The next day, after Ye Qingxuan received the nine sources of spiritual veins that Bai Zichun had sent over,
he went straight to his Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land.
Into the Qingxuan Cave Heaven, he integrated two tier-three spiritual vein sources and three tier-two spiritual vein sources.
Into the Qingxuan Blessed Land, he integrated two tier-three spiritual vein sources and two tier-two spiritual vein sources.
After the spiritual vein sources were fused, Ye Qingxuan used the power of the cave heaven blessed land and consumed quite a few spirit stones to speed up the process of the sources transforming into full-fledged spiritual veins.
The moment five tier-two spiritual veins and four tier-three spiritual veins took shape,
the entire Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land shuddered. Then, the speed at which it absorbed chaotic and void energy from the outside world began to increase rapidly.
At the same time, the efficiency with which the cave heaven blessed land converted energy into world origin exploded upwards instantly. It began converting world origin continuously at several times the previous rate, integrating it into the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land.
The addition of these 4 tier-three and 5 tier-two spiritual veins significantly boosted the speed at which the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land could accumulate its foundation.
Now, the entire Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land has a total of:
4 tier-three spiritual veins, 7 tier-two spiritual veins, and 20 tier-one spiritual veins.
Ye Qingxuan could sense that, given the current rate of origin conversion, the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land wasn’t far from reaching the late second-order stage.
“Roar!”
It seemed the change in the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Blessed Land startled the Azure Dragon, who had been in seclusion cultivating within the blessed land. Sensing Ye Qingxuan’s presence,
the Azure Dragon let out an excited roar and quickly sped over to coil around Ye Qingxuan.
Right behind it came the cries of two cranes—it was the ethereal immortal cranes, Xiao Kong and Xiao Ling. They landed in front of Ye Qingxuan and gently rubbed against him.
Seeing Xiao Kong and Xiao Ling, the Azure Dragon snorted white mist from its nose, clearly unhappy with their presence.
Although Xiao Kong and Xiao Ling had a higher growth ceiling than the Azure Dragon, for now, the Azure Dragon was still stronger than both of them.
If Ye Qingxuan hadn’t forbidden it, the Azure Dragon would have already taught those annoying little cranes a lesson.
Ye Qingxuan noticed the Azure Dragon’s slight displeasure, reached out his hand, and stroked it to calm it down for a moment.
Feeling Ye Qingxuan’s touch, the Azure Dragon’s face immediately showed an expression of enjoyment. Its lively eyes didn’t forget to glance smugly at Xiao Kong and Xiao Ling.
But Xiao Kong and Xiao Ling simply ignored the Azure Dragon, continuing to rub their heads against Ye Qingxuan’s body.
After soothing the Azure Dragon for a bit, Ye Qingxuan left the Qingxuan Blessed Land.
Before leaving, Ye Qingxuan took one fragrant pig, two eight-treasure chickens, and two spirit rabbits from the blessed land.
The eight-treasure chickens, fragrant pigs, and spirit rabbits that the couple Hong Miaomiao had sent over had already multiplied quite a bit within the blessed land, so Ye Qingxuan could now occasionally treat himself.
This time, however, he was preparing to entertain Ye Qingxiao.
Ye Qingxiao had messaged him early in the morning, saying he would come by that afternoon.
After exiting the blessed land and arriving at the stone pavilion, Ye Qingxuan sent a message to Ye Qingxiao and began preparing the fragrant pig, eight-treasure chickens, and spirit rabbits.
He didn’t use any complicated cooking methods. Everything was roasted.
Ye Qingxuan directly placed one fragrant pig, two eight-treasure chickens, and two spirit rabbits into his alchemy furnace, using Dao fire to roast them slowly and carefully.
When they were almost done, he added some spices and spiritual herbs to infuse the flavor.
“Qingxuan, what are you making? It smells amazing!”
Ye Qingxiao had arrived before the roasting was even finished.
Hearing Ye Qingxiao’s voice, Ye Qingxuan didn’t look up at him, just continued roasting the meat attentively.
Ye Qingxiao, never one to stand on ceremony with Ye Qingxuan, walked straight into the stone pavilion and sat opposite him, staring at the contents of the furnace and unable to help swallowing his saliva.
Ye Qingxuan didn’t keep him waiting long. After a short while,
Ye Qingxuan willed the Dao fire to extinguish with a thought, then took out the roasted fragrant pig, two eight-treasure chickens, and two spirit rabbits from the furnace, arranging them floating in the air above the stone table.
He looked up at Ye Qingxiao and smiled:
“Don’t just sit there staring. Eat them while they’re hot!”
With that, Ye Qingxuan himself grabbed one of the eight-treasure chickens and started eating it in big, hearty bites.
Seeing this, Ye Qingxiao followed suit, picking up the other eight-treasure chicken and digging in with pure enjoyment.
Soon, the two of them had finished the fragrant pig, both eight-treasure chickens, and both spirit rabbits.
