Chapter 1195: Chapter 657 Golden Core Fourth Layer_2 Chapter 1195: Chapter 657 Golden Core Fourth Layer_2 “`
Aside from saplings, there were expenses for forging and purchasing all kinds of cultivation spiritual tools and placing custom orders with the Puppet Division for the large puppet farming machines designed by Chen Mobai, among other expenditures.

Liu Wenbo only reserved the basic spirit stones necessary to maintain the operation of Little Nan Mountain Shop’s branches across the nineteen countries of the Eastern Wilderness; he invested the rest according to his judgment in equipment and materials, which he sent to Rock Country.

For this, Chen Mobai gave him high praise.

He said that Liu Wenbo had lived up to his responsibilities and stature as the second-generation eldest apprentice brother of Little Nan Mountain.

“Master is overpraising. I merely followed your instructions,” Liu Wenbo humbly replied. He then mentioned that Zhuo Ming had given him the additional spirit rice and spirit meat from the Eastern Desolation Plateau to sell to countries beyond the plateau.

However, since the production of spirit rice had increased, and it was the first time Little Nan Mountain Shop was selling spirit meat, the earnings were not very good.

Last year, the income from this aspect was only around two hundred thousand spirit stones.

Regarding this, Chen Mobai simply instructed Liu Wenbo to persist in selling, and to get all kinds of specialties from above the Eastern Desolation Plateau onto the shelves of Little Nan Mountain Shop.

In the early stage, he should not think about making spirit stones but first open and capture the market.

After Chen Mobai decided that the main goal for the next ten years for Little Nan Mountain Shop was to supply Zhuo Ming’s development of the Eastern Desolation Plateau, and only the secondary goal was to earn spirit stones, Liu Wenbo had a clear focus, and he descended the mountain with Song Huangdae.

Time quickly passed, and another year had gone by.

Since the majority of the Legal Body Nascent Soul’s power was transformed from Rank-5 Soul Nourishing Wood, Zhou Shengqing’s Nascent Soul transformation lacked remarkable spectacle.

Even when occasional intense fluctuations of spiritual energy occurred within the Longevity Wood Dojo, everyone simply assumed it was Chen Mobai or Fu Zongjue practicing some powerful technique.

Throughout this year, with the help of Divine Wood Sect, Chen Mobai once again collected a complete set of materials for a furnace of Golden Crow Sun-swallowing Elixirs.

This time, his refining was much smoother than before. He produced seven pills, and the toxicity of each was below 1%.

Thanks to the effects of the Golden Crow Sun-swallowing Elixir, his cultivation level also showed signs of another breakthrough.

On this day, at the peak of Danxia Mountain, beneath the Biyu Wutong, an immensely powerful surge of spiritual power rose to the sky, like a splendid pillar, purifying the clouds into clear blue!

The superior spiritual qi of fourth grade was ceaselessly captured and extracted by the strong divine sense, turning into strands of crimson spiritual light, being refined by Chen Mobai, who was sitting under the Biyu Wutong.

Although the spirit vein of Danxia Mountain was that of a fire vein, it also mixed with elements of the earth vein, so Chen Mobai had to exclude the earth vein’s spiritual energy during refining and solely extract the fire vein’s spiritual energy.

This demonstrated the advantage of spirit stones over spirit vein qi.

Spirit stones contain pure spiritual energy that can be refined and converted into any attribute of spiritual power without hindrance, but spirit vein qi has an attribute, which requires compatibility with the cultivator’s technique.

If it weren’t for the need to maintain a facade at the Immortal Gate, creating some momentum and defending his reputation as a genius, Chen Mobai would have simply used a pile of top-grade spirit stones to succeed in the breakthrough long ago.

This was Chen Mobai’s first attempt at a normal pathway breakthrough without the aid of external objects at the Immortal Gate.

He found it to be even harder than he imagined.

For someone accustomed to smooth sailing, this was somewhat hard to accept.

The breakthrough phenomenon lasted an entire two months, and Chen Mobai felt that the speed at which he was refining the fire vein’s spiritual energy had reached a limit. Continuing at this rate, he wouldn’t be able to accumulate enough Pure Yang spiritual power to break through to the fourth layer of the Golden Core.

This indicated that his foundation was not solid enough, and the accumulated spiritual power was insufficient, requiring further accumulation and settling.

If he were to act on the mature experience of the Immortal Gate, he should naturally disperse the gathered majestic spiritual energy and halt the breakthrough, waiting for the next opportunity to try again.

But that’s what ordinary people would do.

Chen Mobai didn’t openly display the signs of his breakthrough on Danxia Mountain only to let his reputation collapse.

He looked down at three items beside him.

First was a Spirit Gathering Array made up of top-grade spirit stones.

Second was the Pure Yang Purple Qi condensed within the Spirit Sealing Tube, a result of Yin Qingmei’s constant guidance of the Haotian Mirror.

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The third was a blood-red elixir, the Blood Spirit Pill that had once propelled Fu Zongjue to his breakthrough into the Mid Golden Core Stage.

