White light flashed, and a massive rectangular jade box appeared in his hand.
After the lid of the box was lifted, a mesmerizing floral scent immediately wafted through the air.
The jade box was filled with thumb-sized golden bell-shaped flowers, and there appeared to be over 100 of them.
Chapter 1411: Gold Marrow Body Refinement
Under closer examination, he discovered that the little bells were emitting a dense wood spiritual Qi; they were actually small golden flowers that resembled bells.
They appeared realistic as if they were bells forged from pure gold.
“There are truly many Woodbud Flowers, and they seem to be over a thousand years old.” When he saw the flowers, the huge ape hummed and wore an astonished expression.
Han Li chuckled, “Woodbud Flowers? You’ve seen them before. How about the Golden Marrow Crystal Insects and the Golden Corral Sand?”
The small beast’s eyes flickered with joy, but he calmly said, “I fear there isn’t enough, but the hundred of flowers will qualify for an exchange of ten pairs of beetles in accordance with our agreement.”
Han Li smiled and he tossed the jade box in front of him, then floating in the air. Then he flipped his other hand and produced a long jade box.
The lit open to produce a box brimming with Woodbud Flowers.
The scene left many of the demon beasts dumbstruck.
Han Li looked at the demon beasts and leisurely said, “This should be enough. Take out whatever crystal insects and coral sand you’ve brought along.”
Startled, the demon beasts whispered a few words to one another. Eventually, the small beast took out fist-sized crystals, and the other demon beasts took out palm-sized black gourds.
In the blink of an eye, fifteen crystals and three black gourds appeared in the hall.
Han Li’s eyes lit up and he silently reached for them.
Suddenly, one of the crystals floated and jumped into his hand.
Han Li closely examined it.
The crystal was clear and translucent. It was clearly condensed from a pair of pure-white insects, unmoving as if they were fossilized.
His immense spiritual sense instantly turned into countless threads and penetrated its crystal body, affecting the small insect on the top of the crystal.
A layer of milky white light appeared from the surface of the insect. Then, it spat a drop of golden liquid from its mouth which seeped onto its body.
Bright light radiated from the crystal, filling the air with sparkling golden light.
When Han Li saw this, his expression stirred and he exerted strength into his grip on the crystal, forcing an immense pressure on it.
The crystal’s body simply flickered with light, but it wasn’t harmed at all.
Han Li muttered, “It really is a Golden Marrow Crystal Insect!”
“Senior, don’t worry. We may be mighty bold, but we’d never deceive you.” The small bull-headed beast wryly laughed.
“Is that so?” Han Li neutrally replied. Then, he put down the crystal and flicked his hand, summoning a black gourd into his grasp.
He tilted it, pouring a river of purple-gold sand out from it. Soon, a meter-tall pile appeared on the ground.
Han Li pinched a grain of sand from the pile and brought it to his eye.
He stared at it for a long while and poured out the sand from the other two black gourds into one combined pile.
Han Li looked at the sand pile and casually said, “Not bad, this Golden Coral Sand is of the best quality. With the addition of the fifteen pairs of crystal insects, the two boxes of Woodbud Flowers are still more valuable, but I’ll still agree to the trade.”
When the four demon beasts heard this, they nodded with joy.
Han Li tossed the two boxes over, and the small beast and the huge gold-furred ape carefully put it away.
Meanwhile, Han Li swept his sleeve across the ground. In an azure mist, the crystals and the gourds of sand disappeared without a trace.
“I am satisfied with this trade. If you find any Golden Coral Sand or other rare items in the future, I will trade them for items you need. I don’t only have Woodbud Flowers, and I won’t have you take a loss. You may leave.” With no further intention of having the demons stay, Han Li dismissed them.
Under the pressure of Han Li’s immense aura, the demon beasts didn’t dare to say anything further and they respectfully and carefully withdrew from Han Li’s cave residence. They promptly took off in a demonic wind.
The demon beasts flew for over five hundred kilometers in a single stretch before stopping and letting out a long sigh. They then gathered together again.
The huge boar excitedly snorted, “This is great! I didn’t expect that we’d get so many Woodbud Flowers in a single go. Furthermore, they’re all over a thousand years old. If we deliver all of them, the Tian Peng race definitely won’t punish us even if we don’t offer anything else.”
The huge ape frowned and said, “Yes, I didn’t expect this person to truly acquire so many of the flowers. If I remember correctly, Woodbud Flowers didn’t in such numbers on that mountain. Could it be when he scouted the mountain, he found other secret areas? From his tone, it seems he had even more flowers.”
The three-headed python looked around and said, “That is most likely so. Having presented so many Woodbud Flowers at once, it's very possible he has even more. The Tian Peng Race heavily values these flowers. They must be rare. They are most likely a specialty of our Hidden Black Mountains.”
The small beast pondered for a moment and said, “Regardless of how rare the flowers are, it has nothing to do with us. So long as we can endure for a hundred years and remove our slave markings, we’ll be able to leave far away. However, we must supply as many high-grade spirit stones to that Master as we can. Otherwise, if we make a mistake, all these years would’ve been wasted.”
