Cultivating Immortality Begins with Rejuvenation

Upon seeing him again, Alchemist Mo and his group had changed their appearances once more. This time, they looked like fierce and burly men, intimidating and unapproachable.

With his ninth level of Qi training and a lifetime dedicated to refining pills, his spiritual power was naturally stronger than that of ordinary late-stage Qi practitioners. After disguising himself, ordinary late-stage Qi practitioners would be unable to see through his true face.

Except for Foundation Establishment cultivators, at least in the wilderness, ordinary late-stage Qi practitioners shouldn't be able to see through him. This was probably one of the reasons why he secretly left the wilderness on behalf of the Zheng family.

After following him for half a day and seeing him visit several major chambers of commerce, realizing that he wasn't in a hurry to leave, Li Ji'an left another mark and returned.

"Uncle Li, I've broken through!" Just as he entered the courtyard, Xiao Qiao, who had been practicing Qi for a year, finally brought good news.

Last year, when Xiao Qiao turned fifteen, Li Ji'an had her spiritual roots tested.

The result was somewhat unexpected.

Originally, when Li Ji'an discovered her unusual nature at the age of twelve, he thought she might have extraordinary talent and excellent spiritual roots. Moreover, he could sense that she had already taken Nourishing Origin Pills and had been living in the Immortal City all along.

However, none of her five elemental spiritual roots exceeded ten strands of spiritual energy.

But there was something special: all five elements were at nine strands, just a hair's breadth away from reaching the middle grade.

Afterward, Li Ji'an struggled to decide which element's cultivation technique she should focus on.

In the end, based on her unique sensitivity to the earth's spiritual energy and after consulting her own thoughts, he bought her the best earth-element technique available on the market at the time, a near-high-grade technique.

But this year of cultivation was unsatisfactory.

The progress was extremely slow, even slower than his own two strands of spiritual energy in his previous life when practicing the lowest-grade technique. He even provided her with high-quality replenishing pills along the way.

"Could she really be a blessed one? And is it a divine ability that doesn't help with cultivation, or even has some negative effects?" After carefully sensing Xiao Qiao's dantian and confirming that she had finally broken through to the first level of Qi training, becoming a true cultivator, Li Ji'an pondered.

"Well, your spiritual root talent is slightly insufficient, so you need to work twice as hard in your cultivation. It took you a year to step into Qi training, which is a bit slow, but don't be discouraged. Just do your best. The cultivation world is a place where miracles can happen."

"Once you break through to the middle stage of Qi training, try Granny You's array inheritance," Li Ji'an truthfully told her the real situation, and then softly comforted her.

Xiao Qiao seemed a little disappointed.

In fact, she had been diligent and hardworking in her cultivation this past year, even reducing her playtime with Guagua and Fire Spirit.

It wasn't that she had any great ambitions, but merely that she was worried about becoming a burden to Li Ji'an.

Because of her tragic childhood experience, coupled with living alone with Granny You, she rarely interacted with outsiders. Granny You also needed to cultivate and study arrays, so she didn't have time to accompany her, leading to an incomplete personality. It wasn't until she was entrusted to Li Ji'an at the age of twelve and had Guagua as a companion that she became slightly more cheerful.

Now, she only had one wish: to stay with Li Ji'an forever.

"Don't worry too much, just recognize yourself correctly. I will always be with you." Seeing her emotional loss, Li Ji'an didn't put pressure on her, and encouraged her again.

Whether it was the deal for Granny You's array inheritance or the favor of helping him obtain the Fire Spirit, or even the four years of living together day and night, Li Ji'an would take care of her as a junior.

Whether she achieved anything or not didn't matter. As long as he subtly made her understand the underlying logic of this world, let her understand her own situation, and then let her live according to her own ideas, she didn't need to be too utilitarian.

Three days later.

Li Ji'an, who was refining pills in the alchemy room that day, suddenly felt a surge of vast demonic power spreading.

He immediately walked out of the alchemy room and saw in the courtyard's pool that the water was churning. Guagua, who was half a man tall, was lying in the pool, revealing its back. The originally emerald green skin was constantly changing color.

From green to blue to purple to red... black... yellow... the color became lighter and lighter, eventually becoming almost transparent, and then constantly cycling.

"Why are you so impatient?" Li Ji'an frowned slightly, but it wasn't the time to criticize. He quickly took out three restriction talismans from his storage bag and activated them instantly, trying his best to prevent the spiritual energy fluctuations here from attracting attention.

Then, he poured out several Spirit Replenishing Pills and threw them at Guagua, preventing it from failing to advance due to insufficient spiritual energy.

Originally, after obtaining the Blood Pill, he planned to wait for Guagua to nurture itself for a while, and when it was in its best condition, take it to the inner city to rent a cave with abundant spiritual energy and a well-arranged formation to close up and break through.

After all, although demon beasts' cultivation didn't completely rely on spiritual energy, when breaking through to a major realm, the more abundant the spiritual energy, the better the bloodline transformation effect, and the easier it was to save their lives after a failed breakthrough.

Guagua was very important as a key life-saving method after his "rejuvenation".