After eating, neither Ye Qingxuan nor Ye Qingxiao used their spiritual power to digest the food; instead, they let their bodies process it naturally.
Every time a cultivator breaks through to a new realm, they undergo a complete transformation.
By the Golden Core stage, a cultivator’s digestive system functions like a furnace, with an astonishingly fast digestion rate.
Even though Ye Qingxuan hadn’t yet reached the Golden Core stage, his Violet Mansion realm cultivation, combined with his second-grade Earth Immortal body, made his physique even stronger than Ye Qingxiao’s, who was at the Golden Core stage.
If it were just ordinary, non-spiritual food, it wouldn’t even reach their stomachs before being melted into nothingness by their esophagi.
This is why most cultivators don’t eat ordinary food—not because they’re being pretentious, but because eating it makes no difference to them.
Only food containing spiritual energy can actually reach their stomachs and give them a feeling of fullness.
Once in the stomach, the useful energy is extracted and absorbed by the body, while the useless impurities are directly melted into nothingness.
Not even residue is left behind.
After they finished eating, Ye Qingxuan finally looked at Ye Qingxiao and asked:
“Alright, tell me. Why did you come to see me?”
Ye Qingxuan knew that Ye Qingxiao preferred peace and quiet, so normally, if he didn’t have a specific reason, he wouldn’t come to the Qingxuan Blessed Land and disturb him.
A friendship between gentlemen is as pure as water. Some bonds don’t require constant contact to be maintained.
Hearing Ye Qingxuan ask directly, Ye Qingxiao slumped back on the stone chair, patted his belly, and said nonchalantly:
“I came to say goodbye. I’m planning to go down to the lower realm for some training.”
Hearing this, Ye Qingxuan immediately frowned and questioned him:
“With your current cultivation level, going down to the lower realm to train? Are you planning to offer yourself up to the Green Demon race? Just stay in the Xuantian Sect and focus on your cultivation. With your talent now, breaking through to the Soul Transformation stage would be easy.”
Although Ye Qingxuan had never left the Qingxuan Blessed Land, he had never relaxed his attention on the war between the Earth Xuan Realm and the Green Demon Realm.
At the very least, he always kept up with the apparent war situation between the two realms, so he naturally knew how brutal the fighting was in the lower realm.
So now, hearing that Ye Qingxiao was preparing to go down to the lower realm to train, Ye Qingxuan was naturally very worried and didn’t want him to go.
But Ye Qingxiao stood up, patted Ye Qingxuan on the shoulder, and reassured him:
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to those nine lesser thousand realms that have already fallen. I’m just planning to train in the other lesser thousand realms of the Earth Xuan Realm that haven’t fallen yet.”
Back when Ye Qingxiao was on the domain battlefield, although fighting those demon creatures was very dangerous, he really enjoyed the thrill of it.
Ever since the domain battlefield became a battlefield for high-level cultivators, Ye Qingxiao felt there was no suitable place for him to train anymore.
Although the Earth Xuan Realm was vast, as a disciple of the Xuantian Sect, no one would dare to casually attack him.
And he couldn’t just go around picking fights with people for no reason, could he?
Besides, the Earth Xuan Realm was filled with countless high-level cultivators. If he accidentally offended someone in seclusion during his training, he could die without even knowing what hit him.
Only in the lower realm was the cultivation ceiling capped at the Soul Transformation stage.
And given the environment of the lower realm, Soul Transformation cultivators were surely very rare.
With his Golden Core stage cultivation, he should be considered a mid-to-high-level cultivator down there, which would make the risks of training much smaller.
Furthermore, many low-level Green Demon cultivators had entered the lower realm to cause trouble. If he could kill a few tier-four Green Demons, his cultivation would surely advance by leaps and bounds again.
Finally, and this was the main reason Ye Qingxiao had decided to go down to the lower realm:
Although his talent had improved to six-element spiritual roots, his chances of breaking through to the Void Perception stage were still slim, let alone the realms beyond.
Since he had embarked on the path of cultivation, he naturally wanted to see it through to the end and witness the scenery of the higher-level cultivators.
This war between the two realms was Ye Qingxiao’s only chance, and he wasn’t about to let it slip by.
If his cultivation weren’t too low, Ye Qingxiao would have liked to go straight to the fallen lesser thousand realms to train.
Right now, many teams of true disciples from the Xuantian Sect at the Soul Transformation stage were reaping significant gains in the lower realm, and Ye Qingxiao was very envious of that.
Although Ye Qingxiao made it sound easy, Ye Qingxuan knew perfectly well how dangerous the lower realm was.
Even in the lesser thousand realms that hadn’t fallen, they were still part of the front line between the Earth Xuan Realm and the Green Demon Realm.
But seeing the determination in Ye Qingxiao’s eyes, Ye Qingxuan didn’t try to persuade him further. He simply handed him a storage pouch and earnestly advised:
“Come back alive.”
