Five years was neither long nor short.
During that time, Han Li had not only coated his entire body with the golden marrow secreted by all five pairs of crystal worms, but had also refined the Golden Mother Coral Sand together with other medicinal substances into a liquid, adding it in as well to be absorbed into his flesh and blood.
The result of all this was that every last one of the five pairs of golden marrow crystal worms had been exhausted, and all three gourds of Golden Mother Coral Sand had been completely consumed.
One day, when Han Li opened his eyes once more from his meditative trance, he raised his seemingly ordinary hands and examined them. A peculiar expression crossed his face.
"I've already refined all the golden marrow and a considerable amount of the Golden Mother Coral Sand into my body. My physical form has grown far stronger, yet this mid-stage bottleneck — why is it still just barely out of reach? Could it really be that my fortune simply hasn't arrived?"
Han Li sighed, somewhat frustrated, and was about to close his eyes again when the walls of his sealed chamber flashed with pale green light. His second nascent soul streaked in as a ball of dark radiance, waving its tiny hands and chattering away in a stream of incoherent babble.
Han Li was momentarily taken aback, then chuckled softly upon hearing its words.
"I nearly forgot. Those Sky Roc clan envoys will be arriving at the island soon. It's a perfect chance to see what these alien races are like." He murmured this to himself, then rose to his feet and walked out of the chamber door.
Although he hadn't set foot outside the chamber for several years, he had ordered his second nascent soul to use puppet techniques to keep watch over the movements of those four demon beasts at all times. Through this surveillance, he had finally overheard them mention during a private gathering that the Sky Roc clan's envoys would soon be arriving on the island.
Now it seemed the alien visitors had finally arrived. The demon beasts had already sent people to receive them.
It was worth mentioning that the treasure-light reverend he had captured before — Han Li had killed the creature on impulse, destroying its spirit soul with the Heavenly Spirit Devouring Flame, only to regret it afterward for not having used the Soul Search technique first. After all, an eighth-grade humanoid demon beast should have known quite a bit about the surrounding region.
Although he had previously used the Soul Search technique on that golden fish demon, that creature had never ventured far from the nearby waters and knew little about anything beyond. All Han Li had learned was that this body of water was called the Crimson Devil Sea, and that the island where he resided was called the Black Nether Island — which was, in truth, merely a peninsula.
A small portion of the peninsula consisted of the Black Mist Mountain Range where he currently lived, while the vast majority — eight or nine tenths — was shrouded beneath the Black Nether Fog. Fortunately, the peninsula was still connected to the Wind Source Continent, meaning he hadn't been teleported to one of two other unfamiliar continents. This had brought Han Li a measure of quiet relief.
As long as he remained on the Wind Source Continent, he would eventually find some way to return to the human race's territory.
The waters surrounding the peninsula and the extensive landmass connected to it all appeared to fall under the dominion of a winged alien race called the Soaring Spirits. The Sky Roc clan was merely one branch among them — and one of the weaker ones, at that, among dozens of clans. This much he had gathered because many of the demonic beasts in the surrounding waters had been driven from the mainland by the Soaring Spirits people; otherwise, even that bit of information would have remained beyond the fish demon's knowledge.
Beyond these facts, the fish demon's hazy recollections offered nothing more of substance.
Still, according to its vague impressions, the Sky Roc clan members possessed a pair of roc wings on their backs, could employ their supernatural abilities to transform into various giant rocs during combat, and otherwise looked extremely similar to humans in all other respects.
This only heightened Han Li's curiosity about the Sky Roc clan's tribute-collecting envoys. He wanted to lay eyes on them firsthand.
Before long, Han Li had transformed into a streak of azure light soaring through the sky several hundred li away. Perched prominently on his shoulder was a golden beetle roughly half a foot in length.
He let the light sail forward on its own while one hand gently stroked the Gold Devouring Beetle that had only recently finally awakened from its slumber.
From the outside, the beetle appeared no different from before, yet each one had become incredibly heavy — more than twice as heavy as when they had first begun devouring those strange stone materials. Fortunately, after testing, he found that these mutated Gold Devouring Beetles had recovered their original agility, and each had become extraordinarily strong.
A single Gold Devouring Beetle could effortlessly lift nearly a thousand jin of weight. When Han Li had finished that test, he had been left gaping in astonishment for quite some time.
Beyond these two changes, however, Han Li had discovered no other remarkable properties in the thousand-odd evolved Gold Devouring Beetles. He couldn't tell whether these were the only transformations or whether further mutations existed that he simply hadn't noticed yet.
Han Li felt slightly disappointed, and once again found himself unable to make up his mind about the purpose of those three special stone slabs.
A day later, the azure light arrived near a range of low, flat hills.
His eyes flashed, and the streak of azure light gradually blurred before vanishing entirely in mid-flight.
Han Li had employed his abilities to conceal both the light and himself, reducing his travel speed several times over.
After passing over a small lake, a verdant hill covered in green bamboo several zhang tall appeared ahead. At the foot of the hill, tens of thousands of beast-like creatures — ox-headed and lion-bodied, their fur a lustrous white — wandered about.
Han Li surveyed the herd for a moment, then directed his gaze toward the hillside.
There, a patch of white mist hung thick and unyielding.
His eyes flashed with blue light as the Bright Spirit Eyes pierced straight through the mountain mist, revealing a pale green stone door hidden within the fog.
This was the lair of that small ox-headed creature.
Han Li smiled faintly, and his figure shot upward into the sky, rising several thousand zhang before he halted.
He then formed several hand seals, and beams of multicolored light flickered briefly from his fingertips before dissipating.
Clumps of mist materialized in the surrounding void, quickly coalescing into what appeared to be an ordinary gray cloud that thoroughly concealed his figure.