But he never thought that spirit beasts were still beasts after all, and their minds and nature couldn't be as sound as humans. Probably feeling that its state had reached its peak, it swallowed the Blood Pill out of instinct.

Since things had come to this, there was no use thinking about other things. Li Ji'an took out the several life-saving pills he had specially refined these days and paid attention to Guagua's condition at all times, prioritizing saving its life in case of danger.

Guagua remained motionless, only the color changes lasted for half a day.

Unfortunately, Li Ji'an had been busy with cultivation, alchemy, and studying talismans in recent years, and didn't have the extra energy to further study the art of beast taming. He didn't understand the situation of spirit beasts breaking through to the second level, and couldn't see any clues at this time.

Half a day later, its color finally stopped changing, and eventually became the turbid color of the pool water. If you didn't look carefully, it was naturally integrated with the water in the pool, as if it were one thing.

"Chameleon Frog?"

"A bloodline mutation talent supernatural power after breaking through to the second level?" Li Ji'an observed at close range, quite surprised.

If that was the case, Guagua's concealment ability would be greatly increased.

Originally, because it had devoured too many Soul-Devouring Ants, it had the ability to shield against spiritual sense detection. Now, with the color-changing talent, it was becoming more and more difficult to detect.

Li Ji'an was very satisfied with the unexpected surprise, which was in line with his principle of safety first in everything.

However, after carefully sensing for a moment, he didn't notice much change in Guagua's demonic power. It seemed that it was only in the early stage of the breakthrough and hadn't really completed the transformation.

"Guagua~"

Suddenly, an anomaly occurred.

Guagua, who had been slightly calm, suddenly burst out with two different attributes of bloodline aura.

Guagua was instantly torn apart by two forces, rolling in the pool, extremely painful.

Li Ji'an scanned with his divine sense and determined that it was an earth attribute aura and a water attribute aura.

"The Blood Pill is starting to take effect?" Not knowing why, he didn't dare to intervene forcibly and could only continue to observe its vitality changes.

Fortunately, although it seemed painful, its vitality was becoming more and more vigorous, and was still constantly rising.

Until an hour later, Li Ji'an keenly sensed that the two forces began to weaken.

"The Blood Pill's medicinal effect is gone?" As the two auras weakened, Li Ji'an found that Guagua's demonic power also began to plummet from its peak.

At the same time, what worried him was that Guagua's energy and blood were constantly being lost.

"Guagua~" With another miserable howl, Guagua's millstone-sized mouth suddenly opened and spat out a large pool of dirty black blood.

"Not good!" Li Ji'an's expression changed drastically. Without hesitation, he hurriedly threw the Pulse-Protecting Pill and Blood-Replenishing Pill in his hand into Guagua's mouth.

"Stabilize, refine the pills, don't force a breakthrough, just save your life!"

At that moment, Li Ji'an felt that when the two auras of the Blood Pill were insufficient, Guagua actually forcibly burned its essence blood, trying to rush up, but it still failed.

Guagua wearily opened a slit in its big eyes, deeply glanced at Li Ji'an, revealing a little reluctance and unwillingness.

"There's something wrong with the Blood Pill!" Seeing the emotions revealed in Guagua's eyes, Li Ji'an's face turned gloomy for the first time.

Although he didn't have a deep understanding of the art of beast taming, he had just witnessed Guagua's breakthrough process and now had some understanding. It was obvious that the bloodline power contained in the Blood Pill was insufficient, causing Guagua to fail to break through the first-level barrier in the end!

And Guagua was probably unwilling to let him down, so it forcibly burned its essence blood.

"Pfft~" The next moment, Guagua spat out another mouthful of dirty blood, and blood began to overflow from its eyes, nose, mouth, and even its whole body, turning into a blood frog in an instant.

Its energy and blood plummeted again.

"Treat a dead frog as a live one!" Li Ji'an dispelled his negative emotions, took a deep breath, and took out all the Qi and Blood Pills in his storage bag, throwing them all into Guagua's mouth.

Theoretically, demon beasts couldn't use human pills because of the differences between them and human cultivators, but pills related to Qi, blood, and meridians had some applicability. The life-saving pills that Li Ji'an had specially refined for Guagua these days were all pills used to protect the meridians and prevent loss of Qi and blood when human cultivators failed to break through, and had a certain effect.

But at this moment, Guagua was in the middle of a breakthrough, the Blood Pill's bloodline power was insufficient, and it forcibly broke through, leading to self-combustion of its natal essence blood, resulting in massive bleeding. The two Blood-Replenishing Pills were obviously not enough to compensate.

Fortunately, in order to quickly improve the physical training path after his "rejuvenation", he had always had the habit of storing Qi and Blood Pills.

Now, there were still hundreds of Qi and Blood Pills in his storage bag that were useless to him.

After so many Qi and Blood Pills were swallowed by Guagua, its lost Qi and blood began to slowly rise.

"It's working!" Li Ji'an calmed down and sensed carefully.

"Uncle Li, Guagua it..." Xiao Qiao and Fire Spirit had also been staring at Guagua in the pool, and were now in tears, their voices choked with sobs.

