Condensing a divine ability seed with the five elements attribute, and achieving absolute balance in the mutual transformation of five elements power during the puppet refining process—these are two entirely different things.
Relying solely on the faint insights into five elements power gained from condensing the divine ability seed, Ye Qingxuan did not have much confidence that he could refine a five-elements combat puppet.
Perhaps, when his cultivation advanced further and he could comprehend the laws of five elements origin…
Then he would be able to refine a five-elements puppet, right?
In the time that followed,
Ye Qingxuan devoted himself entirely to studying puppet arts and refining various puppets.
As for auxiliary puppets, Ye Qingxuan did not have high demands regarding their quality.
The ones he refined were mostly fourth-tier Wood Puppets, inscribed with spells like Spring Breeze Rain Transformation, Revival, and Spirit Gathering—all supportive spells related to spirit plant cultivation.
However, in terms of quantity, Ye Qingxuan refined quite a number of auxiliary puppets—over a hundred fourth-tier Wood Puppets in total.
The spells inscribed on these hundred or so Wood Puppets were essentially identical.
As for combat puppets, Ye Qingxuan had not yet begun refining them.
This was because refining a combat puppet required inscribing corresponding spells.
And to inscribe those spells, Ye Qingxuan needed to have cultivated those spells to the realm of perfection, fully comprehending all their variations.
Only then could he successfully engrave those spells into the puppet.
Originally, Ye Qingxuan had also planned to inscribe the Dao patterns of his divine ability seed onto a combat puppet.
But to his surprise, once the divine ability Dao patterns were engraved, the fifth-tier puppet seemed unable to withstand the pressure and instantly collapsed.
This left Ye Qingxuan somewhat disappointed, so he could only obediently choose spells as the inscription targets for his fifth-tier combat puppets.
A fifth-tier puppet corresponds to the Nascent Soul stage and can be inscribed with high-level spells.
For Ye Qingxuan’s heaven-defying comprehension, comprehending high-level spells to perfection was actually not that difficult.
At the very least, it was somewhat easier than comprehending and condensing a divine ability seed.
However, Ye Qingxuan did not plan to go into seclusion to comprehend high-level spells just yet, because the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise was about to advance.
One day, a year later,
not long after Ye Qingxuan had refined over a hundred fourth-tier auxiliary puppets,
time and space within the entire Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise seemed to pause for a moment, and then the entire cave heaven paradise began to tremble violently.
Seeing this, Ye Qingxuan was not the least bit alarmed.
Having experienced the previous two advancements of his cave heaven paradise, he had long grown accustomed to it.
In Ye Qingxuan’s perception, once the origin of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise had accumulated enough, it began to expand rapidly.
The entire cave heaven paradise’s absorption of external void energy and chaotic energy instantly increased tenfold, and its area began to expand at a swift pace.
Thanks to the spirit veins Ye Qingxuan had integrated over the years, the various spirit ores he had smelted, and the numerous spirit plants he had cultivated,
the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise was now not lacking in energy or the origin laws required for advancement, so its outward expansion and growth proceeded very quickly.
But even so, the entire expansion process of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise lasted a full three years.
During those three years, Ye Qingxuan did not step out of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise even once.
He even sent a message to Steward Bai Zichun, using seclusion as an excuse, telling him not to come to collect the Spirit Purifying Trees for ten years.
Throughout those three years, Ye Qingxuan remained immersed in the expansion process of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise, observing the various evolutions of elemental origin laws.
If it weren’t for the limitations of his cultivation base, Ye Qingxuan might have already comprehended multiple origin laws.
But even so, it wasn’t as if Ye Qingxuan had gained nothing.
Although he was currently restricted by his cultivation and could not take that crucial step,
his personal accumulation had already become very profound. As long as his cultivation advanced, Ye Qingxuan would naturally and smoothly comprehend all kinds of origin laws.
Three years later, a very abundant infusion of origin energy poured into Ye Qingxuan’s body, and his cultivation, which had been at the early Golden Core stage, began to surge rapidly.
In less than ten short days, Ye Qingxuan’s cultivation directly broke through to the mid Golden Core stage and continued to steadily rise.
Only when his cultivation reached the level of mid Golden Core, nearing its peak, did the origin energy bestowed by the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise’s advancement finally run out.
After the origin energy was exhausted, Ye Qingxuan chose not to emerge from seclusion, nor did he pay any attention to the changes in the cave heaven paradise.
Instead, taking advantage of the just-advanced cave heaven paradise’s highly active spiritual energy, and the fact that the lingering origin energy was still nurturing his physical body and meridians,
Ye Qingxuan began to continuously refine external spiritual energy to elevate his cultivation.
Vast amounts of spiritual energy poured into his body without cease. The pressure that this immense spiritual energy exerted on his meridians and physique was largely mitigated by the remaining origin-nurturing effect, causing no significant issues.
Another six years passed.
Through six years of uninterrupted cultivation, Ye Qingxuan’s cultivation reached the peak of mid Golden Core, and then with a single push, he broke through to the late Golden Core stage.
