Stealthily cultivating in the chaotic world of demons and martial artists
Chapter 222 - 221: Mirage Bead (Congratulations to the Silver Alliance!)_1

Chapter 222: Chapter 221: Mirage Bead (Congratulations to the Silver Alliance!)_1

On Dragon Fish Island.

The morning light was faint.

Zhong Hongyu stepped out from the closed-door cultivation room and, facing the glow of dawn, stretched herself comfortably, then picked up a broom to sweep away the fallen leaves and dust.

Within the fish farm, the white-haired, aged Zhong Qi chuckled as he carried a bucket of fish feed, tending to the Green Jade Carps.

In the Spirit Medicine Valley, Xiahou Zun was calling out to each of the Spirit Farmers, beginning their hard day’s work...

They were all unaware of the incident that took place last night.

It was as if... no cultivation-robber had come to attack Dragon Fish Island at all.

Indeed, it was just so.

Due to the characteristics of the third-tier Great Array, Fang Xi had actually drawn those cultivation-robbers into the Demon Realm, where they fought among themselves, turning heaven and earth upside down, while the outside world remained entirely oblivious.

Such was the terror of a forbidden Great Array!

If it weren’t for Fang Xi’s desire to get some exercise, he wouldn’t have even needed to show his face. Merely with the formidable power of the array itself, he could’ve easily played those robbers to death!

Under the Monster Tree in the forbidden area of Dragon Fish Island,

Fang Xi grimaced as he looked at the various second-tier Puppets that were half-destroyed and started repairing them, replacing the damaged parts...

"Sigh... I had only researched half of the Sky Wolf Howling Moon Array... even now, though I make the Monster Beasts stand like pillars to cast spells, the backlash is still a bit too strong..."

This wasn’t a moving array; it was only a semi-moveable array. Its advantage was that it was easy to set up, but its drawback was that the Monster Beasts must ’stand still.’ If they moved, the array risked collapsing...

"And... the Array Flags and Array Disks are not sturdy enough... It would be best to use third-tier materials, otherwise after a few uses, they will be damaged... It would also be best to replace the Spirit Stones with top-quality ones... Where am I to find top-quality Spirit Stones?"

"This time, the Sky Wolf Howling Moon Array I made can barely be considered a quasi third-tier level; even if it can only be used two or three times before it wears out, it is already quite good..."

...

After dealing with the previous batch of second-tier Puppets, Fang Xi then looked at another batch of wooden Puppets standing by, looking like zombies.

Each of these wooden Puppets was missing arms or legs, and the two at the front were in the early stages of the Foundation Establishment!

They were the very group of cultivation-robbers he had captured last night!

Even under the quasi third-tier strike of the Sky Wolf, with so many of them missing arms or legs, with death portrayed in terribly gruesome manners, for wooden Puppets, these were all not problems!

As for those who died too miserably and shattered into pieces, Fang Xi directly used them as fertilizer, burying them under the Monster Tree.

He looked at the two Foundation Establishment-level wooden Puppets and suddenly pointed at one of them.

The expressionless middle-aged man stepped forward, forming a hand seal, and spat out a small, white bead.

Only the size of a dragon eye, the bead was surrounded by a dream-like mist, continuously emitting a fuzzy white glow. Clearly, it was also an Exotic Treasure.

Once Fang Xi took the bead, the man’s facial skin began to undulate and astonishingly transformed into a familiar, bearded, ferocious-looking and formidable man.

"Li Lei?!"

He glanced at him but was not surprised; he just murmured to himself, "Ling Kong Island really has bad feng shui, it is the nemesis of Foundation Establishment... Yu Lingzi, the old ancestor of the Yan Family, and now it’s Li Lei’s turn... How many years has it been?"

"Next time, if I’m displeased with someone, maybe I could gift them Ling Kong Island... Perhaps it could have an unexpected effect."

The bead that Li Lei spat out, Fang Xi did not pick up with his hands; he simply swept it with his Divine Consciousness and then refined it with his Magic Power, which revealed the information and operation mantra intrinsic to this treasure.