Fire Spirit was staring straight at Guagua, and the flames on its body were constantly trembling.

Li Ji'an shook his head with a solemn expression, unable to guarantee them anything for the time being.

Xiao Qiao became even more nervous, and her body, squatting on the ground, began to tremble faintly.

The three little ones had been together for four years, and this friendship was very pure.

"Guagua~" Suddenly, Guagua roared to the sky, its mouth churning with Qi and blood.

A Qi and blood almost as substantive was transformed from those hundreds of Qi and Blood Pills.

So much Qi and blood stabilized Guagua's declining Qi and blood at the first time, but now it was facing another crisis.

Qi and Blood Pills contained Qi and blood, but they needed to be refined by the body to be absorbed. At this moment, too many Qi and Blood Pills burst out instantly, and Guagua couldn't refine them quickly.

If it couldn't quickly refine them for its own use, it was likely to dissipate into the heavens and earth, and ultimately it would still be unable to replenish its lost Qi and blood, and there would be no way to recover.

"Swoosh~" Just as Li Ji'an was quickly thinking about whether he could help Guagua quickly refine Qi and blood, the little Fire Spirit at his feet suddenly shot towards Guagua's mouth.

"Fire Spirit?"

He saw Fire Spirit rush into Guagua's mouth, instantly erupting with the power of Fire Spirit. The rolling Qi and blood that was eager to rush out of Guagua's mouth was instantly refined by its Fire Spirit power, shrinking its power bit by bit.

"Good!" Li Ji'an was pleasantly surprised.

As a natural spirit flame, Fire Spirit was inherently magical in refining. At this critical moment, entering the situation was indeed the best way.

Sure enough, in less than a moment, most of the vast Qi and blood was refined, and Guagua's Qi and blood was quickly replenished.

After another half an hour, Guagua's Qi and blood almost recovered again.

Guagua, covered in blood, opened its eyes again, its eyes full of gratitude, joy, and... unwillingness!

Suddenly, Guagua's whole body's Qi and blood surged again.

This guy was actually going to burn his essence blood again to force a breakthrough.

"Don't be brave!" Li Ji'an's expression changed instantly, and he hurriedly dissuaded him.

However, this stubborn kind was determined and ignored Li Ji'an, burning again.

In an instant, demonic energy permeated again, Guagua raised its head high, and struggled to impact.

Once.

Twice.

...

With Fire Spirit constantly refining Qi and blood for it, this time the Qi and blood climbed more steadily and faster.

However,

Although each time was stronger than the last, after all, its own bloodline was low, and it still couldn't touch the second-level threshold.

Li Ji'an clearly sensed that its natal essence blood had been forcibly condensing a demon core, but it was always one step away.

"Guagua~" Until the hundred Qi and Blood Pills were about to be completely refined, Guagua didn't know how many times it had impacted.

This time was its last impact.

If it still didn't succeed, either give up, or die and the soul disappear!

Li Ji'an's whole body's mana surged, and he was ready. If it didn't succeed this time, he would forcibly subdue it.

"Boom~" For the last time, Guagua's Qi and blood climbed to the extreme.

A prototype demon core had already faintly appeared.

Once the demon core was successfully condensed, the bloodline would greatly increase, the demonic energy would soar, and it would step into the ranks of second-level demon beasts.

"Guagua~"

With the last croak, the prototype demon core that had reached the critical point finally did not form, as if a balloon was leaking air, quickly dissipating.

Guagua opened its eyes, tears in its eyes, despair, helplessness.

"Guagua! Don't give up! I'll help you." Just as Li Ji'an was about to take action to prevent Guagua from making a desperate blow, Xiao Qiao beside him suddenly pressed his hands on the ground, and a whole body of breath poured into the earth.

"..." Li Ji'an paused, looking at Xiao Qiao in surprise.

The next moment, Li Ji'an keenly felt that a vast force gathered under his feet in an instant, and then began to converge towards Guagua.

"This is..." After all, he still knew too little about this cultivation world. Li Ji'an couldn't understand Xiao Qiao's move at all, and didn't understand what role this sudden earth power had.

However, he clearly felt that after this earth power poured into Guagua's body, the prototype demon core that had already begun to dissipate condensed again, even faster and more solid than the peak impact just now.

In just three breaths, a blood-red demon core formed in Guagua's body.

With the formation of the demon core, a powerful demonic power burst out instantly.

Li Ji'an was pleasantly surprised. The demonic power that erupted at this moment was even more powerful and domineering than the Foundation Establishment power he sensed on Yan Qingwan.

"Guagua~" The next moment, the demonic power quickly gathered, and finally all hid in Guagua's demon core, without a trace of breath.

"Bang." At the same time, Xiao Qiao seemed to have exhausted all his strength and fell to the ground.

Immediately afterward, with a 'gua gua' sound as it opened its mouth, the little fire spirit's aura weakened by seventy percent. It wobbled as it flew out of Gua Gua's mouth, impatiently diving into Li Ji'an's dantian to recuperate.