The voyage continued.
A strange atmosphere arose on the ferries, and the cultivators liked to sit between their lodgings and have conversations with themselves.
First, they would propose an opinion, and then refute themselves, repeating this over and over again until going mad.
Without thinking, it was known that they were imitating Chen Xia, claiming to practice the method of questioning the heart through continual denial, seeking their ultimate heart's way by constantly refuting themselves.
This method quickly spread across the dozen ferries, and even Xuan Li joined in, often sitting and questioning and answering himself.
"Have I diligently cultivated? Have I reached my own peak?"
"No, I haven't. I'm only fifteen thousand years old now. There's still power left. I should take another step from the top of the pole, reaching the peak of the Heaven Mending Realm!"
"No, I've already reached the peak. I'll stop here and go no further."
"No..."
Anyway, it was just a series of denials.
So when Chen Xia went to find him, Xuan Li was still denying. This made Chen Xia frown and ask,
"Are you practicing some kind of negative questioning method?"
Xuan Li quickly opened his eyes and respectfully smiled, "No, I just wanted to try asking my heart's way like you. Now I'm just a cat imitating a tiger, making you laugh."
Hearing this made Chen Xia frown even more.
What did this have to do with him?
"Let's not talk about this. Why did you come looking for me?" Xuan Li had good insight and immediately changed the topic, asking again.
Chen Xia asked, "Do you have any medicinal ingredients on the ferries that I can buy?"
He didn't have many pills left on him now, especially the life-extending pills for Ma Xiaohong. It looked like he would soon run out.
Once they entered the Dead Sea Star River to fight, Ma Xiaohong would definitely consume her life even faster. Her physique and mystic abilities required more frequent use, so pill consumption would also increase. Naturally, reserves had to keep up.
Moreover, life-extending pills had a characteristic. Due to the restrictions of the Heavenly Dao, taking the same life-extending pill for the first time could increase life by five hundred years, but the second time would only increase it by fifty years.
If a cultivator wanted to continually increase their life with pills, they had to refine different life-extending pills, and higher quality ones were better.
The life-extending pills Chen Xia had previously given Ma Xiaohong were middle-grade Dao medicines, each able to increase life by two thousand years. This not only offset her consumed life, but gave her a surplus.
But there would be more fighting ahead, so Ma Xiaohong's life would definitely be quickly consumed. Therefore, the pills had to keep up.
Chen Xia wanted to refine a supreme medicine that could increase life by six thousand years, to keep in reserve for Ma Xiaohong.
Six thousand years of life, if used by Ma Xiaohong, would be like directly restoring Chen Xia from heavy injury and brink of death to his prime.
Half a life revival.
So to stock up on pills, Chen Xia asked Xuan Li for them.
Now that they knew each other, borrowing more didn't seem appropriate.
Xuan Li was startled for a moment, and asked in confusion, "You can refine pills too?"
"I know a little." Chen Xia replied this way, and at the same time, according to the medicinal formulas he remembered, spoke out the names of the pills.
"Long Life Grass, Millennium Flower, Ten Thousand Year Turtle Shell, Prolong Life Thorn, I'll take any ingredients related to longevity. I'll buy them at the normal price. If you give me more, I can also give you a couple other pills in return."
Xuan Li looked a little confused, as this was the first time he had heard someone only wanting longevity ingredients. Normally, he would definitely ask, "How afraid of death are you?" But facing Chen Xia, he certainly didn't dare ask.
At the moment, he smiled and said, "We do have some longevity ingredients on the ferry, not too many. I'll go gather them for you. We can discuss money later. If it's not enough, I can also contact the other two realms for more."
Xuan Li was quite capable, so Chen Xia nodded and smiled.
"Actually, I don't have any money on me."
Xuan Li was startled.
What, trying to take advantage of him?
But he didn't dare react. He could only force a laugh and take the loss. On the path of cultivation, who didn't take losses?
Pa!
A muffled sound.
"This is the deposit. Bring me the ingredients when you've gathered them." Chen Xia said and then turned to leave.
Xuan Li was startled again. Didn't he say he didn't have money? What was this?
Bartering?
He didn't dare confirm and felt apprehensive as he picked up the bag and weighed it. It had some heft. Curious, he opened it.
