Chapter 310: Two Flowers

Suddenly, Han Li's eyelids moved, and his originally tightly shut eyes opened wide, shooting out two beams of golden light that seemed almost solid.

He saw his hands rapidly forming hand seals in front of his chest, starting with the hands clasped inward and ending with them joined together, then raising two fingers as if holding a sword and thrusting them forward abruptly.

Behind him, the True Word Wheel blazed with light, and all one hundred and eight clusters of Time Dao patterns lit up simultaneously.

Golden light suddenly surged from his palms, gathering toward his joined fingertips, and a wisp of golden crystalline thread, as fine as a strand of ox hair or a fly's bristle, slowly formed, struggling to emerge from his fingertips.

When it had extended about an inch, a faint "pop" sound was heard, and the crystalline thread shattered, dissolving into specks of golden light that dissipated into the air.

The golden light in Han Li's eyes flickered and then slowly faded. He looked at his bloodstained clothes and a bitter smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

This attempt had advanced a step further compared to the past, but it was still one step short; he could not condense a thread of the Law of Time, ultimately falling short of success.

"It seems that even directly consuming this Celestial Nectar of Creation and using it to comprehend the Time Law, one of the three supreme laws, is extremely difficult. Now it appears that only by taking a Dao Pill might there be a chance of success," Han Li mused for a while before finally muttering to himself, having made a decision.

Now he could better understand why Dao Pills were so highly esteemed in the Immortal Realm.

It was like the difference between directly taking a spiritual herb and taking a pill refined from that herb as the main ingredient.

It could maximize the comprehension of the law power contained in the spiritual material by the cultivator, making it far more effective than directly consuming the material.

Fortunately, he was now quite wealthy, and could relatively easily obtain spiritual materials containing the power of the Time Law; otherwise, he would not dare to try this path.

He sighed, took out a pill and swallowed it. Golden light once again appeared on his body, enveloping him completely.

More than ten days later.

Han Li left the secret chamber and walked slowly along the corridor inside the cave dwelling, arriving at the spirit medicine field.

The medicine field was lush and verdant, brimming with spiritual energy, everywhere showing a scene of vitality.

On the ridges of the field, the giant ape puppet was carrying several green wooden buckets, constantly scooping out ladles of green, glowing spiritual liquid and splashing it onto the field.

Han Li had learned the method of preparing this spiritual liquid from the booklet on Dao Soldier cultivation that Lord Hu Yan had given him, but he had not used it on that Dao Soldier plant; instead, he used it to water other spiritual herbs.

Han Li's gaze swept over the many spiritual herbs in the garden and finally landed on a corner of the garden, his eyes brightening.

The original sprout from the mother bean was gone, replaced by a huge golden plant over ten feet tall, looking quite extraordinary.

The trunk was earthy yellow, while the leaves were pale gold.

The leaves had numerous golden patterns resembling creases, piled layer upon layer, making them somewhat unclear to see, and these golden patterns extended from the leaves to the main trunk and branches.

Under the dense golden leaves hung green bean pods, each about an inch long, with plump bulges on them, indicating that round bean seeds were growing inside.

Joy surged in Han Li's heart. He quickly stepped forward and walked around the Dao Soldier tree, feeling much like a farmer after a year of hard work at harvest time, and even carefully counted the pods on the tree.

After counting once, he found a total of seventy-five pods. If each pod contained seven beans, it should yield over five hundred beans. If nothing went wrong during subsequent refinement, that would mean five hundred Bean Soldiers of considerable power.

However, these beans did not appear to be fully mature yet.

According to Lord Hu Yan's notes, when the Bean Soldiers mature, the trunk gradually withers, and the leaves gradually fall off, supplying all nutrients to the beans.

At that time, the pods will burst open on their own, and the beans will fly out.

The current Dao Soldier tree, because the beans were not yet mature, did not emit any special aura, and it was unclear whether the mutation would turn out good or bad.

But Han Li was not too worried. The mutation of the Bean Soldiers was most likely due to his watering with the green liquid from the small bottle, and anything related to the small bottle was mostly not a bad thing.

After looking for a while longer, Han Li turned around to head back, but from the corner of his eye, he noticed two small yellow flowers blooming at the top of the Dao Soldier tree, as if more pods were about to form.

He stopped to examine them, a hint of doubt flashing in his eyes. He flipped his hand and took out the booklet Lord Hu Yan had given him, turned to a certain page, and carefully examined it.

After a long while, he put the booklet away again, looked up, and said doubtfully:

"The instructions above are perfectly clear: the mother bean used to propagate Dao soldiers has a longer flowering period and often matures later than ordinary beans. But there is usually only one such mother bean. Why are there two flowers here... Could this also be due to mutation?"

If that were the case, it would naturally be a good thing. In this way, the speed of propagating and cultivating bean soldiers should increase considerably. However, to be safe, it would be best to consult Old Daoist Huyan later.

