Chapter 627: Finding Alternative Solutions

Han Li peered into the black light to find three longan-sized black pills sitting on the palm of his hand.

The three pills were as black as ink, and there was a rather spicy aroma wafting out of them.

Han Li inspected the pills for a moment long, then swept a hand through the air to stow the silver pill cauldron away before sitting down onto his cushion with his legs crossed.

The fiery figure flew over to him with a curious look in its eyes, drawing to a halt beside Han Li's hand as it stared at the three strange pills with a pair of wide eyes.

Han Li originally had very high hopes for these three Baleful Quelling Pills, but now that they had been successfully refined, he was starting to feel a little uneasy.

The pill recipe only stated that they had a chance to eradicate all of the baleful qi in the consumer's body, but as for how big that probability was, there was no definitive conclusion.

"I suppose there's only one way to find out," Han Li murmured to himself with a wry smile.

He then turned to the fiery figure with a smile as he said, "You can keep an eye on me to make sure nothing goes wrong."

The fiery figure immediately nodded in response, then flew to thirty feet away as it crossed its arms in front of its chest, wearing an expression that said: "you can count on me."

Han Li looked at it for a moment longer with an amused smile on his face, then closed his eyes to meditate.

Around an hour later, he tossed one of the Baleful Quelling Pills into his mouth, and an intensely spicy flavor instantly spread through his esophagus as the pill rolled down into his stomach.

Han Li felt as if he had swallowed a mouthful of fire, and his face turned bright red as a pained look flashed through his eyes.

Before the burst of scorching heat faded, a burst of glacial power began to spread throughout his entire body from his lower abdomen, making him feel as if he had been plunged into a glacial pit.

This baptism by fire and ice caught Han Li completely off guard, and all of his acupoints opened up without any conscious effort.

Immediately thereafter, black mist began to surge out of his acupoints, instantly forming a black vortex that enveloped his entire body.

The fiery figure immediately began to fly toward him upon seeing this, intending to eradicate the black mist with its flames, but Han Li extended a hand out of the black mist to stop it as he said, "It's fine, I'm alright."

His voice was slightly high-pitched, indicating that he was enduring immense pain, but there was also a hint of elation in his voice.

The black mist continued to surge out of his body, quickly permeating throughout the entire secret chamber, and some of it was even seeping out of the secret chamber through the hole in the ceiling.

Han Li immediately tossed out a pair of storage pouches, which began to suck in the black mist in the secret chamber, quickly restoring the room to its former state, but the black mist immediately surrounding Han Li remained as viscous as ink, resembling a huge black cocoon around him.

Time slowly passed by, and more and more baleful qi seeped out of the black cocoon before being sucked into the storage pouches.

After those two pouches were filled, Han Li released two more, and after he ran out of storage pouches, he turned to storage rings.

......

Over three years flew by in a flash.

Inside the secret chamber, a burst of black light flashed momentarily over the surface of the black cocoon, and no more baleful qi was released.

At the same time, the torturous combination of scorching and glacial agony faded from Han Li's body, and the baleful qi around him also dissipated.

At this moment, he was looking a little pale, and after taking a moment to collect himself, he slowly raised his head to reveal a disappointed look on his face.

Never had he anticipated that the Baleful Quelling Pill would be so limited in its efficacy.

While it was true that quite a bit of the baleful qi in his body had been expelled over the past three years, the job was nowhere near finished, and the baleful qi that remained in his immortal acupoints still posed a constant threat to his cultivation.

For the average person, the Baleful Quelling Pill would've been very effective. In fact, there was a decent chance that it would allow an average Golden Immortal to overcome their baleful decay altogether, but that was nowhere near the case for Han Li.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Han Li raised his hand and swallowed both of the remaining Baleful Quelling Pills at once. A burst of agony that was even more intense than before instantly spread through his body, and before long, he was once again inundated within a cloud of dense black mist.

Ten more years passed by in the blink of an eye.

Han Li had remained seated in his secret chamber this entire time, and right at this moment, his eyes sprang open.

The three Baleful Quelling Pill that he had gone to such great lengths to refine had only cleared out part of the baleful qi in his body, thereby delaying the onset of his baleful decay, but they hadn't accomplished anything else in addition to that.

Han Li was already mentally prepared for such an outcome, so he wasn't overly disappointed. In any case, this was still a positive outcome, and the delay in the onset of his baleful decay would buy him more time to find another solution.

Looking back over his cultivation journey, he had encountered countless hardships of different magnitudes, and he was confident that this was going to be just another hurdle that he would eventually overcome.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he flipped a hand over to produce his Dragon 5 mask, then released a mission in the Transient Guild, searching for ways to expel baleful qi and overcome the baleful decay.