Ye Qingxuan had several friends, but only one brother who had embarked on the path of cultivation alongside him in this life: Ye Qingxiao.
Inside the storage pouch were the 60 tier-six mid-grade talismans, 20 tier-six high-grade talismans, and 3 tier-six peak-grade talismans that Ye Qingxuan had previously asked Ye Zhaoheng to procure for him.
As for tier-five talismans? Once he broke through to the Golden Core stage, he could make those himself, so Ye Qingxuan hadn’t prepared any.
And tier-six low-grade talismans? Once he reached the Golden Core stage and refined a tier-five nuclear bomb pill, that could serve the same purpose. So Ye Qingxuan had only collected talismans of tier-six mid-grade and above.
These tier-six talismans had cost Ye Qingxuan several million high-grade spirit stones.
Ye Qingxuan had originally planned to save them for self-defense for his external avatar, once he broke through to the Golden Core stage and condensed one.
But now that Ye Qingxiao had firmly decided to go down to the lower realm to train, Ye Qingxuan decided to give them to him for protection instead.
Not to mention their relationship, the Thunder Source Fruit tree and the Thunder Source Fruits that Ye Qingxiao had given him alone were worth far more than this price.
Ye Qingxiao looked at the storage pouch Ye Qingxuan handed him. He didn’t stand on ceremony, taking it directly and curiously checking what Ye Qingxuan had given him.
When he saw the talismans inside the pouch, Ye Qingxiao exclaimed in shock:
“Whoa, so many tier-six talismans?”
He knew Ye Qingxuan was wealthy, but he hadn’t realized Ye Qingxuan was so ridiculously, inhumanly wealthy.
Over eighty tier-six talismans! With these, he could stroll freely even through the nine fallen lesser thousand realms.
Seeing Ye Qingxiao’s excited expression and seeming to guess his thoughts, Ye Qingxuan warned him:
“Don’t even think about going to the nine fallen lesser thousand realms. Talismans are just talismans. You’re only at the Golden Core stage right now. If a Soul Transformation cultivator wants to kill you, they have plenty of ways.”
“Besides, even if you use talismans to fend off an assassination attempt by a Soul Transformation cultivator, with just your Golden Core stage cultivation, how many tier-six talismans can you actually activate?”
Talismans of tier-five and above usually come with sealing and locking properties. Without these two features, it’s very difficult for low-level cultivators to use tier-six talismans to harm high-level cultivators.
But talismans that do have sealing and locking properties require a huge amount of spiritual energy to activate.
You could activate a talisman with just a tiny wisp of spiritual energy, but the talisman’s power would be greatly reduced.
To bring out the full power of a talisman, you naturally can’t let the talisman’s limited energy be wasted during the activation process.
With his mid-Golden Core stage cultivation, Ye Qingxiao could probably only activate about ten tier-six talismans to their full power.
Activating about ten full-powered tier-six talismans should be enough to kill two or three early-Soul Transformation stage Green Demons.
But the problem is, in the nine fallen lesser thousand realms, Soul Transformation cultivators are practically everywhere these days. If Ye Qingxiao went there and ran out of spiritual energy, he would almost certainly die, with almost no chance of survival.
Ye Qingxiao, who had been very excited, calmed down immediately upon hearing Ye Qingxuan’s words. Seeing that Ye Qingxuan had seen through his little scheme, he scratched his head and said:
“Don’t worry, I won’t go to the nine fallen lesser thousand realms.”
But he added silently in his heart:
“At least not while I’m at the Golden Core stage.”
He still hadn’t given up on the nine fallen lesser thousand realms, but his Golden Core stage cultivation was indeed still too low.
Seeing that Ye Qingxiao was listening to his advice, Ye Qingxuan nodded slightly, feeling a bit more at ease.
By this time, Ye Qingxiao was already impatient to leave. Holding the storage pouch filled with tier-six talismans, he excitedly said goodbye to Ye Qingxuan:
“Qingxuan, I’m off. Once I come back from the lower realm, I’ll come see you again, hehehe!”
With that, Ye Qingxiao flew off on his sword, leaving the stone pavilion, heading for the spatial passage that the Xuantian Sect had opened to descend to the lower realm for training.
Just as Ye Qingxiao was about to disappear from sight, Ye Qingxuan suddenly remembered something and called out loudly:
“Once you get to the lower realm, help me collect some ores. Also, bring back any Green Demon corpses and cultivation origins that you can’t use yourself.”
Carried by spiritual power, his voice quickly reached Ye Qingxiao.
From high up in the distance, Ye Qingxiao heard Ye Qingxuan’s words and waved his hand behind him, saying:
“Got it!”
After leaving the Qingxuan Blessed Land, Ye Qingxiao rushed non-stop towards the spatial passage that the Xuantian Sect had opened to the outside.
But by the time he stepped into the spatial passage,
A graceful figure had somehow appeared by his side.
