Chapter 2: Blood Oath

  Lu Ping returned from the Ling Cang Pavilion with over a dozen more spirit stones and eight Purifying Blood Pills in hand. Spirit stones could assist in cultivation and were hard currency, while the Purifying Blood Pills were medicine that purified the true spirit's blood, increasing progress in cultivation.

  Lu Ping, as a disciple of the True Spirit Sect's Zhen Ling Branch, is strictly speaking a group between the outer and inner disciples. The True Spirit Sect cultivates them from young to old for free, unlike outer sect disciples who need to be self-sufficient, in order to cultivate the reserve strength of the True Spirit Sect. If they cannot reach the 9th layer of Blood Refining and establish their foundation within 15 years, they will become outer sect disciples, serving the sect while being self-sufficient at the same time.

  The True Spirit Sect has a five-year term, with three levels of disciples. Lu Ping has been in the sect for nearly ten years and is a second-level disciple. The minimum standard for a second-level disciple is to have refined their blood to the fourth layer. If they cannot reach the sixth layer by the tenth year's assessment, they will lose their third-level disciple qualification and become an outer sect disciple.

  When a second-level disciple cultivates the fourth layer of Blood Refining, they receive two pieces of Spiritual Stones as welfare every month. At the fifth layer, one more Purifying Blood Pill is added, and at the sixth layer, two more Spiritual Stones are added. The seventh layer is a watershed in the Blood Refining period, where it becomes extremely difficult to break through. However, once broken through, they enter the later stage of Blood Refining, with their powers greatly advancing. Their welfare also increases to six pieces of Spiritual Stones and three Purifying Blood Pills, which is twice as much as the sixth layer of Blood Refining.

  The sect also rewards disciples who break through to the late Blood Refining stage with ten pieces of spiritual stones, and for those who break through to the late Blood Refining stage before the age of 18, the reward is doubled. It's said that this is because disciples who break through to the late Blood Refining stage before the age of 18 have a slightly greater chance during the Dissolving Blood stage.

  Lu Ping didn't know if the rumors were true, he only knew that refining blood to the dissolving period was a rare occurrence, one in a hundred. It was a dragon gate, and once you jumped past it, you would ascend to heaven and become an official inner disciple of the True Spirit Sect, learning the sect's formal techniques and becoming an existence envied by outer disciples.

  Thousands of disciples in the Zhenling Branch, about a hundred or so reach the ninth level of blood refinement every year, but only a handful succeed in building their foundation. Whenever someone succeeds in building their foundation, it becomes a major sensation throughout the Zhenling Branch.

  Lu Ping exchanged ten Spirit Stones for five Pure Blood Pills, so he now had sixteen Spirit Stones and eight Pure Blood Pills. In the past, whenever welfare was distributed, Lu Ping would always use them up early in his cultivation. This time's reward, aside from this month's basic cultivation, could still leave some remaining.

  It's time for Lu Ping to prepare for the second-level comparison.

  Each time a big comparison is made, it is a process of competing for cultivation resources. Not only is it a competition for the sect's rewards to individuals, but also a competition for the right to allocate team resources. The better the team's performance, the more resources they can get. These resources, except for half of which will go to the team leader, are left to the team members.

  This is also why Liu Xianchang was delighted to see Lu Pingxiu break through to the seventh layer. The Grand Competition selects the top ten disciples from each faction, which is only a basic condition, and disciples who have reached the seventh layer can participate in the Grand Competition regardless of their ranking.

  A powerful team with over ten people who have reached the late stage of Qi training!

  Lu Ping returned to the small hut in the other courtyard, as usual swallowed a Qingxue Dan, held a Ling stone, and began to cultivate. After a period of time, the Ling stone turned into powder, and the medicinal power of the Qingxue Dan had also been refined.

  Lu Ping did not rush to improve his cultivation, but instead started from the first layer of Blood Refining and went all the way to the seventh layer, solidifying his foundation. Lu Ping did this every time he broke through in his cultivation, making his foundation extremely solid.

