1261 Second Tempering
“Brat, just you wait!” Qian Sen screamed in a shrill voice. He then turned around to flee.
His battle prowess could indeed let him suppress Ling Han. However, Ling Han’s physique was far too terrifying, and it would be impossible for him to kill Ling Han in one strike. Moreover, Ling Han owned a peculiar flower that could affect his divine sense. Thus, he would be plunged into a severe disadvantage if he couldn’t kill Ling Han in a single strike.
He had lived for over 3,000,000 years, and he had witnessed all kinds of suffering and deaths. However, it was also because of this that he cherished his life even more.
He couldn’t exact revenge even if he stayed and fought to the death, so why take the risk?
He would return to the Blazing Inferno Sect!
Founder Mao was on the cusp of breaking through to the Heavenly Body Tier. Realm Spirit Stones could speed up this process, but this was the entirety of their use. They weren’t essential to breaking through. Anyhow, even if he failed, the Blazing Inferno Sect still had many other parties searching for Realm Spirit Stones. They couldn’t have all failed, right?
Qian Sen fled as quickly as he could, and he slashed with his sword whenever Ling Han drew close. Even Ling Han couldn’t ignore these strikes which possessed power at the consummate level of the Sun Moon Tier. Each slash would leave a wound on his body, though these wounds were unable to cause any significant damage.
In fact, if they were to battle head-on, Qian Sen would be fully capable of severely wounding Ling Han.
After all, he had a huge advantage in power.
However, his failure to injure Ling Han with his divine flames had left a huge mental scar in his mind. He believed that Ling Han’s defenses were simply impenetrable. What he failed to realize was that he would enjoy a great advantage if he stopped using his divine flames and used pure power to battle against Ling Han instead.
His failure to understand this pushed him to flee frantically, not a shred of fighting spirit in his mind.
One had to realize that Ling Han was only a six-star genius. In other words, his battle prowess could only reach the early stage of the high extreme at a maximum. How could this compare to the consummate level?
Of course, Qian Sen was also apprehensive of his Misty Soul Capturing Flower. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended up in such a disheveled state.
Ling Han gave up his pursuit after a short while. There was no point in pursuing Qian Sen any longer. He couldn’t kill him, anyway, and Wolf Fang City—a city that strictly forbade private fights—was also close.
He pondered for a moment before deciding to return to Wolf Fang City first. He would sell his Realm Spirit Stones as well as the pills that he had refined in his spare time. He couldn’t keep these pills forever, and he was better off exchanging them for True Origin Stones and G.o.dly metal, items that would help elevate the level of his Divine Demon Sword.
In terms of merit points, he had killed numerous Netherworld beings, many of which had been at the low extreme of the Sun Moon Tier. As such, he had earned enough merit points to retire.
Of course, one could still return to the Two Realm Battlefield after retiring from the army. In fact, they would have even more freedom in their movements. They wouldn’t need to worry about not having enough merit points to leave, nor would they need to worry about being decapitated in public for deserting.
Half a day pa.s.sed, and Ling Han arrived back in Wolf Fang City. The first thing he did was go to the military hall to redeem his merit points. He tossed out Netherworld corpse after Netherworld corpse, and it wasn’t long before his merit points were calculated and redeemed.
Moreover, these Netherworld corpses were still useful as there were powerful beings who wanted to derive the cultivation techniques of the Netherworld through studying these corpses. They wanted to determine the differences between cultivation techniques of the Immortal Realm and cultivation techniques of the Netherworld.
This certainly wasn’t a useless investigation. In fact, it was an extremely significant research. If they could derive the cultivation techniques of the Netherworld, they would be able to specifically target them in battle. At that time, cultivators from the Immortal Realm would be able to dominate cultivators from the Netherworld when both were at the same cultivation level.
More importantly, these powerful beings were investigating how to nullify the suppression of Immortal Realm cultivators caused by the Regulations of heaven and earth in the Netherworld. This was in preparation for an all-out a.s.sault in the future.
The Immortal Realm was conducting such research, so it was extremely likely that the Netherworld was also working on such projects.
Ling Han felt like everything was a chaotic mess. Who was actually invading whom? From the information he had gathered, it seemed like neither side was the good guy. Both played the victim, yet neither seemed like one.
