Underground.
At the same moment the massive explosion rang out overhead, the divine sense that had been locked onto Mo Fan finally dissipated.
Soon after, a wisp of ghostly mist returned, manifesting into Bai Jinghu’s form.
Only now, Bai Jinghu’s body was even more transparent than the last time, his face also appearing extremely pale, in a state of utter weakness.
“Master!”
Bai Jinghu spoke respectfully, though his voice was slightly frail.
“Mm, let’s go. Leave this place first!”
Mo Fan nodded. A tiger pattern mark immediately appeared on his brow, which transformed into a wisp of ghostly mist and entered it.
Next, Mo Fan once again employed his earth escape divine ability, fleeing horizontally underground for over a hundred li before stopping.
He did not rush to emerge, but instead excavated a simple cave abode underground using his flying sword.
As for the soil and debris, all were taken into his internal space via the Heaven Swallowing Divine Ability.
With a casual wave of his hand, thousands of spirit stones flew out and embedded themselves into the cave walls.
In an instant, the soft glow emitted by the spirit stones illuminated the originally dark cave, making it bright, while also filling the previously stuffy environment with spiritual energy.
At this moment, Mo Fan casually inhaled and felt refreshed, his heart greatly comforted.
After preparing the cave abode, Mo Fan then opened his mouth and spat out several lotus petals.
These petals were precisely the ones that had fallen from the golden lotus-shaped treasure earlier.
Mo Fan looked at these petals and found that they had lost their golden lustre, replaced instead by a black metal resembling tree leaves.
“Not ordinary metal, but able to easily pierce my earth crystal body. It must be an extremely valuable material!”
Mo Fan murmured to himself, then opened his mouth again to store the petals away.
In that critical moment earlier, he had used the Heaven Swallowing Divine Ability to collect these petals.
He had no confidence in taking the golden lotus itself, but these small petals were no issue. Of course, it was also because Jiang Wu had been affected by the explosion and had no time to attend to other matters, allowing him to succeed easily.
Next, Mo Fan began introspection and discovered that his internal spiritual liquid sea was completely full. This meant his spiritual cultivation path had reached the great perfection of Foundation Establishment!
Regarding the two energy systems in his body, Mo Fan named them spiritual cultivation and demonic cultivation for distinction.
After such a long period of practice, he understood that the reason two liquid seas had formed in his body was entirely due to the feedback from the Heaven Swallowing Divine Ability.
Ordinary demonic cultivators need to use spiritual energy to transform into demons before the Demon Cauldron stage, but once they enter the Demon Cauldron stage, their demand for spiritual energy decreases significantly, and they begin mainly cultivating demonic energy.
Mo Fan was different. Because of the Heaven Swallowing Divine Ability, every time he devoured living beings, he received enormous feedback, gradually forming a spiritual liquid sea within his body.
This was very similar to the characteristics of half-demons, but far more direct and domineering.
Because even half-demons, when practising spiritual cultivation, need to rely mainly on techniques, advancing gradually like human cultivators.
But Mo Fan had no such restriction. At least so far, he had not cultivated any techniques, yet relying solely on feedback power, he had reached the height of Foundation Establishment great perfection.
This was more like the initiation secret method among human cultivators.
Regardless, this was a good thing for Mo Fan.
Next, he looked at his demonic liquid sea and found it still far from complete.
“It seems that to fully complete the demonic liquid sea, I need to devour more powerful demonic cultivators!”
Mo Fan sighed, but an idea also emerged in his mind.
The completion of the spiritual liquid sea was unexpected.
Clearly, this was related to the feedback from True Person Yun Ting. Not only that, Mo Fan discovered his divine sense had also grown significantly, roughly reaching an astonishing thirty li range!
Since the demonic cultivation path was not yet complete, could he advance the spiritual cultivation path to the Core Formation stage first?
“My current situation can be considered dual cultivation of demonic and human paths. If I break through spiritual cultivation to Core Formation, it will certainly enhance my strength!”
Mo Fan’s eyes flashed, then he closed them and began reviewing a secret method in his memory.
The secret method was called “Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art”, passed down by Xiao Huang’s mother, Hong Yue, in the past.
Since he had not followed the traditional human cultivation system, Mo Fan could only take an unconventional path.
He intended to use the Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art to condense a golden core and break through to the Core Formation realm!
After a moment of review, Mo Fan opened his eyes and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
“Thank goodness I have some understanding of the path of alchemy, otherwise a slight error could cause severe injury.”