“With the Woodbud Flowers, wasting another hundred years won’t be an issue. But what’s key is that we truly don’t have many spirit stones. Low-grade spirit stones are worthless to us and mid-grade spirit stones are worthless to the Master. As for high-grade spirit stones, they’ve all been exhausted from the mine. Furthermore, that Master also wants us to give him four differently attributed top-grade spirit stones. Let alone the Hidden Black Mountains, top-grade spirit stones spotted all around the island are all water-attributed. It is beyond our ability to exchange them.” The yellow-furred ape hummed.
The huge boar muttered, “In accordance to the Master’s words, the top-grade spirit stones are required to break through a bottleneck. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to achieve.”
The four demons turned silent for a spell.
The huge three-headed python turned around and its center head slowly said, “If it were before, it’d be hard to say, but now that this powerful Senior has come from a different place. Perhaps he has other attributed spirit stones.”
“That is something we’ve all thought off, but how can we use top-grade spirit stones at our cultivation? If we exchange for that item, I fear we will provoke his suspicion. We should think of other methods first. If we have no other options, we will trade with him,” the small beast carefully said.
“That sounds reasonable. After we deal with the Tian Peng Race’s envoy, we’ll consider it further,” the huge ape proposed.
The other beasts eventually agreed one after another, having come up with nothing else.
The four demons then turned into four clouds of demonic Qi and flew off in different directions.
At that moment, Han Li was inside his hidden room and was fiddling with the crystal insects. His eyes wandered as he pondered.
The Golden Marrow Crystal Insects were incredibly famous throughout demons and humans, so he only managed to acquire a pitiful few of them alive.
He also discovered that each and every single pair of them came at immense cost, enough to bankrupt a high-grade cultivator.
As such, when Han Li heard that
the grade six and seven demon beasts were able to provide crystal insects to him, he was overwhelmed with joy.
The crystal insects had many uses. Not only could he use it as a primary ingredient to progress his cultivation, but it also had clear results in body refinement.
By applying the golden marrow that the insects spat out onto his body, he could easily cleanse his own marrow and essence, strengthening his body an entire step further. However, with the immense power of his current body, he figured the results would be less than he would expect.
Rather than these two uses, Han Li was more hopeful of the more obscure third use.
That was to use the crystal insect to use it to temper his own Provenance True Devil Art’s projection into having a true body.
With the vast power of this ability, he could fuse it with the Provenance True Devil to produce an extraordinary incarnation ability with the power of flattening mountains and silencing oceans.
Naturally, similar abilities appeared in Buddhist Sects which involved condensing Vajra Arts. It wasn’t a complicated technique and many knew of it, but in addition to requiring supplementary materials that involved the Golden Marrow Crystal Insect, but it required several other legendary spiritual medicines. These spirit medicines were rare to the point they were equivalent to the Golden Marrow Crystal Insects. If he wanted to collect them all, they would be a matter of complete luck, so he couldn't rely on it.
Han Li stared at the crystal in his hand and sank into thought.
He suddenly flicked his wrist and produced another four crystals in front of him.
Condensing the Provenance True Devil Art’s projection would take ten pairs of crystal insects. As for the remaining five pairs, he would bluntly use them to reinforce his body. Furthermore, they would assist him in breaking through his bottleneck at mid-Deity Transformation stage.
With all that smoothly decided, he had plans for the next five years.
Without any hesitation, he took a crystal into his hand and summoned pure azure light around it, then closing his eyes.
Underneath the provocation of spiritual power, the crystal formed from two still insects suddenly began to shake and open their mouths, each producing a golden drop.
The two drops of liquid passed through the crystals and flowed down onto Han Li’s hand where it fused with the azure spiritual Qi.
A moment later, the golden liquid glowed brightly with brilliant gold light.
The light and the azure Qi fused together slowly spread down his arm. In the blink of an eye, it covered his arm in golden light entirely.
Once the golden light faded away, the skin on Han Li’s arm had turned a shimmering gold.
Han Li held his golden arm and muttered to himself.
Golden light faintly pulsed from the arm once more and a layer of shimmering white floated off from it and floated in the air.
Han Li calmly breathed and had a tranquil face. Then he used his spiritual power to continue circulating this wondrous effect.
Chapter 1412: Tian Peng Beings
Five years can’t be considered long, nor short.
During this time, not only did Han Li completely absorb the golden marrow of five pairs of crystal insects, but he also refined the Golden Coral Sand with other medicines into liquid and had them absorbed into his flesh.
As a result, five pairs of Golden Marrow Crystal Insects vanished along with three gourds of the Golden Coral Sand.
One day, Han Li opened his eyes from meditation and raised his hands. He took a glance at his seemingly ordinary hands and wore an odd expression.
“I’ve absorbed much golden marrow and Golden Coral Sand into refining my body and my flesh is immensely strong, but I’ve made no progress to resolving my bottleneck at mid-stage. Could it be that the chance still hasn’t come?”
Han Li sighed and gloomily closed his eyes when an azure light suddenly flashed from the wall of his secluded room. His second Nascent Soul flew inside in a ball of black light and wildly spoke as it jumped around his hand.
Han Li was stunned, but he soon chuckled.
