Since returning to the Valley of the Medicine Masters after being gravely wounded, Su Mo considered feigning compliance, gambling that the youth might not be able to demonstrate once more the Connate-stage ability that had defeated him so soundly.
However, in his midnight dreams, the scene of his crushing defeat by the youth played out again and again. Repeating that scene when his life hung in the balance had caused his spirit to crumble.
This caused Su Mo to abandon any ideas of trying his luck.
Acknowledging the youth as Master might be humiliating, but it would ensure that he could live in peace.
He had practiced for more than sixty years before attaining the late Connate stage, and with his martial talent, there was still a chance that he would be able to successfully attempt reaching the Primal Core stage in his lifetime
.
If he attained the Primal Core stage, he would break free of the upper limit of his lifetime, potentially living for three hundred years.
If he was not able to attain the Primal Core stage, he could hope to live just a hundred years.
If he managed to attain the Primal Core stage, he could live an additional two hundred years!
He was not willing to die for his dignity.
“Mm.” Zhou Donghuang lazily opened his eyes and gazed indifferently at the Valley Master of the Valley of the Medicine Masters, Su Mo, who was respectfully prostrated on the back of the thunder-feathered vulture.
“Get up,” Su Mo said evenly.
Su Mo waited for the youth’s reply before daring to rise and say respectfully, “Master, you must be weary from your travels. Shall I arrange a place for you to rest?”
“Mm.” Zhou Donghuang nodded. “Find me somewhere quiet.”
Riding on the thunder-feathered vulture, Su Mo soon led Zhou Donghuang and the golden-crowned eagle to the mountainside where their accommodation was. It was a cave by a small road that led to several main roads of the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
However, just beside the bends in both directions of the small road, two giant slabs of stone had been erected and carved with the words “Forbidden Place.”
The two carved words had even been painted in red paint, which made them extremely obvious.
“Master, this is where my respected teacher, the previous Valley Master of the Valley of the Medicine Masters, practiced. It is a paradise inside, and incomparably quiet and peaceful. Why don’t you go in and inspect it, and stay here if you find it satisfactory. If you are not satisfied, I will find accommodation at the foot of the mountain for you,” Su Mo said respectfully.
The entrance to the cave was very big, easily more than ten meters high and five or six meters wide. Not only in his current state, but even if Big Gold attained the Connate stage, he would be able to enter and exit the cave easily.
“Master, please go ahead.”
After leaping off the back of the thunder-feathered vulture to the ground, Zhou Donghuang followed Su Mo into the cave.
The thunder-feathered vulture waited patiently outside, but Big Gold followed them in.
Inside the cave, there was an indistinct white light that seemed to come from the cave’s depths.
After they had walked ten more meters, the white light became brighter, and they arrived at a bend in the path.
After rounding the bend, they entered into a gigantic cavern.
This cavern was vast, more than fifty meters deep and at least forty meters wide, with a height of twenty meters, as though it had been scooped out of the mountainside.
Seeing this, Zhou Donghuang was moved. “Such a large cave,” he thought. “Even if Big Gold attains the Connate stage, he could spread his wings here without a care.”
Everywhere in the cave, there were green plants that people had planted that gave off a fragrance that was immediately apparent. There was no lack of plants that could be used as herbs.
Besides this, there was a small waterfall at one side of the cave. Water welled out from a corner at the top of the cave and flowed languidly down, watering the plants around the cave.
In the middle of the cave, there was a free-standing wooden house, sparsely furnished. Aside from a wooden bed and a wooden table, there was nothing else inside it.
“Master, what do you think?” Su Mo asked anxiously, looking at the youth.
“It will do.”
Seeing the youth nod, Su Mo heaved a sigh of relief. He fished out a token from his pocket, which he had prepared in advance, and passed it to the youth. “Master, this is the ‘Token of the Medicine Master.’ Seeing the token is equivalent to seeing me. With this token, it will be more convenient for you in the Valley of the Medicine Masters in the future.”
There was only one Token of the Medicine Master in the Valley of the Medicine Masters, and it was usually passed down through successive generations of Valley Masters of the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
When the Valley Master of the Valley of the Medicine Masters passed the Token of the Medicine Master to someone, it meant that that person possessed supreme authority in the Valley of the Medicine Masters, equal to that of the Valley Master.
“Mm.” Zhou Donghuang took the token and stuffed it into his pocket, not even bothering to glance at the token that symbolized supreme authority in the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
“Master, when it is mealtime, I will arrange for someone to send your meals here.” Su Mo continued.
“Mm.” Zhou Donghuang nodded again.
“If that is all, I will not disturb your rest any longer.”
Su Mo bowed and retreated, and added on, “Master, I will be staying at the foot of this mountain below this cave. If there is anything you need, you may look for me anytime.”
“Hang on.”
Just as Su Mo was about to leave, Zhou Donghuang stopped him and proceeded to take out a piece of paper from his pocket, flinging it towards him.
The piece of paper floated lightly as though it came alive in the air, and landed gently on Su Mo’s palm.
“I need the herbs written on it urgently. Gather them and send them over as soon as you can,” Zhou Donghuang said.
“Yes, Master.”
