Chapter 21: Nascent Soul Mutation

Inside the spirit boat.

Han Li sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, leaning against one side of the boat wall, while Le'er obediently sat cross-legged beside him, curiously examining everything inside the spirit boat and occasionally glancing at the rapidly receding scenery outside.

Gu Yunyue stood at the bow, steering the spirit boat while speaking softly with Yu Menghan beside her.

After an unknown amount of time, Han Li let out a light breath, slowly opened his eyes, and his expression turned somewhat grim.

After waking up, he had discovered that he could no longer absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth into his body, let alone directly restore his magic power through breathing exercises. At that time, he had just recovered his spiritual sense and was still shocked by the inexplicable loss of memory, so he had not had time to carefully investigate this matter.

Now he tried again and found it was still the same.

After a moment's thought, Han Li turned his hand over, and a white jade bottle appeared in his palm. As soon as he opened it, a rich medicinal fragrance assailed his nostrils, lifting his spirits slightly.

He poured out a cyan pill, held it between two fingers, and brought it close to his eyes to examine it.

"So this is the Wangxi Pill? I hope it's really of some use," Han Li murmured, raised his hand, and put the pill into his mouth. Then he closed his eyes and began to regulate his breathing.

Seeing this, Liu Le'er wisely did not disturb him. When she saw that Yu Menghan had finished talking with Gu Yunyue and was walking toward her, she stood up, went over to her, and sat down on the other side of the boat, chatting softly.

After a moment, as the medicinal power gradually spread, Han Li's brows suddenly twitched slightly. A gentle warmth slowly arose in his lower abdomen's dantian and began to flow on its own through the meridians and vessels of his body.

After one full cycle, he felt his entire body much more comfortable. The previously empty and unsupported feeling inside him also changed somewhat. A trace of magic power actually emerged in his dantian. Although it was insignificant, it still brought him some joy.

Han Li slowly opened his eyes, clenched the fists resting on his knees, and after a brief sensation, he turned his hand over, and more than a dozen pills appeared in his palm.

These pills, aside from those obtained from White Stone True Man, also included some left behind by Qi Minghao and the gray-clad man. They were almost all for healing and restoring magic power, of mixed quality, far inferior to that Wangxi Pill.

Han Li picked one up, put it into his mouth, and then slowly closed his eyes again.

However, after a moment, his eyes suddenly opened, and a hint of doubt appeared on his face. Then he picked up another pill and swallowed it.

After another moment, his eyes opened again, and a flicker of light passed through them.

The two pills he had just swallowed both disappeared like clay oxen entering the sea, without a trace. He could neither feel the medicinal power dissolving nor any magic power being generated.

Han Li's expression turned grave. He swallowed the pills in his hand one after another.

Soon, only one thumb-sized dark golden pill remained in his palm.

This pill was of no low grade, presumably comparable to the Wangxi Pill, and was likely Qi Minghao's life-saving pill.

Han Li glanced at the pill expressionlessly, then raised his hand and threw it into his mouth.

This time, he was not disappointed. The medicinal power of this golden pill slowly dissolved as before, turning into a wisp of spiritual power that flowed into his dantian, slightly increasing his magic power again.

Only then did Han Li relax.

As long as some pills were effective, restoring magic power would not be difficult. As for the other pills having no effect, it was mostly because their grade was too low and their medicinal power too weak.

Just then, a somewhat deep voice suddenly sounded in his mind:

"Congratulations, Fellow Daoist Han. There is hope for restoring your magic power."

"It's just a tree without roots, water without a source!" Han Li replied with a bitter laugh through his divine sense.

"Better than nothing. The more magic power you recover, Fellow Daoist Han, the more hope we have of returning to the Immortal Realm," Mo Guang said calmly.

"That's true, but it's probably not that easy," Han Li replied slowly.

"If pills are like this, what about spirit stones?" Mo Guang asked again.

"Even if you hadn't mentioned it, I was about to try," Han Li said with a smile.

With that, he turned his hand over, and several cyan spirit stones of varying sizes appeared in his palm. He clenched his hands, and a hazy cyan light immediately lit up on the spirit stones.

