Chapter 1784: Nine Immortal Mountain
Thus, the two of them embarked on this completely blind journey, and if they hadn't encountered Han Li, the two of them would've been in serious trouble.
In their eyes, this Brother Han was quite mysterious. Not only was his cultivation base only a step away from the Core Formation Stage, he also possessed several treasures that were truly profound.
Furthermore, just a few casual tidbits of cultivation guidance from him benefitted the two of them immensely. Back when Young Master Hai first received guidance from Han Li in the art of body refinement, he had been truly astonished. After all, cultivators who were very knowledgeable in the art of body refinement were truly very rare.
As such, Han Li had become more and more unfathomable in their minds over time. Thankfully, both of them had very relaxed personalities, and even though they were aware that Han Li was no ordinary cultivator, that still didn't drive a wedge between them.
If it weren't for the fact that Han Li's cultivation base wasn't all that powerful in their eyes, they would've most likely asked him to take them as his disciples.
After all, even though Artifact Spirit Disciple was constantly proclaiming that he was going to take the Mistsea Daoist Temple to greater heights, he had unintentionally revealed that he planned to find another master for himself during the Myriad Treasure Convention, so he certainly wasn't clinging onto his current title as temple master.
However, he seemed determined to take full advantage of his remaining time as temple master before he accepted a new master, as evidenced by the repeated invitations he extended toward Han Li and Young Master Hai to his temple.
This naturally drew much disdain from Young Master Hai, and Han Li was also feeling quite speechless.
Thus, the trio traveled for around a month before they reached a mountain that was extremely close to the Xuan Wu Region. They decided to rest there for a while before continuing in their journey, and Artifact Spirit Disciple launched into an epic tale about his Mistsea Daoist Temple again before extending another invitation for his two companions to join the sect, only for Young Master Hai to turn him down once again without any hesitation.
Han Li seemed to be appraising their interaction in an amused manner, but he was actually surreptitiously scrutinizing Young Master Hai with a hint of blue light flashing in his eyes.
All of a sudden, a hint of redness appeared on Young Master Hai's face before instantly vanishing.
There it is again!
Han Li immediately released a wisp of his spiritual sense to scan through Young Master Hai's body.
"Haha, I don't mean to brag, but with my lightning-attribute spiritual root, it'll be a simple task for me to accept any Deity Transformation or Spatial Tempering cultivator as my master. When I reach my full potential, I'll be sure to..." Young Master Hai was clearly in very high spirits, and after boasting about how powerful he was going to become in the future, he began to set out his vision for his wonderful future life as a Deity Transformation Stage patriarch.
Unbeknownst to him, the lightning-attribute spiritual root that he took such great pride in had already vanished.
If any cultivator were to inspect his spiritual root at this moment, they would all conclude that he was only an ordinary body refinement warrior with no spiritual root at all.
Han Li's eyelids twitched with astonishment upon seeing this. Young Master Hai's lightning-attribute spiritual root had vanished once again, just like it had last time.
If the prior trend held true, then his spiritual root would reappear after the passage of a day and a night.
The same occurrence had unfolded before Han Li's eyes 10 days ago, and it was truly quite perplexing.
He had never heard of any spiritual root in this world that would periodically disappear for short periods of time. Wouldn't this mean that even if this Young Master Hai were to become a powerful cultivator in the future, he would be completely unable to use any of his magic power during the instances where his spiritual root ceased to exist?
Han Li was truly perplexed by this phenomenon.
Artifact Spirit Disciple noticed the perplexed look in Han Li's eyes, and he chuckled, "What are you spacing out for, Brother Han? You seemed to be confused about something. How about you drink some of the spirit tea from my Mistsea Daoist Temple to clear your mind? In exchange, I only ask for a few more of those spirit fruits that you brought out last time. Those spirit fruits were truly delicious."
"Artifact Spirit Disciple and I are on the same page here for once; the spirit fruits you brought out last time were indeed exceptional, Brother Han!" Young Master Hai also cut his grand tale short as he turned to Han Li in an expectant manner.
Han Li's lips twitched at the sight of his two expectant companions, and he cleared his throat as he said, "I know you two are very eager to have some more of those spirit fruits, and they are indeed quite delicious, but they also contain a lot of pure spiritual power that would damage your meridians if you consume too many of them in too short a span of time. How about this? I'll bring out six more, and we'll have two each."
After that, he swept a sleeve through the air, and a pristine white jade plate appeared on the stone table, upon which sat six egg-sized green fruits that were very smooth and alluring.
Artifact Spirit Disciple was ecstatic at the sight of the spirit fruits on the plate. "Haha, two is certainly far better than none. I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but after having three of these fruits last time, my stagnant cultivation base has been on the rise during the past few days. Would you be able to tell me where I can purchase these fruits from, Brother Han? If they really can enhance my cultivation to such a great extent, then I won't have to take any pills or meditate; I can just eat a couple of these fruits every few days, and my cultivation base will continue to improve!"
