Chapter 28: Soul-Devouring Beast
In the later stage of the Post-Heaven Realm, the True Qi inside the body has become quite dense and begins to slowly transform into Pre-Heaven True Qi. The dense True Qi can draw out the Spiritual Energy from the Spirit Stones, in simple terms, the strength of the True Qi inside the body is strong enough to extract the Spiritual Energy from the Spirit Stones, allowing for cultivation through absorption of the Spirit Stones.
Taking in the superior Gathering Yuan Spiritual Liquid internally and absorbing the spiritual energy of the Ling Stone externally, after reaching the seventh layer of the Acquired Realm, the speed of cultivation growth is several times faster than that of the sixth layer.
However, the difficulty of the seventh to eighth layers increased several times over, and if one wanted to continue maintaining their rapid progress in cultivation, they couldn't afford to be even slightly negligent in their future practice.
After deducting the 300 spiritual stones used to buy the Spiritual Grass, there were still 200 spiritual stones left from the auction of the high-quality Gathering Yuan Spiritual Stones. Adding the over 300 spiritual stones obtained from Liu Huaheng's storage bag and the over 500 spiritual stones in the Qiankun Ring...
Compared with ordinary monks, Gu Chen is completely a rich man.
Gǔ chén huì yī zhǒng gōng fǎ, néng gòu kuài sù de xī qǔ líng shí zhōng de líng qì zī yǎng shēn tǐ, zhuǎn huà zhēn qì, zēng jiā xiū wèi, rú guǒ lián xù bù duàn de xiū liàn, yī tiān jiù néng gòu xī shōu wán shàng shí líng shí de líng qì jīng huá, bǐ qǐ pǔ tōng rén xī yǐn líng shí xiū liàn de fāng fǎ, yào kuài shàng shù bèi.
This kung fu has no name, the ancient qianchen obtained this set of kung fu because it was recorded together with dingtian jue, looking like a side jue of dingtian jue. Practicing this kung fu will make practicing dingtian jue more comfortable, but it requires a large ling stone to practice.
Practicing this technique, a large number of spiritual stones are rendered useless every day due to being drained of their spiritual energy. It was precisely for this reason that Gu Chen gave this unnamed technique the name "Spirit-Devouring Technique".
Gu Chen still had over 500 spirit stones on him. Even if cultivating the Devouring Soul Technique for a day would consume more than ten spirit stones, it was enough to last Gu Chen for over a month.
However, the spiritual stones on my body have been consumed and are gone. If I don't go to auction off spiritual medicine, there won't be a source of spiritual stones. These 500 spiritual stones still need to be kept for buying Huang Jingzhi, Ling Xincao, and Zi Yuanhua to refine Yuanyuan Dan.
"If only I had tens of thousands of spirit stones to cultivate with... then the time it takes for me to reach the eighth layer of the Acquired Realm would definitely not be any longer than the time it took for me to go from the sixth layer to the seventh layer." Gu Chen thought to himself.
He took out over 500 spirit stones from the Qian Kun Ring and placed them on the table, gazing at them for a while. Gu Chen eventually put the spirit stones back into the ring, deciding to save them to buy 300-year-old spiritual grass to refine a Spiritual Origin Pill for his father.
Practicing the Soul Devouring Technique consumes over 10 spirit stones a day, and with more than 500 ancient spirit stones, Gu Chen won't be able to absorb them for even two months. It's better to wait until he really has a large amount of spirit stones in hand before thinking about practicing the Soul Devouring Technique again.
His cultivation had advanced to the seventh layer of the Acquired Realm, and Gu Chen's daily practice was still arduous, even more so than before. After a day of training, his entire body felt like it was being pierced by needles, with every muscle, bone, skin, and flesh aching intensely. However, under the powerful recovery of the Spiritual Liquid, he would sleep for a night and recover completely by the next day.
Another ten days passed, and the 40 bottles of middle-grade Yuan Yuan Ling liquid were all consumed by Xiao Bai at a rate of one bottle per day. Xiao Bai's weight had almost doubled compared to when he first arrived at Gu's house. The high-grade Yuan Yuan Ling liquid, which Gu Chen consumed at a rate of one bottle every five days, was now down to only two bottles left.
Today, Gu Chen arrived in Nancheng and purchased a large quantity of Ice Dream Grass, Imperial Blood Grass, Snow Lotus, and other spiritual herbs, all of which were over 100 years old. He bought enough to fill 100 bottles. With the spirit stones on his body, he could buy as much top-grade Gathering Yuan Spiritual Liquid ingredients as he wanted.
