https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-950-Breaking-the-Stalemate-the-Toxic-King-Insect/13463506/
https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-952-Unfortunate-Nine-Spirits-Yuanjun-Extreme-Luo-Chen/13463510/
Chapter 951: The Bottleneck Loosens, Storms Rise Again
Chapter 951: The Bottleneck Loosens, Storms Rise Again
In the quiet cave abode.
Luo Chen stood before the desk, carefully examining the Toxic King sealed in amber.
Due to the Lingxi Worm incident, Luo Chen was quite cautious about worms, fearing another encounter with a worm that had been tampered with.
Just like when he had refined the Strength Worm and the Faith Worm, he had been extremely cautious before making his decision.
Compared to the lower-tier Strength Worm and Faith Worm, this Toxic King was of a higher grade, reaching the third tier, which made the examination much more complicated.
Fortunately, as Luo Chen's cultivation realm deepened, he became increasingly aware of a fundamental principle:
Alchemical refinement was interconnected!
Whether it was refining pills, artifacts, or worms, there were common principles at play.
Leaving a hidden hand in pills, magic treasures, or worms wasn't an easy task.
One needed a thorough understanding of the relevant items and the means to control them to leave any hidden moves.
At least, from his current examination, the Toxic King was clean, showing no signs of any hidden dangers.
"Indeed, a mere third-tier worm isn't worth a top-notch Southern Frontier worm master resorting to dirty tricks."
Luo Chen chuckled at his own caution and shook his head.
The other party had used a third-tier poison worm and the corresponding cultivation technique to secure his help, a renowned 'Overlord Cultivator.' Truly, it was a great deal!
Of course, Luo Chen wasn't overly annoyed.
The Toxic King was indeed only a third-tier worm, but its future potential was significant.
Once it absorbed various poisons, its grade would rapidly increase, ideally reaching the fourth tier.
Even more optimistically, if the host could endure it and had access to sufficiently powerful poisons, the Toxic King might even ascend to the fifth tier.
This was also part of Master Litian's experimental approach to cultivating a fifth-tier divine worm.
Instead of directly refining it, the method relied on the cultivator's efforts to gradually enhance it.
The reason Master Litian later abandoned the Toxic King was simple.
The conditions required were extremely rare in the world!
"Can I endure it?"
Luo Chen asked himself, then smiled.
If he couldn't, how many others in this world would be qualified?
Qing Shuang? Wang Yuan?
They wouldn't choose such a 'crooked path,' even if the worm and technique were placed before them, they would likely disdain them.
Only in the face of a bottleneck in his body refinement did he choose to treat a dead horse as if it were still alive.
"Let's see what you can do!"
With a thought, Luo Chen felt a slight pang of pain in his fingertip.
A drop of blood, radiating powerful energy, was squeezed out.
Wavering, it fell with a—
Drip!
The blood landed on the amber, and the seal containing the Toxic King melted like snow.
Stimulated, the Toxic King began to awaken.
Before it could make any moves, Luo Chen's blood had already made contact.
"Hissss..."
A silent scream echoed in his mind.
In his vision, the white, tender worm began to convulse violently, its body flashing with blood-red hues, struggling.
As the blood-red hue gradually faded, Luo Chen knew the first stage of the refinement was successful.
Next...
Without hesitation, Luo Chen sliced his waist, creating a grotesque wound. He grabbed the Toxic King and inserted it into the wound.
The wound began to heal rapidly due to his powerful regenerative abilities.
In his perception, the white worm, once inside, headed straight for his internal organs.
"Fortunately, I've consumed a large amount of Five Temple Elixir over the years, strengthening my organs to an unprecedented level. Otherwise, I couldn't provide a stable home for the Toxic King."
Murmuring, a light flowed from the nascent soul in Luo Chen's purple residence, the same light from the Divine Insight Worm he had refined earlier.
To prevent any unforeseen changes, the Divine Insight Worm needed to remain active, monitoring the Toxic King.
So far, everything was going smoothly.
Once the Toxic King entered his stomach, the initial discomfort vanished as it encountered the terrifying gastric juices that could dissolve anything, making it feel like it was in its element.
A sense of hunger also transmitted to Luo Chen's consciousness through their mental connection.
"Can't wait, can you?"
Luo Chen smiled and took a black jar from his storage bag.
Opening the jar, a green snake with a venomous tongue slowly slithered inside.
This was the Jadephos Snake, a first-tier beast, highly venomous.
Any Qi Refinement Stage cultivator who accidentally came into contact with it would die from heart paralysis.
This was one of the hundred basic first-tier poisons required for the initial stages of the Toxic Body Refinement Technique.
Luo Chen placed his hand in front of the green snake.
Without hesitation, the Jadephos Snake bit down.
But it couldn't even leave a white mark on Luo Chen's hand.
