After the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise advanced to the second tier, it was impossible for it to advance again in a short period of time.
So, in the following time, Ye Qingxuan wasn’t in a hurry and continued to maintain his previous lifestyle.
However, Ye Qingxuan’s expenses suddenly increased significantly.
Previously, he only needed to smelt first-tier spirit mines, allowing the Cave Heaven Paradise to absorb and analyze the origin of the spirit mines. Now that the Cave Heaven Paradise had advanced to the second tier, it could quickly analyze the origin of second-tier spirit mines.
Moreover, those first-tier spirit mines that hadn’t yet been analyzed by the Cave Heaven Paradise were still useful to it, so the collection of various first-tier spirit mines couldn’t stop either.
The price of a second-tier spirit mine was between 500 and 1000 low-grade spirit stones per cubic meter, a price increase of about five times directly compared to first-tier spirit mines.
Ye Qingxuan’s main purchasing targets used to be various first-tier spirit mines, but now they had become various first- and second-tier spirit mines, causing his expenses to rise sharply.
However, in the short term, this burden on Ye Qingxuan wasn’t significant.
But in the future, as the Cave Heaven Paradise continued to grow, maintaining a rapid growth rate would require investing a large amount of resources.
Given the current profit speed of the Tianfu Shop, it might not be able to support the expenses of these two “money-burning pits,” the Qingxuan Cave Heaven Paradise, in the future.
Thinking about the huge future expenses, Ye Qingxuan mused:
“It seems I need to think of more ways to make money.”
However, Ye Qingxuan didn’t have any immediate ideas.
His Four Arts of Cultivation couldn’t be improved further for the time being due to his cultivation level restrictions.
And even if he were to raise them to the fifth tier, he couldn’t sell the items he refined within the Xuantian Sect.
But if he didn’t raise the level of his Four Arts of Cultivation, the only way would be to increase the quantity, which would undoubtedly take time away from his own cultivation practice.
This was something Ye Qingxuan couldn’t accept.
He cultivated the Cave Heaven Paradise for the sake of his own cultivation practice; it was impossible for him to neglect his own practice just to help the Cave Heaven Paradise earn resources.
Unable to come up with a solution, Ye Qingxuan shook his head and said calmly:
“Never mind. Fortunately, there’s still enough time. I’ll play it by ear when the time comes!”
At the current rate, it would take at least several hundred years for a second-tier Cave Heaven Paradise to grow to the third tier.
Such a long time was enough for him to break through to the Golden Core stage and condense an External Incarnation. Then, he could explore markets outside the Xuantian Sect.
The Earthly Mystic Realm was vast; by then, he wouldn’t have to worry so much.
That being said, Ye Qingxuan wasn’t going to do nothing at all.
His cultivation had now advanced to the late Zifu stage, and coupled with the Cave Heaven Paradise’s upgrade to the second tier, which enhanced its auxiliary effects, Ye Qingxuan prepared to forcefully attempt a cross-tier refinement of fifth-tier pills.
“Zhaoheng, go to the market fair and purchase ten sets of the spiritual herbs needed for the fifth-tier Infant Coalescence Pill.”
After speaking, Ye Qingxuan transmitted the list of required spiritual herbs for refining the fifth-tier Infant Coalescence Pill to Ye Zhaoheng through the air.
Ye Zhaoheng, who was cultivating at the foot of the mountain, heard Ye Qingxuan’s instruction and replied respectfully:
“Yes, Young Master!”
Then, he flew off on his sword towards the market fair.
The fifth-tier Infant Coalescence Pill could assist cultivators at the peak of the Golden Core stage, speeding up the process of forming their Nascent Soul when breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage, and increasing the success rate.
At the same time, it was also one of the daily auxiliary cultivation pills for the Nascent Soul stage, equivalent to the fourth-tier Solidifying Spirit Pill for the Golden Core stage.
The fifth-tier Infant Coalescence Pill and the fifth-tier Spirit Augmentation Pill were two excellent auxiliary cultivation pills for the Nascent Soul stage.
One could increase the conversion efficiency of a Nascent Soul cultivator’s spiritual root, and the other could accelerate the process of integrating spiritual power into the Nascent Soul.