With any one of these three items at his disposal, Chen Mobai was confident he could break through directly to the Golden Core Fourth Layer.

However, the top-grade Spirit Stone was his last resort. Chen Mobai intended to pretend that he was advancing with the aid of the spiritual vein qi of Danxia Mountain. He would only use it if something unexpected happened and he couldn’t break through despite utilizing the other two items.

After some contemplation, Chen Mobai reached out and ingested the Blood Spirit Pill without hesitation.

Such a Barrier-breaking Elixir from the Tianhe Realm was most useful in advancing from the Early Golden Core Stage to the Mid Golden Core Stage. Moreover, he had two pills. If he didn’t use them now, they would become useless in the future.

The Pure Yang Purple Qi could be useful even for Cultivators of the Pure Yang Scroll at the Nascent Soul Realm, so it would be better to save it if possible.

Chen Mobai had long since learnt about the method and experience of consuming the Blood Spirit Pill from Fu Zongjue, so he refined it into his body with ease.

Once the Flame Lighting Technique was activated, he felt his Essence, Qi, and Spirit surge by half. His Divine Sense and his body, which had already reached their limits, suddenly drew in a great gulp of the spirit vein qi that floated in the void all around him.

Caught off-guard, he even refined some of the earth vein spiritual power into his Pure Yang Spiritual Power.

But at this critical moment of breakthrough, Chen Mobai didn’t have time to worry about these things. He could only rely on the violent surge of power from the Blood Spirit Pill to ferociously assault the bottleneck of the Golden Core Fourth Layer.

It could be said that the potency of Elixirs from the Tianhe Realm far exceeded those from the Immortal Gates.

Seven days later, Chen Mobai felt the Pure Yang Spiritual Power that had been just two or three breaths away from its limit suddenly burst through the boundary of his Dantian Qi Sea.

What followed was a freedom like the vast sea for fish to leap at will, the high sky where birds may soar!

The Dantian Qi Sea that seemed unable to accumulate and refine even the smallest bit of energy expanded by one-third of its range!

In the Void, faint silvery glows twinkled, similar to the moonlight, like gauze or mist, descending into Chen Mobai’s Golden Core Domain.

Under the influx of the endless power of the Void, a vast space of exactly 1280 cubic units roiled into form, manifesting within Chen Mobai’s Sea of Knowledge at the Purple Mansion.

At the center of the Sea of Knowledge at the Purple Mansion, the Biyu Wutong upon which the phoenix phantom perched became even more solid and expansive. In a hazy glimpse, Chen Mobai saw the phoenix’s feathers dancing, with even more colorful auspicious qi falling into its surroundings.

It seemed like he had received more of the Auspicious Blessing.

However, these could not be verified for the time being. Chen Mobai set them aside for the moment and began to explore his newly enhanced Pure Yang Spiritual Power after breaking through to the Golden Core Fourth Layer.

Compared to the extremely pure Pure Yang Spiritual Power he had before the breakthrough, this time it contained a strand of earthy yellow spiritual light.

This was a drawback from forcing a breakthrough without stable foundations, unable to control the result even with the help of the Blood Spirit Pill.

He had refined and boosted the earth and fire spiritual power from the spirit veins of Danxia Mountain into Pure Yang Spiritual Power, and although successful, it had left troubles in its wake.

But for cultivators of the Pure Yang Scroll, this was a minor issue, since they had the Flame Lighting Technique to purify and anneal it.

Generally speaking, Pure Yang cultivators from the Immortal Gates would not force breakthroughs as Chen Mobai did, relying on the Flame Lighting Technique.

Because the time required to purify using the Flame Lighting Technique might be about the same as that spent on consolidating one’s foundation before attempting a realm breakthrough.

Moreover, there was a risk of failure with such forced breakthroughs.

But Chen Mobai was an advocate of the Sect of Realms; since he was capable of making a breakthrough and the conditions were in his favor, he would naturally not delay any longer.

At least he was now at the Golden Core Fourth Layer. Although his spiritual power had some impurities, it did not affect his combat ability.

As the Sect Leader of the Divine Wood Sect who often needed to take action to maintain order, especially during the critical moment when Zhou Shengqing was on the verge of Nascent Soul Formation success, he felt it necessary to act this way.

Originally, he estimated that it would take him eight years to achieve this breakthrough, but now he had succeeded three years ahead of schedule.

Aside from the potent effects of the Blood Spirit Pill, this was also due to his annual consumption of the Golden Crow Holding the Sun Pills.

A clear comparison could be seen with Chen Mobai’s Daoist Academy mentor, True Person Shao Yang, who had spent a staggering fifteen years to break through from the Golden Core Third Layer to the Fourth Layer.

Of course, besides the practice of Pure Yang Spiritual Power, this was because he needed to bring the Seven Yang body to Perfection before it was possible to make the breakthrough, a restrictive condition that held him back.

Later, when True Person Shao Yang calculated his remaining lifespan and compared it against his actual progress while cultivating the Eight Yang body, he became so desperate that he switched to practicing the Scorching Heaven Cultivation Technique.