As he respectfully acknowledged the words, Su Mo glanced discreetly at the long list of herbs written on the paper. Just that glance was enough to give him a shock.
“Master, you are intending to formulate the Connate elixir?”
As the Valley Master of the Valley of the Medicine Masters, Su Mo was not only accomplished in the martial way, his knowledge and abilities in medicine were also considerable.
Su Mo was a genuine earth-level medicine master.
As such, Su Mo was able to formulate a qi-gathering elixir that increased the sense of qi by two hundred percent, double the qi-gathering elixir that the superior-level medicine master of the imperial court of Yunyang could formulate.
The importance of Connate elixir to a Connate-stage adept was the same as the importance of qi-gathering elixir to a Qi-gathering stage adept.
Of course, even the best qi-gathering elixir was almost useless to a Connate-stage adept, because qi-gathering elixir was a medicine used only by qi-gathering stage adepts to aid their practice.
After attaining the Connate stage, the method of practice would change since the sense of qi would be almost at its maximum limit and would not increase no matter how much qi-gathering elixir one used.
“Mm.”
Zhou Donghuang nodded. “I have just attained the Connate stage, and I don’t have any Connate elixir yet, so I am preparing to brew some.”
“Master, if these are all the herbs you need to brew Connate elixir, I fear that your Connate elixir will not be right.”
Su Mo looked again at the herbs written on the paper in his hand with a slight frown.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Zhou Donghuang replied casually.
“Master, quite a few of the herbs you have written here have conflicting medicinal properties, and I fear that rashly pairing them together in the same formulation will cause great harm to the body.”
Su Mo’s frown deepened.
“As the Valley Master of the Valley of the Medicine Masters, don’t you know that for herbs with conflicting medicinal properties, you only need to control their balance and not only will they not harm the body, they will even produce outstanding results?” said Zhou Donghuang, giving Su Mo a sweeping glance.
Shocked at what Zhou Donghuang said, Su Mo was unable to stop himself from exhaling a breath of cold air. “Master, you… you mean that you can control their balance?”
From what he knew, controlling the balance of even just two herbs with conflicting medicinal properties, never mind balancing many herbs with conflicting medicinal properties, was something that only heaven-level medicine masters were able to do.
“Mm.” Zhou Donghuang replied once more, then said somewhat impatiently, “That’s all. You can go. Prepare these herbs for me as soon as you can. I need them urgently.”
Since attaining the Connate stage, Zhou Donghuang had been wanting to formulate Connate elixir to aid his practice.
In the country of Yunyang it was very difficult to gather all the herbs required to formulate Connate elixir; therefore, he had delayed it till now.
The reason for coming to the Valley of the Medicine Masters was that the Valley of the Medicine Masters could provide him with the herbs to formulate Connate elixir, while at the same time he could better understand the circumstances of the planet of Ziyun.
In his previous life, although he had returned to Ziyun after attaining the Primal Core stage and leaving Earth, he had not visited anywhere else, and had returned directly to the country of Yunyang.
He knew only that the country of Yunyang was one of the Sixteen Countries of the East Valley, and that the area surrounding the Sixteen Countries of the East Valley was the territory of a sect called the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
He knew absolutely nothing else about the circumstances of the planet of Ziyun.
“At once.”
Seeing that the youth had begun to grow impatient, Su Mo hurriedly retreated, although he was still shocked.
“If he can really control the balance of several kinds of herbs with conflicting medicinal properties, the Connate elixir that he can formulate can yield a ratio of up to three hundred percent of additional remaining qi.
In any case, although the sense of qi of Connate-stage adepts had reached its limit and they could absorb the spirit energy, the efficiency of transforming their qi was less than ten percent.
But by consuming Connate elixir, the effectiveness of preserving qi could be increased from the original of less than ten percent to a hundred percent or more, even up to two hundred percent.
As for Su Mo, as an earth-level medicine master, the Connate elixir that he formulated could preserve an additional sixteen percent of qi.
This was already an extremely high preservation rate.
…
After Su Mo left, Zhou Donghuang returned to the wooden house and prepared to practice.
The furnishings in the wooden house had obviously been cleaned not long before, and there was only a small amount of insignificant dust.
Sitting cross-legged on the wooden bed, Zhou Donghuang muttered to himself, “Relying only on the Lord of the Four Supremes to practice, only fifty percent of the qi converted from spirit energy can be preserved…
“But once I formulate that Connate elixir, I can increase the preservation of qi by an additional forty percent, which will allow the preservation of qi to increase to more than ninety percent when I practice!”
There was a look of longing in Zhou Donghuang’s eyes at this thought.
“However, I did not expect that the Connate-stage portion of the Lord of the Four Supremes would be so potent that I could preserve fifty percent of qi.”
“The Thousand Star Sword Technique, the Fiery Thunder Training Regimen, the Manual of Unruffled Sage, and the other top techniques in the universe can only preserve forty percent of qi at the Connate stage.”
“As for techniques that are able to preserve fifty percent of qi at the Connate stage, I had heard of them in my previous life… but those methods usually exist only in legends.”
“I never imagined that I would be able to find just such a legendary technique in the Kunlun Mountains on Earth.”
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