Time flies when you’re having fun!
In the days that followed, the days passed by very quickly.
As Ye Qingxuan devoted himself to secluded cultivation, spring turned to autumn, and time began to slip away before he even realized it.
During this period, because the Tianfu Shop no longer needed Ye Qingxuan’s attention, he cut back on pill refinement. Apart from his cultivation practice, he now had quite a bit of free time on his hands.
So, in the following days, Ye Qingxuan had Ye Zhaoyu make a trip to the Xuantian Sect’s Scripture Depository and bring back many books for him to copy.
Although he could access the scripture depository’s books by simply channeling his spiritual sense into his disciple token, Ye Qingxuan still preferred reading physical, paper books.
Most of these books had nothing to do with cultivation, but they greatly broadened his knowledge and opened up his mind.
In the third year of his secluded cultivation, Zhu Dafu delivered the first batch of items he had acquired from the extraterrestrial battlefield.
However, after inspecting this batch, Ye Qingxuan found that most of them had little value and nothing he really wanted.
But Ye Qingxuan didn’t lose heart. He told Zhu Dafu to keep acquiring items and to send them over every ten years from then on.
In the fifth year of Ye Qingxuan’s secluded cultivation, Ye Qingxiao returned from the extraterrestrial battlefield. He brought back a fair amount of first and second-order demonic origin energy.
The reason Ye Qingxiao came back so early this time was that he had run out of nuclear explosion pills. He specifically returned to ask Ye Qingxuan for more—jokingly “taxing the rich,” as it were.
With the nuclear explosion pills Ye Qingxuan gave him, Ye Qingxiao not only greatly increased his chances of surviving on the periphery of the extraterrestrial battlefield but also sped up his hunting of demonic creatures considerably.
Though, this also had to do with the fact that the Blue Demon Race had withdrawn from the battlefield, leaving it in a temporary state of peace.
The first and second-order demonic origin energy he obtained from hunting and killing, when sacrificed, didn’t help Ye Qingxiao much, so he brought it all to Ye Qingxuan.
As for whether Ye Qingxuan could make use of this demonic origin energy, Ye Qingxiao hadn’t really thought that far ahead.
Before leaving, Ye Qingxiao once again helped himself to a large bag of Calm Mind Tea leaves from Ye Qingxuan, along with thousands of third-order nuclear explosion pills and hundreds of third-order Spirit Cleansing · Nuclear Explosion pills.
This time, Ye Qingxiao was planning to go big.
After Ye Qingxiao left, Ye Qingxuan looked at the bottles and jars of demonic origin energy he had brought and fell into deep thought.
His Earth Immortal inheritance actually contained a method for purifying this type of demonic origin energy.
First and second-order demonic origin energy, after all, wasn’t the same as the world origin energy of the Blue Demon Realm.
So, according to the Earth Immortal inheritance, setting up a fourth-order Cave Heaven Paradise Purification Array, combined with the Cave Heaven Paradise itself, was more than enough to purify low-level demonic origin energy into pure, primary origin energy.
What Ye Qingxuan was contemplating was how to use the purified origin energy.
This demonic origin energy from the Blue Demon Realm couldn’t even be considered the world origin energy of a small thousand worlds. It was just energy containing a tiny trace of world origin energy.
If Ye Qingxuan purified this demonic origin energy himself, the resulting energy wouldn’t be pure world origin energy either. Instead, it would be origin energy mixed with a bit of world origin.
Although there would be a fair amount of it, this type of origin energy wasn’t like the world origin energy fed back by directly sacrificing to the Earth Xuan Realm. That feedback could be directly integrated into spiritual power to enhance cultivation.
First to third-order demonic origin energy can be purified into primary origin energy.
Fourth to sixth-order demonic origin energy can be purified into intermediate origin energy.
Seventh to ninth-order demonic origin energy can be purified into advanced origin energy.
Tenth-order demonic origin energy can be purified into top-grade origin energy. And after refining and concentrating top-grade origin energy, it can rival true world origin energy.
Depending on the grade, the concentration of world origin energy within the purified origin energy varies.
The origin energy purified from first and second-order demonic origin energy has an extremely low world origin content. It would only speed up Ye Qingxuan’s cultivation by a tiny margin compared to just directly absorbing spiritual energy through meditation.
The demonic origin energy sacrificed to the Earth Xuan Realm, though small in quantity, feeds back pure world origin energy that can be directly integrated into spiritual power to improve cultivation.
But the origin energy Ye Qingxuan purifies himself is just ordinary energy mixed with a little world origin. He would need to absorb and refine it himself to boost his cultivation.
Ye Qingxuan’s current true cultivation level is the late stage of the Purple Mansion realm. Refining this primary origin energy, purified from first and second-order demonic origin energy, wouldn’t have a significant effect.
So, Ye Qingxuan didn’t plan on using this primary origin energy, with its thin world origin content, to improve his own cultivation.
As for pouring it all into the Cave Heaven Paradise to enhance it, the amount was too small to have much noticeable effect either.
