As for the azure bottle and the wooden box, he naturally destroyed them to prevent anyone from discovering what he wished to remain concealed.
With this said, it was already several days after that battle. His losses had truly been not small. Not only was his flying sword treasure talisman destroyed, that high-quality magic tool, the fine steel ring was also sacrificed. With regards to this, Han Li felt somewhat regretful.
However, his spoils were also great. Apart from the Azure Flood Dragon Banner, Han Li found two other notable magic tools from Senior Martial Brother Lu’s storage pouch, the azure rope he used to launch a sneak attack on him as well as a silver white hook. They seemed to both be high-quality magic tools. This was sufficient enough to make up for his loss of magic tools.
Not to mention the several tens of low- to mid-grade talismans and over twenty low-grade spirit stones.
It was unfortunate that there were no elementary high-grade talismans. There was only the Wind Wall Technique talisman that Han Li had turned to scrap during the battle.
Han Li took advantage of this opportunity to arrange all of his loot once through. Apart from the items he would personally use and the very precious items, he destroyed the rest to avoid future troubles.
After that, he started to impatiently think about the matter of the Foundation Establishment Pills.
Han Li was completely ignorant of how to consume the Foundation Establishment Pill.
Was it as simple as swallowing the Foundation Establishment by itself, or was he required to prepare other medicines in advance and perform other actions? Should he even draw support from some external power? Common conventions say that such a rare medicine pill should truly have some specific qualities.
Because Han Li hadn’t acquired the Foundation Establishment Pill beforehand, there was nothing he previously had to pay attention to. He planned to wait until after the Trial by Blood and Fire to ask around. After all, failure in the Trial by Fire would render everything else worthless. He didn’t expect to possess the Foundation Establishment Pill now and, moreover, have two of them at that.
This was a pressing matter.
Half a day later, Han Li arrived at the Cultivation Guidance Pavilion.
He returned to his residence, blankly resting his upper body on the table. After being lost in thought for quite a few hours, he suddenly smashed his fist against the corner of the table, causing his fist to turn completely red. He ignored the pain as if it wasn’t there.
Not long before, on the pretext of wanting to learn new magic techniques, he made a few indirect inquiries toward Wu Feng for the majority of the day. Eventually, he uncovered the method of taking the Foundation Establishment Pill. However, this did not result in good news for him in the slightest.
It turned out that to take the Foundation Establishment Pill and pass the barrier to Foundation Establishment, it did not require consuming any medicine beforehand or external aid. Unexpectedly, it merely required direct consumption.
It was reasonable to say that this news couldn’t be better for Han Li. However, Wu Feng’s next words struck Han Li in the head. There would be a new problem that arose after taking the medicine, causing Han Li to feel greatly perplexed. Once again, Han Li found himself facing a dilemma.
Chapter 172: Choice
At the northern region of the Jian Province, at some desert mountain at the border of the State of Yue and the State of Yuan Wu, stood several tens of yellow-clothed people of various height. Their clothes were fluttering with the wind, and their ages had nothing in common; there were some who were old and gray-haired with a face full of wrinkles, near the end of their lives, as well as smooth-skinned, white-teethed and red-lipped juveniles who had yet to enter adulthood. They all stood silently in rows.
At the front was naturally an imposing old man. With his hands behind his back, he motionlessly looked toward the sky, lost in thought. There were four men and one woman behind him, each with a respectful bearing. Among them was that Martial Uncle Wang who had brought Han Li to enter the sect. He currently had a solemn expression.
Behind those five people, there were two orderly rows of yellow-clothed disciples, all with different expressions. A few were nervous, others were either ill at ease, unconcerned, or even glancing all around. There were a few smiling silently, not showing their true intentions.
At the end of the last row, there was a common dark-skinned youth with lowered eyes. He had been looking at the edge of his feet from the very beginning. He didn’t dare to shift his gaze in the slightest, seeming unusually shy.
However, none of these people knew that this yellow boy was silently cursing with resentment.
This youth who was different from the others was Han Li. The group of yellow-clothed individuals were the Yellow Maple Valley’s disciples who were about to join the Trial by Blood and Fire.
Han Li ultimately decided to participate in this almost certain-death excursion. The matter of the two Foundation Establishment Pills was a hapless joke.
A month before, after Han Li found the method to take the Foundation Establishment Pill from Wu Feng, he was greatly shocked.
It turned out that those taking the Foundation Establishment Pill must enter seclusion for three months and must use up all of the medicinal power before exiting. Otherwise, the medicinal power would scatter,greatly reducing the pill’s efficacy. That was why finding out whether or not one succeeded in reaching Foundation Establishment required several months.
Having to wait for such a long time greatly discouraged Han Li.
His original plan after acquiring the two Foundation Establishment Pills was to first take the pills and then see whether or not he had to participate in the Trial by Fire. If he were lucky enough to reach Foundation Establishment, then he definitely wouldn’t go to such a dangerous region. After all, only one in four survived; it was truly too frightening.
