In the elegant courtyard, Ji Yuan sat cross-legged before a table. Perhaps he himself had not realized that with each solved riddle of runes, his own cultivation realm was steadily ascending.
Since embarking on the path of cultivation, his sole focus had been on the Dao of Alchemy, spending his days contemplating how to refine elixirs. Any leisure time was dedicated to planning the trivialities of his cultivation journey.
Upon leaving Qianyu City, he unconsciously bore a significant burden. The majority of his mental energy was occupied with strategizing how to adapt to his surroundings and the frequent variables that arose, all for the sake of his future cultivation resources.
Even at the Nine Profound Sect, he faced a thirty-year deadline, needing to find a way to successfully condense a Golden Core within this timeframe. Only then could he preserve the heritage of Profound Sky Peak and obtain the greatest opportunities.
During this period, it could be said that his entire concentration was either on ensuring his Golden Core condensation within thirty years or diligently comprehending the two cultivation techniques he practiced.
While comprehending techniques could indeed enhance one's understanding, it also consumed his usual accumulations. Over time, this would lead to a bottleneck.
The bottlenecks that cultivators often spoke of were not solely due to their inherent aptitude or talent, but more often stemmed from the exhaustion of accumulated insights.
To draw an analogy, cultivation techniques are like textbooks in a school. The more knowledge you accumulate, the faster you learn and the more you can glean from these textbooks.
However, when your own accumulations are depleted and you face more profound textbook knowledge, you will find it increasingly difficult to learn easily. You will only feel greater pressure and gradually be unable to understand the content of the school textbooks.
It is not that your own talent is insufficient, but rather that you are confined within an environment and unable to progress further upwards.
These problems, now constructed from runes, were precisely testing one's learned knowledge while posing questions at a higher level, thereby continuously enhancing individual comprehension through the process of answering them.
It was akin to laying out a path before you. As long as you followed the steps one by one, your learned knowledge would continuously elevate until your physical strength was completely exhausted or you reached the end of the path.
Ji Yuan was like parched land, madly absorbing the sweet rain. While deciphering the runes with the Great Dao Scroll, he racked his brains to answer the numerous difficult questions before him with his current cultivation realm.
Unconsciously, his realm rapidly improved, far more quickly than by normally comprehending two exceptionally profound techniques.
Three full days passed before he finally put down the brush in his hand, closed the Great Dao Scroll covering his palm, and then exhaled a long breath.
After a moment of daze, Ji Yuan extended his middle and index fingers and gently massaged his brow. The spiritual energy he had recovered earlier was now completely depleted. It was a testament to his strong willpower that he had not fainted on the spot.
Glancing at the five ink-fish floating and swimming on the desk, a sense of satisfaction arose in his heart. He then took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to meditate.
Concurrently, he circulated the Myriad Origin Manifestation Divine Art, simultaneously dispelling his mental fatigue and restoring his significantly depleted soul light.
Do not underestimate the process of simply deciphering runes and then solving the problems before you. The mental energy and soul light consumed during this process are extremely immense.
If his realm had not been constantly improving, and at such a rapid pace, he would likely have been unable to sustain it long ago.
While meditating and recovering, Ji Yuan allocated a small portion of his consciousness to comprehending the cultivation techniques he practiced.
He cultivated two techniques in total: the Sword Art chapter of the Profound Sky Dao Scripture and the Nine Yuan Heavy Water Scripture. The latter, in its chapter corresponding to the Enlightenment Realm, had already been comprehended to the Great Accomplishment stage. The former, however, was still slightly lacking.
This was not due to a lack of talent. To achieve this much in such a short period was already remarkable, and it was accomplished with the help of an epiphany.
If it were not for this, even a prodigy of the Nine Profound Sect would not have been able to reach this point in such a short time.
Now, with the improvement of his own realm, he turned his attention back to the Profound Sky Sword Art. It only took him a little over half a day to bring the chapter corresponding to the Enlightenment Realm to the Great Accomplishment stage.
At this point, Ji Yuan realized that his current realm was likely no weaker than the mid-stage of the Spirit Gathering Realm, or even comparable to cultivators in the ordinary late-stage.
It was a pity that his injuries were quite severe. Otherwise, he would already be able to attempt to break through to the mid-stage of the Spirit Gathering Realm.
This was the benefit of having a sufficiently high cultivation realm. Bottlenecks that ordinary cultivators found troublesome were rare for him, and breaking through cultivation realms was as simple as eating and drinking.
Ji Yuan had now made up his mind. Once this matter was resolved, he would find a way to return to the Nine Profound Sect's Void Crossing warship to fully heal his injuries, and then seize the opportunity to break through a minor realm.