However, before he had a chance to finish speaking, a black shadow flashed, and two of the fruits on the plate went missing.
Artifact Spirit Disciple faltered slightly before looking up to discover that Young Master Hai had grabbed a fruit in each hand and was chomping on them with relish.
"Such a delicacy is wasted on someone like you!" Artifact Spirit Disciple shook his head in a forlorn manner.
Young Master Hai merely rolled his eyes in response and ignored the wistful look on Artifact Spirit Disciple's face as he praised the fruits in a heartfelt manner.
Han Li was feeling both speechless, and rather amused.
He wondered if the two of them would still be able to eat these fruits with such glee if they were to learn that they cost over 1,000 spirit stones each.
Aside from the strange occurrences taking place in Young Master Hai's body, this Artifact Spirit Disciple was also rather out of the ordinary.
Han Li turned his gaze toward him through slightly narrowed eyes.
This Daoist priest did indeed possess a triple-attribute spiritual root, but through his careful assessment these past few days, Han Li discovered that there was a mysterious pea-sized bead in his dantian that was enveloped in a layer of spiritual light.
Han Li had only been able to discover this bead as he possessed immense spiritual sense, even for a cultivator of his caliber. Otherwise, even a cultivator with a cultivation base that was seven or eight stages above that of Artifact Spirit Disciple wouldn't be able to detect it.
Han Li was rather intrigued, and he slowly inched his spiritual sense toward the bead to try and determine exactly what it was, only to be thwarted by a powerful seal. However, as a result, he was able to ascertain the nature of the item.
This is an inherited treasure!
In order to prevent their inheritances from being lost, some cultivators chose to seal all of their knowledge into certain inherited treasures using special secret techniques, then implanted these treasures into the bodies of their successors.
These treasures all had prerequisites that had to be satisfied before they could be accessed, and prior to those conditions being fulfilled, they would remain hidden within the heir's body.
Generally speaking, those who reached a certain cultivation base would automatically be able to obtain all of the secret techniques and cultivation arts contained within an inherited treasure.
Of course, if the heir were unable to satisfy these conditions prior to their passing, they could use a special secret technique to extract the treasure before passing it on to someone else. If someone were to forcibly extract an inherited treasure out of an heir's body, the treasure would generally detonate and destroy itself, taking the life of the heir along with it.
This type of inherited treasure refinement method was very rare and also extremely difficult, so it was a very uncommon type of inheritance secret technique.
As such, Han Li was rather surprised to see something like this within Artifact Spirit Disciple's body. It seemed that this so-called patriarch of the Mistsea Daoist Temple really was more than just some ordinary ascended cultivator.
However, with all of the powerful abilities that Han Li possessed, he naturally wasn't going to be interested in anyone else's cultivation arts. Thus, after a brief moment of surprise, he focused his attention back on Young Master Hai.
What kind of spiritual root could periodically disappear like this?
Han Li was truly intrigued. After finishing the fruits, Artifact Spirit Disciple brewed a few cups of fragrant spirit tea for everyone, and once the tea had also been finished, they didn't delay here any longer.
Han Li released his flying carriage again, and the three of them flew toward the Xuan Wu Region as a ball of white light.
The Xuan Wu Region was quite different from the Tian Yuan Region in that the former had fewer cultivators, but it had far more body refinement warriors among mortals than the other two regions.
The people here were also quite tough and valiant, and even the elderly, children, and women dared to wield weapons to fight beasts in the wild.
However, there were almost no large mortal cities in the Xuan Wu Region, and the mortals mostly gathered in small towns or settlements.
Due to the fact that this was the closest of the three regions to the demon territories, the scale of the beast tides and the probability of low-grade demon beasts appearing here were far larger than in the other two regions.
There would be the occasional metamorphosis stage demon beast that would sneak into the Xuan Wu Region to engage in unscrupulous activities.
As such, the Xuan Wu Region was the most chaotic of the three regions, and this chaos was exacerbated further as one approached the border between the Xuan Wu Region and the demon territories.
However, Nine Immortal Mountain, which was a massive spirit mountain that sat between the land of the demon foxes and the Xuan Wu Region, was an exception to this.
This mountain was split up into nine peaks, and not only were there extremely rare top-grade spirit veins in this mountain, there were also special spirit medicines growing on this mountain that were extremely useful to both the human and demon races.
On top of that, Nine Immortal Mountain had a very steep terrain, and was situated in a very special location, so it was guarded by elite warriors from both the human and demon races. As such, even the most bold and brazen members of the two races wouldn't dare to engage in any unscrupulous activities here.
During the past few years, the security on Nine Immortal Mountain had been tightened even further. Both the human and demon races had sent out large numbers of troops to evict some of the smaller powers with bad reputations in the nearby area, and in the short span of just five to six years, it had become a paradise of sorts in the Xuan Wu Region.
The Myriad Treasure Convention that was held by the human and demon races once every 1,000 years was about to commence on this mountain.