In the end, Ye Qingxuan decided to use this first and second-order demonic origin energy to purify pure primary origin energy. He would then use it to gently nourish seventh-order spiritual plant seeds.
Seventh-order spiritual plants have an extremely long growth cycle. The sooner they germinate, the better.
However, relying solely on the primary origin energy purified from this demonic origin energy wouldn’t be enough to make all twenty-six seventh-order spiritual seeds sprout.
So, Ye Qingxuan’s target this time was the three special seventh-order spiritual plant seeds, not the twenty-three seventh-order spiritual medicine seeds.
Once he made up his mind, Ye Qingxuan instructed Ye Zhaoheng to purchase the materials needed to set up the fourth-order Cave Heaven Paradise Purification Array.
This purification array uses the combined power of heaven and earth from both the Cave Heaven and the Paradise to cleanse the demonic origin energy, thereby purifying it into clean origin energy.
After the materials were bought, it took Ye Qingxuan three days to set up the fourth-order Cave Heaven Paradise Purification Array.
Then, he placed the bottles of low-level demonic origin energy that Ye Qingxiao had given him, one by one, into the purification array.
Although the fourth-order Cave Heaven Paradise Purification Array was remarkable, it still couldn’t compare to the ninth-order Sacrificial Arrays set up by hegemonic powers like the Xuantian Sect.
After all, the Sacrificial Array directly sacrifices the demonic origin energy to the Earth Xuan Realm. For the Earth Xuan Realm, purifying and absorbing mere demonic origin energy takes hardly any time at all.
But Ye Qingxuan’s current methods, limited by his cultivation level, were still far inferior.
It took a full three hours for all this low-level demonic origin energy to be purified into a milky white primary origin energy that shimmered with a faint golden light.
The shimmering gold component was the world origin energy remaining in the mix, while the milky white part was ordinary energy similar to spiritual energy.
If Ye Qingxiao were here, he’d surely exclaim that he’d been shortchanged.
Because, previously, when Ye Qingxiao sacrificed demonic origin energy, the Earth Xuan Realm origin energy he received as feedback was only about one-tenth of the world origin energy content in the origin energy Ye Qingxuan had purified. That’s a full ninety percent less.
However, although the overall amount of world origin in the primary origin energy purified by Ye Qingxuan was greater, it still couldn’t compare to pure world origin energy.
Given his current cultivation level, this was already the limit. There was no way for him to extract the world origin from this primary origin energy.
Unless Ye Qingxuan could advance to become a seventh-grade alchemist. Then he could extract the origin from the origin energy and refine it into Origin Pills.
Only then could he use those Origin Pills to directly and quickly improve his cultivation. But that’s not something achievable in a short time.
Once he had the pure origin energy, Ye Qingxuan took out those three special seventh-order spiritual plant seeds.
He planted two of them at the two nodes within the Qingxuan Cave Heaven where chaotic energy converged. He planted the remaining one at the very eye of the spiritual spring.
Calling it a spring eye, but after the Cave Heaven advanced to the second grade, that spring eye had already become a small pool about ten meters across.
After planting them, Ye Qingxuan used the freshly purified primary origin energy to envelop these three special seventh-order spiritual plant seeds, gently nourishing them and patiently waiting for the day they would sprout.
What made these three seventh-order spiritual plant seeds special was that once they germinated, matured, and grew to the seventh grade, they could be used directly as magical treasures.
The three special seventh-order spiritual plant seeds were: the White Lotus, the Purple Bamboo, and the Armor Vine.
The seventh-grade White Lotus, after maturing, drops a lotus seat that can aid in cultivation and also has a certain defensive effect.
The seventh-grade Purple Bamboo, once mature and lightly refined, can be used as a bamboo staff.
The seventh-grade Armor Vine, after being refined by a cultivator, can transform into vine armor with excellent defensive capabilities.
And once these three spiritual plants reach the seventh grade, they would all be comparable to low-grade spirit treasures.
So, in terms of value, these three spiritual plant seeds far exceeded the other twenty-three seventh-order spiritual medicine seeds.
But by the same token, cultivating the seventh-grade White Lotus, seventh-grade Purple Bamboo, and seventh-grade Armor Vine to the seventh grade—not to mention the immense amount of time required for growth—the resources needed would also far surpass those for the twenty-three seventh-order spiritual medicine seeds. It’s not something an ordinary power could afford.
At the very least, it’s not something that a third-rate power like the Zhu’s Merchant Association, which only has a cultivator at the Spirit Transformation realm at its helm, could ever nurture.
After planting the White Lotus, Purple Bamboo, and Armor Vine—these three seventh-order spiritual plant seeds—Ye Qingxuan resumed his previous cultivation rhythm.
He busied himself happily between nurturing the Cave Heaven Paradise and practicing cultivation, completely ignoring the distractions of the outside world.
Nevertheless, amidst his busy schedule, drinking tea and admiring the view in the stone pavilion remained an indispensable part of Ye Qingxuan’s daily routine.
The third-order Calm Mind Tea plant that had transformed before now showed faint signs of transforming once again. It wasn’t far off from reaching the fourth grade.
