On the afternoon of the fifth day of the first lunar month, 67-year-old Meng Zhou ended this round of retreat.
Cultivation progress +330, fifth level of elixir formation 4020/10,000;
Third-level Spring Water Sutra +3300, Grandmaster 39,600/240,000;
Black Turtle Bearing Monument True Skill +3300, Grandmaster 27,900/240,000.
At the end of December, Meng Zhou quietly returned to Aurora Cave with Bai Zhi.
During ordinary months, it didn't matter to Meng Zhou whether he was retreating in Sanchuan Plateau Cave or returning to Aurora Cave.
But the meaning of this retreat in the first month of every year is different. Meng Zhou will still return to Aurora Cave as much as possible.
Thinking of this, Meng Zhou's consciousness fell into a spiritual gourd space.
Before this retreat, the reserve of the third-level mid-grade Green Lotus Sword Essence was 786 drops. Now it has increased to 846 drops. This retreat has increased by 60 drops.
But Meng Zhou was not very satisfied with this growth.
At least, there is still some gap between what he expected.
In the first month of last year, Meng Zhou's cultivation was still at the fourth level of elixir formation. In normal times, a single retreat could add eight drops of third-level mid-grade Green Lotus Sword Essence.
But that retreat yielded a total of forty-eight drops, which was six times that of normal times.
During my retreat in February last year, my cultivation level broke through to the fifth level of alchemy.
At the same time, Chun Shui enters the master's realm through the master's realm.
This double improvement also greatly increased his Qinglian Sword Essence harvest.
In an ordinary retreat, you can harvest twelve drops of the third-level mid-grade Green Lotus Sword Essence.
Twelve drops at other times, harvesting twenty-four drops per month.
Before this retreat, Meng Zhou estimated based on his harvest in the first month of last year that if it increased sixfold this time, then he should have harvested seventy-two drops of Green Lotus Sword Essence during this retreat.
But the actual situation is that only sixty drops were harvested, and nothing more.
But rather than harvesting something less than expected, Meng Zhou was more curious about the reason behind it.
Previously, before the place of retreat and practice was moved to Aurora Cave, this situation actually happened in Sanchuan Yuan Cave.
This is even an important basis for Meng Zhou to guess that he is approaching the ceiling of Sanchuan Yuanling Land.
But this time, Meng Zhou didn't think this was the reason why he touched the ceiling of Aurora Cave again.
"It's not the reason of Aurora Cave, maybe it's some deeper reason?"
Meng Zhou had such an idea in his mind.
This idea did not come out of nowhere.
As early as when he was building the foundation, Meng Zhou had encountered a similar situation, that is, after the upper limit of life reached a certain limit, no matter whether it was the improvement of the level of the Chun Shui Sutra or the advancement of cultivation, there was no further progress in the upper limit of life.
After forming the elixir, he almost completely ignored the element of life limit in his daily practice.
Because except when the foundation is built and the core is broken through, the upper limit of life is like being welded to death at other times, without any changes or fluctuations.
Meng Zhou therefore speculated that both foundation-building monks and alchemy-forming monks had a life limit that was difficult to surpass.
The difference is that when building the foundation, I still had a lot of shortcomings in all aspects, and my spiritual body was incomplete. Therefore, when I first broke through the foundation building, I was still far from the limit. I only slowly reached this point through continuous practice and progress.
A limit.
When he formed the elixir, his conditions were much better than when he formed the foundation. He had three incomplete Tao bodies and formed a golden elixir that contained the true meaning of immortality, and the true meaning of immortality was exactly the vitality. Therefore, as soon as he formed the elixir,
, the life limit has been reached.
However, no matter whether it is the improvement of the third level Spring Water Sutra or the breakthrough of the lower level of pill formation, the upper limit of life has not changed at all.
Because of this experience, Meng Zhou had such a judgment in his mind.
"Perhaps it has really reached its peak."
"It's quite good to gain sixty drops in one retreat."
…
White Lotus Spirit Essence: 71 drops.
Green Lotus Sword Marrow:
Third level lower grade: 347 drops.
Third level middle grade: 846 drops.
Meng Zhou took the opportunity to take stock of his inventory.
Last year, the biggest consumption was at the end of the year, I used 65 drops of the third-level low-grade Qinglian Sword Marrow to cultivate the Five Yun Spirit Gourds with Angelica dahuricae.
Then the original Ice Heart Blood Lotus clone self-destructed to defeat a late-stage pill-forming monk. It was this self-destruction that lit the fuse that detonated the entire Qingxuan Domain, and even spread to further places.
