Chapter 397: Midlife Crisis and Attribute Review (II)

[Status Panel]

Name: Luo Chen

Lifespan: 40/190

Spirit Roots: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth

Realm: Foundation Establishment Stage Three (60/100); Blood River Realm: 20/100

Achievement Points: 25

[Techniques]

Yi Wood Medicine King Codex: Grandmaster (840/1000)

Divine Breaker of Malevolence: Grandmaster (700/1000)

Myriad Beast Sutra: Beginner (10/100)

[Spells]

Tier Two

Tier One

Perfected Mastery Spells (click to view details)

[Alchemy]

Jade Fracture: Perfected Mastery

Unadorned Heart: Perfected Mastery

Flowing Creek: Grandmaster (650/1000)

Cloud Transformation: Perfection (471/500)

Clear Origin Mystical Pill: Grandmaster (510/1000)

[Martial Arts]

Mountain Cleaving Monument Breaking Palm: Perfected Mastery

Heavenly Maiden Scatters Flowers: Grandmaster (501/1000)

Wang Secret Manual: Proficient (249/300)

[Skills]

Second-Tier Alchemist

Luo Chen stared blankly at his status panel, momentarily dazed.

Were these truly his accomplishments now that he had entered the so-called "middle age" of cultivation? The third stage of Foundation Establishment and a Physique Refinement at the Blood River Realm... Even in a major sect, that would be considered an absolute prodigy!

Letting out a quiet sigh, Luo Chen browsed through his status panel to assess the gains from these past years.

In his main cultivation technique,

the Yi Wood Medicine King Codex

,

he had reached a proficiency of 840, only 160 points short of Perfected Mastery. To reach that level, he estimated he would need about a year. But there was no rush. As long as he continued his daily cultivation, he would inevitably reach that goal.

In the area of spells, he’d made considerable gains. Just as he reached Grandmaster level in Earth Summit and Wave Surge, the Landslide had finally reached Perfection level. At that level, it could now be used effectively in combat, and its destructive power wasn’t too far from a fully stacked Solar Flare. However, casting Lanslide required the fusion of three first-tier spells, making it rather complex. Without achieving instant-cast, using it would still require careful assessment of the battlefield.

As for Glazed Skyveil, a second-tier defensive spell, his progress had been much slower. After all, he’d started practicing only after reaching Foundation Establishment, unlike the earlier spells which he’d cultivated since the Qi Refinement Realm. Still, its effectiveness in close-range defense was outstanding, and he’d already made it one of his go-to combat techniques.

Then there was Turtle Spirit Armor, which Luo Chen had begun practicing a year ago. It was indeed incredibly tedious. Over that year, he had made constant adjustments to his breathing rhythm while traveling and meditating. Now, he had finally mastered the first phase of Turtle Breath.

Luo Chen mused with a faint smile,

If I used Turtle Breath like this, even the rogue cultivator I got it from would probably think I was dead.

He skimmed over the first-tier spells. The only notable achievement there was advancing the Soul-Intimidation to the Perfection level. The rest weren’t worth mentioning.

What caught Luo Chen’s attention the most was the alchemy section. It had been nearly five years since he left Dahe Market and arrived at Tianlan Immortal City. During that time, he had personally refined hundreds of thousands of Jade Essence pills, over a thousand Spirit Passage pills, and two hundred Jade Dew pills. With such enormous output, his alchemy skills had improved at an unimaginable rate.

Unimaginable... yet not entirely unmeasurable.

A glance at the alchemy section told the tale. As expected, he had reached Perfected Mastery of Jade Fracture, as well as Unadorned Heart, the technique specialized in processing herbal medicinal materials. He had reached Grandmaster level of Flowing Creek and Perfection level of Cloud Transformation. Such rapid advancement in alchemy skills would astonish anyone.

Among them, it was the Clear Origin Mystical Pill that Luo Chen cared about the most. In short five years, he had practiced it from scratch to Grandmaster level. At that moment, within his sea of qi, a resilient and massive vortex rotated steadily, continuously drawing in spirit energy and then expelling it in a purifying cycle. Each wave of purified energy cleansed the edges of his sea of qi, brushing away the remnants of pill toxins. The pill toxins were gradually expelled from his body. At the Grandmaster level, the Clear Origin Mystical Pill had become capable of completely dissolving and purging the lingering pill toxins. With that, Luo Chen no longer had to worry about pill toxins affecting his future breakthroughs. He could confidently consume pills to accelerate his cultivation.

