Ye Bufan sat cross-legged in the secret chamber.
He took out two jade bottles, and after opening them, a fierce scorching aura rushed toward him like a ferocious beast, striking at his mind.
The liquid inside the bottles was dark red.
“Low-grade Li Fire baleful qi. I’ll make do with this for now.”
Ye Bufan shook his head. This kind of baleful qi was transformed from the death qi and resentment of fire-attribute demonic beasts, so it was very ordinary.
The strength of baleful qi was determined by the level of the living being it came from.
For example, the baleful qi formed after a Core Formation stage great demon died could count as medium-grade.
The highest-grade kind was the baleful qi left behind after an ancient true spirit died, and even Core Formation true persons did not dare touch it casually.
Finally, there was baleful qi that naturally formed in extremely dangerous places; this was feng shui baleful qi.
However ordinary it might be, if an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator touched it, the Li Fire baleful qi would surge into the body and burn them to death.
“If I get the chance later, I should find an extremely dangerous place to cultivate.”
Ye Bufan thought that low-grade baleful qi could barely be used to cultivate Heavenly Fiend True demonic art, but if he wanted his magic power to be twice as strong as others’, he still needed top-tier baleful qi.
It was midnight.
Ye Bufan had fully mastered the technique and began cultivating according to the circulation route.
The dark red liquid turned into billowing mist that enveloped Ye Bufan.
His bearing gradually changed.
His black hair gradually turned red, and his white dress also began turning red. He looked completely cold and murderous.
Meanwhile, the Foundation Establishment dao platform in his dantian was stained with baleful qi, and its quality was rapidly improving.
If it were anyone else, he would not even get past the first hurdle of letting baleful qi enter his body. Not to mention the pain, at best he would have his mind thrown into chaos and become a lunatic, and at worst he would die on the spot.
But Ye Bufan…
He only felt more and more clear-headed, and even more comfortable.
He felt as if he were floating and having a friendly exchange with a woman.
Time passed in the blink of an eye.
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
“The first layer of the nine-layer Foundation Establishment volume is complete!”
“This technique really is nine deaths and one life. I almost felt so good I could have died.”
In the secret chamber, Ye Bufan opened his eyes, his face flushed red.
The more others cultivated, the more pain they felt.
After he reversed the side effects, the more he cultivated, the more comfortable it became, to the point that it was almost unbearable.
“Whoosh!”
Ye Bufan flicked out a Wind Blade, and the thick stone wall of the secret chamber was blasted with a deep crater, as if it had been burned by fire. Its power was far greater than before, and it was even full of baleful qi.
This was a characteristic of cultivating this art with a yang spiritual root.
When used against enemies, it carried yang baleful energy, which could not only scorch them but also disrupt their minds.
“The quality of my magic power has risen by one level, comparable to Foundation Establishment level five. With the characteristics of this technique as well, I am even confident I can kill a Foundation Establishment level six cultivator.”
Ye Bufan was very satisfied. Although his cultivation had not changed, his strength had increased by a huge margin.
In the Heavenly Demon Sect, leapfrogging by one level was not unheard of, but for a saint candidate, it was at most one or two levels.
Someone like Ye Bufan, who could jump five levels at once…
There was no one like him anywhere in all of Zhao Kingdom.
Afterwards, Ye Bufan left the secret chamber, gave Lu Luo a few instructions, and then returned to the secret chamber to continue cultivating.
After entering meditation, a qi vortex formed above Ye Bufan’s head, and heaven and earth spiritual qi continuously flowed into his body.
If the Heavenly Demon Sect sect master and those elders saw this scene, they would be shocked beyond measure.
Absorbing spiritual qi to form a qi vortex was a sign of very fast cultivation.
Without a high-grade spiritual root, it simply could not be done.
And Ye Bufan only had a low-grade spiritual root!
He could do this thanks to Blood Spirit Art, the Foundation Establishment Pill, Tiger Demon Pill, and the side effects of the technique.
After the reversal, his cultivation speed was forcibly raised to the level of a high-grade spiritual root.
He stayed in seclusion.
Aside from his cultivation technique, Ye Bufan also fed the demon snake every day, and that high-level spell gradually reached mastery.
He also gradually mastered the newly obtained Demonic Light Sword Art and Fleeting Light and Shadow.
Because of the side effects of Spirit Tempering Art, his comprehension was already comparable to that of a little genius, so the difficulty of cultivating spells dropped sharply, and he quickly got started.
Ye Bufan’s combat strength improved at a tremendous pace.
Time passed.
Several more days passed.
That day, powerful fluctuations came from Ye Bufan’s secret chamber, and even the formation used to conceal his aura could not block them.
Lu Luo, who had been outside all this time absorbing heaven and earth spiritual qi, had her cultivation interrupted by the disturbance.
“Th… this is already Foundation Establishment level two?!”
Lu Luo widened her beautiful eyes, feeling a little incredulous.
Foundation Establishment nine levels meant condensing nine dao platforms, and the later ones became harder and harder to condense.
