Common medicinal pills in this world had long since lost any effect on Core Formation cultivators.
Only spiritual pills refined from medicinal ingredients that were several hundred years old, or certain naturally occurring spiritual herbs born of heaven and earth, could accelerate their cultivation speed. As a result, the majority of a Core Formation cultivator's time during any long journey was spent scouring for extremely rare medicinal ingredients.
This was precisely why Li Huayuan, upon seeing how many spiritual herbs Han Li had brought out of the Forbidden Grounds, had gone to such lengths to take him as a disciple. Those heaven-and-earth spiritual herbs had made the man's eyes practically burn with envy!
In truth, even if the one leading the group back then hadn't been Li Huayuan but Lei Wanhe or any other Core Formation cultivator, they likely wouldn't have let Han Li's share of spiritual herbs go. Nine times out of ten, they would have used the same methods. It was just that Li Huayuan was indeed a touch stingy — he'd only been willing to accept Han Li as an In-Name Disciple.
However, consuming pills was merely an auxiliary method for advancing one's magical power. It could only shorten the time spent in meditation and absorbing spiritual energy. Diligent and bitter cultivation was the true path to transforming spiritual energy into one's own magical power!
Otherwise, no matter how many pills one consumed, if one didn't take the time to gradually refine the spiritual energy within them, it would be no different from taking nothing at all — not a shred of magical power would increase. After all, external spiritual energy and one's own magical power were fundamentally two different things.
There had even been cases where someone consumed a heaven-defying pill recovered from ancient ruins, only to have the spiritual energy overwhelm their body and cause them to literally explode and die! Thus, casually taking pills far beyond one's own realm of cultivation was an exceedingly dangerous thing to do.
In addition, using the spiritual power of pills to assist in breaking through a bottleneck was a common method employed by many cultivators, and it had been proven to be a highly effective one.
A cultivator who could break through a cultivation bottleneck entirely on their own, without any help from medicinal power, was still exceedingly rare throughout the entire world of immortal cultivation — and every single one of them was a once-in-a-century prodigy of cultivation!
Possessors of a Heavenly Spirit Root were precisely this kind of universally acknowledged peak talent. Even those with unusual Spirit Roots had no choice but to consume pills when facing cultivation bottlenecks — in that respect, they were no different from ordinary Spirit Root holders.
And this cultivator Lei Wanhe had encountered precisely such a bottleneck. In order to refine pills to assist his breakthrough, he had in fact only just returned from searching for ingredients in the outside world.
But his luck this time had been quite poor. Beyond finding two medicinal herbs that were a little over four hundred years old, he had come up completely empty-handed — and it had left him stewing in a belly full of frustration.
This was the main reason he had immediately gone for the kill upon seeing the members of the Thousand Bamboo Sect. Had he not vented his anger at that moment, his mood probably wouldn't have improved for a long time. One could only say that Huang Long and the others had truly terrible misfortune, running headlong into this foul-tempered agent of doom at exactly the wrong moment.
At this moment, Lei Wanhe's thoughts were in turmoil.
He had experienced over three hundred years of cultivation — what manner of medicinal herb hadn't he seen? The instant those two spiritual herbs entered his eyes, he had immediately judged their precise age. It could not help but fill his heart with delight.
He knew that the Life Extension Pills he now wanted to refine required spiritual ingredients of five hundred years or more, which was the reason for this journey lasting over a year. But he had searched every marketplace, large and small, throughout the entire Yue Kingdom, as well as the secular world's great pharmacies, and hadn't managed to find a single ingredient that satisfied him.
He could only reluctantly collect two four-hundred-year-old specimens — second-rate, intended as a stopgap.
But he was well aware that using ingredients of insufficient age to refine Life Extension Pills would likely result in pills of greatly diminished efficacy even if the refinement succeeded, offering him no real help. Yet he simply didn't have the right primary ingredients in hand — what could he do?
Continuing the search would only be a waste of time.
If top-quality medicinal ingredients appeared anywhere, they would already have been snapped up by the local sects or cultivation families long before he could arrive. By the time he got there, he wouldn't even be able to find a single hair's worth of leftovers. As for searching the cultivation worlds of neighboring countries, he was unfamiliar with the terrain and the people there — the hope of finding anything would be even more remote!
So when he had heard this nephew of his mention having some ingredients of decent age just outside the cave dwelling, his interest had been piqued, and he had entered this exceedingly shabby cave on the off chance it might be worth a look.
In truth, in Lei Wanhe's mind, what good medicinal ingredients could a Foundation Establishment disciple possibly possess? At best, they would be herbs with two or three hundred years of cultivation — nothing more!
After all, even he had only managed to obtain four-hundred-year-old ingredients after all that traveling. And that was only because, being a Core Formation expert, no one had dared compete with him for the purchase.
Now, two spiritual herbs of a full six to seven hundred years had suddenly appeared right before his eyes. Beyond being nearly unable to believe it, he was overjoyed beyond measure!
Therefore, although he appeared to be staring unblinkingly at the two herbs in his hands — seemingly judging their age — in reality, he was already considering how best to obtain these medicinal ingredients from his nephew.