Liu Le'er and Yu Menghan, seeing the cyan light rising from Han Li's side, couldn't help but take a few more glances, while Gu Yunyue, standing at the bow, showed no reaction.

The cyan spiritual power slowly flowed out from the spirit stones, and after swirling in Han Li's palm for a while, it gradually became hazy and indistinct.

After a moment, the cyan light gradually dispersed and disappeared into the air.

Han Li released the now dim spirit stones from his hand, his expression hesitant, and fell into deep thought.

"What's going on? Can't you absorb the spirit stones either?" Mo Guang's voice sounded again in Han Li's mind.

After a moment of silence, Han Li replied, "Perhaps it's the same as with the pills. These spirit stones are too low in grade, and the spiritual power they contain is not pure enough to be converted into magic power."

"If that's the case, as long as there are plenty of high-grade pills and top-grade spirit stones, your recovery of strength should be just around the corner, right?" Mo Guang said after a brief pause.

"It's not that simple. Whether top-grade spirit stones are useful remains to be tested. Fortunately, my physical body and spiritual sense foundation are still relatively stable. Even if I can't absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth, I can still recover slowly on my own," Han Li said with a long sigh, somewhat frustrated.

"You're being too modest, Fellow Daoist Han. From what I've seen in the past, if your physical body and spiritual sense can only be considered as having a stable foundation, then there are few in the world who can be said to have an extremely solid one. Since there is a direction, I only hope you recover soon," Mo Guang said leisurely, then fell silent.

Han Li sighed. Among the storage pouches he had picked up earlier, there were no top-grade spirit stones, or he would have tried them directly.

He carefully examined the magic power in his body again and found that it was now equivalent to that of an ordinary Nascent Soul mid-stage cultivator. To continue improving, he would either need to be able to absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth again or directly swallow high-grade pills that restore magic power.

Thinking of this, Han Li frowned and involuntarily sank his divine sense deep into his dantian to inspect his internal condition.

His entire dantian seemed to be shrouded in an endless thick fog, and deep within the fog, a thin layer of golden light spread out, like a yellow lamp in the night.

As Han Li projected his divine sense into it, he saw a small figure emitting a bright golden light, sitting cross-legged in the thick fog. Its appearance and expression were exactly like Han Li's—it was his Nascent Soul.

The Nascent Soul had a calm expression, its eyes slightly closed, and its hands hanging at its sides, as if it were fast asleep.

His inability to absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth into his body was naturally closely related to the state of his Nascent Soul. When he had first woken up, he had swept it with his spiritual sense, but found that his divine sense could not enter the Nascent Soul's interior, nor could it awaken it in the slightest.

If it weren't for the faint spiritual connection between the depths of his heart and the Nascent Soul, he would almost have thought that his Nascent Soul had become something foreign.

At this moment, after quickly running through various secret techniques in his mind, Han Li finally formed a hand seal with one hand. The remaining magic power in his dantian stirred and transformed into faint silver runes, which slowly drifted toward the Nascent Soul and attached themselves to it.

With a few muffled sounds of "puff, puff,"

the silver runes, as soon as they touched the golden little figure's skin, turned into clusters of silver light and exploded, scattering.

Han Li's expression darkened, but he was not too surprised. He immediately changed the incantation in his mind, and around the golden little figure in his dantian, strands of milky-white light filaments emerged and slowly wound around the little figure...

Several hours later.

Han Li opened his eyes wide, took a deep breath, and forced the hot blood rising in his throat back down.

Just now, he had recklessly activated the divine soul refinement technique, an immortal realm secret art, using his divine sense to forcibly invade the Nascent Soul's body. As a result, a terrifying power vaguely transmitted from the Nascent Soul, causing his divine sense to suddenly rebound and his magic power to reverse, leading to a backlash from the secret art.

It was fortunate that his physical body and spiritual sense were strong enough. If it had been someone else, at best they would have suffered severed meridians, and at worst, under the backlash of their divine sense, they would have truly become an idiot.

This ordeal caused Han Li to consume a portion of his magic power, nearly dropping from the previous Nascent Soul mid-stage level to early stage, which made him even more frustrated.