Wan Tong Ling Cao shop finally got a 300-year-old Ling Xin grass, Gu Chen ate the scabies Dan after, spent 160 spirit stones to secretly buy it back.
Back home, Gu Chen soon refined 100 bottles of top-grade Yuan Spirit Liquid. Each bottle of top-grade Yuan Spirit Liquid required five days to refine, so for 100 bottles, Gu Chen needed 500 days. Such a long time had already allowed Gu Chen to step into the Pre-Heaven realm, and he didn't need that many at all.
The reason for practicing so much is mainly to feed Xiao Bai, after continuously eating 40 bottles of medium-grade Yuanling liquid, Xiao Bai can refine high-grade Yuanling liquid.
Later on, Gu Chen will re-enter the Huantian Cave Mansion and still have to rely on Xiao Bai to deal with the Tian Tian worms inside the cave mansion. The more powerful Xiao Bai's cultivation is, the better.
"Have you heard? A monster has appeared in the Beitaishan mine and many miners have been bitten to death."
"Of course I've heard of it. Ah, I have a relative who was mining in the Beitaishan mine and was bitten to death just yesterday."
"Is it? That's really pitiful."
"The miners who escaped from the mine said that the monster was over 10 feet tall, more than 30 feet long, with a color similar to that of rocks, and its body was even harder than rock. Its head was as big as a winnowing basket, and its teeth were like stone pillars. One bite could crush even rocks, it's too scary."
"How powerful is that demon?"
"Yes, it scared the miners so much that they didn't dare to enter the mine again. Fortunately, the monster only stayed inside the mine and didn't come out. If it had come out, things would have been even worse."
"That's strange, aren't monsters supposed to eat humans? The miners all ran out of the cave, why didn't it chase them out?"
"People say that the monster might be afraid of sunlight, so it doesn't dare to leave the mine. The color of the monster is exactly the same as the ore, obviously it has been staying in the mine for a long time. I heard that the monster was originally sleeping, and a miner thought it was an ore and dug it up with a pickaxe, which led to yesterday's monster eating human incident."
"Oh no, it'll be terrible if it's at night. There's no sunlight at night, what are we going to do if the monsters come out?"
"I don't know why, but that monster didn't come out last night. Maybe it ate a lot of people yesterday and was full."
"What's going to happen now that Master is in seclusion?"
"This matter will be reported directly to the clan leader, and the clan leader should send someone to kill that monster."
"Ah, our family is one of the three major Orthodox families, and with a cultivator taking action, we can definitely kill that demon."
"We must kill the monster, otherwise it will harm more miners!"
……
As soon as Gu Zhen walked into the house, he heard two servants talking there. The two had their backs to Gu Zhen and didn't see him. Although their voices weren't loud, Gu Zhen's hearing was extraordinary, and he clearly heard the content of their conversation.
One zhang tall, more than three zhang long, skin like stone, body hard as iron, head like a bamboo basket, teeth like stone pillars...
These two servants did not recognize what this monster was, but Gu Chen could.
This is a lower-level demon beast called the Devouring Spirit Beast, its strength is slightly stronger than that of a human cultivator at the 9th layer of the Acquired Realm, and slightly weaker than that of a human cultivator at the 1st layer of the Innate Realm.
Gu Chen heard the disappearance of the Soul-Devouring Beast and immediately sensed something was off. The servant's words were not entirely true. Although the Soul-Devouring Beast bit people, it didn't eat them; it only ate one thing: stones with spiritual energy.
Eating stones makes his body harder than stone, and his skin is as rough as stone. His teeth can even crush stones with a single bite.
What moved Gu Chen's heart was that the Soul Devouring Beast only ate 'stones with spiritual energy', what did stones with spiritual energy mean?
The Devouring Beast is also a rare spirit beast, ordinary cultivators do not recognize it, let alone ordinary people. Wherever the Devouring Beast appears, there must be a Spirit Stone mine.
What does this mean?
Inside the Beitaishan mine, there is a vein of Ling Stone, which serves as the circulating currency for cultivators. The value of Ling Stone is extraordinary. If a Ling Stone mine were to appear, it would be impossible for an ancient family like Gu's to bear the consequences. Without the power to protect the Ling Stone mine, it will only bring disaster...
