Chapter 221: Second Dantian

Putting away the fiend corpse, Qin Sang retrieved the three individuals' storage bags.

The harvest was quite good. Combined, the three storage bags contained over seven hundred low-grade spirit stones, along with several decent magical artifacts. Notably, the black-robed elder's storage bag held two top-grade magical artifacts.

One of them was a black longsword, which the black-robed elder had desperately wielded before his death. Its power was extraordinary, and its quality was undoubtedly superior to the Yanli Sword.

Qin Sang erased the black-robed elder's spiritual imprint from the sword and casually swung it a few times. Finding it quite handy, he decided to keep it for himself, replacing the Yanli Sword.

The other artifact was a light veil called the Heavenly Poison Veil. Once activated, it would transform into a cloud of malignant poisonous mist, an enhanced version of the mist used by the other two individuals.

This mist contained potent venom. If a cultivator were afflicted, their spiritual energy would stagnate, and if they couldn't detoxify in time, they would be rendered completely helpless.

The black-robed elder had first fallen into Qin Sang's trap, caught within the Ten Directions Yama Formation, thus he had no chance to unleash the full power of the Heavenly Poison Veil before being slain by Qin Sang.

During a previous luring operation, Qin Sang's opponent had discovered the Purple Soul Bell's presence. Due to a momentary oversight, the Purple Soul Bell was struck by sword qi and damaged. While the Heavenly Poison Veil wasn't as discreet or direct to use as the Purple Soul Bell, its power was even greater.

The Heavenly Poison Veil floated in the air, sometimes transforming into a cloud of poisonous mist, and other times returning to its original form. After a period of ritual refining, Qin Sang brought it under his control. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He took out the malignant poisonous mist he had stored earlier and tossed it into the air.

Immediately, the Heavenly Poison Veil eagerly expanded, devouring the malignant poisonous mist without Qin Sang's command. It turned out the mist had indeed separated from the Heavenly Poison Veil. After the two merged, its power increased by another 20%.

Qin Sang nodded secretly. While these two artifacts were only considered slightly inferior among top-grade magical artifacts, an ordinary cultivator with a cultivation level similar to the black-robed elder would be fortunate to possess even one. It was clear that such 'business' was indeed highly profitable with no capital.

However, these three ultimately could not escape the fate of dying for wealth. Even Qin Sang, during his luring operations, had encountered powerful enemies multiple times and only avoided disaster by relying on powerful artifacts like the Ebony Sword.

Besides these, there were also essential consumables for the Ancient Immortal Battlefield, such as spirit pills and cloud artifacts, all of which Qin Sang needed. After organizing them, he stored everything away, then destroyed the three individuals' storage bags.

The cave dwelling was quiet.

Qin Sang sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. Waves of spiritual energy emanated from his body, and the spiritual energy in the cave dwelling seemed to be drawn by an immense force, continuously absorbed and circulated by Qin Sang.

At this moment, Qin Sang was fully engrossed in his cultivation.

Within his soul, on the verdant sword body, a Killing Talisman shimmered faintly. Beside it, another Killing Talisman was half-inscribed. This half-inscribed talisman also formed a small vortex of light, similar to Qin Sang's Qi Sea, helping him absorb the spiritual energy from the cave dwelling.

Guided by his cultivation technique, this spiritual energy entered his soul space via the Ebony Sword, then flowed into his meridians. After circulating through several cycles according to the technique, impurities were refined out, and the energy completely transformed into Qin Sang's own spiritual power, eventually converging into his Qi Sea. This inherently accelerated Qin Sang's cultivation speed.

This was the power of the 'Soul-Nourishing Sword Art.' The Ebony Sword acted as Qin Sang's second Dantian. Limited by his innate talent, Qin Sang's cultivation speed was originally far inferior to others, but he could narrow the gap by utilizing the Killing Talismans.

Currently, the number of Killing Talismans was still small, so this improvement wasn't obvious. As his cultivation advanced and the number of Killing Talismans increased, Qin Sang's cultivation speed would also grow faster, eventually rivaling that of a True Spiritual Root.

As for the terrifying cultivation speed of a Heavenly Spiritual Root, Qin Sang didn't dare to aspire to it. Perhaps it would be possible if the 'Soul-Nourishing Sword Art' weren't incomplete.

After cultivating for a while, Qin Sang stopped his technique and focused all his attention on the Ebony Sword, observing the incomplete Killing Talisman for a long time. Then, he poured all his effort into inscribing a new stroke onto it.

"Phew!"

Finally completing the stroke, Qin Sang was drenched in sweat. He opened his eyes and let out a long breath. His face was filled with exhaustion; clearly, finishing this stroke had been a tremendous drain on both his mental energy and spiritual power.

Yet, his eyes shone with excitement because he felt that inscribing this stroke was easier than before; it was only due to his current cultivation level that it felt so arduous.

After twenty years of arduous cultivation and continuous battles with cloud beasts, his mind was immersed in the Killing Talismans during every fight, contemplating their profound mysteries. By now, he had comprehended over eighty percent of the second Killing Talisman. In a while, he would fully grasp the talisman, then intensely cultivate within his cave dwelling to raise his cultivation, and subsequently inscribe the Killing Talisman stroke by stroke.

By then, once the amount of spiritual energy in his body met the breakthrough requirements and was sufficient to fully inscribe the second Killing Talisman onto the Ebony Sword, advancing to the Mid-Foundation Establishment stage would be a natural progression.

Currently, the Ebony Sword only held one and a half Killing Talismans, and his cultivation speed wasn't fast enough, so this process might take a long time.

However, compared to other cultivators stuck at bottlenecks, Qin Sang preferred his current situation. At least every step of his progress was clearly visible, and he didn't have to worry about making no advancement for decades.

Qin Sang had experienced that feeling during the Qi Condensation stage, and it truly could drive a person mad.

Afterward, Qin Sang remained in the cave dwelling, cultivating diligently for another half a year, before setting off once again to leave the Celestial Crystal Secret Realm.

He already knew the distribution of cloud beasts near the Celestial Crystal Secret Realm like the back of his hand, understanding how to hunt enough of them while ensuring his own safety.

Following a familiar route, after circulating for over half a month, Qin Sang arrived back at the mountain containing the Fire Elemental Stone Vein.

More than half a year had passed, and the mountain cave must have accumulated another batch of Fire Elemental Stones. Qin Sang harvested them like cutting leeks, crop after crop, a truly stable source of income.

It took him several days to lure and kill the cloud beasts hovering above the cave entrance. Qin Sang then activated a cloud artifact for protection and stealthily infiltrated the cave dwelling.

This time, the interval for mining the Fire Elemental Stones was longer, and some of the cloud beasts in the vein had fully transformed. It took Qin Sang two days to completely clear out the cave. As his storage bag was filled with the harvest, he returned to the cave entrance, when his expression suddenly changed.

Outside, the sky was dim, cloud beasts roared, and sand and stones flew. A celestial phenomenon was imminent!

A dense, dark mass covered the sky, blocking out the sun. It wasn't storm clouds, but cloud beasts, agitated by the impending celestial phenomenon, flying out from the depths of the mountain range. Judging by the scene, the signs of the phenomenon had likely begun yesterday, but he had been deep inside the cave clearing out cloud beasts and hadn't noticed.

He absolutely could not stay here; otherwise, when the celestial phenomenon struck, it would be certain death!

Qin Sang's expression darkened slightly. He immediately pulled out a copper-bell-shaped cloud artifact, placed it over his head, and rushed down the mountain. However, the distance was too short, and the cloud artifact couldn't completely conceal Qin Sang's aura. Instantly, cloud beasts discovered his presence!