Chapter 81 – Taking Protector Shadow to Clean Out the Advent Cult!

Chapter 81 – Taking Protector Shadow to Clean Out the Advent Cult!

“Three Spirit-Gathering Flowers—better than nothing, I suppose!”

Su Xing let out a soft sigh.

Three Spirit-Gathering Flowers weren’t enough for his Nascent Soul stage cultivation needs, but for daily pill refinement and replenishing spiritual energy expenditure, they were indeed sufficient.

Ever since Su Xing learned that the spiritual energy within the Blessed Spirit Field was finite, he had become far more cautious with his spiritual energy usage. He didn’t dare cultivate at all, and even wished he could split a single portion of spiritual energy in half to make it last longer. After all, his daily pill refinement also consumed spiritual energy—once it was depleted, he wouldn’t even be able to refine pills anymore.

“But if I had these three Spirit-Gathering Flowers, perhaps they could replenish the spiritual energy I need for daily pill refinement?”

Su Xing felt a growing desire for these Spirit-Gathering Flowers.

“Let me continue watching the simulation first…”

【That same year, you became the eighteenth Elder of the Advent Cult, codenamed Medicine Elder.】

【The next day, Protector Shadow contacted you. She asked you to refine a batch of Essence Nurturing Pills specifically for her—five thousand pills in total.】

【She provided you with sufficient medicinal herbs. You nodded and told her to come collect them in two months.】

【Protector Shadow was shocked when she heard this. She had originally assumed it would take you a year to refine five thousand pills, yet you told her it would only take two months.】

【Protector Shadow raised her doubts and questioned why you hadn’t been refining pills wholeheartedly for the Advent Cult.】

【You merely chuckled, explaining that you had been deliberately concealing your true abilities all along, and that you naturally had your own reasons for doing so.】

【At the same time, you proposed a partnership. You would provide Protector Shadow with two thousand Essence Nurturing Pills per month, but in return, she would need to supply you with one thousand spirit herbs each month.】

【Though Protector Shadow was filled with suspicion, the enormous temptation was too great, and she agreed to your proposal.】

【Year Four. You and Protector Shadow had been cooperating for over a year now. Each month, she supplied you with large quantities of spirit herbs, and each month, you provided her with two thousand Essence Nurturing Pills.】

【Over the course of your year-long partnership, you had collectively embezzled over ten thousand spirit herbs from the Advent Cult. This attracted the attention of some cult members, but with Protector Shadow serving as your shield, you encountered no real obstacles.】

【One day, Protector Shadow came to find you. After more than a year of cooperation, she had become certain that you were hiding a great secret, and so she asked about your true identity.】

【Drawing on your experience from previous simulations, you didn’t bother hiding it. You told her directly that you were an undercover agent sent in by the human race.】

【Protector Shadow’s jaw dropped. She could hardly believe you had revealed it so effortlessly.】

【Protector Shadow asked whether you weren’t afraid she would expose you. You simply smiled and said you knew she was also an undercover agent from another world.】

【At your words, a sharp flash of killing intent appeared in Protector Shadow’s eyes. This was the greatest secret she had kept during her decades within the Advent Cult, and now you had somehow discovered it.】

【But you remained unfazed. You knew that in order to obtain more pills, Protector Shadow would never kill you.】

【Sure enough, after a moment of silence, Protector Shadow stated that this matter could only remain between the two of you and must never be revealed to anyone else.】

【You nodded in agreement. Now that you shared each other’s secrets, your connection grew even tighter and your alliance even more unshakable.】

【Year Five. You continued your secret pill-refining dealings with Protector Shadow. Your stockpile of pills grew ever larger—by now, you had nearly fifty thousand Essence Nurturing Pills and fifty thousand Organ Tempering Pills in hand.】

【As your partnership with Protector Shadow deepened over these two years, she began sharing information with you, revealing secrets about her world.】

【Protector Shadow expressed envy toward your world, where everyone could grow stronger by killing monsters. In her world, the only path to power was through cultivation.】

【You asked if it was immortal cultivation. Protector Shadow shook her head and explained that the power system in her world was based on battle aura and magic. The offensive methods were similar to those of Class Users, but lacked the mystical depths of immortal cultivators.】

【You were somewhat disappointed, but you still learned a great deal about the power structure of Protector Shadow’s world.】

【Compared to Earth, humans in Protector Shadow’s world were significantly weaker. Protector Shadow herself was already among the very elite of her world. However, many people there possessed strength comparable to Gold-stage or Master-stage Class Users, which meant their power increased dramatically after taking Essence Nurturing Pills.】

【Protector Shadow also told you that the alien race’s invasion of her world was considerably weaker than their assault on Earth, but it was still an unstoppable force for them.】

【You were even more shocked by the alien race’s power, but your resolve remained firm. Your belief that you could resist the alien race did not waver.】

【Year Six. Your pill stockpile continued to grow. By now, you had nearly eighty thousand Essence Nurturing Pills and seventy thousand Organ Tempering Pills in hand.】

【Year Seven. The total number of pills in your possession exceeded two hundred thousand for the first time. This was enough to create roughly forty thousand Grandmaster-stage Class Users. Your confidence in resisting the monster beast invasion reached an unprecedented high.】

【However, after years of your collusion with Protector Shadow—working from both inside and out—the spirit herb reserves in the Advent Cult’s treasury had been reduced by more than half. The other Elders and Protectors within the cult were growing increasingly discontented.】

【Left with no choice, you announced that your alchemy skills had made a minor breakthrough, allowing you to provide the cult with one thousand pills per month. At the same time, the quantity of herbs allocated to you each month also increased.】

【Year Eight. As your cultivation continued to advance, you drew ever closer to the second layer of the Nascent Soul stage.】

【On a bright and pleasant morning, after years of steady accumulation, you achieved a natural breakthrough to the second layer of Nascent Soul.】

【From the first layer to the second layer of the Nascent Soul stage, you had spent a full eight years. While the time spent on pill refinement was partly responsible, you estimated that even with full-time cultivation, breaking through a single layer in the Nascent Soul stage would still require four to five years—and the later stages would only become harder.】

Su Xing frowned slightly at this. Breaking through from the first layer to the second layer of the Nascent Soul stage had taken eight years. Counting the cultivation time from his previous simulation, advancing from the first to the second layer had taken over a decade in total.

And cultivation only grew more difficult in the later stages. By that reckoning, reaching Great Perfection of the Spirit Transformation stage would take two to three hundred years.

While this pace would already be considered extremely fast for an ordinary cultivator, Su Xing was still not satisfied.

Two to three hundred years in the simulator would require more than a dozen simulation runs.

And that was only achievable if he extracted cultivation progress every single time. What if he obtained some cultivation technique or secret manual instead—wouldn’t his cultivation become nearly impossible to advance?

Su Xing rubbed his chin and thought:

“As I see it, there are currently two ways to rapidly increase cultivation. The first is to improve the quality of my talent. If I could obtain a purple-quality spirit root, I might be able to break through to the Spirit Transformation stage in as little as a hundred years…”

“The second, naturally, would be to refine a pill capable of boosting a Nascent Soul cultivator’s cultivation!”

Su Xing muttered to himself:

“If I recall correctly, the Separation Fire Alchemy Art seems to contain a record of a pill called the Dragon Spirit Pill, which can enhance a Nascent Soul cultivator’s cultivation?”