In a sense, the power of this explosion was so terrifying that it would make the scalp of those who knew it go numb.
The price Meng Zhou paid was to consume a drop of the third-level low-grade Green Lotus Sword marrow to once again cultivate a Ice Heart Blood Lotus clone, which was nailed to the Sanchuan Plateau for him to serve as his "window" to the outside world.
…
After digesting the harvest of this retreat, Meng Zhou reached out and made a move. Yaya, who was playing with a group of silly fish in the water next to him a moment ago, suddenly disappeared. When he reappeared, he was lying quietly in the palm of Meng Zhou's hand.
.
A small fish that is less than the size of two fingers, less than the size of a hand from head to tail, and is very lively.
After appearing in Meng Zhou's palm, she jumped up and down mischievously, patted Meng Zhou's palm with her fish tail, and then turned into a long rope coiled in a circle.
Meng Zhou took the long rope and played with it habitually.
The "Deduction of Celestial Phenomenon" is complete and has a deeper integration with Meng Zhou. The changes in "Deduction of the World" are only superficial.
The essence behind this appearance is that the integrity of the "Transparent Dao Body" has been greatly improved, from "66%" to "75%", which has improved the integrity by nine points.
At the same time, the Knot Master, who was originally "Level 3 7500/10,000", improved his progress by 2,000 points, reaching the level of "Level 3 9500/10,000".
From just entering the third-level high-level, you can reach a level close to the third-level limit in one step.
It can be said that the skill of "celestial interpretation" perfectly fulfilled all of Meng Zhou's goals.
Not only did it give him an extremely powerful skill, it also made his knotting skills even further.
In addition, it also greatly complemented the integrity of his transparent body.
You must know that among the three bodies, the transparent body is the most difficult to complete.
In Meng Zhou's core plan, the "Celestial Phenomena Deduction" project itself is a "springboard", a boost to help him reach a higher level, so that he can achieve that goal more easily -
Use the Knot Master's method to "edit" the past.
With the "Celestial Phenomenon Interpretation" as a springboard for him, Meng Zhou already has the confidence to truly touch this field.
After completing the practice of "Celestial Phenomenon Deduction" last year, Meng Zhou began to devote a lot of time and energy to this aspect during his time in retreat.
…
"The retreat is over? Come here quickly."
At this moment, a message entered Meng Zhou's mind.
Meng Zhou's figure flashed and he soon arrived at another small island more than ten miles away.
Nearly 90% of the area in Aurora Cave is water.
Less than 10% of the other area is scattered into large and small stone islands, floating in the water here and there.
Meng Zhou arranged the stone island closest to the central area and the largest area as a retreat place. The aurora talisman formations all over the dome rock walls were also deployed with this island as the core.
When you practice in seclusion on this island, your spiritual energy will be the most abundant and replenished most quickly.
The other stone islands are not abandoned either.
These stone islands were no longer stone islands long ago. They had been transformed by Angelica dahurica into treasure places full of vitality and full of spiritual plants.
When Meng Zhou appeared, he looked at everything in front of him with some surprise.
Meng Zhou was not surprised at all by the spiritual plants and flowers surrounding Angelica dahurica.
But behind Bai Zhi, there is a small courtyard that is not large in area, but has a simple and elegant shape. It has a bedroom, study, and living room.
Bai Zhi was standing at the door waiting for him, standing quietly and quietly, her hands clasped together naturally hanging under her lower abdomen. In a trance, Meng Zhou seemed to see a wife waiting for her husband to return home.
Walking closer, Meng Zhou said in surprise: "Why do you want to build such a small courtyard in the cave?"
Bai Zhi smiled and said: "How's it going? Is it okay?"
"Let me see."
Meng Zhou looked around under the leadership of Bai Zhi and found that the materials used were very simple. They could just use local materials and use the chemical technique to turn the hard stone on the island into various shapes.
For her now, this is easier than a child playing with plasticine.
This small courtyard made entirely of stone does not give people a sense of monotony.
It looks simple and simple, but the design intentions are revealed everywhere.
With Meng Zhou's imbecility in aesthetics, he can't give a specific reason, but looking at it as a whole, I just have the same feeling: I like it.
He even felt like he wanted to move in.
"This is the kitchen. After this period of training, I have a deeper and deeper understanding of the spiritual master, and I have many ideas in my mind.
I really want to practice it... just wait."
Having said this, Bai Zhi was full of confidence.
Watching Bai Zhi's story, Meng Zhou's heart moved, he nodded and chuckled, "I'll wait and see."
In addition to brewing and making tea, the profession of a spirit blender also covers the art of spiritual food.