Thinking thus, he turned and walked toward the other side.

In this area of spirit fields, there were spirit herbs of various shapes, not many in number and only a few types, but each exuded a unique special aura.

These spirit herbs were none other than some of the ingredients needed for refining Dao pills that Han Li had spent years searching far and wide to obtain. Since they had originally been of different ages when acquired, after years of forced maturation, their growth conditions also varied.

Among them, dozens of blue plants resembling ice crystals were the oldest. Their shape was like orchid grass, and their leaves were translucent and gleaming. These were the strange plants he had collected back in the Floating Mountain Secret Realm.

He had not known what they were at first, but after extensive comparison, he discovered that they were the Nether Mist Grass mentioned in the Dao pill recipe.

Moreover, since these plants had been growing deep in the neglected Floating Mountain Secret Realm, some of them had already reached an age of over a hundred thousand years, meeting the requirements for refining Dao pills.

Not far from the Nether Mist Grass, within an area covered by a small formation, there were a dozen or so sprouts that looked as if they had just germinated.

This herb was called "Sand Sunflower," also a spirit herb recorded in the Dao pill recipe, brought back by Meng Yungui over a hundred years ago.

The above-ground part of this herb grew extremely slowly, but its underground root system flourished abnormally. If not for the formation covering it, it would have long since filled the entire spirit herb field, making it impossible for other herbs to grow.

Apart from the main ingredient, collecting the auxiliary ingredients for the Dao pill recipe was not easy either. That Meng Yungui could obtain such a harvest was a stroke of fortune. On the return journey, he was even coveted and fought over, nearly losing his life. Fortunately, he had the secret treasure bestowed by Han Li to protect himself, allowing him to return safely.

After receiving a generous reward from Han Li and cultivating quietly on Red Cloud Peak for over ten years, he once again set out on the path of seeking spirit herbs.

Speaking of which, besides Meng Yungui, in the past two hundred years, Meng Qianqian and Sun Buzheng had each returned once. However, Han Li was at a critical stage of impacting his immortal apertures at the time, so he did not see them.

Meng Qianqian stayed on the peak a bit longer, partly hoping to see if Han Li would emerge from seclusion soon, and partly because Nian Yu and the Twin-Headed Lion-Eagle Beast were having a joyous reunion and were unwilling to leave.

Neither Sun Buzheng nor Meng Qianqian had the fortune of Meng Yungui. They only found some spirit herb seedlings and seeds mentioned in Earth-grade recipes, failing to collect the ingredients needed for refining Dao pills.

Han Li was not surprised by this. To date, he had only collected a few types of Dao pill ingredients, including the Tea Spirit Stamen. The collection tasks he had posted in the Wuchang Alliance had their rewards increased repeatedly, yet still no one showed interest.

After staying in place for a moment, he turned and walked out of the spirit herb field, and soon arrived before another secret chamber.

Standing outside the stone door, Han Li raised his hand and swept his palm across the void.

Immediately, a patch of runes lit up on the stone door, and with a rumbling sound, it slid to the side, revealing a doorway wide enough for a person.

Inside the doorway, a purple-gold light shone, and a continuous crackling sound came from within.

Inside the secret chamber, the formation runes still shimmered with a hazy light, but the eight golden lightning-retaining trees standing around seemed somewhat dim, as if they had lost too much lightning power and were lacking in spiritual energy.

At the center of the formation, the immortal puppet clad in a yellow robe sat cross-legged, with purple arcs of electricity jumping all over its body, especially around its chest, where electric light swirled and gleamed brightly.

Seeing this, Han Li furrowed his brows slightly.

The recess at the very center of the lightning formation was empty; the purple spherical crystal that had been embedded there was gone.

"Fellow Daoist Crab," Han Li immediately transmitted his voice to the Crab Daoist using his divine sense.

The yellow-robed man merely sat cross-legged with his eyes tightly shut, showing no response.

Han Li pondered for a moment but did nothing, simply standing still and waiting quietly.

After a long while, the cluster of electric light lingering around the yellow-robed man's chest crackled and contracted toward the center, soon completely fading away and disappearing.

At the same time, all the purple arcs covering the formation vanished, the spiritual patterns on the lightning-retaining trees gradually dimmed, and the entire formation ceased operation, falling completely silent.

A beam of golden light shone from the chest of the yellow-robed man, and a golden crab the size of a palm slowly crawled out. All its metal limbs contracted simultaneously, and then it leaped abruptly toward Han Li.

Seeing this, Han Li spread out one hand and caught it.

"How is it?" Han Li raised the golden crab to eye level and asked.

Compared to before, the Crab Daoist's aura had stabilized considerably. On its eight slender limbs, there were extremely fine purple lines, almost unnoticeable unless one looked carefully.