Chapter 239: Diverting Disaster, Foundation Establishment Soul (I)

The Soul-Intimidation was a spell with no fixed grade. Its power depended entirely on the strength of the caster’s divine soul. If a cultivator had reached the Foundation Establishment Realm, they could extend their spirit consciousness outward, seizing an enemy’s soul with a single sweep.

However, if the cultivator had not yet reached that realm, they could only cast the spell through their eyes, limiting its effectiveness. At this level, the technique could not forcibly extract souls but instead served as a method of intimidation and suppression.

Of course, if the difference in soul strength between the caster and the target was too vast, the stronger party could still forcibly extract the soul.

This was precisely why Gu Yue, the infamous Soul-Refining Hermit, would often severely injure or kill his enemies before seizing their souls. He would wait until the soul had not yet fully dissipated and then forcefully absorb it into his own being.

At this moment, Luo Chen had only just reached the beginner level of the technique.

As his eyes glowed with a ghostly green light, the pheasant that had been flapping wildly before him suddenly froze in place.

Simultaneously, Luo Chen felt a strange weight pressing down on his head. It felt as if something was pulling at his soul, trying to drag it out. It was like a game of tug-of-war between him and the pheasant.

However, the pheasant was merely a common beast, lacking intelligence and possessing an extremely weak soul.

With just a single thought, Luo Chen seized complete control of the struggle.

Come out!

The moment he commanded it, he sensed a faint, ethereal presence being pulled from the pheasant’s body.

As soon as it emerged, the surrounding temperature dropped slightly. Yet, since it was the peak of winter and already freezing, Zhou Yuanli and Liu Qiang didn’t notice the subtle change. At most, they might have thought a cold breeze had passed by. They couldn’t see the nearly imperceptible soul of the beast, but that didn’t mean Luo Chen couldn’t.

His Perfected Mastery Spirit Eyes allowed him to perceive such formless entities with ease.

"So weak?" Luo Chen muttered. "It doesn’t even have a proper form."

In his vision, a tiny, translucent sphere of light floated before him. It was so faint, it didn’t radiate the slightest sense of danger. Yet, the way it trembled helplessly made it clear that it was the soul of the pheasant.

A slight pulling force emanated from the pheasant’s lifeless body on the ground.

Luo Chen narrowed his eyes in thought. He knew that if he released the Soul-Intimidation, the soul would return to the pheasant’s body within a short period. In that case, the pheasant might become sluggish and dull-witted, but it would still survive.

What a pity. With the mountains sealed in snow, food is scarce. I’m afraid you’ll have to be sacrificed.

Luo Chen smirked slightly.

With a single thought, his gaze shifted toward the small flower pot he had brought out earlier. As his eyes moved, the tiny light of the pheasant’s soul drifted downward into the flower pot.

Inside the pot, the young soul-nurturing tree, which had only sprouted three tender leaves, seemed to sense something. Instinctively, it stretched out its tiny shoots. The sphere of light immediately merged into one of the tender leaves.

The soul-nurturing tree was a spirit plant of the yin attribute. It typically grew in cold, shadowy places, naturally absorbing and devouring nearby wandering spirits. This tree had numerous uses, from crafting soul-based artifacts to nurturing divine souls and even housing lost spirits.

However, to exhibit such effects, the tree had to be at least a thousand years old.

Back when Feng Xia had given him the soul-nurturing tree’s seed, Luo Chen hadn’t thought much of it.

After all, how many people in a lifetime could wait a thousand years? For most, not even one.

That was why he had casually given the seed to Qu Lingjun to play with. Unexpectedly, the boy had actually managed to grow it. He had no idea how he had done it.

Now, Luo Chen was making good use of what would have otherwise been wasted.

The souls extracted by the Soul-Intimidation couldn’t be absorbed or refined since he hadn’t practiced the Soul-Refining. Rather than letting them go to waste, he might as well feed them to the soul-nurturing tree to aid its growth.

As the pheasant’s soul merged into the tree, one of its tender shoots flickered with a brief, radiant glow.

Luo Chen only let out a breath of relief once he was sure the soul had been fully absorbed.

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. The sensation of his soul being tugged at had disappeared. Glancing at his status panel, he saw that the technique was still at the Beginner level, with no improvement in proficiency.

"It seems that a mere pheasant’s soul provides an extremely limited boost to proficiency." he frowned slightly, but he wasn’t disheartened. "Still, small gains accumulate. I should first get accustomed to the process step by step."

Luo Chen didn’t feel discouraged and he simply nodded at Liu Qiang.

Liu Qiang paused for a moment before realizing what was expected.

Without hesitation, he reached into the sack and pulled out another pheasant.

"Again!" Luo Chen showed no hesitation in front of them. His eyes gleamed green once more.

***

Two hours later, Luo Chen concluded his Soul-Intimidation training and led the two men back at a steady, unhurried pace. Instead of flying, he chose to walk, as if taking a leisurely stroll.