If he failed after taking the pills, then it would be imperative that he would enter the forbidden area. If two or three Foundation Establishment Pills wouldn’t do, then he would refine three, four or even more pills. He was convinced that his aptitude was far too lacking, and only by taking several Foundation Establishment Pills would he be certain to enter Foundation Establishment.
However with the restriction that he must be secluded for three months after taking the pill, Han Li’s plan was thrown into disarray, causing him to face an awkward situation where he couldn’t get everything he wanted.
(TL: ”????????”; literal meaning: you can’t have both the fish and the bear’s paw)
Now, he had to either take the Foundation Establishment Pill and completely give up on entering the forbidden area, or he could temporarily put away the Foundation Establishment Pill and wait until after the Trial by Blood and Fire to consume the pills. It was impossible to have the best of both worlds.
After pondering this for almost half a month, Han Li felt that with regards to his terrible aptitude, even if he were to consume both of the Foundation Establishment Pills, his chances of entering Foundation Establishment were still quite low, so he could not give up on the Trial by Blood and Fire.
Actually, it wasn’t like Han Li hadn’t considered waiting five more years to participate in the next Trial by Blood and Fire. At that time, even if he failed to enter Foundation Establishment, his Eternal Spring Arts would have definitely reached its peak. As such, he would have a much greater ability to defend himself.
However, not long after Han Li thought of this, the Yellow Maple Valley’s upper echelon made a declaration that greatly shocked the cultivation world of the State of Yue, causing this idea of his to vanish into thin air.
The details were: five years from now, the forbidden area of the Trial of Blood and Fire would be placed under a temporarily sixty-year seal. During this time, the Seven Great Sects would work together and forbid anyone from entering and gathering medicine.
Sealing the forbidden area temporarily was not a rare affair. Almost every three to f
our hundred years, the Seven Great Sects would do this.
Because the forbidden area was often opened, the Spiritual Qi within would leak in great quantities. The appearance and growth of spiritual medicines would also suffer as a result. This temporarily seal was to allow the density of Spiritual Qi to return to normal levels.
However, although the Seven Great Sects adopted this measure, the spiritual medicines of the forbidden area were still sparse year after year and were increasingly difficult to find. Those particular spiritual medicines required to refine pills were especially rare.
According to a deduction of some knowledgeable expert from the Seven Great Sects, if one truly wanted to restore the spiritual medicines within the forbidden Area to regular quantities, they must seal the area for no less than a full millennium. This temporarily seal was nothing more than a postponement of the eventual exhaustion of the forbidden Area’s spiritual medicines. After all, the growth of spiritual medicines wasn’t a matter of merely one or two days.
Despite the actual circumstances within the forbidden area, nobody was able to deny or confirm this conjecture. However, the leaders of the Seven Great Sects were incapable of such a painful decision.
The quantity of Foundation Establishment Pills was closely related to the rise and fall of their sects.
If there was a shortage of these pills lasting fifty to sixty years, the Seven Great Sects would merely suffer some superficial damage. However, if several hundred or even a thousand years passed without Foundation Establishment Pills, then not just the Seven Great Sects, but also the entire cultivation world of the State of Yue would be confronted with a life or death crisis.
After all, an area without Foundation Establishment cultivators, could that be still be called a “cultivation world”? If the time came, the cultivation clans and rogue cultivators would all depart the State of Yue and look to survive elsewhere. At that time, the Seven Great Sects would not be an exception.
As a result, although they knew that frequently opening the forbidden area was a folly equivalent to killing the chicken that laid the eggs, the Seven Great Sects could not help but do so.
They could only hope that before the spiritual medicines of the forbidden area were truly extinguished, they could produce other spiritual medicines to replace them.
This caused the Great Sects’ Core Formation experts, even those Nascent Soul eccentrics, to go out of their way to look for another source of spiritual medicines or to find another solution to prevent their respective sects from falling.
Naturally, Han Li could not have known this. But with this new information, there was no way Han Li would dare to wait five more years for the next Trial by Blood and Fire.
Even slow-minded individuals would realize that when the forbidden area opened in five years, it would unconditionally be a storm of blood. Each of the Great Sects’ elite disciples would be put forth in order to scavenge for the last time before the forbidden area was sealed away. If Han Li did not participate in this Trial by Fire, then he would be bringing about his own destruction.
Even if this announcement caused the upcoming trip to the forbidden area to have greater troubles and more desperate battles, regardless of this, the next was certain to be even more bloody.
As for the folly of participating in the Trial by Blood and Fire fifty years later, he didn’t even think of it.
By then he would have passed optimal age to enter Foundation Establishment. Even if he were able to barely enter Foundation Establishment, he would certainly not be able to tread the path of cultivation for much longer. This was not the outcome Han Li desired.
With that way in mind, Han Li enlisted to participate in the medicine-gathering group and waived his life away. Unexpectedly, the appearance of that Martial Uncle Wang caused Han Li to feel greatly surprised and somewhat regretful.
When Martial Uncle Wang saw Han Li, he was even more surprised.
On one hand, he was greatly astonished that this new disciple would participate in the Trial by Blood and Fire. On the other hand, he almost couldn’t believe how far Han LI’s cultivation had advanced. With Han Li’s aptitudes, how could he progress with his cultivation from the ninth layer to the eleventh layer within such a short period of time? This was far too shocking.