After that, Han Li pulled out a communication array plate before injecting some immortal spiritual power into it.

......

There was a wooden pavilion in the Hundred Creations Mountain branch in Jade Gathering City.

Outside the pavilion was a huge garden of flowers of all types of vibrant colors, surrounding the pavilion like a floral sea.

Daoist Master Jingyang was seated on a reclining chair in the pavilion, and he made a beckoning motion to stow away the white array plate that was hovering in front of him.

"I didn't think that he would fail... Having said that, this is an opportunity," he murmured to himself as a faint smile appeared on his face, following which he snapped his fingers, and a green-robed young woman instantly appeared behind him.

The woman appeared to only be around sixteen to seventeen years of age with a set of beautiful facial features. She appeared to be mature beyond her years, and she extended a curtsey toward Daoist Master Jingyang as she asked, "What can I do for you, esteemed deputy mountain master?"

"Go tell the others to search for ways to expel baleful qi," Daoist Master Jingyang instructed.

A hesitant look appeared on the green-robed young woman's face upon hearing this.

"Is there a problem?" Daoist Master Jingyang asked as his brows furrowed slightly.

"You've already used up all of your Immortal Origin Stones, and the next resource allocation will only happen in a hundred years. All methods of baleful qi expulsion are quite expensive, so will you be using money from the inner mountain? If it's discovered that you're using those funds..."

"Don't worry about that," Daoist Master Jingyang interjected. "Just do as I say."

The green-robed young woman didn't say anything further upon hearing this, and she flew away as a petite green shadow, resembling a spritely green bird.

......

Inside Han Li's secret chamber.

Han Li made a beckoning motion to stow away his communication array plate.

Due to the incident concerning Silver Fox following the conclusion of the Jade Kun Pavilion auction, Jade Gathering City was still on high alert, so he was reluctant to go there. Hence, he could only turn to Daoist Master Jingyang for help.

He had already made use of all of the avenues available to him, and all he could do now was wait.

He cast his gaze directly forward as he planned out what he was going to do next.

At the moment, he had encountered a bottleneck in his cultivation. Without overcoming his baleful decay, he had no hope of reaching the High Zenith Stage. In terms of time-attribute cultivation arts, aside from the Mantra Treasured Axis, he wasn't that far away from complete mastery of the other two cultivation arts, but they weren't all that helpful to him, and the two cultivation arts were also incomplete.

As he considered his options, he recalled how Silver Fox had used the Spirit Refinement Technique to divert the attacks of Gongshu Tian and Su Liu, and a hint of excitement immediately welled up in his heart.

Even though he had a rough idea for what this advanced use of the Spirit Refinement Technique entailed, unfortunately, he still hadn't had a chance to put it into practice.

He hadn't been swept up in the Silver Fox incident, but it had served as a warning to him nonetheless. At this moment, he was situated in the Black Mountain Immortal Region, not the Northern Glacial Immortal Region or the primordial land, and there was a far greater Heavenly Court presence here.

Three immortal envoys had appeared at just a single auction, and it was impossible to tell exactly how much of the Heavenly Court's forces were lurking in the Black Mountain Immortal Region.

Even though Silver Fox had already escaped, those two immortal envoys could still be lingering near Jade Gathering City, and on top of that, Su Liu was also not someone to be messed with.

With that in mind, this was clearly not a good time to be cultivating the Spirit Refinement Technique.

He had already verified that cultivating the Spirit Refinement Technique wouldn't trigger the white plate treasure, there was no guarantee that the immortal envoys didn't have other detection methods up their sleeve, so it was best to proceed with caution.

After some further contemplation, Han Li swept a sleeve through the air to summon a damaged dagger, a small white flagon, and an azure wooden ruler, all of which were giving off faint time law power fluctuations.

The damaged dagger was something that he had found in Gongshu Jiu's storage tool, while the white flagon was the Time Severing Flagon, and the wooden ruler was the immortal treasure that he had just obtained from the Fish Branch.

Han Li made a hand seal to summon his Mantra Treasured Axis, and the Eye of Truth appeared at the center of the axis at his behest, then released a beam of golden light that fell upon the damaged dagger.

A burst of law power fluctuations instantly swept over the dagger, and it began to glow with radiant golden light before quickly being restored to its former condition.

A brand new dagger was presented to Han Li, and it was riddled with runes while also giving off a cold gleam that gave it an extremely sharp appearance.

Han Li closed his eyes as he carefully examined the time law powers within the dagger, and moments later, he opened his eyes as he gave a slight nod.

The dagger didn't contain much time law powers, but it was different from the three types of time law powers that he was currently cultivating, and there was a slightly chaotic aura about it.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Han Li withdrew the beam of golden light, and the dagger returned to its original state before falling to the ground.