Given his strength in the early stage of the Spirit Gathering Realm, being able to easily defeat mid-stage cultivators or even contend with late-stage cultivators, once he could advance further in cultivation, he would not be too far behind the prodigies of the Nine Profound Sect, let alone be compared to them.
After a full day and night, Ji Yuan finally recovered some of his mental energy. He had intended to recover more, but upon sensing that one of the three individuals who had arrived before him had been teleported away by the formation, he immediately abandoned this thought.
He suddenly recalled that there were other challengers before him. If he delayed too long, others might succeed in their trials first and obtain the inheritance of this place.
At that time, the other challengers within the water mansion would be forcibly annihilated by the formation!
Thus, despite his mental energy not being fully recovered, he had no choice but to immediately resume answering questions, deciphering runes with the Great Dao Scroll in his hand, and then exerting all his effort to write down his answers.
This round had no explicit success requirement. Challengers needed to continuously answer questions, and passing would only be granted when their answers were deemed satisfactory.
Another seven full days passed. Including the previous four days, Ji Yuan had spent approximately ten days in this beautiful and elegant courtyard.
He could no longer recall how many questions he had answered. His mental energy, through continuous consumption and recovery, had gradually become more refined than before. On the table before him, twelve ink-fish were already floating and swimming.
Finally, as the thirteenth ink-fish formed, a rune quietly appeared, and bright light enveloped it.
After the strange sensation on his body dissipated, Ji Yuan found himself in a grand hall filled with a dense medicinal fragrance.
He scanned his surroundings and discovered that the entire hall contained ten dan furnaces, each about a zhang high, identical in shape and style. Before two of these dan furnaces, figures were already seated cross-legged.
One was a middle-aged man, and the other was an elder with white hair and beard. The dan furnaces before them were being roasted by scorching flames, with faint scents of elixir emanating from within.
With a single glance, Ji Yuan made a judgment: these two individuals were likely highly accomplished alchemists, only a step away from becoming Dao Masters of Alchemy.
After retracting his gaze, he pondered for a moment and decided to approach the nearest dan furnace. However, as soon as he took a step, he noticed that thirteen ink-fish were entwined around him.
These small fish, only finger-length and condensed from ink, seemed to possess strong spiritual awareness as they swam around him in mid-air.
Upon witnessing this, Ji Yuan quickly reacted, guessing that this was the reward from the previous round. He waved his hand and collected them into his sleeve.
After collecting the thirteen ink-fish using the Sleeve Universe technique, he then approached a dan furnace and sat cross-legged on a large jade platform.
As expected, the moment he sat down, a voice, whose gender was indistinguishable, sounded in his ear.
However, his expression turned increasingly grim at this voice, and a touch of helplessness appeared in his eyes.
According to the voice, he had to refine an elixir, with no restrictions on type or grade. The deciding factor for passing the trial would be the quality of the elixir.
In other words, even if he refined a ninth-grade or even a sub-grade elixir, as long as its quality was sufficiently high, he might meet the requirements and pass the trial.
This method of judgment clearly gave other alchemists an opportunity. Otherwise, if a Dao Master of Alchemy appeared, everyone else would simply await annihilation by the formation. A single eighth-grade elixir would be enough to surpass most alchemists.
However, Ji Yuan speculated that while the quality of the elixir was crucial, the grade should also contribute significantly to the score.
Suddenly, he experienced a peculiar sensation, as if each round was interlocking with the next.
The first round involved piecing together elixir recipes, the second involved answering questions, and the third involved hands-on alchemy. It was as if the challenges were guiding the challengers step by step.
First, providing the recipes, then enhancing understanding of the Dao of Alchemy, and finally transforming theory into practice. This was no longer a simple trial; it was more like a renowned sect meticulously teaching its disciples.
However, this place was undoubtedly more brutal, allowing only one 'disciple' to emerge as the best, while the others, deemed insufficient, would be directly annihilated by the formation.
Shaking his head, he decided that pondering such matters now was useless. He steadied his mind and immediately decided which elixir to refine.
With his plan in mind, Ji Yuan sent a wisp of his soul light to convey his thoughts into the jade platform beneath him. In less than fifteen minutes, formation patterns appeared before him.
As the light dissipated, five or so medicine baskets appeared before him, containing all the materials for the three types of elixirs he intended to refine.
Furthermore, judging by the dewdrops filled with spiritual energy on the leaves and the fresh soil clinging to the roots, they had clearly just been harvested from the medicinal fields.
This scene confirmed some of Ji Yuan's suspicions: deep within this water mansion, there must be "living beings," or entities akin to divine senses or split souls.
After subtly glancing around, he moved the five medicine baskets before him to the sides and then unleashed several streams of pure and potent mystic energy, beginning to carefully sense the immense dan furnace.