"Mirage Bead? Legends say that the family of mirage dragons are the most skilled at manipulating mirage energy, creating illusions... Even Cultivators could be confused. This Mirage Bead comes from a mirage shellfish with several hundred years of cultivation. Once Cultivators refine it, it can hide their appearance and their Magic Power’s aura?"

"For me, I have the Martial God Transformation and Hundred Illusions Skills, so it seems redundant."

"Moreover, I’ve always acted openly and honestly, and I don’t have any enemies!"

Fang Xi sighed and carefully stored the Mirage Bead, placing it into his Storage Bag.

Rustle rustle!

The Monster Tree shook, dropping down numerous Qi Roots to hoist up the Puppets.

Fang Xi sat cross-legged under the Monster Tree to begin today’s ’Longevity Skills’ cultivation.

Streams of green vitality of trees and grasses, through the Qi Roots’ connection, entered the Monster Tree Tattoo on his back and underwent another round of purification before circulating through his entire body.

"Last time on Peach Blossom Island, while planting the tree, my Yi Wood Magic Body was affected by the Monster Tree’s instincts, and the progress was illusory... This time I truly understand the difficulty..."

"But I’ll take my time; after all, I have a long life ahead... I can afford to keep spending it."

In his inner view, Fang Xi noticed that most of the silver seal script representing the ’Yi Wood Magic Body’ on the Green Wood Spiritual Body was already complete and silently nodded to himself.

"At this pace... in at most ten more years or so, I will achieve the ’Yi Wood Magic Body’!"

"Before that, I might even break through to the late stages of Foundation Establishment first..."

And during this cultivation session, he felt a very strong feedback from the Monster Tree.

After all, he had buried an individual at the mid-stage of foundation establishment as well as several Qi Refining late-stage and complete Cultivators as fertilizer for the tree.

"Added quite a bit to my lifespan..."

"I wonder, if I were to bury that Liu Sanqi who seems to possess a wood-class Spirit Body, how much feedback it would grant me?"

"However... she hasn’t been my enemy, so that wouldn’t be right."

After some time, Fang Xi stood up, feeling a surge of vitality within his body, and couldn’t help but reveal a satisfied smile.

...

Evergreen Pavilion.

Fang Xi walked out from the Monster Tree Prohibition and went straight to Zhong Hongyu.

"Island Master..."

Zhong Hongyu bowed with some trepidation, her calves trembling as she thought Feng Xi had discovered her whispering with Xiahou Ying and didn’t know what punishment would await her.

"How is your cultivation progressing recently? Are there any problems?"

"Although I know little about the ’Mysterious Sound Skills’, I have a friend at the Foundation Establishment stage. Don’t miss the opportunity; if you don’t understand, I can write a letter and ask for you..."

Fang Xi’s expression was very kind as he asked Zhong Hongyu many questions.

The Mysterious Heaven Sect had a vast enterprise and probably recruited quite a few disciples with Special Spiritual Roots every year, but it was different for him.

It was rare to encounter a Void Spirit Root, and it naturally warranted thorough research.

’In fact, the grade of the Spiritual Roots is the most important. An inferior Five Elements Spiritual Root is not as good as an inferior Special Spiritual Root, but an inferior Special Spiritual Root still can’t compare to a medium-grade Five Elements Spiritual Root...’

After asking a few questions and learning that Zhong Hongyu had made considerable progress in ’Flash Void Skills’, Fang Xi immediately became interested, "Demonstrate it for me..."

"Yes!"

Zhong Hongyu went to the open space in front of the Evergreen Pavilion, with her hands forming seals and muttering under her breath.

The next moment, a layer of silver-white radiance enveloped her entire figure.

Then, as if shuttling through the void, her rushing figure disappeared and reappeared ten meters away.

"Huff, huff... Utilizing the ’Flash Void Skills’ this time, my Magic Power is depleted by about ten to twenty percent..."

