Chapter 65: Chapter 65: 6 Years

Six years later, the Nine Abyss Pavilion’s annual auction was reaching its climax.

"Two hundred sixty-six!"

"Two hundred sixty-seven!"

"Two hundred and seventy Spirit Stones!"

The auctioneer surveyed the crowd, his long gavel held high. "Two hundred and seventy Spirit Stones, going once! Are there any other cultivators willing to go higher? If there are no further bids, this Tier One High-Grade Spiritual Artifact will belong to this fellow cultivator!"

The hall fell silent. While a Tier One High-Grade Spiritual Artifact was rare, two hundred and seventy Spirit Stones was already a steep price. There would be other opportunities in the future; it wasn’t necessary to get into a desperate bidding war over this one.

"Two hundred and seventy Spirit Stones, going twice!"

"Two hundred and seventy Spirit Stones, third time!"

The crisp sound of the gavel falling rang out, and the auctioneer smiled slightly. "Congratulations, fellow cultivator, the Jade Water Golden Scale Shield is yours!"

The one who bought the Jade Water Golden Scale Shield was none other than Lu Zhao.

Ever since changing his residence six years ago, Lu Zhao had settled down to focus on his cultivation. His days were spent either cultivating or refining puppets, with occasional guidance for his disciple, Zhou Bin.

He rarely accepted missions from the Guest Minister Pavilion, only completing a few short-term tasks that settled monthly. On the other hand, he frequently took on tasks from the Hundred Arts Pavilion, mostly specified orders to refine Flowing Cloud Sparrow and Ice Mouse Puppets. Lu Zhao knew that these two types of puppets sold quite well in the northern part of Chen Country. In contrast, due to their higher price, the Ironwood Guards were commissioned infrequently; over six years, he had only received thirty-two refinement requests for them.

As for the Nine Abyss Pavilion, their monthly purchase volume of Tier One Lower Grade Puppets had not changed much over the past six years.

The real change was with the Tier One Middle-Grade Ice Wind Wolf Puppet. Three years ago, Lu Zhao finally relented and agreed to sell this puppet, delivering it to the Nine Abyss Pavilion for one hundred and eighty Spirit Stones apiece.

This price was still a loss, but it barely avoided being a major one. Lu Zhao still remembered that puppet being put up as an item in that year’s Nine Abyss Pavilion annual auction. When the starting bid of one hundred ninety Spirit Stones was announced, the room went cold. Fortunately, two cultivators eventually showed interest, and after some back-and-forth, it sold for two hundred Spirit Stones.

After this experience, Lu Zhao knew perfectly well that the market for the Ice Wind Wolf Puppet in Changfeng County was quite small. Events proved him right; after the auction, Zhou Hua never again mentioned buying another.

Lu Zhao reviewed the situation afterward. The crux of the problem was still the price. With just a few more Spirit Stones, one could almost buy a Tier One High-Grade Spiritual Artifact. While Late-stage Qi Cultivators were certainly wealthy, the immediate combat power boost from a High-Grade Spiritual Artifact was far more practical than a Middle-Grade Puppet.

’Unless I lower the price, it’ll be difficult to find buyers. But one hundred and eighty Spirit Stones is already a loss. Lower it further? At that rate, I, a Puppet Refiner, would practically be paying to work for the Nine Abyss Pavilion.’

’The other path is to increase my success rate.’ The very thought gave Lu Zhao a headache. In the past six years, including the very first one he had successfully made, he had only managed to refine a total of five Ice Wind Wolf Puppets. ’With such a low rate of practice, how can my success rate possibly improve?’

The materials were hard to find. Four years ago, Lu Zhao had finally grown impatient and decided to switch to a different type of puppet. He pulled various strings and spent a full year gathering the necessary materials to refine a Water Spirit Turtle Puppet: two Tier One Middle Stage Turtle-type Demon Beast corpses, and enough Tier One High-grade Water Spirit Jade to attempt refining the Puppet Core seven times. He thought that with his experience from the Ice Wind Wolf Puppet, this process would be smooth. Unexpectedly, his first two attempts at refining the Puppet Body failed consecutively.

He was stuck in a dilemma. In the end, his stubbornness won out. Lu Zhao spent another year using various channels to track down three more Turtle Demon corpses.

