Chapter 357: The Final Step

Han Li stood by the white spirit pool for a while longer, then turned and walked out.

Returning to his bedroom, he immediately fell into a deep sleep.

The three years of nonstop refining of the Ten Thousand Wheels Pill had required his full concentration, without the slightest carelessness, and he also had to constantly calculate the timing for activating the True Word Wheel. Even with his current late-stage True Immortal cultivation and divine sense, he felt greatly fatigued.

Before beginning the next phase of cultivation, it was necessary to rest well and restore his body, mind, and mana to a state of fullness and peak condition.

This sleep lasted a full three days and three nights.

Three days later, Han Li, refreshed and energetic, arrived at the secret chamber, sat cross-legged, and held a green jade bottle in his hand.

He tilted the bottle slightly and poured out a light golden pill the size of a dragon's eye, which was the Ten Thousand Wheels Pill.

Han Li pinched the pill between two fair fingers, pondered for a moment, then put it into his mouth and swallowed it, tilting his head back.

The Ten Thousand Wheels Pill quickly dissolved in his mouth and stomach, turning into a hot and powerful warm current that surged through the eight extraordinary meridians in his body.

Han Li frowned slightly, feeling that these warm currents were like ten thousand galloping horses unleashed at a command, flowing faster and faster through his meridians, gradually forming whirlpools of warm currents in various places, causing a stinging and swelling sensation in his meridians.

After a while, Han Li's brow gradually relaxed, and a hint of surprise appeared on his face.

The medicinal power of the Ten Thousand Wheels Pill was even greater than he had anticipated.

He soon let out a light breath, gathered his mind, silently circulated the "True Word Wheel Sutra," and began his selfless arduous cultivation.

A layer of soft golden light arose, enveloping his body.

Spring passed and winter came, the seasons alternated, and year after year went by.

The dust outside the cave mansion gate accumulated thicker and thicker, and now it was almost impossible to see that there was a gate on the mountain wall.

Five hundred years is an extremely long time for mortals, during which dynasties could rise and fall and races could migrate, but for cultivators, it was merely a single seclusion session.

One day, the sky above the island suddenly became turbulent, with countless black clouds appearing out of nowhere, and arcs of lightning flashing wildly within them.

Within ten thousand miles, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth churned violently, forming a gigantic vortex of spiritual energy that rotated slowly.

Countless visible clumps of spiritual power emerged in midair, and as the spiritual energy vortex rotated, they converged toward the small island.

A hundred miles from the nameless small island, there was a fiery red island on the sea surface.

This island was extremely small, only about a mile in circumference, formed by piles of bright red coral that sparkled in the sunlight, looking very beautiful.

Beside the coral island, the seawater churned with a splash, and a crimson demon beast emerged from the water.

This demon was over ten zhang long, resembling a pig in appearance, but its body was covered in crimson hair standing up like steel needles, and it had two snow-white tusks beside its mouth that gleamed with a metallic cold light.

What was even more peculiar was that this beast had six legs under its body.

This beast had a peculiar, even somewhat ferocious appearance, but its body was quite fat, round like a watermelon, lacking any dominance and instead looking somewhat comical.

If a cultivator familiar with the Black Wind Sea were here, they would be surprised to find that this beast was a common low-level demon beast in the Black Wind Sea, the Pig Dolphin Beast, but the aura it now emitted had reached the late Nascent Soul stage.

The beast's round body suddenly swelled, its mouth opened wide, and it emitted a powerful suction force.

Some of the spiritual energy clumps in midair immediately fell down and entered its mouth.

A layer of red light appeared on the Pig Dolphin Beast's body, flickering unsteadily.

The grand phenomenon on the distant island lasted about an hour before slowly dissipating, and the spiritual energy clumps in midair also disappeared.

The Pig Dolphin Beast closed its mouth, stopped emitting suction, and the red light on its body appeared slightly brighter than before.

The beast looked toward the distant island and let out a couple of unsatisfied calls.

It had been entrenched here for a long time. Several hundred years ago, an extremely powerful human cultivator had come to that island, and the nearby high-level demon beasts had all migrated away.

But at that time, its intelligence had just awakened, and it was still somewhat ignorant, so it did not leave.

After that human cultivator settled here, he did not attack the nearby low-level demon beasts but stayed behind closed doors.

The Pig Dolphin Beast had lived peacefully over the years, and because all the other powerful demon beasts had moved away, it had actually lived quite well.

Later, its intelligence gradually fully awakened, and after weighing the pros and cons repeatedly, it still chose not to leave.

The reason for staying was that on that island, over the past few hundred years, that huge spiritual energy vortex would appear every so often, and it had already appeared eleven times.

Each time, the Pig Dolphin Beast used its innate talent to absorb some of the substantial spiritual energy clumps, which allowed its cultivation to rise again and again. In just a few hundred years, it had gone from a Qi Condensation stage beast that had just awakened its intelligence to its current realm.

The Pig Dolphin Beast took a few more hard looks at the small island.

Its cultivation was already approaching the peak of the Nascent Soul stage. If that phenomenon had lasted a bit longer, it might have broken through to the next realm.