Mo Fan’s expression immediately became solemn. This Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art seemed simple, but was extremely dangerous.
To be safe, he performed deductions again, simulating every step of the Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art in his mind, overlooking no detail.
Only after several deductions did the solemn expression on Mo Fan’s face finally relax somewhat. Then he opened his mouth, and countless spirit stones flew out.
In a short moment, several small mountain-like piles of spirit stones formed around his body.
After all preparations were complete, Mo Fan began the Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art.
Using the flesh as the furnace, spiritual power as firewood, refining the internal spiritual liquid: liquid to solid, solid to core, thus forming the core!
This was the true essence of the Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art!
The so-called refining did not mean actually using fire to smelt, but rather using alchemical methods to purify the demonic liquid, forcing it to solidify into a core more quickly.
“Buzz!”
A humming sound came from Mo Fan’s body, and a faint golden glow bloomed from his surface.
As the Flesh Furnace Core Refining Art unfolded, a phenomenon appeared above his head: a round pill furnace emerged, beginning to frantically absorb the surrounding heaven and earth spiritual energy.
Mo Fan had prepared for this. The spirit stone piles beside him bore the brunt, their spiritual energy drawn out by the furnace from afar, then slowly entering his body after refinement.
At the same time, inside Mo Fan’s body was another scene.
At this moment, his entire body resembled a massive furnace, continuously refining the spiritual energy sea, causing the originally calm spiritual liquid sea to boil incessantly.
At the same time, the spiritual liquid sea was visibly decreasing, as if being rapidly consumed.
Fortunately, strands of spiritual energy fell from the meridians at the top of his head, transformed into spiritual liquid drops after layers of quenching, replenishing the spiritual liquid sea.
In this way, after the time of one incense stick, Mo Fan finally saw the prototype of a golden core in the spiritual liquid sea.
A massive vortex appeared in the boiling spiritual liquid sea, followed by tens of thousands of golden rays shooting out from the vortex.
A brilliant golden sun slowly emerged from the vortex, floating out and hovering high above the spiritual liquid sea.
At the same time, an unprecedented powerful force surged through Mo Fan’s entire body, making his eyes light up!
As the saying goes: one sun patrols the sea, from then on the golden core seeks no one!
At this moment, Mo Fan finally stepped onto the golden core avenue, breaking through to the Core Formation stage.
Then his vision changed, and his divine sense involuntarily extended out of his body, probing far away.
Fifteen zhang, thirty zhang, forty-five zhang, sixty zhang, seventy-five zhang!!
Ultimately, the divine sense extended to seventy-five zhang before stopping.
“Seventy-five zhang… because I am underground, the divine sense exploration range is compressed a hundredfold. This means my current divine sense exploration range should be nearly fifty li.
Does that not far exceed Hei Yi, infinitely approaching the maximum divine sense value of mid-stage Demon King?”
Mo Fan’s eyes widened, secretly stunned.
He had thought his divine sense would improve greatly, but never expected it to be this much.
“If I use golden core power to operate immortal arts, will there be even greater improvement?”
Mo Fan suddenly had a thought and immediately urged the golden core within his body, using golden core power to operate the Great Five Elements Crystal Immortal Art.
In an instant, Mo Fan sensed vast earth power surging into his body from the ground, then after circulation through the immortal art, forming a dark red battle armour on his surface!
Mo Fan raised his hand, looking at the new earth battle armour, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
Besides the change in colour, he could easily sense that the current earth battle armour had become heavier and more solid, almost undergoing a qualitative improvement!
At this moment, unbeknownst to Mo Fan, his image was already widely circulated on several islands.
In other words, he had been wanted!
“This demon openly slaughtered Lu Yuyao, a core disciple of our Tianlu Sacred Ground, and harmed numerous fellow disciples of Huang Xuan Valley. His crimes are heinous, angering both men and gods, too numerous to record!
Therefore, Tianlu Sacred Ground hereby issues a bounty. Anyone who reveals this demon’s whereabouts, if the information is verified true, may receive one low-grade magical treasure!
Anyone who takes his head, if the information is verified true, may receive one mid-grade magical treasure!
Anyone who captures him alive, if the information is verified true, may receive one low-grade and one mid-grade magical treasure each, plus ten thousand low-grade spirit stones!!”
— Tianlu Sacred Ground, Jiang Wu.
