Chapter 1406: Arduous Cultivation
White light flashed and the jade vial appeared beneath the holy, upon which the silver liquid instantly dripped into the opening of the vial as a silver line.
A peculiar scene then ensued.
As the silver liquid flowed into the vial, the frog's body began to shrink and dry out.
There wasn't much silver liquid that flowed out from the carcass, and it ran dry in mere moments, but the body shrank almost by half.
Han Li then opened his mouth to blast forth a silver fireball that struck the carcass, following which the body was instantly reduced to a pile of ashes.
However, after the silver flames dissipated, many more rice-sized droplets of silver liquid appeared in the air.
Han Li had used the Spirit Engulfing Heavenly Flames' powers of Yin and Yang to force out all of the residual blood lurking within the frog's body.
He rustled his sleeve and a burst of azure light swept forth, bringing all of the silver droplets together to form a fist-sized silver ball before stowing it away into the jade vial.
Han Li was unable to synthesize nor nurture the production of more spirit blood from these True Toad Beasts, so he naturally didn't want to waste even a single drop.
Thus, Han Li repeated the process with all of the other carcasses before him, filling several jade vials with this legendary true toad blood.
Only then did he heave a sigh of relief, seemingly quite pleased with his work.
Even though he had extracted the true toad blood, he wasn't in a hurry to refine the true toad liquid. Instead, he had to raise his cultivation base to the pinnacle of the mid-Deity Transformation Stage and break through this bottleneck first.
Come to think of it, his decision to walk the path of simultaneous cultivation really did seem to b the correct one.
Due to his powerful body and the number of pills that he possessed, he should be able to easily reach that cultivation base in a mere century or even several decades, whereas it would take other cultivators several centuries to do the same. The only problem was that breaking through the bottleneck would most likely require some more time.
Thus, after releasing a few giant ape puppets, Han Li also released his second Nascent Soul and made it responsible for nurturing and taking care of everything within the cave abode. After that, he closed the doors to his secret chamber and focused wholeheartedly on his cultivation.
With an ample supply of pills and Dragon Scale Fruits, as well as the enhancement effect from the Bone Tempering Arts, Han Li's magic power became more abundant by the day, and his body was also growing steadily more powerful.
During this time, aside from cultivating the Provenance True Devil Arts, he also refined his two hands by fusing them with the Divine Essencefused Mountain and the Unbroken Cinque Devils. After that, he began to fuse his 72 Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword one by one into various important sections of his bone structure according to the instructions provided by the Hundred Meridian Refinement Mantra.
If he could succeed in this process, his defensive prowess would be enhanced to an incredible level, particularly when using the Provenance True Devil Arts as well.
Even if he were to face a direct attack from a Spatial Tempering cultivator, he'd be able to take it with his body alone and remain completely unscathed.
Of course, the refinement of his two hands was a little different, and refining the important sections of his bone structure was naturally even more complex, so this was naturally going to be a very time-consuming process.
Thus, the doors to Han Li's secret chamber remained tightly shut for an extended period of time. At intervals of several years, the second Nascent Soul would transform into a projection and enter through the wall to supply Han Li with some spirit medicines and spirit fruits.
Months and years flew by one after another, and 60 years passed in the blink of an eye.
One day, two balls of demonic Qi, one black and one yellow appeared on a small mountain less than 10 kilometers away from Han Li's cave abode. The two demonic creatures within the balls of demonic Qi seemed to be discussing something with one another.
Within the black Qi, there was a pair of blinking silver eyes, while only a single shimmering crimson eye could be seen within the yellow Qi.
The two demonic beings seemed to have seen through the illusionary formation that Han Li had set up outside the gates of his cave abode, and they were carefully appraising the situation from afar.
The two demons seemed to be quite wary of Han Li's cave abode and didn't immediately spring into action. Instead, they flew away after a brief conversation.
Three days later, several balls of demonic Qi arrived in the air outside Han Li's cave abode once again. These demons no longer concealed themselves, sweeping up gusts of demonic winds with reckless abandon instead. Thousands of ferocious beasts and strange insects had also appeared on the ground below, and it appeared that they were planning to launch a direct attack against Han Li's cave abode.
The demons hovering in the sky were also all of different forms. One of them was a giant three-headed python with two small heads and one large head, giving off quite a sinister appearance. The second one was a massive wild boar that was 60 to 70 feet in size with a pair of huge shimmering silver tusks that looked as if they'd been constructed from pure silver. As for the final two demon beasts, they were rather similar to the two demonic leaders that Han Li had seen during the battle between the two beast packs many years ago. One of them was a shimmering golden ape that was several tens of feet tall with a giant black trident in its hand; the other was a smaller beast with the head of a cow and the body of a lion, but its body was also several feet long, and it was entirely green as if it had been carved out of green jade.