It seemed it would have to wait until next time...

The Pig Dolphin Beast thought to itself, shook its tail, and dove into the water.

Inside the cave mansion, Han Li's body was covered in golden light, emitting a vast and immense pressure.

All over his body, golden light dots flickered, and there were as many as thirty-five of them.

The golden light flickered wildly for a moment, then slowly faded away.

Han Li opened his eyes, a hint of excitement flashing in them.

In recent years, his cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds. In just over five hundred years, he had opened eleven immortal apertures in one go.

If outsiders knew about such a cultivation speed, they would probably be stunned speechless.

But if others knew that he had been taking the Ten Thousand Wheels Pill almost like an ordinary pill, even Golden Immortals would probably be jealous enough to vomit blood.

In fact, opening eleven immortal apertures in just five hundred years had also exceeded Han Li's expectations.

According to his original estimate, reaching this realm would have taken at least a thousand years; he hadn't expected to do it in five hundred.

Besides that, there was another aspect of this pill that puzzled him: the issue of drug resistance.

Over the years, he had been taking the Ten Thousand Wheels Pill continuously, but unlike other pills, it did not develop drug resistance that reduced its efficacy.

He had naturally spent some effort trying to find the reason for this, but after trying several methods without success, he didn't dwell on it, since it wasn't a bad thing; otherwise, he would have had a headache.

He shook his head, put the matter aside, and then showed a thoughtful expression.

Currently, he had opened thirty-five immortal apertures. The next step was to open the thirty-sixth immortal aperture and break through to the Golden Immortal realm.

If he could successfully cross that threshold, he would become a Golden Immortal!

Golden Immortal and True Immortal, though only one word apart, were as different as heaven and earth in both strength and status. Correspondingly, the difficulty of breaking through was enormous, even comparable to a Mahayana stage cultivator in the Spirit Realm transcending tribulation to become an immortal.

To break through this bottleneck, besides opening the thirty-sixth immortal aperture, the most troublesome was the last of the Three Heavenly Decays, the so-called "Aperture Decay."

Speaking of which, Han Li had not yet experienced any of the decays since he started cultivating, but from what he had heard and seen over the years, he knew the power of these three decays. Even with his abilities, he dared not be careless in the slightest.

To resist the Three Heavenly Decays, the most practical method was to truly master the power of laws.

He cultivated the law of time, which was one of the three supreme laws. If he could truly master it, even just a tiny bit, it would likely yield miraculous effects in resisting the True Immortal stage's three decays.

But over the years, he had tried every means and failed. Now his greatest hope was to refine a Dao Pill.

Suddenly reminded of something, Han Li stood up abruptly, left the secret chamber, and quickly arrived at an area of the medicine garden.

This area was a patch of black spiritual soil, with a damp and cold feeling in the air.

In the spiritual soil grew a white spiritual ginseng, its surface crystal clear as if carved from white jade, looking extremely extraordinary.

This was one of the materials missing for the Dao Pill: the Heaven-Created Ginseng.

Over the years, his efforts had finally paid off. He had obtained a Heaven-Created Ginseng seedling at a high price from the Wuchang Alliance.

Han Li looked at the white ginseng, a hint of joy in his eyes, and nodded.

As soon as he got the Heaven-Created Ginseng seedling, he had the giant ape puppet accelerate its growth with green liquid. Now, the cultivation process seemed quite smooth; it already had at least a hundred thousand years of medicinal age, enough for alchemy.

The only thing missing now was the Dew Condensing Grass, but despite his high-price offers, there was still no news of this herb.

This matter was something that could only be encountered by chance. Now that he was in the Black Wind Sea, the only way was to continue waiting for news from the Wuchang Alliance.

Han Li sighed softly, returned to the secret chamber, and sat down cross-legged.

Although he could not yet refine the Dao Pill, he naturally did not want to wait idly. Instead, he would attempt to break through the final thirty-sixth immortal aperture, at least opening most of it and pushing his cultivation to the late True Immortal stage peak.

With this thought, Han Li took out another Ten Thousand Wheels Pill, put it into his mouth, and closed his eyes to cultivate.

The vast blue sea stretched endlessly, the sky was clear, and the sea area seemed to have been like this since ancient times, never changing, giving a very vague sense of the passage of time.

In the blink of an eye, another fifty or sixty years passed.

At the coral island a hundred miles away, the sea surface churned with waves, and a crimson sea beast emerged, the Pig Dolphin Beast, looking toward the distant island.

Based on its past experience, the spiritual energy vortex should be appearing soon.

In recent years, the Pig Dolphin Beast had come out to check almost every day, afraid of missing its opportunity.

But nearly ten years had passed since its estimated time, and the spiritual energy vortex had not appeared.

Not only that, there was not a single sign of activity on the island. The occasional phenomena of spiritual power fluctuations that had appeared in previous years had also not occurred in recent years.

The Pig Dolphin Beast looked at the distant island, its expression gradually becoming anxious. Could it be that the human cultivator had already left?

After hesitating repeatedly, it finally swung its body and swam toward the small island.