Meng Zhou couldn't help but look forward to it.
In this way, Bai Zhi led Meng Zhou from room to room and introduced them there.
"This is the piano room I opened specifically for myself."
"Piano room?" Meng Zhou was surprised.
Bai Zhi nodded and said:
"I hope that my musical skills can be the same as that of a painter, and I can know everything, not just bamboo flute playing.
When I went back this time, Zhu Qian collected a lot of piano music scores for me, which even covered the piano-making skills. I plan to study them in depth in the next period of time."
"This is the living room..."
"This is the study room..."
They were introduced one by one, and before they knew it, the two of them had entered the last room.
"This is the bedroom, this room, I put the most thought into.
We have been together for so long and we don’t even have a bedroom. It’s strange to think about it..."
Bai Zhi said softly, turned to look at Meng Zhou, and happened to meet a pair of eyes looking at her almost at the same time.
The next moment, she suddenly felt her body become lighter.
…
The tenth day of the lunar month.
In the study.
While Meng Zhou's consciousness was connected to the Linglian clone in the alchemy realm, he flexibly stirred the ten fingers of his hands and played with a long rope back and forth on his fingertips.
At this moment, Qi Sen and others who set off from the Golden Cauldron Territory have safely arrived at the Alchemy Territory and have connected with Meng Zhou's Linglian clone.
What happens next is nothing to say.
Meng Zhou easily pried open the "shell" of the Alchemy Domain Mingxin Pavilion, and while carrying out a bloody purge of the original core senior management, he quickly established a new leadership team with Qi Sen and others as the core.
At this moment, the situation in the Alchemy Domain happens to be at a certain critical point.
On the one hand, everyone is talking about the failure of the Alchemy Sect this time and is highly vigilant about the changes in the surroundings. On the other hand, they are afraid of accidentally following in the footsteps of the Yuling Realm and the Hehuan Realm.
Therefore, everyone from the Alchemy Sect to various spiritual forces, large and small, act in a low-key and conservative manner.
For Meng Zhou, this was also the best time. He successfully changed the core and senior management of the Alchemy Domain Mingxin Pavilion.
At this moment, Meng Zhou is importing a large amount of information from the alchemy domain into the "deduction world" through the connection with the soul clone.
From then on, among the five realms, only the "Acacia realm" was still relatively vague. The other four realms were almost all clear and clearly presented in Meng Zhou's mind.
While harvesting this information, the new abilities given to him by the "Celestial Phenomenon Deduction" allowed him to immediately judge that the situation in the Alchemy Domain and the Golden Cauldron Domain had signs of "cloudy to sunny".
This shows that these two domains have basically gotten rid of the last chaos and will be relatively calm for some time to come.
Of course, Meng Zhou knew in his heart that as long as the Lihen Sect lurking in these two realms was not eradicated, this calmness would be just an illusion and could be "activated" again at any time due to some changes that were beyond his understanding.
This is true not only for these two domains, but also for the five domains. It may change at any time due to changes outside the five domains or beyond his understanding.
And as long as it is an "unknown" that he doesn't understand, what kind of changes it will bring to the five domains is also "unknown" to him.
This is where "astronomical interpretation" falls short of its true prediction ability.
All its deduction results come from "known".
If it is unknown, the result is also unknown to it.
After dealing with all this and regaining consciousness, Meng Zhou heard light footsteps coming outside the study. He looked up and saw Bai Zhi standing by the door looking inside.
Seeing Meng Zhou looking at her, she was surprised and asked, "Did I bother you?"
Meng Zhou shook his head, "No."
"Are you okay now?" Bai Zhi asked.
"Um."
Bai Zhi immediately became happy and waved: "Then come here quickly."
Meng Zhou had already stood up and came to her side, "What's the matter?"
Bai Zhi had already pulled him towards the kitchen.
…
kitchen.
Bai Zhi opened the lid of the pot, and a rich aroma immediately overflowed from the casserole, and the thick white soup was still rolling gently.
Seeing Meng Zhou take a deep breath subconsciously, Bai Zhi said happily: "This is a pot of fish soup that I made using the techniques of a spiritual master. You can have a taste."
As she said that, she filled a bowl and handed it to Meng Zhou.
Meng Zhou took it and asked curiously, "Fish soup? Where did you get the fish?"
Bai Zhi looked out the window at the vast water: "Isn't it everywhere?"
Hearing this, Meng Zhou, who had already brought the bowl to his mouth, paused for a moment, but he still took a careful sip. After confirming that the taste was good, he drank it all in one gulp.