Thinking of the scenario where enemies meticulously trapped his clone, only for it to detonate before they could celebrate, Qi Ping felt a surge of satisfaction. In this wretched world, he finally had a way to move about with peace of mind.
To achieve this, the technique had to be nearly impossible to interrupt and capable of completely disintegrating the clone while maintaining maximum lethality. Though self-destruction was easy, destroying everything thoroughly while producing a massive blast required research.
After concluding his tests on the clone's data, Qi Ping immediately dove into his research. He gathered three relevant spells:
The Self-Detonation Spell—a basic technique for detonating the dantian.
The Blood-Burning Art—a technique that burned blood and potential to boost combat power.
The Body-Shattering Palm—a technique with immense destructive force against physical forms.
'Using the Self-Detonation Spell as a base, enhancing the power with the Blood-Burning Art, and then using the power of the Body-Shattering Palm to annihilate whatever cannot be burned...'
Cultivation knows no time. Five years passed in the blink of an eye.
"Advancing in the Foundation Establishment stage is truly difficult!"
In those five years, Qi Ping had continuously refined and consumed Sun-Blaze Blue Moon Honey, which was infused with solar essence, to boost his cultivation. Despite this, he was still a significant distance away from the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.
'Moreover, the effectiveness of the Sun-Blaze Blue Moon Honey is waning. My body is developing a tolerance to the Blue Moon Fruit.'
To counter this tolerance, Qi Ping had even begun nurturing the low-tier second-grade Cold Pond Grass. However, that herb was ice-attribute, far better suited for water or ice cultivators. When he tried to use it, the results were half the effort for twice the work.
After the failure of the Cold Pond Grass experiment, he retrieved the three second-grade spiritual seeds he had taken from Daoist He, the old Foundation Establishment cultivator. After much nurturing and study, he identified the species.
They were the low-tier second-grade Water-Glass Flower, the low-tier second-grade Earth-Dragon Root, and the mid-tier second-grade Blood-Blaze Garment!
The discovery of the Blood-Blaze Garment was a magnificent surprise!
The Blood-Blaze Garment was a renowned mid-tier second-grade spirit herb. It possessed an extraordinary ability to purify and strengthen fire-attribute spiritual energy while effectively excavating the potential of a fire-attribute constitution!
This meant that once it was fully grown, the bloodline potential and spiritual density of both Qi Ping and Yaya would skyrocket! At the very least, Yaya's upcoming metamorphosis was now a guaranteed success.
With the Blood-Blaze Garment and Potential Ignition working in tandem, along with the massive amount of solar essence and Sun-Blaze Wood energy Yaya had absorbed, its transformation would surely be startling.
Unfortunately, this Blood-Blaze Garment could not reproduce on its own; he only had one. Thus, Qi Ping planned to nurture it to the maximum limit of his Plant Growth skill before using it.
Consequently, he still lacked a suitable herb to advance his own cultivation realm.
"The resources required for Foundation Establishment are simply staggering!"
"No wonder some cultivators take a century or two just to break through a single level!"
Qi Ping realized more than ever that the difficulty of cultivation was not just an exaggeration. This explained why, despite the vast number of Qi Refinement cultivators and the geniuses born every year, Foundation Establishment experts remained scarce and Golden Core masters were few and far between.
It turned out that the rarest thing wasn't genius, but resources!
It could be summarized in one sentence: without money or a background, what are you doing cultivating?
In such times, one either had to be a peerless monster with transcendent comprehension to draw upon the world's providence, or turn into a demonic cultivator—devouring flesh and blood and refining elite "blood food" to walk a twisted path of power.
Qi Ping recalled a legend he had read in an ancient text. It was said that in a forgotten era of antiquity, spiritual energy filled every corner of the world. Back then, almost anyone could tread the path of the Dao without fighting for precious resources. That was the true golden age of the cultivation world.
But in the present day, spiritual veins were becoming rarer and more precious, and the appearance of natural treasures was far less frequent than in the past. This shifted the focus of cultivation from creating techniques and exploring the Dao to a brutal struggle for resources, creating the strictly stratified world of today.
'If this is true, will the environment for cultivation continue to worsen?'
Qi Ping had clearly sensed that the spiritual energy in the Cloud-Mist Mountains had weakened slightly. It was a general issue affecting the entire mountain range, not just one spot. While the decrease was small, it was definitely there.
However, the Cloud-Mist Mountains hadn't been damaged, and his investigations showed no damage to the underground spiritual veins. In fact, spiritual veins should grow stronger over time as they are nurtured by the world.
How strange!
Having noticed this, he felt even luckier to have built his territory. As long as he nurtured it well, he would always have a place to support his cultivation. His desire to acquire more herbs and upgrade the territory grew even stronger.
'I can't delay finding herbs to boost my cultivation any longer!'
Life was finite; breakthroughs should happen as early as possible.
'It's also time for the Treant Clone to go out, execute tasks, and find resources...'
After years of research, Qi Ping had finally perfected the self-detonation technique he desired: Truth-Seeking Self-Detonation!
Generally, a cultivator's ordinary self-detonation was enough to lethally threaten an opponent of the same level. But Qi Ping's Truth-Seeking Self-Detonation could disintegrate and incinerate everything about the Treant Clone in an instant, unleashing a horrifying blast of power.
To ensure it met his standards, he had already detonated three Treant Clones. The power of the final version was so great that even his main body would likely be pulverized if caught in the blast. Once the explosion was over, not a single trace remained at the scene.
Over these five years, Qi Ping had improved in other areas as well. He had mastered the Golden Flame Art to perfection. While his array mastery remained at the middle tier of the second grade, his proficiency and the number of arrays he could cast had increased significantly.
Most importantly, the number of Earth-Armor Bees had grown to two thousand!
Back when he had only two or three hundred, their combined battle array could already stall an ordinary early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator. Now, not only were there two thousand, but they were equipped with the low-tier second-grade Universal Earth-Armor Array he had researched!
With this swarm assisting the Treant Clone, its combat power in the outside world was well-guaranteed.