What was rather disappointing to Han Li was that he wasn't able to find any cases in the books that perfectly matched Weeping Soul's current condition.

Her soul was unharmed, and even if it had been, all of the damage would've already been remedied by the Purple Sun Warm Jade, and her nascent soul wasn't sealed away, either.

In the end, Han Li could only heave a forlorn sigh and prepare to devise other plans to have Weeping Soul's condition treated.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

He wasn't very optimistic about Shi Pokong's ability to secure the grand priest's help, now that the grand priest was in Shi Zhanfeng's camp. After all, they were each other's biggest rivals in the fight for the throne, and there was no way that Shi Zhanfeng would be willing to help Shi Pokong.

As Han Li continued to read through the books, he saw a great deal of material pertaining to spirit domains, and his eyes were completely opened. Only after all of this reading did he discover that his previous understanding of spirit domains had been far too shallow.

He had come into contact with many spirit domains in the past, including even Creation Tier spirit domains like the ones unleashed by Xiao Jinhan and Feng Tiandu.

After that, he was able to manifest his own spirit domain under Mo Yu's assistance, but the latter had withheld a lot of information from him, so he was only now able to systematically learn about spirit domains.

Even though there were two tiers of spirit domains, namely the Creation Tier and the Spiritform Tier, there was no set sequence for which one had to be attained before the other, and one didn't necessarily have to reach the Creation Tier in order to manifest a domain spirit.

However, the majority of cultivators in the Immortal Realm would choose to cultivate their spirit domains to the Creation Tier before making a push to the Spiritform Tier.

This was not difficult to understand. Essentially, it was like building a house. Only after the house had been built and furnishings had been arranged would one generally move in.

It wasn't unfeasible to pursue the Spiritform Tier right away, but that would essentially be like forcing your domain spirit to reside in a barren wilderness, and that would have detrimental effects on the domain spirit's future growth.

In any case, both the Creation Tier and the Spiritform Tier took an extremely long time to reach, and doing so required a huge investment of resources and dedication.

Even manifesting an ordinary spirit domain had proven to be quite a difficult endeavor for Han Li.

Manifesting a Creation Tier spirit domain was an endeavor that was going to take tens of thousands of years at the very least, and it required fusing items of different attributes that complied with one's Great Dao into the spirit domain to manifest objects like buildings, mountains, rivers, etc.

On top of that, this wasn't a process that was guaranteed to succeed as long as one was willing to invest the time. Just like in pill and tool refinement, there was a chance of failure, and in the case of failure, whatever was being fused into the spirit domain would be destroyed in vain.

Even if this endeavor proved to be successful, it would still take extensive periods of time for the objects that were fused into the spirit domain to reach a significant scale. For example, it had taken Daoist Master Bone Shine millions of years to construct those eight bone pagodas in his spirit domain.

As for giving rise to sentient domain spirits in a spirit domain, that was even more difficult.

Very few cultivators were willing to spend so much time on this endeavor as it massively delayed their cultivation progress.

Hence, out of all of the high-grade cultivators that Han Li had encountered, even those at the Great Encompassment and High Zenith Stages, most of them only had ordinary spirit domains, while Creation and Spiritform Tier spirit domains were exceedingly rare.

Through his readings, Han Li had developed a newfound appreciation for spirit domains of these two tiers, but he didn't have that much time on his hands at the moment, so he wasn't planning to pursue the two tiers in the near future.

Han Li sat down with his legs crossed, then closed his eyes and began to cultivate.

The past century or so had been spent entirely on the run, so he hadn't actually even had a chance to carefully study the Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra that he had recompiled from the five time-attribute cultivation arts.

Having already cultivated the Mantra Axis Scripture, the Water Divination Time Arts, and the Illusory Dawn Treasured Scripture, he had developed a good level of mastery over the laws of time, so he wasn't expecting to have much trouble cultivating the Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra.

……

Over three years flew by in a flash.

Han Li had already come out of seclusion, but Shi Chuankong was still in seclusion.

Over these past three years of cultivation, he hadn't made much progress in the Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra, but he had discovered many misconceptions that he had previously held toward in his cultivation.

For example, he had assessed that he was currently at a level equivalent to mastery over the third level of the Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra, so he had thought that he would be able to make very smooth progress in the cultivation art, but that proved not to be the case.

The Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra wasn't just a simple combination of the five cultivation arts. Instead, it had become much more profound and complex, requiring one to perfectly integrate the five elements with one another.

Hence, in terms of overall progress, Han Li was actually still only on the first level. He had come out of seclusion not because anything had gone wrong during his seclusion. Instead, he had come out to check on Weeping Soul.

After paying her a visit, he discovered that her condition was still the same as before, and there wasn't any news from Shi Pokong, either.

Ever since Shi Chuankong had gone into seclusion, Shi Pokong hadn't visited Han Li even once, but Han Li could sense that the surveillance on him had never ceased.

Waiting around like this wasn't going to yield any positive outcomes, so Han Li decided to go out into Night Sun City to see if he could find any other way to save Weeping Soul.

On this day, Han Li emerged from the Long Pavilion Garden, and he was planning to travel out into the imperial city.

Along the way, he encountered many devilish cultivators in the manor, and all of them extended respectful bows to him as they had been informed of his relationship with Shi Chuankong.

Right as he was about to leave the garden, he suddenly heard someone call out from behind him.

"Please wait a moment, Senior Li!"

He turned to discover a petite black-robed woman jogging toward him.

The woman was very youthful in appearance and had a set of spritely facial features, and her aura indicated that she was an early-Body Integration cultivator.

"Do you have some instructions for me?" Han Li asked.

"Of course not, Senior Li, you think far too highly of me. I was instructed by His Highness, the third prince, to serve as your guide whenever you go out so you can find your way around the city," the woman hurriedly replied with a respectful curtsey.

Han Li's eyes narrowed slightly upon hearing this.

It seemed like Shi Pokong was still quite apprehensive of him.

The person that had been conducting surveillance on him had suddenly left a few days ago, and Han Li had been wondering why that was the case. It seemed that whoever had been conducting surveillance on him had been replaced by this young woman.

Instead of continuing to conduct surveillance on him in secret, Shi Pokong had openly sent this woman to accompany him during his outings.

"Alright, I'll be in your care then," Han Li said with a smile.

The young woman was ecstatic to hear this, and she said, "Please wait a moment, Senior Li, I'll summon a carriage for us."

She removed what appeared to be a spirit beast pouch from her waist as she spoke, and a streak of azure light flew out from within before transforming into a pair of horse-like horned beasts with azure scales all over their bodies.

Connected to the pair of horse-like beasts was a luxurious black carriage that had no cabin, but there was a soft chair that could fit three people side by side.

Han Li and the young woman got onto the carriage, following which the latter asked, "Where do you intend to go, Senior Li?"

"I want to visit the areas in the city where there's an abundance of shops," Han Li replied.

"Alright, in that case, I'll take you to the Imperial River Market. That's one of the eight largest markets in the Maha Area, and it's also the one that's closest to us," the young woman replied.

"What's your name?" Han Li asked with a smile.

The young woman was clearly taken aback by this question, and she faltered slightly before replying, "My name is Hu Jingjing. You can call me Jingjing or Jing'er."

"Alright, let's go," Han Li said with a nod.

Hu Jingjing nodded in response, and with a flick of the reins, the two horse-like beasts set off.

……

The Naraka Area was enormous, and aside from the imperial city, it also contained a huge imperial garden.

The Imperial River Market was situated on the border of the Naraka Area and the Maha Area, and the two were separated by a branch of the holy river called the Imperial Garden River.

To the left of the river was the Maha Area, while the Naraka Area was on its right, and the two areas were connected by an enormous white bridge.

The Imperial River Market's name was derived from the Imperial Garden River, and it stretched for dozens of kilometers along the bank of the river across from the Naraka Area.

"Once we enter the Imperial River Market, we can no longer travel by carriage, so we'll have to continue on foot. This is a rule laid down by His Highness, Shi Zhanfeng, and it's applicable to all of the markets in the city," Hu Jingjing informed in an apologetic manner.

"That's fine," Han Li replied with a nod.

"What would you like to buy, Senior Li? The Imperial River Market is a massive place, and if you wander through it aimlessly, you could go days without finding what you're looking for," Hu Jingjing said.

"I'm not looking for anything in particular. I intend to have a wander through the market, so why don't you tell me about the market's rough layout?" Han Li replied with a smile.

Hu Jingjing duly obliged, giving Han Li a brief rundown of the layout of the Imperial River Market before also telling him about some of the other large markets in the city.