How long had he been at Foundation Establishment?
Even prodigies like Chu Zixue and Shangguan Qingyao had taken a year to go from level one to level two.
The sect master’s personal disciple with the Demonic Spirit Body had taken seven months!
And she had taken a full three years!
“Less than ten days, and he has broken through to level two. Is Master really a low-grade spiritual root?”
Lu Luo was deeply shocked and began to question her entire worldview.
She murmured, “If Master at Foundation Establishment level one was already this strong, then level two… just how strong would he be?”
No one in the entire Heavenly Demon Sect, including the Old Ancestor, knew what Ye Bufan’s actual combat strength was, because they had only seen his escape methods.
Only she had witnessed it with her own eyes.
Zhou Wangchen, whose strength was comparable to Foundation Establishment level four, had been completely crushed.
He was inside the secret chamber.
Ye Bufan opened his eyes.
He wore a long crimson robe, had blood-red hair, and even his pupils carried a hint of red, making him look like a demonic god in human form.
“Heavenly Fiend True demonic art, second level!”
Inside his dantian, a second dao platform had appeared, and it was even larger than the first.
In fact, even with cultivation speed comparable to that of a high-grade spiritual root, he would still have needed six or seven months to break through.
The reason he reached Foundation Establishment level two so quickly was that the final side effect of Blood Spirit Art finally kicked in.
A month later, his cultivation surged.
In addition, thanks to the side effect of Demon Dragon Art, the more blood essence he contributed, the faster his cultivation improved.
In just a few days, that spell had reached the perfection realm!
Its power increased dramatically!
“Rumble!”
At the very moment he broke through, a little dark cloud appeared above Ye Bufan’s head.
Crackling bolts of lightning as thick as a thumb struck down at once.
It looked like miniature tribulation lightning, and while its power was not great, it was still enough to kill a Foundation Establishment great completion cultivator.
But when it struck Ye Bufan…
He only felt a faint tingling numbness, as if he were receiving electrotherapy.
The tribulation lightning’s power was invisibly weakened.
Meanwhile, his yang baleful energy magic power was continually refined by the lightning and became more and more pure.
“So this is tribulation lightning? Not bad. Feels good.”
Ye Bufan smiled, and after enjoying it for a while, the tribulation lightning dissipated resentfully.
“Continue seclusion.”
Ye Bufan closed his eyes again.
With his current strength, he had nothing to fear even from a Foundation Establishment level seven cultivator.
However, less than two days passed.
Ye Bufan came out of seclusion.
“Congratulations, Master!”
Lu Luo stood before the secret chamber. Her posture was even more respectful than before, and she looked at Master with eyes full of dazed fascination.
A yang spiritual root at Foundation Establishment level two would, under normal dual cultivation, be unimaginably helpful to female cultivators.
“It is only Foundation Establishment level two.”
Ye Bufan frowned tightly and waved his hand irritably.
After breaking through to level two, the side effects of Blood Spirit Art, Demon Dragon Art, Foundation Establishment Pill, and so on had basically been exhausted.
Although he still had the cultivation speed of a high-grade spiritual root, it would take a year or so to break through to Foundation Establishment level three.
For an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator, that speed would already count as monstrous genius.
But for him, it was too slow.
In the Heavenly Demon Sect, not to mention the Old Ancestor of the Heavenly Demon Sect, whose intentions were unclear, even saint candidates like Chu Zixue were a huge threat.
“How many spirit stones are left from the monthly allowance?”
Ye Bufan asked. As a core disciple, his benefits were far better than those of ordinary disciples, and he received two thousand spirit stones every month from above.
That was an enormous sum. Someone like Zhou Wangchen, who was fairly well known among Foundation Establishment cultivators, had only a little over a thousand spirit stones after several years.
Of course.
It was not free. Every Heavenly Demon Sect disciple had to complete three missions each year, and core disciples were no exception, with the difficulty being very high.
The higher-ups seemed to think this disciple of the Old Ancestor had such poor cultivation that sending him on missions would be no different from sending him to his death, so he had no tasks in the short term.
“There are still fifteen hundred spirit stones.”
“That is really poor.”
Ye Bufan was helpless. Back when he was a rogue cultivator, that would have been an astronomical sum.
But after reaching Foundation Establishment, he realized just how many spirit stones had to be consumed to improve cultivation strength.
“I’m going to the market.”
After bringing the spirit stones back, Ye Bufan returned to the pavilion for a moment, and then a young man wearing a gray long robe, with dark skin and an ordinary appearance, walked out.
The face of the Old Ancestor’s first disciple was too eye-catching, so it would be easy to get targeted outside.
“From now on, I’m called Zhang San.”
Ye Bufan quietly left the First Courtyard.
He planned to buy alchemy formulas and learn to refine pills that could rapidly improve cultivation.
He was different from others.
What he refined were the kind of poison pills that could kill someone on the spot after taking them, and whose side effects were enormous.