  Even so, Lu Ping still felt that his cultivation had made significant progress. Lu Ping suddenly spat out a mouthful of turbid air, which was a normal situation when one's cultivation had just broken through. Later on, it would become increasingly difficult to break through each layer after refining the blood in the later stages, and it was normal for three to five years to pass without breaking through.

  Lu Ping opened the wooden box on the table, took out a talisman paper, spread it out on the table, then took out a piece of graphite and some strange wooden tools, and continuously drew on the talisman paper, according to the symbol diagram in "Elementary Appendix Proficiency", faintly drawing it with the graphite.

  The talisman is difficult to draw, and the blood-refining cultivator's drawing of the talisman is even more difficult. The reason lies in the complexity of the strokes, which cannot have any slight mistakes. Otherwise, even if the drawing is successful, its power will be greatly reduced. Lu Ping solved this problem with these tools.

  "Hehe, I guess this is one of the advantages of crossing over into another world." Lu Ping thought with a smile.

  Lu Ping knew that these were all small cleverness, after reaching the hemolysis period, the monk extended his divine sense, and these tools would become useless. With a monk's divine sense drawing talismans, it would be more standardized than using these tools.

  Lu Ping took out the brush used for drawing talismans, which was made from the hair of a top-tier demon beast's tail. The handle had a simple spirit gathering array that allowed for better transmission of spiritual energy to the brush.

  Lu Ping dipped it in the spiritual ink made from Lingquan water, fine cinnabar and the blood of a first-class demon beast, the earth spirit turtle, slowly pouring the spiritual power into the pen, following the previous symbol marks, slowly drawing it down.

  As he finished the final stroke, Lu Ping let out a long sigh of relief. Another success! It seemed that his growing cultivation also had an impact on his own rate of successfully crafting talismans.

  He felt the spiritual power contained in the talisman and the aura it emitted, Lu Ping was shocked and delighted, it was actually top-grade quality, this was the limit that a Blood Refining stage cultivator could reach.

  Lu Ping thought for a moment, pricked his finger, and dripped a drop of blood onto the talisman. The dark red talisman suddenly emitted a brilliant light and turned bright red, as if it was about to burst out of the paper.

  This is the method Lu Ping learned from Bi Yuan Cang Jing Ge Middle School, which can enhance the power of the two layers of Fu and Lu, but the loss of essence and blood is at the cost of cultivation. Fortunately, the cultivators who practice Blood Refining have their blood vessels as the foundation, and all their cultivation is in their blood vessels. Naturally, they also need more essence and blood than other cultivators, so the loss is much smaller. If Lu Ping hadn't created a top-grade Fu this time, he wouldn't have been willing to give up this drop of essence and blood either.

  Lu Ping meditated and recovered some of the lost spiritual energy, then continued to work hard and created nine more talismans. Unfortunately, no top-grade talisman appeared again, but instead two high-quality Blood Refining Talismans, two mid-quality and three low-quality talismans were produced. The remaining two talismans had errors during production and were scrapped.

  Such a success rate, if it were to be known by other Blood Refining cultivators, would likely cause them to exclaim in shock. This kind of success rate is already astonishing.

  Lu Ping thought for a moment, then dripped his vital blood onto the two top-grade talismans, turning them into Blood Talismans. He placed the three Blood Talismans in another box, which also contained several other Blood Talismans, all of which were high-grade Refining Blood Talismans.

  The remaining medium and low-grade talismans were put in a package by Lu Ping, which contained dozens of medium and low-grade talismans. This package was the result of Lu Ping's labor for a month.

  Although the disciples of other sects can enjoy the benefits of the sect for free, it is far from enough in their cultivation, so the disciples of other sects also have their own ways to earn spiritual stones, and talismans are Lu Ping's way.

  Lu Ping started making talismans every three days from the fourth layer of Blood Refining, and never interrupted for several years. Relying on continuous practice and research, as well as some small tricks, he got through the initial stage of losing spirit stones, gradually turning losses into gains, accumulating cultivation resources for himself. Otherwise, with Lu Ping's mediocre cultivation qualifications, how could he join the ranks of top cultivators in other sects?