Andy had taken to calling the pills enhanced by the bowl "supreme-grade pills."
The spiritual power contained in these supreme-grade pills was truly remarkable. At the fifth layer of Qi Refinement, it had taken Andy a full day and night to absorb an ordinary Spirit Clarity Pill. A supreme-grade Spirit Clarity Pill took seven days and seven nights. More importantly, the supreme-grade pills seemed to be highly effective at breaking through cultivation bottlenecks. Whenever Andy felt his progress stalling at the threshold of the next layer, a single supreme-grade pill would carry him through smoothly, like water flowing downhill.
At this pace—consuming pills almost without pause and wasting virtually no time on bottlenecks—his cultivation surged from the fifth layer to the eleventh layer of Qi Refinement in just over three years. He was now a high-stage Qi Refinement cultivator in every sense of the word.
Liuyun Market was no longer suited for his continued cultivation. He needed a new base, and he already had a place in mind. He spent another year or so preparing.
Since arriving at Liuyun Market at fifteen, Andy had spent six or seven years there without once leaving its boundaries. During that time, through hearsay and conversation, he had deepened his understanding of the broader cultivation world of Jinyan Kingdom considerably.
In recent years, the cultivation world of Jinyan Kingdom seemed to have grown more unsettled. Reports of lone low-level cultivators being ambushed and robbed had increased steadily, and there had even been cases of small families and minor sects being wiped out overnight. Such things had always happened, but the frequency had spiked noticeably of late. Rumors said neighboring countries were experiencing the same, and that it was somehow connected to a growing conflict between righteous and demonic cultivators. The overall atmosphere was one of mounting unease, especially among low-level cultivators.
Andy's cultivation had advanced rapidly, but his repertoire of life-saving techniques had not kept pace. As long as he stayed within Liuyun Market, that hadn't mattered. Now that he was about to leave, thorough preparation was essential—especially since he was carrying a high-grade spirit stone and the Heaven and Earth Bowl, treasures that would get him killed instantly if discovered.
Keeping a low profile should be enough to avoid attention from Foundation Establishment cultivators and above, but he absolutely needed the ability to defend himself against high-stage Qi Refinement cultivators.
The simplest solution was acquiring a few quality magical artifacts. But artifact forging, like alchemy and talisman making, was an exacting discipline—without two or three years of experience, producing even one or two decent artifacts was unlikely. Liuyun Market did sell ready-made artifacts, but most were mid-grade or low-grade. The occasional upper-grade artifact that appeared was immediately snapped up by the "aristocrats" among the Qi Refinement cultivators, with prices running seven or eight hundred spirit stones or even over a thousand. Andy could afford it, but didn't dare make that kind of purchase openly.
In his past life as a poor scholar, Andy had thought one of the most painful things in the world was having no money to spend. Now he had discovered that having money and not daring to spend it was just as painful.
Low-grade artifacts no longer met his needs, so he had to make do with mid-grade ones for now. During his time as the cloaked cultivator, he had purchased two mid-grade artifacts: a bronze finger ring that could serve both offensively and defensively, and a dark, blackish shield called the Dark Raven Shield—a decent defensive artifact. Each had cost him one mid-grade spirit stone.
Beyond these two artifacts, Andy also picked up his old trade—talisman making.
At the eleventh layer of Qi Refinement, learning mid-grade spells like the Flame Serpent Technique, Golden Shield Technique, Wooden Armor Technique, and Earth Spike Technique came almost effortlessly. With ample spiritual power at his disposal, a bit of study and a number of practice attempts were all it took to gain a basic command of each. Full proficiency was only a matter of additional practice time.
With mid-grade spells under his belt, he could now attempt mid-grade talismans. What followed could only be described as a frenzy. With no need to worry about the cost of talisman paper and cinnabar, he could ignore failures entirely. Whenever his spiritual power ran low, he simply used a high-grade spirit stone to recover during meditation. All he had to do was cast spells and craft talismans, over and over without stopping. Through this grueling intensity—and thousands of failures—Andy finally raised his mid-grade talisman success rate to around twenty percent, and amassed one or two hundred mid-grade talismans of various types. In addition, the market occasionally had a few high-grade Qi Refinement talismans for sale at twenty or thirty spirit stones each. Andy bought several without hesitation.
With these talismans, Andy felt he could probably defend himself—but it still wasn't enough. His increasingly cautious nature demanded multiple layers of preparation.
Just before he planned to leave Liuyun Market, the triennial Liuyun Mountain Trading Fair happened to fall. This fair was aimed primarily at high-stage Qi Refinement cultivators and early Foundation Establishment cultivators, and the organizers always brought out a good selection of merchandise. Andy had been looking forward to it. His plan was to attend in his cloaked disguise, then slip away with the departing crowd afterward.
With so many cultivators in the area during the fair, the robbers who preyed on solitary travelers would have to keep their heads down for a while.
Unfortunately, while the fair did offer some excellent items—upper-grade artifacts among them—everything was sold by public auction, and final prices ended up even higher than usual. Even disguised, Andy couldn't risk bidding.
He had heard that on the final day of the fair, there was a special auction exclusively for Foundation Establishment cultivators, featuring pills and artifacts that only they could use. Rumor had it that an exceptional-grade artifact was among the lots. But this auction was restricted to Foundation Establishment cultivators—Andy didn't even have the right to enter and watch.
Still, while the official lots were out of reach, the number of high-stage cultivators setting up stalls during the fair had increased dramatically, and several Foundation Establishment cultivators had even put goods out for sale. Andy visited every single stall and ultimately came away with a few useful acquisitions.
The first was a cultivation aid he had been wanting—Marrow-Washing Pills. These were rarely available at the regular market, but several stalls had them this time. Andy didn't miss a single one, buying two or three pills at each.
The second was a suit of scale armor. The seller was a Foundation Establishment senior who said he had once killed a first-grade upper-tier spirit beast—a Fire-Swallowing Python—and discovered that the scales from its belly were exceptionally tough, virtually impervious to ordinary blade-type artifacts, yet lightweight and flexible. He had fashioned them into this scale vest, which could protect the wearer against most common blade and sword artifacts. He was asking a hundred spirit stones—roughly the price of an ordinary mid-grade artifact.
Most cultivators relied on defensive artifacts and protective barriers for all-over protection, making a scale vest somewhat redundant. It hadn't sold. But Andy took one look at it and bought it without hesitation. To him, this was a lifesaving tool—there was no better defense against a surprise attack.
The last purchase also came from a Foundation Establishment cultivator: a pair of light, supple boots, forged from the feathers of several avian-type spirit beasts. When worn, they increased the wearer's walking and running speed by nearly half. For a Foundation Establishment cultivator who could fly freely using the Levitation Art, these boots were next to useless—which was why they were being sold. For Andy, about to set out on a long journey on foot, they were priceless. He spent two hundred spirit stones without flinching and gave them a name he liked: the Hundred-Plume Boots.