After erasing the consciousness seal of the black-robed cultivator, Qi Ping eagerly opened the storage bag of the black-robed cultivator and was immediately stunned by the items inside.

Lower grade spirit stones: 986 pieces!

Middle grade spirit stone: 1 piece!

This was the first time Qi Ping had seen a middle grade spirit stone. You must know that it takes a hundred lower grade spirit stones to exchange for one middle grade spirit stone.

Moreover, under normal circumstances, it is still difficult to exchange them and often requires a two to three percent premium.

"Even if I don't sell the Blood Ginseng, I have enough to buy a powerful spirit beast!"

Animal companions are of great significance to Qi Ping, so he would contract the best animal companion he could.

Now that Qi Ping has acquired the Wilderness Transformation Skill and can transform into a bee, his survival ability has greatly increased. Even if pursued by cultivators of the Foundation Establishment Stage, Qi Ping has a certain chance to escape, allowing him to act a bit more boldly and choose a better spirit beast.

However, compared to spirit stones, what delighted Qi Ping the most were a pill formula and a cultivation technique.

[Pill Formula Name: Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill]

[Grade: Tier One Intermediate Elixir]

[Ingredients: Fire Spirit Grass, Spirit-Storage Fruit...]

[Refining Technique: Fire Refining...]

[Pill Effect: Strengthens the body, stabilizes the foundation, can slightly increase the body's spiritual energy affinity, and works better with fire attribute cultivation techniques]

...

[Cultivation Technique Name: Muyan Technique (First-Layer of Qi Refining to Ninth-Layer of Qi Refining)]

[Grade: High Level]

[Technique Traits: Wood-Fire Dual Attribute Technique, uses wood to generate fire, spiritual power possesses the mild traits of wood attribute while fire attribute is hidden within, can explode with immense combat power after striking...]

"Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill...Muyan Technique!"

Seeing these two items, Qi Ping's heart was immediately filled with joy.

What made Qi Ping happiest of all was, of course, the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill!

While in the realm of Qi Refining, taking elixirs that enhance physical strength is greatly beneficial for breaking through the realm.

In all realms, the physical body is the foundation. If the foundation is not solid, it becomes increasingly difficult to break through as one progresses...

Not to mention that the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill also slightly increases the body's spiritual energy affinity and stabilizes the foundation.

"Sister Nan grows Spirit-Storage Fruit, I'll just buy two fruit trees from her. The difficulty of obtaining the other materials isn't high except for Fire Spirit Grass. For the Fire Spirit Grass, I'll need to find a way to purchase a batch of seeds, or obtain still-vibrant Fire Spirit Grass..."

"However, refining pills is a problem, even the lowest-grade alchemy furnace costs over a thousand spirit stones...."

"Also, I have no knowledge of the Fire Refining Technique, and Spiritual Fire is another issue...."

Upon closer examination, Qi Ping felt more and more that being an alchemist was a bottomless pit, with precious Fire Refining Technique, Spirit Medicine Extraction Method, and Spirit Medicine Fusion Technique...and various techniques and knowledge that he simply couldn't afford at the moment.

So Qi Ping never considered he could refine elixirs at this stage.

He only wanted to use the proportion knowledge from the pill formula, his talents as a Great Brewmaster, and the Jungle Druid's sensitivity to plants, among other aspects, to experiment and modify the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill into a Fire Spirit Body Tempering Potion.

Even if it only had half the efficacy of the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill, it would be quite good for Qi Ping.

After all, if the effect isn't enough, the quantity can make up for it!

And if he could research it further, it might even allow the Brewer Big Belly Bee to produce honey, enabling mass production of [Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill (Honey Version)], thus allowing Qi Ping to have a continuous source of the Honey Version Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill as long as he cultivated enough Fire Spirit Grass.

"Moreover, as long as the vintage and quality of the Fire Spirit Grass and Spirit-Storage Fruit are sufficient, it might even rival or surpass the effect of the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill....."

Qi Ping had a fairly clear understanding of his situation: before the Foundation Establishment Stage, acquiring even the most basic alchemy methods was impossible.

So he always wanted to use the pill formula and ordinary alchemy knowledge as a foundation to try brewing honey with special effects. This time, the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill was a great experimental opportunity for Qi Ping.

Now this Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill not only pointed him in the right direction but also happened to be a medicinal pill that greatly benefited him.

This put Qi Ping in a very good mood.

"Not bad, not bad!"

After studying the Fire Spirit Body Tempering Pill formula, Qi Ping shifted his gaze to the "Muyan Technique."

Compared to the pill formula, the Muyan Technique left Qi Ping more conflicted.

If he didn't have a Fire Spirit Root, it would be one thing, but he did, though it was so low it nearly didn't show up in the tests.

Originally, his talent with the Wood Spirit Root was extremely low, and the Fire Spirit Root was only spotted after careful observation by old man Zhou.

"With my slight talent in Fire Spirit Root, coupled with the trait of wood generating fire, practicing the Muyan Technique isn't impossible..."

"Moreover, this is a high-level cultivation technique for Qi Refining...whereas the Wood Shield Technique was only an intermediate-level technique..."

In Qi Refining techniques, they generally rank as high level, intermediate level, or low level.

Low-level techniques often have flaws that make breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Stage virtually impossible. Most loose cultivators practice low-level techniques.

Intermediate-level techniques are generally reliable without particularly powerful traits, but they can support cultivation up to breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment, albeit with a much higher difficulty in obtaining them.

Advanced techniques have a clearly higher strength, with potent traits—for example, the Muyan Technique not only has solid, robust spiritual power but also considerable explosive force.

Perhaps there are even stronger Qi Refining techniques, but Qi Ping doesn't know about them; anyway, intermediate Qi Refining techniques are sufficient for breakthroughs to later stages, and those mythical divine level techniques are beyond Qi Ping's conjecture.

"Should I switch to practicing the Muyan Technique?" Qi Ping felt quite conflicted.

Both techniques had their benefits for Qi Ping.

After a considerable struggle, Qi Ping decided to wait until he had contracted his second or third animal companion before making a decision.

With his current talents, even with ample Golden Marrow Honey, the cultivation would become increasingly difficult once he reached the late stage of Qi Refining unless he piled up many Tier One High Level Spiritual Medicines.

But relying solely on spiritual medicines for cultivation has many drawbacks, which was an inescapable fact for Qi Ping; otherwise, major sects wouldn't be so strict about talent when recruiting disciples.

So Qi Ping still wanted to lay a more solid foundation for himself, no matter what.

"Wait until I contract the second or third animal companion, and acquire talents that aid cultivation before making a decision..."

"For now, I'll choose animal companions with wood or fire attributes, and then decide based on the shared talents!"

"Anyway, with the Golden Marrow Bee and the mutated bee strain, I can still transform into a bee to escape, so for the time being, there's no high requirement for the combat power of the other animal companions..."

"So the next animal companions should either possess high potential for development or have the chance to share an appropriate talent with me..."

In a few days, Qi Ping was confident he could break through to the Fourth-Layer of Qi Refining.

Once the number of High-speed Ring-cutting Bees increased some more, Qi Ping planned to head to Cyan Stone Marketplace to consult Boss Gao about spirit beasts and see if he had found a suitable spirit beast seller.

At this point, there were no particularly valuable items left in the storage bag of the black-robed cultivator, mostly miscellaneous items of low value.

Except for one token that caught Qi Ping's attention.

This was a full-body bronze-colored strange metal token, with a mysterious "Blessing" character engraved on it, from which an extremely sinister and bizarre aura emanated.

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