“I’ve nearly forgotten. Those Tian Peng fellows are about to arrive on the island. I should get some knowledge of this foreign race.” After muttering to himself, he stood up and walked out.
Although he hadn’t taken a step out of his room in several years, he ordered his second Nascent Soul to smoothly use puppets to monitor the actions of the four demon beasts. As a result, he overheard a private discussion of theirs and discovered that an envoy from the Tian Peng Race will soon arrive on the island.
Now that another foreign race is about to arrive, the demons have already prepared someone to receive them.
When he killed the Lord of Treasured Light, he had used the Spirit Engulfing Heavenly Flame to consume his soul. Han Li now regretted he forgot to use soul searching techniques on him. After all, a grade eight metamorphosed demon beast should know much about the area.
Although he already used the soul searching technique on the golden fish demon beast, the fish hadn’t gone too far out into the ocean and didn’t understand much. He only knew that the ocean’s name was the Scarlet Devil Ocean and that the island Han Li occupied was the Dark Infernal Island. It was in truth only a peninsula.
On the peninsula, a small portion was occupied by the Hidden Black Mountains. Most of the island was enveloped in the Black Infernal Mist. Fortunately, the peninsula was still linked to the Tian Yuan Continent. He hadn’t teleported to the other unfamiliar continents, much to his relief.
So long as he was on the Tian Yuan Continent, there will be a method to return to the humans.
In the oceans nearby the peninsula, there was a winged foreign race known as the Flying Spirit Tribe that governed the Region. They are only a branch of the Feng Peng Race. Furthermore, they are comparatively weaker of the tens of branches. Many other demon beasts have been expelled to the ocean from the continent by the Flying Spirit Tribe, otherwise the fish demon wouldn’t have known this information.
Apart from this, the fish demon had no other accurate information.
The fish demon only had a vague impression that the Tian Peng Race had a pair of wings and could draw on the support of their ability to transform into huge legendary birds in combat. This was something that the humans were aware of as well.
As such, Han Li was very interested in seeing the Tian Peng envoy arriving to take tribute.
Not long after, Han Li turned into an azure streak as he flew hundreds of kilometers through the air. A half-foot-long golden insect crawled on his shoulder.
As Han Li flew forward, he stroked the Gold Devouring Beetles that recently awoken.
The beetle had no changes to its appearance, but the beetles were incredibly heavy. When the beetles had begun to devour the strange stone material, they turned many times heavier. Fortunately, Han Li had already tested that these Gold Devouring Beetles variants and discovered their original nimbleness had returned and that each of them was incredibly strong.
A single beetle could easily bite and drag something weighing over five hundred kilograms. Han Li was dumbstruck by this result.
Apart from these two points, Han Li hadn’t discovered any more differences about these five thousand changed beetles. It was unknown if there weren’t any more changes, or that he hadn’t discovered them yet.
Feeling somewhat disappointed, Han Li wasn’t sure what else to do with the three particular stones.
A day later, an azure streak appeared above a short flat mountain.
He blinked and the azure streak faintly blurred until it eventually disappeared.
Han Li fully used his abilities to completely conceal himself and his flight light, also decreasing his speed several fold.
After flying across a small lake, he arrived above a small green mountain covered in ten-meter-tall bamboo. At the center of the mountain, over a thousand bull-headed lion-bodied beasts were grazing there.
Han Li examined the beasts and soon looked a
t the other small mountains.
At that moment, white mist filled the air.
Han Li’s eyes flashed with blue light. His Brightsight Spirit Eyes penetrated the fog and he caught sight of a green stone gate.
It was the cave residence of the small bull-headed beast.
Han Li faintly smiled and he rose into the air. Once he was ten kilometers in altitude, he stopped.
Afterwards, he cast several spell seals around him.
Clouds of fog suddenly appeared in the nearby air. In the blink of an eye, he was hidden by a common grey cloud.
At that moment, Han Li’s shoulder shook and the huge beetle brightly glowed in golden light. It turned into a beetle the size of a pea. Then it flew off and towards the small mountain.
Han Li glanced at the insect. When it disappeared into the mountain, Han Li remained still inside the cloud.
A quarter hour later, light flashed from another corner of the sky. Three large silver birds were riding on two demonic winds.
Han Li narrowed his eyes and stared at the three birds.
He saw their bird bodies were over ten-meters long and strikingly resembled a huge hawk. Their bodies shimmered in silver light as if their feathers were forged from silver. The pair of deep purple eyes on their heads also appeared quite sharp.
The three large birds were clearly stifling their speed, but when they saw the small pretty mountain, the three birds unfolded their wings and white lightning flashed from their bodies as they flew forward.
They left the deep rumble of lightning in their wake.
A short moment later, the three large birds arrived in front of the white mist wrapped in lightning.
After they folded their wings, the three birds flashed with silver light to turn into two men and one woman. They were foreign beings with silver wings.
“Those are Tian Peng beings?” Under closer examination, a trace of alarm appeared on his face.
The two men appeared heroic while the woman appeared dainty. Apart from their wings, they appeared like young humans.
From their aura, the three appeared to be on the level of Deity Transformation-stage.
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 791