He shook his head and rid his mind of these thoughts. Right now, he was still too weak, and it was impossible for him to interfere in these matters. The most important thing right now was elevating his cultivation.
After receiving his merit points, he found that he still had over 4,000 remaining, even after discounting the amount he needed to retire from the army.
However, 4000 merit points still weren’t enough to redeem the items that he needed at this moment. He could redeem these merit points for great amounts of Mountain River Tier resources, though doing so would be completely meaningless and useless.
Moreover, selling items that were redeemed with merit points was strictly forbidden in Wolf Fang City. Those who were caught would be punished by death.
Ling Han decided not to redeem his merit points first. He was free to roam around now, so he would decide what to do after killing more Netherworld beings and acc.u.mulating more merit points.
He headed toward the auction house in the city.
One needed not only courage but also power and a strong network to open an auction house in the Two Realm Battlefield.
The “Gold Origin Auction House” clearly satisfied these prerequisites. According to rumors, this auction house belonged to the Jin Clan, a super-powerful force. The Jin Clan had been involved in business for all their generations, and they controlled an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of resources. Together with the Treasure Forest Pavilion, they were referred to as the Twin Pride.
Ling Han entered the auction house. After retrieving his Realm Spirit Stones, he immediately caught the attention of the manager, who came out to discuss the fine details of the auction with him.
Such a large Realm Spirit Stone could be auctioned for a good price.
Thus, the auction house decided not to auction these Realm Spirit Stones first. Instead, they would spread the news of this auction as far and as wide as possible so that more elites could hurry over to partic.i.p.ate. Of course, their target was elites who possessed higher cultivation levels. Such elites would naturally possess more wealth.
Ling Han didn’t mind waiting for a few more days. He retrieved the alchemical pills that he had refined, and asked the manager to auction these for him.
For auctioning his Realm Spirit Stones, the auction house would charge a selling fee of 15%. This would conceivably be an astronomical amount. Thus, the auction house decided to be generous and auction his alchemical pills free of charge.
The auction of the Realm Spirit Stones would take around one month to prepare. Ling Han pondered for a moment, and decided to accept the auction house’s invitation to stay at their place.
In the meantime, he continued to refine pills and cultivate. In about 20 days’ time, the Black Tower would have acc.u.mulated enough immortal flames for him to temper his body for a second time.
‘This appearance… How sorrowful!’ When n.o.body was around, Ling Han would revert back to his infant form. However, he was truly displeased with this appearance.
Anyhow, he decided to put all of his efforts into alchemy. If he focused on cultivation, he would still need to acc.u.mulate Origin Power for 10,000 years just to advance one minor level. Moreover, this was on the condition that he had an unlimited supply of cultivation resources.
It was clear that cultivating earnestly wouldn’t be beneficial at this moment. At his current cultivation level, he could take Berserk Blood Spirit Pills anyway. Thus, ingesting pills was the way to go.
Some prodigies could reach the peak stage of the Sun Moon Tier in just a few hundred or a few thousand years—it was clear that they had all ingested pills or something of the sort. Otherwise, it would be impossible to advance so quickly.
Whether or not one was a prodigy was reflected through their comprehension of cultivation.
If an average cultivator was given Berserk Blood Spirit Pills, it would make little difference even if they advanced to the peak stage of the low extreme after ingesting four pills. They would most likely fail to comprehend the Regulations of heaven and earth for the medium extreme. As a result, they would die upon reaching the end of their lifespan.
20 or so days pa.s.sed, and Small Tower notified Ling Han that he could temper his body in the immortal flames again.
Ling Han had been waiting for this day, yet he was having second thoughts now that it had finally arrived. Just thinking about his previous experience made him scared. His body had been burned to ashes, and only a wisp of his divine sense had survived.
However, in order to become stronger, Ling Han gritted his teeth and resolutely jumped into the cauldron.
This tempering took three days and three nights.
Ling Han was as fresh as a newborn as he stepped out of the cauldron. In fact, he was one… However, he had only grown for three months, so being reverted to an infant wasn’t a huge loss.
“The results are fairly good,” Ling Han said with a nod. “The toughness of my skin, flesh, and G.o.dly bones has increased slightly. More importantly, I’ve learned the secret technique, Rising From The Ashes. If I truly suffer a fatal injury now, I’ll have a one percent chance of rising from the ashes. Not only will my injuries heal, but I’ll even return to the peak of my power.”