If Han Li were an outstandingly talented disciple, then it wouldn’t be strange; it would be more strange if he hadn’t reached the eleventh layer by now. However, he had personally tested Han Li’s false spiritual roots. How could he have cultivated so fast?
With regards to his spiritual roots, for Han Li to enter the sect at the ninth layer was already extraordinary.
Usually, only by being bestowed magic power by an Elder and frequently consuming a few spiritual medicines, along with diligent and bitter cultivation, could someone be able to achieve this. However, with Han Li currently standing before him with a cultivation base at the eleventh layer, he was incomparably shocked.
Since Martial Uncle Wang was doubtful, he impolitely pulled Han Li to the side and tested his attributes once more. The result was the same as before and stomped any suspicions of mutated spiritual roots.
This caused Martial Uncle Wang to be at a loss.
Chapter 173: The Gathering
Han Li responded with “I don’t know” to all of the questions, insisting that his cultivation today was all because of his hard work. As for how he was able to cultivate and improve at this alarming rate, Han Li used a mysterious story that he had previously prepared about how he mistakenly ate a magical fruit when he was a child. He told this to Martial Uncle Wang, then blamed everything onto the magical fruit. He prepared this excuse specifically to handle this kind of situation.
Han Li knew that a believable lie should consist of seventy percent truth and thirty percent falsehood, so the magical fruit that he describe wasn’t solely from his imagination. It was a fruit that had been rumored for thousands of years: the Immortal Clan’s “Dragon Scale Fruit”. It was said that people who ate it could be reborn and could soar in the sky. As for whether or not it truly existed, there was no way for Han Li to find out, but regardless, no one had ever actually eaten it.
As soon as this Martial Uncle Wang, who had read many books, heard Han Li’s description of the magical fruit, his eyes brightened up. He actually found an ancient book from somewhere called the “Record of Wondrous Objects”, and found an article regarding the “Dragon Scale Fruit” for Han Li to identify.
As things had gotten to this point, Han Li would naturally admit it with ease. Amazed, Martial Uncle Wang made a “tsk-tsk” sound.
Han Li also told him that once he picked the fruit, the plant’s original roots immediately withered away and died. That way, there would absolutely be no more of this fruit even if they went back to the original location. This was to make sure the other party would not try asking around in an attempt to find more of the fruit for himself, thereby completely putting an end to the story.
As for whether or not this person would be greedy, believed it to be true, or tried to go elsewhere to find another such fruit, it was none of his business. Let him busy himself with it!
Han Li knew very clearly that even though Martial Uncle Wang acted as if he completely believed him, and even though Han Li had answered all of his questions, there was no way of knowing how much he actually believed him.
The other party was probably in half belief and half doubt, in between trusting and not trusting. So with this Martial Uncle Wang, Han Li should avoid and hide from him if possible in the future, as well as pay more attention in case the other party got suspicious.
But Han Li believed that as long as he could successfully enter Foundation Establishment, then his identity would be quite different. Even if Martial Uncle Wang still had doubts in his heart, he wouldn’t provoke him that easily. After all, the cultivation world spoke with strength!
Finally, Han Li brushed off the questions about his own cultivation. As for Martial Uncle Wang, it was unclear whether or not he
was apologetic about all the questionings from before, but he didn’t make things difficult for Han Li at the registration. He helped him through all the paperwork very easily, and warned him about some precautions he should prepare prior to entering the forbidden area.
Han Li gave a mouthful of thanks, then said goodbye and left.
After he returned, he greeted the little old man and temporarily stopped his work at the medicinal herb garden so that he could prepare for the Trial by Blood and Fire without any distractions.
Hearing this, the little old man was silent for a while. He used a strange expression that said “You’re already dead” and kept on staring at Han Li. This made Han Li’s heart uneasy for a long time.
But what surprised him was that before this Senior Martial Uncle Ma left, he gave Han Li two bottles of medicine without any hesitation. He said coldly, “One bottle for internal use, and the other for external use.” He then flew away on his flying magic tool with an indifferent expression.
This gesture slightly warmed Han Li’s heart.
After the past two years of spending time together, he understood that although the little old man’s temperament was eccentric, he was a person with a cold appearance and a warm heart. He was just somewhat absorbed in the art of medicine creation. He was being treated with warmth now, which meant that Senior Martial Uncle Ma already saw him as his nephew, making Han Li feel moved.
Three days before entering the forbidden area, Martial Uncle Wang finally sent Han Li a letter, urging him to gather at the meeting hall to get ready to go.
When Han Li arrived, the disciples who registered for the Trial by Fire and Blood were all gathered there, silently judging each other.
There were more than ten thousand disciples from the whole Yellow Maple Valley that were of Qi Condensation. Han Li naturally wouldn’t know all of them, but there was still one woman that Han Li couldn’t be more familiar with. Not only did Han Li know this woman, he had seen and even touched her whole body: the “Junior Martial Sister Chen” who got drugged and almost raped by “Martial Brother Lu”.
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 84