During his next round of attempts, Lu Zhao used up two more corpses before he finally succeeded in creating the Puppet Body. This whole ordeal made him realize that refining the Water Spirit Turtle Puppet was far more difficult than he had anticipated. The seven portions of Water Spirit Jade he had on hand now seemed woefully inadequate. Lu Zhao had no choice but to ask Zhou Hua for help again, and he managed to purchase two more portions.

His hunch had been correct. In total, it took eight portions of materials before Lu Zhao painstakingly completed the refinement of the Puppet Core.

More than two years of time and over three hundred Spirit Stones invested, all for just a single finished puppet. After this experience of a total loss, Lu Zhao temporarily gave up on the idea of refining Water Spirit Turtle Puppets. He decided to put this path on hold, focus first on increasing the success rate for the Ice Wind Wolf Puppet, and then consider other plans.

In six years, Lu Zhao’s progress on the path of puppets had stagnated, but in terms of magic and cultivation, he had made significant advancements.

With the Thousand Layered Wave Technique, he could now successfully stack eight layers of Water Spirit Ripples, leaving him just a hair’s breadth from the Great Success Realm. However, he seemed to be missing something for that final step, and it wasn’t entirely an issue with his training.

As for his progress in the Thousand Threads Technique, three years ago Lu Zhao had bought a Tier One High-Grade Nourishing God Pill at an auction. With the help of its medicinal power, he successfully condensed a fourth Divine Sense Thread. His Divine Sense strength was now solidly comparable to that of an ordinary Qi Cultivation Ninth Level Cultivator. With a single thought, his normal Divine Sense scan could cover a radius of sixty zhang; if he condensed his Divine Sense into a thread and extended it, the range would double—Lu Zhao had personally verified that its maximum distance could reach as far as one hundred and twenty zhang.

In terms of cultivation, relying on his Spiritual Qi-rich residence and an ample supply of pills, Lu Zhao had reached the peak of the Qi Cultivation Sixth Level two years ago. He had originally intended to search for a pill to help him break through the bottleneck, but he happened to learn that the elders of the Zhou Clan had warned some of their more outstanding disciples never to rely on pills to forcibly break through the bottlenecks in Late-stage Qi Cultivation.

This information put Lu Zhao on alert. After making multiple inquiries within the Zhou Family to no avail, he eventually bought a tattered ancient text from a secret black market. It recorded a theory: forcibly breaking through a Late-stage Qi Cultivation bottleneck with the power of pills could have unforeseen consequences for future Foundation Establishment.

Upon learning this secret, Lu Zhao had a moment of epiphany. ’No wonder the Zhou Family has such a rule.’

After careful consideration, he made his decision: he would forgo the shortcut and rely on his own power to grind down this bottleneck through sheer persistence, like dripping water wearing through stone.

For two years, through winter and summer, Lu Zhao repeatedly tempered and polished that formless barrier. By now, the bottleneck in his perception had become as thin as a cicada’s wing, on the verge of collapse.

He had a premonition that in less than three months, the time would be right. He would be able to charge through the barrier in one go and break into Late-stage Qi Cultivation!

The biggest regret of these six years was that he had never been able to find the Spirit Water needed to upgrade his Hundred Waters Magic Disc. The only time he had come close to hope was three years ago, at the auction of a Water Wood Spirit Liquid. At that time, Lu Zhao had been incredibly excited, thinking he had finally found the opportunity to upgrade his magical artifact.

However, when the auctioneer explained the spiritual liquid’s properties in detail, he was instantly dumbfounded. Although the item was a type of Spirit Water, it had already been processed by an Alchemist and was more akin to a finished pill, completely unusable for Artifact Refining or Array Formation.

After the auction ended, Lu Zhao left the Nine Abyss Pavilion alone, carrying his new magical artifact. His steps were steady, but his mind was turbulent. ’I probably won’t be staying in the Zhou Family Marketplace for much longer,’ he thought.

After returning to the Cyan Bamboo Residence, Lu Zhao sat down cross-legged and began to circulate the *Little Spirit Rain Technique*. His Divine Sense roamed within his Sea of Consciousness, feeling the flow of Magical Power in his body. The bottleneck at the peak of the Qi Cultivation Sixth Level was like a thin veil, ready to be torn apart at any moment.

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