Zhong Hongyu breathed slightly heavily, sweat forming on her forehead.

Even if the ’Flash Void Skills’ were perfected to the Mahayana Realm, it was still only a blink of about a hundred meters, which could be reached by a Foundation Establishment cultivator wielding Spiritual Instruments in a single attack.

"Magic Power can be slowly accumulated and become robust... but once you master this skill, it will be more than enough for your self-preservation in the future," Fang Xi commented satisfactorily. He beckoned Zhong Hongyu to step forward and extend her fair wrist, onto which he placed two fingers.

A layer of Foundation Establishment Magic Power immediately spread along Zhong Hongyu’s meridians, followed by Divine Consciousness.

Zhong Hongyu’s ears turned red with embarrassment.

After all, letting a cultivator’s Magic Power probe like this was nearly as revealing as being seen naked, and even more humiliating.

If it had been an Individual Cultivator growing up on their own, they would have turned hostile immediately upon such an intrusion of privacy and not rest until one of them was dead.

However, Zhong Hongyu had been treated this way by Fang Xi since she was a child and had grown used to it...

Now, it was just a slight embarrassment.

’Indeed... still not comprehensible!’ Fang Xi sighed to himself but appeared even more amiable on the surface. He gave Zhong Hongyu some more advice on her Cultivation and rewarded her with a ’Wooden Saber Talisman’.

After Zhong Hongyu bowed and left, Fang Xi pondered thoughtfully, "A Cultivator’s Spirit Body is extremely secretive, almost impossible for outsiders to detect... The Spiritual Root is the same way... Even though I infused Magic Power into her like that, inch by inch, there was still no sensation that this woman differs in any way from an ordinary cultivator..."

But this was normal. If a Void Spirit Root were truly a treasure, the Mysterious Heaven Sect would have come to claim it long ago.

In reality, although Special Spiritual Roots like the Void Spirit Root and the Blood Spirit Root were extremely rare, the Spirit Root Seekers of the Mysterious Heaven Sect could always find them from time to time.

Additionally, without the right cultivation techniques, even their Taoist Path would not be as smooth as that of the Five Elements or other Special Spiritual Roots like Wind, Thunder, and Ice.

And even the Core Formation ancestors had not been able to discover anything significant from those with the Void Spirit Root and Blood Spirit Root.

Over time, few people took such Special Spiritual Roots seriously.

Fang Xi, who possessed the ’Treasures of All Heavens,’ was highly interested in the power of the Void, which was why he took Zhong Hongyu into his care and supported her Cultivation.

But despite his day and night observation, he still couldn’t comprehend the mysterious aspects of the Void Spirit Root.

In fact, he benefited less than from his insights gained from studying the movement of the Void in third-grade Arrays!

"However, it’s possible that my smooth progress in the array path of third-grade Arrays is partly due to my day and night contemplation of the ’Treasures of All Heavens’ and the Void Spirit Root..."

Although Fang Xi himself didn’t know exactly what he had understood.

But he had a vague feeling that when considering the movement of the Void in third-grade Array Prohibitions, things seemed a bit easier than before, and he was more prone to bouts of inspiration and breakthroughs.

"Currently... a Qi Refining Zhong Hongyu doesn’t seem very useful to me..."

"What if... I support her Foundation Establishment? And observe from the side?"

"The moment a Cultivator breaks through a major realm is when they are most likely to reveal their foundations! Perhaps a closer observation will yield some profit then?"

Fang Xi stroked his chin, deep in thought.

With his current wealth, aiding a cultivator under the age of sixty to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage wasn’t too burdensome.

At worst, once she reached the peak of Qi Refining, he could simply gift the ’Black Wind Evil Qi’ to Zhong Hongyu.

After all, as a medium-grade cultivator with a Spiritual Root, acquiring a Foundation Establishment Spiritual Object would give her some chance of breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage.

Even if she failed, Fang Xi wouldn’t be too upset about it.