If Han Li were here, he'd immediately be able to identify that these demons were all sixth and seventh grade demon beasts that he'd once detected in the nearby mountain ranges.
Among these demon beasts, the most powerful was the one with the cow's head and the lion's body. It was already at the pinnacle of the seventh grade, and was one step away from becoming a metamorphosis stage demon beast.
These demon beasts had banded together to attack his cave abode for some reason.
Han Li was currently in seclusion and paid no heed to what was happening in the outside world, but the restrictions set up by a Deity Transformation cultivator like him certainly couldn't be bypassed by demon beasts of this caliber.
The beast packs and insect swarms advanced onward following instructions from the demon beasts in the sky above, charing toward the outermost layer of the illusionary formation, thereby instantly triggering the defensive spell formations that Han Li had prepared.
Azure light abruptly flashed, following which howling winds swept through the air, whipping up violent sandstorms. Hundreds of massive rocks whistled forth along with the wind, instantly crushing hordes of ferocious beasts into piles of mincemeat amid a series of earthshattering booms.
The beast packs were instantly plunged into complete chaos and disarray, and some of them were even trying to flee the scene.
However, the cow-headed demon up above suddenly opened its mouth to let loose a long menacing cry upon seeing this. All of the beasts down below were immediately too scared to retreat any further. The other three demons also put on displays of intimidation, so the beasts had no choice but to turn around and charge toward the oncoming azure light again.
Following another burst of fierce winds, no more giant rocks were hurled at them. Instead, countless azure blades of wind whistled through the air in dense swaths, affording them no avenue for escape or evasion.
Thousands of demon beasts were sliced and diced by those blades of wind amid countless howls of anguish and horror. When the gusts of wind subsided once again, only several hundred beasts were remaining. Even though they were yet to attain intelligence, all of them were completely petrified, and they simply couldn't curb their self-preservation instincts any longer as they fled away from Han Li's cave abode.
The demon beasts up above glanced at one another upon seeing this.
All of a sudden, the cow-headed monster opened its mouth and spoke in a female voice that was very pleasant to the ears. However, it wasn't speaking in any language that was known to the human or demon race.
The other three demon beasts also began to converse with one another in the same language.
After a while, they seemed to have completed their discussion and decided to pay no heed to the fleeing beasts down below. Instead, they each swept up a burst of demonic wind and sent them whistling down below. Along the way, they combined as one to form a gust of black gale-force winds, heading directly toward Han Li's cave abode with devastating force.
These demon beasts were attempting to break through the formations Han Li had set up through brute strength.
If these demon beasts were all above the eighth grade, then perhaps there was a chance that their actions could bear fruit. However, they were merely a bunch of sixth and seventh grade beings; how could they possibly bypass restrictions set up by a Deity Transformation cultivator like Han Li?
Five-colored light immediately manifested in front of the cave abode before sweeping forth in a forbidding manner.
As soon as the black gust of wind came into contact with this five-colored light, the former was instantly shredded into nothingness.
The four demon beasts hurriedly hurtled back in retreat before gathering in mid-air again, looking downward with shock and horror in their eyes.
Even though they hadn't directly clashed with this five-colored light, the fearsome aura imbued within it was enough to render them completely petrified.
After holding another short discussion, they also fled the scene as gusts of demonic winds.
From that point onward, not only did no demon beasts approach Han Li's cave abode, no living creatures even appeared in a radius of 50 kilometers of his cave abode...
The gates of Han Li's cave abode remained shut this entire time and was not opened even once.
Time flew by, and over 30 more years passed in a flash.
All of a sudden, the loud roar of a dragon erupted from within the secret chamber, following which the doors to the chamber exploded amid a loud rumbling boom.
There was a ball of piercing golden light hovering in mid-air within the secret chamber, and Han Li was seated within this ball of light in a cross-legged manner. A golden projection with three heads and six arms had appeared behind him.
This projection was also situated within the golden light and its facial features were still blurry and indistinct, but it was clearly looking a lot more substantial than before. It was also seated with its legs crossed like Han Li, and its six arms were each making a different type of hand seal.
All of a sudden, Han Li and the golden projection tremored in unison, following which a golden ripple proliferated through the surrounding area. It swept toward the nearby walls of the secret chamber, upon which five-colored light immediately began to flash, and the secret chamber tremored incessantly amid a loud rumbling sound.
Within the golden light, a hint of pain crept onto Han Li's face as large beads of sweat covered his entire forehead. The massive ball of golden light began to tremble uncontrollably, and the golden projection within it also became rather blurry as a result.
All of a sudden, a crisp crack sounded and a long and thin line appeared down the center of the golden light as if it were a cracked mirror. As a result, the golden projection instantly shattered and vanished.
Han Li exhaled as the agony on his expression disappeared, and silence returned to the secret chamber.
After a while, Han Li finally opened his eyes again as a wry smile appeared on his face.