This was the advantage of not taking pills that directly increased cultivation through medicinal power—maintaining absolute purity in one’s spiritual power.
As long as the spiritual power was refined to the utmost extreme, breaking through such minor bottlenecks was only a matter of course, without much difficulty.
After his cultivation broke through to the late Golden Core stage, Ye Qingxuan slowly opened his eyes and did not continue cultivating.
By now, the residual origin-nurturing effect within his body had completely vanished, and continuing in seclusion would not yield high efficiency.
After coming out of seclusion, the first thing Ye Qingxuan did was to sense the condensation progress of his fourth-system spiritual root.
A portion of the origin energy infused by the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise had merged into his physical body, helping to perfect the inner universe within him.
As a result, the progress of his fourth-system spiritual root, which was still in the process of condensing, was already more than halfway complete.
Coupled with the fact that the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise had now advanced to the third tier, the origin laws within it had further improved, exerting an increasingly greater influence on the elemental aspects of his inner universe.
In Ye Qingxuan’s perception, the speed at which he was condensing his fourth-system spiritual root had greatly increased.
Now, it would take only about four hundred years or so for him to smoothly condense his fourth-system spiritual root.
After sensing the changes in his inner universe’s spiritual roots, Ye Qingxuan began to inspect the transformations of the third-tier cave heaven paradise.
First was the change in area size.
After advancing to the third tier, the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise now covered a radius of two thousand miles, with various mountain and water landscapes beginning to take shape on a significant scale.
The original spirit pools at the centers of the cave heaven paradise had also transformed into vast spirit lakes.
Even the two companion spirit pearls suspended above the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise had undergone a metamorphosis; the energy contained within them had grown increasingly vigorous, and the Dao rhythm they emanated had become richer and richer.
Next was the number of spirit veins.
During this advancement of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise, thanks to the abundant accumulated energy, it directly gave birth to 4 third-tier spirit veins, 12 second-tier spirit veins, and 36 first-tier spirit veins.
Now, throughout the entire cave heaven paradise, there were a total of 20 third-tier spirit veins, 34 second-tier spirit veins, and 58 first-tier spirit veins.
With ample energy supply within the earth, coupled with the fifth-tier Energy Conversion Array and the fifth-tier Earth Vein Array, the speed at which the earth origin of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise condensed had accelerated once again.
The upper limit for spirit plants cultivated within the cave heaven paradise had also been raised; now, the maximum growth level for spirit plants in the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise had been elevated to the fifth tier.
In the years following the advancement, those special spirit plants that Ye Qingxuan had previously suppressed in their growth had now reached the fifth tier.
Among these special spirit plants were quite a few Spirit Gathering Herbs, Spirit Purifying Trees, Earth Spirit Flowers, and Ye Qingxuan’s mutated Calming Heart Tea Tree.
Even under the influence of that now-fifth-tier Calming Heart Tea Tree, the other Calming Heart Tea Trees, which were still at the second tier, showed signs of transforming to the third tier.
However, the degree of transformation was not as pronounced as that of the Calming Heart Tea Tree that Ye Qingxuan had been nurturing all along.
As for the ninth-tier Thunder Source Tree, the seventh-tier White Lotus, the seventh-tier Purple Bamboo, and the seventh-tier Armor Vine, because their initial life levels were already high, the energy required for their growth was enormous.
Moreover, during their growth process, even at lower tiers, they absorbed energy to transform a small portion into elemental origin, so their growth speed was very slow, and they still remained at the fourth tier.
Aside from the spirit plants, the spirit beasts that Ye Qingxuan had freely raised within the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise also benefited considerably during the advancement.
Quite a few Earth Dragons, Myriad Spirit Flower Butterflies, and Spirit Nurturing Bees directly broke through their boundaries, advancing to higher levels.
The ethereal spirit cranes, Xiao Kong and Xiao Ling, comparable to human geniuses with nine-system spiritual roots, had broken through to the early fifth tier, equivalent to the early Nascent Soul stage.
As for the Azure Dragon, whose original growth limit was only the sixth tier, because Ye Qingxuan had fed it large quantities of Bloodline Pills over the years,
it had triggered a bloodline transformation this time, further purifying the dragon blood within its body.
Now the Azure Dragon’s growth limit had been elevated to the seventh tier, and its cultivation had also broken through to the early fourth tier.
Even the ten Earth Spirit Turtles that Ye Qingxuan had been raising in the spirit lake of the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise seemed, for some unknown reason, to have begun undergoing mysterious changes.
Their originally dark-yellow shells were gradually turning towards a glazed color, though the change was not yet very obvious for the time being.
However, the rate at which the Earth Spirit Turtles’ cultivation improved had not changed much.
After all these years, the ten Earth Spirit Turtles had only just barely grown to the early second tier—their strength improved at a pitifully slow pace.
So although the Earth Spirit Turtles had now undergone some mutation, Ye Qingxuan did not pay it much mind.
He simply conducted a brief inspection and then did not pay any further special attention to their growth.
After all, the Earth Spirit Turtles spent almost all their time in hibernation, so there really wasn’t much to observe.
