Chapter 2311: 2293 Soul Wood

“What? Ninth Uncle went to the Barren Land!”

Wang Qingshan frowned. The Barren Land was a notoriously dangerous place; even Integration cultivators could perish there, let alone Void Refinement cultivators. If Wang Changsheng and Wang Ruyan had gone together, Wang Qingshan wouldn't have been so worried, but with Wang Changsheng going alone, things were uncertain.

“Don’t worry!” Wang Ruyan said with a happy expression. “Your Ninth Uncle’s Dharma Idol has solidified by more than a quarter, significantly increasing his strength. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone to the Barren Land. You’ve just entered the Void Refinement stage, so take some time to recover and adjust. In at least three hundred years, or possibly over five hundred years, a beast tide is bound to erupt. By then, resisting it will be much easier.” Wang Ruyan was delighted. With Wang Qingshan’s divine abilities, the three of them combined would be able to fight a high-grade sixth-tier demon beast, provided there was only one such beast.

Wang Qingshan nodded, thinking that if that were the case, it wouldn't be so bad. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Wang Qingshan returned to Qingzhu Peak to meditate and recover.

Wang Ruyan took out a communication disk, cast a spell, and instructed, “Qingcheng, if anything unusual happens to your father’s soul lamp, notify me immediately.”

“Understood, Mother,” Wang Qingcheng’s voice replied.

Wang Ruyan put away the communication disk, a worried expression appearing on her face. It would be false to say she wasn’t worried about Wang Changsheng; she simply didn’t want Wang Qingshan to worry too. “Sixty years have passed. Why hasn’t my husband returned? Could he have encountered a seventh-tier demon beast?” Wang Ruyan muttered to herself, her eyes filled with concern.

Deep within the Barren Land lay an endless dense forest. Ancient trees towered, their branches lush and leaves abundant, their canopies blocking out the sun and casting the forest into perpetual gloom. From deep within the forest, deafening roars echoed, shaking the ground.

In an open clearing, numerous trees lay snapped in half. Wang Changsheng stood on the ground, panting, his face slightly pale. A massive humanoid phantom floated above his head – his Dharma Idol. The Twin-Eyed Rat perched on Wang Changsheng’s shoulder, emitting excited squeaks. A two-headed, entirely black exotic beast lay in a huge crater, reduced to a pile of unrecognizable mush.

Not far away stood a towering tree, so massive it would take five people to embrace its trunk. It was over a hundred *zhang* tall, entirely black, with some golden patterns on its surface and round leaves. The ten-thousand-year Celestial Soulwood was an excellent material for crafting sixth-tier puppet beasts. Valued by spirit stones, this particular Celestial Soulwood was worth over a hundred million, enough for Wang Changsheng to craft multiple puppet beasts.

Besides Celestial Soulwood, other materials were required to craft a sixth-tier puppet beast. The most difficult to find was Celestial Soulwood itself, as this spiritual wood had extremely high environmental requirements, growing only in places with dense Yin energy. Coincidentally, his discovery of this Celestial Soulwood was somewhat related to Wang Yingjie. Wang Yingjie had visited this dense forest before, but he hadn't seen the Celestial Soulwood. Instead, he had found a ten-thousand-year spiritual medicine guarded by a sixth-tier demon beast and had noted its location.

Wang Changsheng followed the map to this location. The spiritual medicine had already been eaten by a demon beast, but during his pursuit of the beast, he discovered the ten-thousand-year Celestial Soulwood.

After Wang Changsheng’s injuries healed, he spent several decades refining two Calamity-Averting Beads. He refined one of them and stored it within his body for cultivation, allowing it to avert one calamity at a critical moment. There were many types of calamity-averting items, but they were not universally applicable. A calamity-averting item suitable for Nascent Soul cultivators might not work for Void Refinement cultivators, leading to failure to avert the calamity.

Treasures like the Calamity-Averting Bead could be used by Integration cultivators, though it was uncertain for Mahayana cultivators. Simply put, they were like healing elixirs: even a healing elixir that quickly healed a Nascent Soul cultivator might not be effective for a Void Refinement cultivator. The same applied to Transformation Pills; there were many types of pills to assist demon beasts in transforming, and the higher the demon beast’s tier, the more advanced the Transformation Pill required.