

After Gu Changsheng finished his meal and fed the chickens, he helped Dahuang and Qingniu cleanse their sinews and marrow. He then returned to his bedroom to try out his deduced "Qi Condensation Technique".

He sat cross-legged on the soft bedding, with a small wooden table in front of him and a glass bottle on the table.

With his gaze fixed on the glass bottle, he placed his hands in a clasping motion above the bottle's opening, extending his senses and using his traction to capture the surrounding particles of wood-based spiritual energy.

Perception is like radar, and traction is like a gripper.

One by one, particles of wood spirit energy were captured and placed inside the glass bottle.

Gu Changsheng was multitasking, controlling the spiritual energy particles in the glass bottle while simultaneously capturing spiritual energy particles from the outside world.

"Catch, catch, I'll catch you!"

Gu Changsheng's movements became more and more skillful until all the wood elemental particles within a forty-meter radius were caught, at which point his attention returned to the glass bottle.

The traction force, like two invisible hands, began to knead and squeeze the spiritual particles inside the bottle.

Under intense pressure, the barely perceptible spiritual energy particles collided and merged, eventually becoming larger spiritual energy particles.

The "Gathering Qi Technique" is essentially about accumulating sand to form a mountain, transforming invisible spiritual particles into visible and tangible liquid spiritual energy, commonly known as "spiritual liquid".

Inside the glass bottle, the spiritual particles began to rapidly change shape, from a single particle strung together like a candied hawthorn skewer, then squeezed into nine-inch threads, becoming strands, and finally transforming into a drop of green liquid the size of a soybean suspended in the glass bottle.

When all the wood-elemental energy particles inside the glass bottle turned into liquid energy, Gu Changsheng looked at the three liquid spirits suspended inside the glass bottle and a smile appeared on his tired face.

He thought to himself, "I've successfully condensed the spiritual liquid."

"His conjecture is correct; the essence of magic lies in the application of spiritual energy in different states."

The success of the Qi Gathering Technique provided him with solid theoretical support for deriving other techniques.

He capped the glass bottle, loosened the traction on the liquid, and three drops of liquid fell to the bottom of the bottle.

He shook the glass bottle; the three drops of spiritual liquid did not mix together, as if each drop of spiritual liquid had a protective film enveloping the spiritual energy inside.

He succeeded in gathering qi, but his mental energy was almost completely depleted.

Absorbing spiritual energy into the sea of ​​consciousness is easy, just like breathing, but condensing spiritual energy in the outside world is extremely taxing on mental energy.

Gu Changsheng put the glass bottle down, closed his eyes, and entered a meditative state to restore his mind.