Naturally, such an enormous leap in alchemy technique also meant his mastery over alchemy skills had improved significantly. The Spirit Passage pill was also at Perfected Mastery, which stood as his greatest achievement these years. He'd even reached Proficient in the second-tier Jade Dew pill, which he only occasionally refined. Now, his success rate for the Jade Dew pill was as high as thirty percent, and he could even produce mid-grade pills. Supplying Fairy Ruthless was no longer a problem. Of course, Luo Chen had chosen to keep this particular aspect of his progress to himself. She had given him a ten-year deadline, and only a year and a half had passed. There was no rush.

As for martial arts, Luo Chen wasn’t paying them much attention now. His progress with the Wang Secret Manual stemmed from his daily practice of the Five Organs Nourishment Fist and a few steps of the Dragon Rising Step. After all, the manual was vast in scope. It contained everything from punches, palm strikes, finger techniques, and leg techniques to lightness techniques, footwork, hidden weapons, sabers, spears, and staves. It was the life’s work of a grandmaster of martial arts!

Meanwhile, Luo Chen was only a dabbler at best. His gain in physical strength had little to do with this manual itself; rather, it came from the steady improvement in cultivation and the nourishing effects of spirit energy over time. It was easy to imagine that this passive progress would slow as his level increased, but he wasn’t overly concerned.

What did surprise him was that his achievement points had accumulated to twenty-five. He hadn’t been tracking it closely—whether it came from upgrading spells, advancing his alchemy techniques, or some other minor breakthroughs, the points had stacked up without him noticing. Most of those points probably came from his work in alchemy.

With twenty-five achievement points, I could easily acquire a new second-tier spell or alchemy skill. But that's not what I need right now.

He already knew more than enough spells! Among cultivators of the same realm, no one else would devote so much time to studying spells like he did. In the eyes of most cultivators, this was considered a wasteful practice. Yet he had relied on his mastery of spells to defeat enemies in higher realms on more than one occasion. Naturally, he would not abandon that path so easily.

As for pills, there was nothing more to add. Jade Essence pills brought in income, whereas Jade Dew pills helped maintain relationships, and Spirit Passage pills were for cultivating the divine soul. Unless someone handed Luo Chen an alchemical formula that could rival the qi-consolidation pill or Ascending Dragon pill, there was nothing he would consider diving into completely and refining to the highest quality.

There was no helping it. Luo Chen had dedicated himself to alchemy for a very long time. It was precisely because of that that he was able to advance from Foundation Establishment Stage Three (10/100) to (60/100) in just one year after the auction. This progress was largelt not the result of his second-tier top-grade cave residence, the Ice Silkworm Meditation Mat, and neither was it due to the advancement of his divine soul, which allowed him to practice his core technique multiple times each day. Rather, the greatest contributor had been the thirty bottles of mid-grade qi-consolidation pills. Those pills had been an enormous boost to his cultivation. Sadly, now, they were all used up. That was why, for the first time in a while, he finally had the time to sit down and thoroughly review his status panel.

Luo Chen muttered, feeling somewhat frustrated, "Without the second-tier mid-grade pills, I’ll have to go back to cultivating with low-grade Ascending Dragon pills."

After experiencing the benefits of top-grade pills, who would want to return to the slow pace of cultivation with lesser ones? However, some things could not be changed simply by human will. Who would sell top-grade cultivation pills? Major sects had them, but they would only use the pills for themselves or trade them for similar goods with other major sects. Even mid-grade qi-consolidation pills only appeared because the Medicine King Sect was wealthy enough that they could afford releasing a few batches at auctions to maintain their reputation as an alchemy sect.

"It’s a pity that the Jade Dew pill is only suitable for female cultivators. If I could refine it to top-grade or even supreme-grade and use it on myself, my cultivation speed would skyrocket!"

Jade Dew pills had unique effects but only for female cultivators. For male cultivators, the residual chilling yin qi lingering in the dantian was an awful side-effect; it would hinder their cultivation substantially. The higher the pill’s grade, the stronger that chilling yin qi. Female cultivators naturally loved them, but Luo Chen definitely did not.

To his dismay, this flaw was not like the innate defect of the Jade Essence pill, which solidified the dantian. It was actually beneficial to female cultivators. In fact, the pill had likely been conceived with this intention in mind. And with that being the case, the system did not consider it a flaw, and therefore could not remove it.

Luo Chen murmured to himself, "No, I have to find a way to get more mid-grade and top-grade qi-consolidation pills beyond just the auctions. Ascending Dragon pills would work too. Li Jinhuang should be back soon. He's got a much better network. He might know a few ways to acquire top-grade pills."

Luo Chen didn’t want his cultivation speed to drop because of pills. That was unacceptable.

A few days later, a Sound-Transmitting Paper Crane fluttered through the Heavenborn Water Defensive Formation and drifted to the front of Luo Chen’s cave residence.

After that, a figure departed straight from Tianlan Peak.