Luo Chen shook his head, "Too much trouble."
With two fingers, he pinched and extracted the snake's venom gland.
Instantly, the Jadephos Snake became limp.
Facing the venom that countless Qi Refinement Stage cultivators feared, Luo Chen smiled and swallowed it effortlessly.
The toxins flowed down the esophagus and into the stomach.
The Toxic King was drawn to them, continuously absorbing.
Its once pale and tender body gradually turned pitch black.
However, this transformation was very brief, and it soon returned to its jade-like whiteness.
Seeing this, Luo Chen began to practice the Toxic Body Refinement Technique.
As the technique circulated, the Toxic King, which was connected to his mind, responded accordingly.
A misty vapor emerged from its body, gradually eroding Luo Chen's flesh.
A tingling, intensely itchy sensation arose.
Luo Chen raised an eyebrow but allowed the pain and itching to spread throughout his body, remaining as immovable as a mountain.
Gradually, under the erosion of the toxins, Luo Chen's flesh seemed to wither slightly.
But his formidable self-healing ability instantly restored it.
The tingling and itching sensation also vanished in an instant.
Seeing this, Luo Chen fell into deep thought.
After reviewing the memories of the Divine Insight Worm, Luo Chen gradually understood.
"So that's how it is!"
No wonder the Toxic King could become the core of this advanced body refinement technique, and the Toxic Body Refinement Technique was specifically created to complement it.
Its essence was extraordinary!
It was a top-tier toxic creature, but its toxicity was extremely contained and would not affect cultivators.
However, after absorbing other toxins, its own toxicity would fluctuate.
By stimulating the Toxic King with the Toxic Body Refinement Technique, the toxins it had consumed would be exponentially amplified, thus refining the host's physical body.
The Toxic King could be seen as an intermediary or a transformer.
To give an analogy...
Luo Chen thought for a moment and recalled a technological product from his previous life—a transformer.
Just as a transformer can increase or decrease voltage, the Toxic King could amplify or reduce the toxicity of the toxins it was fed.
When it returned this toxicity to the host, it could refine the physical body.
But this refinement was different from the usual kind.
It was a slow, continuous erosion.
If the host's physical body was not strong enough, this erosion could harm them.
Only with a sufficiently powerful physical body could the host withstand the continuous erosion and recovery, gradually becoming even stronger!
"No wonder Master Litian didn't place much importance on this advanced body refinement technique. Its principle is so simple. Even without the Toxic Body Refinement Technique, as long as I have the Toxic King, I could create my own complementary techniques for refining with thousands or tens of thousands of toxins."
After this reflection, Luo Chen gained many insights.
To improve this technique quickly, there were three conditions.
First, the strength of the host's physical body; second, the degree to which the technique stimulated the Toxic King; and third, the supply of external toxins.
"These aren't difficult!"
Luo Chen's lips twitched, and he felt a hunger in his body.
He smiled lightly, took out a large number of low-grade toxins from his storage bag, and fed them to the Toxic King.
At the same time, the Toxic Body Refinement Technique, which he had already mastered, naturally began to circulate under his main soul's control.
A large amount of misty toxic vapor, centered around his stomach, began to spread throughout his body.
...
After joining the Stiff Mountain Alliance, Luo Chen's nomadic life suddenly stabilized.
Every day, he either practiced the Toxic Body Refinement Technique in his cave abode or wandered up and down the Misty Mountain, studying the natural spatial restrictions without regard for others' gazes.
During this period, Master Litian sent people to deliver the promised toxic resources.
Of course, these resources were not free; Luo Chen had to pay a certain price for them.
Fortunately, before leaving Dong Huang, Luo Chen had gained significant benefits from the Wu Xing Shen Sect and the Shadow Reflection Sect, which was more than enough to cover the cost of these low-grade toxins.
Thanks to the abundant supply of low-grade toxins and his terrifying self-healing ability, Luo Chen's proficiency in the Toxic Body Refinement Technique rapidly improved, almost changing daily.
From beginner to proficient, it took just a few weeks.
From proficient to master, it was only a matter of time.
After consuming a large amount of toxins, the Toxic King's own rank began to change.
The only thing that slightly disappointed Luo Chen was that, although his body refinement path had broken through the bottleneck and was advancing to the late fourth stage, the improvement was limited.
For ordinary people, this technique, under the stimulation of such terrifying toxins, would certainly lead to rapid progress in body refinement.
But his physical body was already so strong that it could rival great beasts and wild creatures. The continuous destruction and reconstruction of his body only provided marginal improvements.
He understood that ultimately, the Toxic King's rank was still too low.
Only by elevating it to the fourth stage could it truly benefit Luo Chen.
First and second-stage toxins clearly could not elevate the Toxic King's rank.
Third-stage toxins might be effective, but they were already considered high-level resources and were relatively scarce.
