Han Li gazed at the Demonic Infant with a faint smile and beckoned it with one hand.
Immediately, a flash of spiritual light flickered across the Demonic Infant's body, and it transformed into a streak of dark light that vanished into his frame.
It turned out that after Han Li had initially refined the Dharma Aspect Golden Body using several rare materials, he had discovered to his surprise that the Demonic Infant, which lacked a physical body, could easily attach itself to the Golden Body. Furthermore, it could channel the demonic qi within the Golden Body to continue cultivating the Profound Yin Demonic Qi it had previously paused. And while the Nascent Soul cultivated its demonic arts, it could simultaneously use the exhaled demonic qi to constantly temper this body, which was also enormously beneficial to the condensation of the Dharma Aspect Golden Body.
Given these circumstances, Han Li was naturally more than willing to let the Demonic Infant attach itself to the Golden Body.
After all, the Second Nascent Soul was virtually an independent being — whether in cultivation or in controlling the Golden Body, it required virtually no effort on his part.
Unfortunately, the cultivation base of this Demonic Infant was far too low.
If it could be cultivated to roughly the same level as his main body, and then attached to the Golden Body to face enemies, it would instantly become something akin to an External Avatar, boosting Han Li's strength several fold in an instant.
For ordinary cultivators, advancing step by step from Nascent Soul to Void Refining was naturally an exceedingly difficult task.
But Han Li's main Nascent Soul could directly transmit the various cultivation experiences from higher realms to the Second Nascent Soul. On top of that, with a constant supply of rare and precious pills, the Second Nascent Soul's cultivation speed would absolutely surpass that of the main body.
While bottlenecks in cultivation could not be said to vanish entirely for the Demonic Infant, they would undoubtedly be far simpler to overcome than for a normal cultivator. After all, the insights gained from previous breakthroughs would prove tremendously useful.
This was precisely why, whether among humans or other races, once cultivators reached a certain level and felt that further advancement was exceedingly difficult, most would begin cultivating External Avatars, Second Primordial Spirits, and similar great divine abilities.
But regardless of which method was used to cultivate a second "self," the cost was staggeringly high. It typically required dedicating the vast majority of one's remaining lifespan to have any hope of perfecting it.
This was also the reason why, even knowing the immense benefits of an External Avatar, most people would only cultivate one or two clones, and even then their cultivation would be far inferior to the main body.
After all, they did not possess the mysterious small bottle that could endlessly produce the spirit pills and medicines needed.
Han Li's Second Nascent Soul, immersed in the demonic qi of the Golden Body and fortified by the consumption of numerous spirit pills, had now reached the peak of mid-stage Nascent Soul and could advance to late-stage at any moment.
Now that the Guanghan Realm had opened, he saw no need to rush the Demonic Infant's cultivation.
He planned to enter the Guanghan Realm first, and then have the Second Nascent Soul attempt to break through the late-stage bottleneck.
With the dense spiritual energy of this realm — one capable of advancing Void Refining cultivators to the Integration stage — the bottleneck of a mere Nascent Soul cultivator would naturally be hundreds of times more effective than any spirit pill.
While Han Li mused over these plans, his gaze shifted and fell upon another "Han Li," a strange gleam flashing across his face, giving way to a hint of fervent excitement.
"Who would have thought that the Zhixian's body would be the perfect material for crafting an External Avatar and a substitute vessel. What's even more astonishing is that the maturing spirit liquid can be directly absorbed by this Zhixian and converted into pure magical power, causing this body's cultivation to advance at a breathtaking pace. In only a few short years, its magical power alone has been forcibly elevated by an entire level to mid-stage Void Refining, without encountering a single bottleneck. Truly inconceivable! But thinking about it, it does make a certain amount of sense. These Celestial Spirit Beings that transform from spirit herbs naturally required countless ages to develop spiritual intelligence. To then generate enormous magical power and take physical form requires even longer — tens of thousands of years at the very least. This process can only advance gradually through the accumulation of time. If there were bottlenecks in advancement, it would be far too unfair to such beings. However, what's strange is that the Nine-Curve Spirit Ginseng, also a Celestial Spirit Being that received the same spirit liquid, could only restore vital energy and couldn't advance at all. Is it that only a Zhixian-type spirit being can absorb this liquid? Or is it that these spirit-herb Celestial Spirit Beings must first reach the level of physical transformation before they possess this kind of talent?" Han Li muttered, his brows furrowed, and after a long moment, he shook his head to himself.
"Heh heh, whatever the reason may be. In any case, a tremendous opportunity now lies before me. While it's no longer feasible to split off my Primordial Spirit to cultivate an External Avatar — since that would interfere with my main body's cultivation — refining it into a substitute vessel is entirely possible. In the future, I can simply use my Nascent Soul to pilot the spirit body in battle."
After discovering that the mysterious small bottle's spirit liquid could enhance the Zhixian body's cultivation, Han Li's thinking was quite simple: he intended to continue drenching this spirit body with the maturing liquid and see whether it could ultimately wield the astonishing magical power of an Integration-stage existence.
Even if it would be nothing more than a "half-Saint-tier" existence — possessing magical power but lacking the corresponding realm — once his Nascent Soul personally inhabited this vessel for combat, leveraging both his own numerous divine abilities and the spirit body's heaven-reaching magical power, he would absolutely fear no Integration-stage being.
What's more, the magical power of this substitute spirit body might continue to surge wildly. If it eventually came to rival the heaven-reaching magical power of a Mahayana existence, then within the Spirit Realm, there would be virtually no being he need fear.
Of course, all of this was predicated on his assumptions holding true.
For some reason, he had a vague feeling that something so heaven-defying was unlikely to actually occur—perhaps this spirit body could only elevate his Magical Power to the Integration stage or at most the peak of the Void Refining stage.
After all, when he had used the spirit liquid from the small bottle to mature the Golden Lightning Bamboo to ten thousand years, it had undergone no further changes.
With this precedent in mind, Han Li naturally could not be certain whether the Zhi Xian's body would have similar limitations in absorbing the spirit liquid.
Moreover, once the refined spiritual energy converted from the spirit liquid accumulated to a certain level within this body, it would be necessary to mobilize the Magical Power within his Dantian and Meridians to refine it.
The Zhi Xian's spirit body was incapable of performing this task on its own.
Fortunately, in a moment of quick thinking, he had actually come up with an alternative solution.
At this thought, the corner of Han Li's mouth curved upward in a faint smile, and he called out to "Han Li" within the purple light:
"Qu'er, you've worked hard these past days. You may exit this body as well—for the time being, there's no need to continue refining the spiritual energy inside. Over the coming month, I will stop cultivating all other spirit herbs and pour all the spirit liquid into this substitute spirit body first. You can slowly refine the spiritual energy afterward."