A single set of spiritual herbs for the fifth-tier Infant Coalescence Pill and a single set for the fifth-tier Spirit Augmentation Pill both cost 300 high-grade spirit stones per set, while the selling price was 400 high-grade spirit stones per pill.
The reason for such high prices was that after the Golden Core stage, each subsequent stage was vastly different, impossible to compensate for with quantity alone, and the required energy was also extremely massive.
Therefore, the prices of fifth-tier and above spiritual herbs and materials saw a leapfrog increase.
Moreover, due to the immense energy contained in pills of the fifth tier and above, a slight carelessness could easily cause the alchemy furnace to explode, leading to an extremely low success rate in refining and a significantly reduced yield of pills.
Consequently, the price of pills beyond the fifth tier far exceeded those of the fourth tier, and the higher the tier, the more outrageous the price became.
In the later stages of cultivation, very few people could afford to take pills daily to maintain a high-consumption cultivation method. Basically, everyone relied on their own spiritual root talent.
This was also the reason why many cultivators with insufficient talent had no hope of breaking through to higher stages.
The sheer amount of energy required was enough to despair cultivators with low talent who relied solely on their own accumulation.
It was like being in a desert, with the oasis clearly visible ahead, but ultimately falling on the path to it due to depleted vitality.
Those who truly made it to the end, which one of them didn’t possess heaven-defying opportunities, defying fate to change their destiny, and gradually transforming themselves step by step to finally reach the peak?
This matter of talent, it could be said to be important, and it could also be said not to be important. For those great powers who reached the later stages, it truly wasn’t important.
Talent was important because, in the early stages of cultivation, without talent or heaven-defying opportunities, you simply couldn’t cross that threshold separating mortals from immortals.
Talent wasn’t important because, after crossing the threshold and reaching a certain realm, cultivators could completely perfect themselves, reshape their foundations and talent.
At that level, who wasn’t exceptionally talented and brilliantly outstanding?
True mediocrities had long since fallen by the wayside, never getting to see the scenery of the higher realms.
Therefore, those who truly reached the pinnacle either possessed heaven-defying opportunities that helped them cross that threshold, or their innate aptitude, while not necessarily top-tier, wasn’t too poor, allowing them to cross that threshold on their own.
Otherwise, it was absolutely impossible to reach the end.
After Ye Zhaoheng bought the spiritual herbs, Ye Qingxuan began attempting to refine the fifth-tier Infant Coalescence Pill the next day.
With Ye Qingxuan’s heaven-defying talent, the fifth-tier inheritance had long been thoroughly comprehended by him.
The only thing he needed to worry about was the massive spiritual power required during the refining process and the control over energy far exceeding his own realm.
The last point was the most difficult.
Although it was his first time refining a fifth-tier pill, Ye Qingxuan wasn’t nervous.
After properly warming the alchemy furnace, he began the step-by-step extraction of the spiritual herb essences according to the method for refining the Infant Coalescence Pill.
The process of extracting the spiritual herb essences went very smoothly, because this step only required sufficient fire control ability and didn’t need too much energy.
By now, Ye Qingxuan was no longer using the previous Elemental Fire Control Technique but rather the advanced inheritance spell, Vermilion Bird Fire Control Technique.
The Vermilion Bird Fire Control Technique, ranging from a series of elementary spells to top-tier spells, had different methods of cultivation and execution, and could eventually advance to the level of a Divine Ability.
It could be said that within the Earth Immortal inheritance, besides a series of Divine Ability Seeds, Divine Ability Prototypes, Minor Divine Abilities…
Most of the other inherited spells were also part of a series, ultimately able to advance to the level of Divine Abilities.
The only difference was that inheritances which directly condensed Divine Ability Seeds had much greater power in the early stages.
With the help of the Vermilion Bird Fire Control Technique, Ye Qingxuan’s process of extracting the spiritual herb essences went very smoothly, and he completed this step with ease.
Looking at the various colored fifth-tier spiritual herb essences, radiating strong spiritual energy and suspended within the alchemy furnace,
Ye Qingxuan didn’t hesitate and directly began the process of fusing and shaping the pill.
