Chapter 459 - 432: The First Vein Enters the Body

Chapter 459: Chapter 432: The First Vein Enters the Body

After leaving Nanyuan District, Li Yuan did not immediately head north.

The blue trait of his portable grotto-heaven required him to refine three Spirit Vein branches to make it permanent. He was currently on the coast of Shuizhou, where the seabed was dense with Spirit Veins. Not refining the first one before leaving would be a waste of this prime location.

But refining a Spirit Vein was no simple task.

The larger a Spirit Vein, the more Spiritual Power was required to refine it, and the stronger its resistance.

With his Early-stage Golden Core cultivation, he could tackle a small or medium-sized Spirit Vein, but the time investment would be immense.

Moreover, most small and medium-sized Spirit Veins already had owners.

’I should test the waters with the smallest one first.’

Li Yuan moved stealthily from the coastline out toward the open sea, extending his Hydro-Vein Sight to its maximum.

The undersea Spirit Vein directly beneath Nanyuan District was the main one—considerable in size, rich with Spiritual Qi, and belonging to Zhou He. It extended from beneath the cliffs of Nanyuan District out into the deep sea, splitting into several branch veins, which in turn branched out into even finer tendrils.

Li Yuan followed the course of the main vein out to sea. About eighty li from Nanyuan District, he sensed an extremely faint, minor Spirit Vein.

The smallest of the small.

The Spirit Vein was less than half a foot in diameter, and its Spiritual Qi flow was extremely low, like a gossamer stream meandering through the thick seabed rock. If not for his Hydro-Vein Sight boosting his perception accuracy by thirty percent, the fluctuations from a Spirit Vein of this level would have been completely drowned out by the complex background Spiritual Flow of the seawater.

Li Yuan dove down to a position directly above the Spirit Vein and took a turquoise jade box from his storage pouch.

The portable grotto-heaven.

He injected a wisp of Spiritual Power into the Spirit Pattern on the box’s surface. The jade box opened in response, and a turquoise curtain of light poured out, forming a translucent sphere in the seawater about two zhang in diameter.

Inside the sphere was a dry space. It was a cultivation area the size of a stone chamber. In a corner, a miniature Spirit Vein branch, as thin as a thumb, lay coiled, emitting a faint azure-blue glow.

That was the Spirit Vein that came with the grotto-heaven, the one Zhou He had mentioned earlier. It was currently full.

Li Yuan placed the portable grotto-heaven into an empty equipment slot.

[Equipped: Portable Grotto-Heaven (Complete)]

[Spirit Vein Refinement (Blue) active]

The moment the blue trait activated, Li Yuan’s perception suddenly changed.

The faint tendril of a Spirit Vein on the seabed transformed from a vague, fluctuating signal into a flow of energy he could directly touch and control. He could clearly sense the vein’s path, its flow rate, and the rhythm of the Spiritual Qi moving within its channel.

It was like putting his hand into a stream and feeling the water flow through his fingers.

Li Yuan sat cross-legged on the seabed and began to circulate his Cultivation Technique.

The refining process began at the very tip of the Spirit Vein.

The Demonic Qi, like extremely fine needles, slowly advanced along the boundary between the Spirit Vein and the rock layer, dissolving the adhesion between them inch by inch. With every inch dissolved, his physical body absorbed that section of the Spirit Vein.

The process was extremely slow.

By the end of the first day, Li Yuan had refined less than three zhang of the Spirit Vein.

On the second day, the refining speed increased slightly.

As he grew more familiar with the temperament of this Spirit Vein, Li Yuan made micro-adjustments to the output rhythm of his Demonic Qi and the monitoring precision of his Hydro-Vein Sight. The coordination between his two Divine Sense Lines grew more seamless, and the efficiency of the separation process steadily increased.

「On the afternoon of the third day.」

The tip of the Spirit Vein had been completely absorbed into his body, with only a two-foot-long section at its root still connected to the seabed rock.

As expected, the adhesion at the root was much stronger than at the tip. When the Demonic Qi reached this point to dissolve it, a low tremor emanated from deep within the rock layer, and the Spirit Vein’s rebound force suddenly surged several times over.

Li Yuan paused and focused his perception on the section of the Spirit Vein at the root.

Although the rebound force was greater, it was nowhere near the upper limit of what a Golden Core Stage cultivator could withstand. He adjusted his method of injecting Demonic Qi, switching from a continuous stream to a pulsed attack—injecting a burst, waiting for the rebound to subside, and then injecting another.

After repeating this more than ten times, the final bit of adhesion at the root was finally dissolved completely.

Once the final connection was severed, the entire Spirit Vein, like a long, thin root being pulled up, followed the pull of Li Yuan’s externalized Spiritual Power and vanished completely into his body.

A small Spirit Vein appeared around the periphery of his Dantian. The previously scattered streams of Spiritual Qi now connected from end to end, stabilizing into a coherent flow.

The Spirit Vein did not merge with his innate Mana. Instead, it existed as a separate, small cycle, slowly breathing and continuously supplying Spiritual Qi to his body.

A panel popped up.

[Spirit Vein Refinement (Blue) - Permanence Progress: 1/3]

The first Spirit Vein had been assimilated.

Li Yuan let out a long sigh of relief.

’Three days. Not a short time, but within my expectations. I’ve gained complete experience from this first refinement. The next two should be much faster.’

Just as he was about to get up and leave, his perception suddenly caught a faint anomaly.

After the Spirit Vein had been uprooted, a small cavity was revealed in the crevice of the rock layer where it had been embedded. At the bottom of the cavity was a hard object, half-buried in silt and gravel.

Li Yuan extended his Spiritual Power and separated the hard object from the silt.

It was a palm-sized piece of iron.

The surface of the iron piece was riddled with rust, but beneath the rusty layer, a few fine lines were faintly visible. The style of the patterns was extremely archaic, not of a recent design; it looked like something from a long time ago.

[Equippable Item Detected: Vein-Guarding Iron Plate (Complete)]

[Equipment Trait Preview: Minor Vein-Sense (White) — When cultivating on a Spirit Vein, slightly extends the range at which you can sense the vein’s path and the location of its ’Vein Eyes.’]

[Permanence Condition: Cultivation must reach Late-stage Qi Refining]