Zhou Yuanli and Liu Qiang followed closely behind, their gazes now tinged with a quiet reverence.

Luo Chen didn’t mind their reactions. Practicing Soul-Intimidation was fraught with danger, both internally and externally—which was precisely why he needed trusted guards by his side.

For now, he had no reason to doubt Zhou and Liu's loyalty. Beyond their character, the benefits he provided were far superior to anything other factions could offer. Thus, he wasn’t worried that they would spread word of his actions.

Lowering his gaze, Luo Chen looked at the small flower pot in his hands. After absorbing the souls of several pheasants and a hyena, the soul-nurturing tree now radiated an even richer emerald glow. Even its tender shoots had thickened ever so slightly.

Without his Perfected Mastery Spirit Eyes, Luo Chen would have hardly noticed the growth. He nodded slightly. It seemed that the soul-nurturing tree could indeed absorb and consume souls.

Though he doubted he would find many uses for it in his lifetime, keeping it around wouldn’t hurt.

At worst, it was still a plant. Gardening cultivates the mind!

Right now, he was more concerned about his own changes. His proficiency in the Soul-Intimidation had barely increased. Even after six or seven uses, extracting seven souls, it had only gone up by a single point. He had no idea how long it would take to advance from Beginner level to Skilled level.

However, the most surprising change wasn’t his proficiency in the Soul-Intimidation. It was his divine soul!

Last night, after consuming the Spirit Passage pill, his soul had surged dramatically! But the rapid growth had left his mind feeling bloated and disoriented.

Even during cultivation and alchemy, he had struggled to focus. It was akin to stuffing oneself with too much food in a single sitting—so full that the body couldn’t adapt. His body had been unable to adjust, making it difficult to concentrate, let alone train or learn anything.

But after practicing the Soul-Intimidation, Luo Chen had keenly noticed a change in his soul. The previous sense of instability had lessened, making it feel far more solid.

The Spirit Passage pill enhances the foundation of the soul. The Soul-Intimidation tempers and refines it, smoothing out its rapid expansion.

This way, I can quickly eliminate the side effects of the Spirit Passage pill while also making my soul even more resilient.

After reaching this conclusion, Luo Chen could barely contain his excitement.

This meant that the interval he had initially estimated—one Spirit Passage pill every half a month—could now be reduced to once every ten days.

At first glance, increasing the pill consumption frequency might seem like a trivial advantage, even an unnecessary drain on his stockpile.

But in reality, it was immensely beneficial.

Take the qi-nourishingpill and Dust Transformation pill as examples.

In the beginning, Luo Chen could only digest one per day.

Back then, he had little money, and even at that pace, it felt like an extravagance. However, as his fortunes grew, this absorption rate became a bottleneck to his cultivation progress.

It wasn’t until his Long Spring Art reached the Grandmaster level, expanding his meridians, that he could handle two pills per day.

Even now, Luo Chen found this speed too slow. If he could increase it to three or even four pills a day, that would be ideal.

In essence, Luo Chen’s cultivation method revolved around "trading resources for time"!

Each cultivation session cost him two Dust Transformation pills worth forty spirit stones, a calming incense stick worth twelve, a bottle of essence-nurturing liquid worth ten, and five spirit stones to maintain the spirit-gathering array’s wood-elemental energy, totaling sixty-seven spirit stones.

That didn’t even account for the high-grade Jade Essence pills he occasionally consumed, which cost another ten spirit stones. If he factored in Moonlight Herb, the spirit veins cave, and other auxiliary cultivation resources...

Luo Chen’s daily cultivation expenses easily reached eighty spirit stones. That amounted to over two thousand spirit stones per month—nearly twenty to thirty thousand per year!

This didn’t even include the spirit purification pills he used to enhance his divine soul, physique, and eyesight, or the meridian repair liquid he needed to heal overstrained meridians.

He hadn’t even factored in those pill costs yet. If he did, his total resource consumption as a mere Qi-Refining cultivator would exceed tens of thousands of spirit stones annually!

What did that mean?

This amount of spirit stones was enough for an average cultivator to progress from nothing to the Perfected Mastery Qi-Refining!

On the surface, it seemed like Luo Chen was just a fool wasting money. But in reality, for a normal cultivator, reaching the Perfected Mastery Qi-Refining with this amount of resources would take decades.

Luo Chen, however, had done it in less than two years!

At its core, Luo Chen’s cultivation strategy was built on a simple but powerful principle— "Trading resources for time."

Only Luo Chen could achieve this. Others, even disciples of major sects, could barely dream of it.

Why? Because Luo Chen was a distinguished alchemist.

His skills and wealth allowed him to overcome his inferior aptitude, cultivating at a speed that rivaled even Heavenly Spirit Root cultivators.

And yet, Luo Chen still found his resource efficiency lacking. If he could further increase the frequency of pill refinement per day, that would be even better.