If he wanted immediate results, perhaps only fourth-stage toxins, which could threaten True People at the Yuan Ying stage, could bring about a qualitative transformation in the Toxic King.
Toxic substances of this caliber are exceedingly rare in the world.
Luo Chen couldn’t rush; he could only endure and gradually improve.
Even if it was just a marginal enhancement, it was still progress. At least he had found a direction to move forward.
Throughout this process, Luo Chen's understanding of spatial restraints in the natural world grew deeper.
He even used the materials at his disposal to privately craft some spatial treasures, testing the results of his studies.
In a mountain ravine shrouded in mist, Luo Chen examined the storage bag in his hand.
This was a spatial treasure he had refined himself. The materials weren’t particularly expensive, but the technique was exquisite.
"No wonder the price of storage bags has always been so high."
"The cost has never been the raw materials, but the skill required to refine them!"
Luo Chen mused, then suddenly struck!
With a pinch!
Puff!
The storage bag, containing scattered Spiritual Stones and worthless magical artifacts, shattered instantly.
Luo Chen’s eyes widened as he stared intently at the broken storage bag.
A storage bag forms its own space, with restraints spread throughout. Once it breaks, it connects with the external space.
Luo Chen had seen this scenario many times before in battle.
After all, in the heat of combat, it was common for an enemy’s storage bag to be damaged.
At the time, he hadn’t paid much attention to the specifics, but he occasionally noticed that some items were missing when inspecting the spoils of war.
Now, upon closer inspection, he discovered something peculiar.
As the internal space shattered and the external space intruded, numerous spatial restraints rippled through the void, constantly breaking and reforming.
The various items hidden within the internal space were either sliced to dust by the terrifying spatial restraints, fortuitously preserved, or mysteriously vanished into the void, their whereabouts unknown.
"Where did they go?"
Murmuring to himself, Luo Chen swept his powerful divine sense across the vast, empty mountain ravine, but found nothing.
In that storage bag, besides the worthless magical artifacts, he had deliberately left some valuable items.
A green lantern!
It came from the Shadow Reflection Sect, stolen and scavenged for him by Hei Wang.
By quality, it was at the level of a Magic Treasure.
Luo Chen hadn’t bothered to study its effects, but he had left his divine sense imprint on it to test the results.
But no matter how powerful Luo Chen’s divine sense, he couldn’t find the "Illusion-Breaking Green Lantern" now.
Frowning, Luo Chen shifted his focus to the changes in the spatial restraints.
"The Nascent Soul’s ability to shrink the earth and travel thousands of miles is actually an instinctive use of spatial restraints, but it’s a natural adaptation to the changes in space."
"Qing Shuang, however, defies logic by traversing the void with her physical body, appearing and disappearing at will. Clearly, this is a technique that defies the natural changes in space..."
"By breaking and reorganizing, finding a gap in the brief moment when the spatial restraints restore, one can move freely."
"This world is like a tightly woven net. The Nascent Soul is like a tiny shrimp, able to move freely through the gaps. My Primordial Cauldron can suppress a Nascent Soul because it forms its own space, blocking many of these gaps. Qing Shuang, on the other hand, is a large fish that destroys the net’s nodes and traverses the void with her physical body, achieving the level where the net is broken but the fish survives."
"Is it like that?"
Luo Chen’s expression was dazed as he murmured to himself.
No one could give him an answer; he could only rely on further research to verify his theories.
Occasionally, a tingling pain would come from his body, but Luo Chen suppressed it with his main soul, maintaining his focus.
After finishing his research for the day, Luo Chen, filled with doubts, returned to his cave abode.
Upon arrival, he saw the Purple Cloak Marquis waiting outside.
Luo Chen was taken aback, then quickly composed himself and greeted the marquis.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Daoist friend."
The Purple Cloak Marquis waved his hand casually, "No problem. You know, those of us who have been marked by the Vicious Mountain Seal can’t cultivate as efficiently as before. It’s better to take a walk than to waste effort on minor, futile efforts."
Luo Chen smiled. This was probably the pain that most Southern Frontier Yuan Yin cultivators were feeling now!
Even though the world’s spiritual energy had increased, they dared not cultivate recklessly.
To remove this restriction, they needed to find the source and restore their former freedom.
After smiling, he asked, "Is there something important today?"
"No important matters", the Purple Cloak Marquis shook his head and then took out a jade scroll. "Here, this is the information you wanted."
Luo Chen’s face lit up, "Is it about the Demon Heart Supreme Worm?"
"Partly, but not entirely. It also includes information collected by the Stiff Mountain Alliance from various channels about recent major events in the Mountain and Sea Realm."
Luo Chen raised an eyebrow and took the jade scroll.
The moment he opened it, his mind focused.
"Finally, Dong Huang has made his move!" (End of Chapter)
Chapter end
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