Pill light and fragrance flashed out at the same time, shining in Xuan Li's eyes and rushing into his nose.
Xuan Li was shocked. In disbelief, he murmured,
"Heavenly Profound Pill, Great Fog Ascending Dragon Medicine, Earth Sea Pill..."
It was actually a total of seven middle-grade Dao medicines. Their value together was nearly that of this entire ferry!
Really so generous?
Xuan Li hurriedly stowed away the bag, with an abnormal flush of joy on his face that he couldn't restrain. He hurriedly went to gather all the longevity ingredients from the ferry, and even bought them from ferries in the other two realms, determined to deliver all available longevity ingredients to Chen Xia.
Many years of cultivation experience taught Xuan Li a lesson.
When you meet a moneybags, you have to hold on tight.
Chen Xia had just returned to his lodging. The heart devil inside him had entered a relatively tranquil state. Perhaps it felt that arguing was pointless and couldn't reach a conclusion, and scolding was scolding itself.
So the heart devil found a new direction of effort, single-mindedly rushing his cultivation level. This continuously elevated Chen Xia's inner spiritual power, but he was still unable to break through the Heaven Mending Realm bottleneck.
Perhaps it was because he had to slay the heart devil, so Chen Xia couldn't reach the Heaven Mending Realm.
But the problem was, he also couldn't slay the heart devil!
And if I'm me, why do I still have to slay myself?
This was somewhat contradictory in itself.
Chen Xia couldn't figure it out, so things had to remain this way for now.
Apart from his cultivation level, his stat points hadn't had any major progress for a long time either.
His Strength was at 4500 points, equivalent to a Seven-layered Sea Inversing Realm cultivator. For the current Chen Xia, this didn't help much. He estimated he would need to reach 7000 points before he could match the Heaven Mending Realm.
His Luck was at 1300 points. Over these years, Chen Xia had almost all been adding points to Luck, and the gains had been tremendous, giving him an unparalleled skill in pill refining.
It was just that Luck had also reached a threshold now. He would need to reach 3000 points and above before ushering in the second qualitative change.
The previous time he added 1000 points and got the qualitative change of [Insight], Chen Xia had an epiphany of the Blood Burning Soul Destroying method, obtaining the Blood Burning and Soul Destroying states. After activating them, he could greatly increase his combat power.
The reason it didn't work against the Great Saint Remnant's will previously was because the heart devil was controlling his body, and the heart devil didn't have the authority to activate Blood Burning and Soul Destroying.
The heart devil couldn't control his soul.
Apart from this, Chen Xia's other methods to increase his combat power were the Heavenly Dragon Imagery and Samsara Extreme Domain mystic abilities. If he stacked all three abilities, it would increase his combat power to a tremendously terrifying degree.
At that time, even without the half fairy sword and dark purple heavenly thunder, Chen Xia would be able to fight against peak Heaven Mending Realm experts. He wasn't sure if he could win, but he could definitely fight for a while.
After that was Magic Power, which he had added the least points to, only 300.
Currently, Magic Power didn't seem to have any great use. Its only use appeared to be comprehending mystic abilities in the Way of Fate, and compared to Strength and Luck, Strength and Luck did indeed seem more important.
Therefore, Chen Xia hadn't added many points to Magic Power for now. He planned to wait until he reached the level of a Quasi-Saint with top-tier strength before slowly honing Magic Power.
Among the million slain souls in his consciousness sea, some had already been "digested", and the flying swords suppressing them had correspondingly increased in grade.
The Spirit Swords increased the fastest, with low-grade Spirit Swords directly rising to mid-grade, and mid-grade rising to high-grade.
High-grade Spirit Swords depended on their quality. Those of better quality smoothly condensed into Dao Swords, becoming killing weapons.
Those of poorer quality still needed more refinement at the Spirit Sword level.
This improvement of a million flying swords was equivalent to increasing the killing power of the half fairy sword.
Because the three million flying swords could form the hilt of the half fairy sword.
The stronger the hilt, the closer it would be to a true fairy sword.
If all three million flying swords fully became Dao Swords, perhaps after condensing the hilt, it could truly match...
A fairy sword!