Preparations for the Trial

After several sleepless nights spent wrestling with his conscience, Han Li found himself gradually leaning toward the latter option between preserving his life at the cost of forever losing the path to immortality and braving great danger for the chance to successfully establish his foundation. After all, he was absolutely unwilling to spend his life in such mediocrity.

However, being cautious by nature, he made one more trip to Yuelu Hall before finalizing his decision. From the greedy old man, he once again confirmed that there were no heavenly spiritual medicines outside the forbidden land and verified the true brutality of the Blood Forbidden Trial. This completely eradicated any remaining hope.

Now that he understood there was no path of retreat, Han Li finally steeled his resolve. He would participate in the Blood Forbidden Trial and risk everything. Either he would succeed in finding the spiritual medicines needed to establish his foundation, or he would fall in the conflict within the forbidden land.

With a clear, life-or-death objective before him, Han Li began preparing for the trip to the forbidden land six months away. He needed to strengthen himself within this short period, to improve his chances of survival.

Breaking through to the eleventh layer of the Eternal Spring Art without the aid of pills was impossible. To increase his strength, he could only focus on learning a few new spells and acquiring some more powerful talismans and magical tools.

New spells were relatively straightforward. He assumed that if he brought it up with Senior Brother Wu, the man would not refuse to teach him. However, given his own natural aptitude, six months would at most allow him to learn two basic low-grade spells or barely manage one intermediate low-grade spell. High-grade spells were completely out of the question. Thus, the fastest way to improve his strength was through talismans and magical tools.

Speaking of magical tools, Han Li actually had a number of them now. Among them, the ones that could be of great use were, aside from the ring and small flag given by that Uncle Ye, the two items he had harvested from the yellow-clothed men who had tried to rob him. These were the long blade that could transform into a rope and the gourd that could spit out a ball that attacked automatically.

As for the items he had received upon first joining the sect, such as the Blazing Sun Sword and the Cold Moon Blade, they were merely the lowest grade magical tools with basic fire and cold elemental attacks attached to their blades. They were nothing impressive.

Regarding talismans, Han Li had originally been quite lacking. Fortunately, that Uncle Ye, who had embezzled many of his belongings, had only cheated him on the quantity of talismans, not their grade. He had indeed given him over a dozen intermediate low-grade talismans and two rare high-grade ones, which gave Han Li considerably more confidence.

Additionally, there was the talisman with a small sword drawn on it that Han Li still did not fully understand. This item, which the yellow-clothed man he had killed had exclaimed in surprise was a Talisman Treasure, was most likely an object of great origin. However, as it was stolen goods that could not be shown in public, he had never dared to let anyone know about this talisman, only secretly paying attention to the term “Talisman Treasure” and planning to find an appropriate opportunity to inquire about its meaning.

Of course, facing the extremely terrifying “Blood Forbidden Trial,” these things alone were certainly insufficient. So Han Li planned to leave the sect once and head to the market nearest the mountain range, hoping to acquire some top-grade magical tools and talismans.

However, without a large number of spirit stones to back him up, this acquisition trip would certainly not be satisfactory.

Although Han Li could barely scrape together the spirit stones with his current assets, the spirit stones would also be crucial items for sustaining a protracted war and ensuring survival during the upcoming forbidden land trip, making him extremely reluctant to part with them.

After much deliberation, Han Li decided to cultivate a few rare thousand-year-old medicinal herbs in the short term, which he could exchange for spirit stones or simply barter directly.

In truth, concocting a batch of Appearance-Fixing Pills would have been the better choice, perhaps even greater in value. However, the herbs required for the Appearance-Fixing Pill were simply too numerous; there was no time to gather all the ingredients. So, he had to settle for directly exchanging the herbs.

But to avoid drawing the attention of others within the sect, Han Li secretly decided during his planning that he would only sell the cultivated herbs to foreign cultivators, never directly trading herbs with anyone from his own sect, lest he invite scrutiny.

Thus, with a plan in mind, Han Li began to busy himself.

He first went to Wu Feng and, from among the many basic spells, selected the most practical one: the “Breath Concealment Technique.” This was an auxiliary mid-grade spell capable of completely countering the Celestial Eye Technique. As long as one was not seen with the naked eye after casting this spell, one could fully achieve the goal of concealing one’s spiritual energy and hiding.

Of course, this technique would certainly have no effect on cultivators above the Foundation Establishment stage. It was entirely a means of counterplay among high-level Qi Condensation cultivators, far more practical than the basic Hiding Technique.

However, the reason Han Li did not choose an offensive or defensive spell was a decision made entirely from his own combat experience.

From his only battle with another cultivator, he had discovered that the opportunities to formally chant and cast a mid-grade spell during a fight were far too few. Most combat relied on low-grade spells with the shortest casting times, as well as magical tools and talismans, to quickly launch attacks or defenses. Therefore, if one wanted to use mid-grade or higher spells in a fight, it was more practical to use talismans. Of course, if a companion bought you the time to cast, that was a different story.

After obtaining the cultivation mantra for this technique and asking Wu Feng in detail about the tips for practicing it, Han Li began to train with full focus. However, as a mid-grade spell, this Breath Concealment Technique was completely different from auxiliary spells he had learned before, such as the Wind Riding Technique and the Hiding Technique. It was extremely difficult and cumbersome to learn. Mastering it completely within half a year would indeed be a considerable challenge.

And so, Han Li spent his days diligently cultivating the Breath Concealment Technique and his nights collecting green liquid, focusing on cultivating several types of common spiritual herbs. To prevent that Elder Ma from discovering these herbs, he specifically timed his cultivation to avoid the times when the other came to collect the ingredients, and he transplanted the herbs to very remote corners of the herb garden. After all, the fragrance of millennium-old herbs was always a little different.

But fortunately, this Elder Ma was always punctual in picking up his supplies. He never came early nor late, always arriving in a hurry and leaving in a hurry, as if perpetually busy. Han Li had no idea what he was so busy with.

What the other was doing, Han Li had no interest in knowing. To him, it was best that Elder Ma stayed busy like this forever, so he would not interfere with Han Li’s little schemes and allow him to complete his herb cultivation plan.

By the time Han Li had a preliminary grasp of the Breath Concealment Technique, more than four months had passed.

He had finally managed to cultivate two millennium-old spiritual herbs. He believed that in the current cultivation world, where medicinal herbs over a hundred years old were hard to find, these would certainly bring a small surprise to Yellow Maple Valley’s market.

Han Li obtained a token allowing him to leave the sect from the familiar Steward Yu of the Hundred Mechanisms Hall and left the mountain gate.

In truth, disciples of Yellow Maple Valley had an opportunity to leave the sect once a year, but as cultivators, few would waste their time going out. So, there were very few who actually applied.

Having flown out of the sect’s restrictive grand formation, Han Li fixed his direction and flew northeast, heading straight for the market.

It was said that Yellow Maple Valley’s market was quite famous, much more prosperous than those of other sects.

This was because Jian Province, where the Taiyue Mountain Range was located, directly bordered Yuanwu Country to the north, and as the cultivation worlds of Yuanwu Country and Yue Country were not in conflict, cultivators from Yuanwu Country would often appear at the Yellow Maple Valley market to trade items, bringing many special goods that were not available in Yue Country. This was an unexpected windfall, causing many itinerant cultivators and members of cultivation families to come here by reputation.

This market was built at the northeastern edge of the Taiyue Mountain Range, so after flying for most of a day, Han Li arrived at his destination.

He landed nearby, but did not immediately head over. Instead, he changed into a gray cloth shirt and put away all the items that identified him as a Yellow Maple Valley disciple, making himself look like an ordinary cultivator. Only then did he walk toward the market.

According to the usual rules of the cultivation world, cultivators were not allowed to fly within five li of a market. So, as Han Li walked along, he encountered quite a few hurried passersby. Among them, several were dressed in very peculiar clothing, leading Han Li to suspect they were cultivators from Yuanwu Country. It seemed the market’s popularity was indeed considerable.

While Han Li was lost in these idle thoughts, he had already arrived at the entrance to the market street.