The appearance of this situation was both unexpected and entirely predictable for Han Li.
Using the power of pills to advance one's cultivation might yield rapid gains in magical power — under certain heaven-defying-grade sacred medicines, one could even achieve progress of a thousand li in a single day.
But this method was, after all, something of a shortcut. Once one's magical power reached a certain level, the efficacy of those medicinal pills in advancing cultivation would gradually diminish.
The reason was that as one's cultivation techniques improved and one's meridians underwent repeated cleansing and transformation, the amount of spiritual energy a cultivator could absorb in a single cycle of breathing exercises continually increased. After reaching a certain stage, the efficiency of extracting spiritual energy from pills would become roughly equivalent to the speed at which a cultivator absorbed the natural spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
In that case, the pills would naturally appear to become less effective over time — unless one could take even more potent spiritual pills.
The pills Han Li had taken during Foundation Establishment had become useless upon reaching Core Formation. This was the same principle at work.
However, before, this situation had only manifested after crossing an entire major realm. Now, before he had even entered the Nascent Soul stage, these pills had already lost their effectiveness.
This was something Han Li had not anticipated.
Whether in the texts he had read before or in the insights of Nascent Soul cultivators he had later obtained, they all mentioned that pills refined from sixth-level demon cores might be one thing, but pills refined from seventh-level demon cores should remain useful up until the condensation of the Nascent Soul. Although compared to before, their efficacy would certainly be greatly reduced.
This struck Han Li as somewhat peculiar.
After careful deliberation, he could only attribute the premature loss of the pills' effectiveness to drug resistance — something that hadn't manifested in a long time.
Of course, this was merely one possibility. Perhaps it had something to do with the Emerald Flame Wine he had consumed that day, or the Spirit Channeling Essence he had obtained from Mei Ning.
One of these substances was originally not meant for human consumption, and the other was one of the seven great refined spiritual essences of the world. Some unforeseen side effects would seem perfectly normal.
Han Li had no intention of digging into the root cause of the pills' ineffectiveness.
The matter had already occurred and could not be changed. He naturally had no desire to waste effort on fruitless endeavors.
He began considering his options going forward.
He still had a single eighth-level poison dragon's demon core in his possession, but this was something that could not be bought with spirit stones no matter how many one had. He was unwilling to refine it into pills for advancing his cultivation. There was still a considerable chance of failure during pill refinement, and even if he managed to produce one or two pills, that tiny amount would not be nearly enough to push him to the threshold of False Nascent Soul.
As things stood, he would have to rely on bitter personal cultivation, advancing bit by bit like any ordinary cultivator. Such snail-paced progress — it had been a long time since he had experienced anything like it.
When Han Li reflected on this, he couldn't help but smile bitterly.
Fortunately, he was only a short distance from the Great Perfection stage. If spiritual energy was plentiful, it would take roughly ten years or so to complete.
This meant he needed to find a place with a decent spirit vein for cultivation.
Otherwise, in a place where spiritual energy was thin, his cultivation time would multiply several times over. Han Li would certainly not do something so foolish.
But when it came to spirit veins, the Heavenly South was somewhat different from the Chaotic Star Sea.
The Chaotic Star Sea had few people and many islands, its area practically boundless, so islands of all sizes with spirit veins were naturally innumerable. The Heavenly South, however, was densely populated with a fixed amount of land.
Although the territory was not small, compared to the Chaotic Star Sea, let alone places where spiritual energy was thin — any location that had a spirit vein had already been claimed without exception by sects of all sizes and cultivator clans. Even if there were some overlooked sites with poor spiritual energy, those had been swarmed and occupied by rogue cultivators. There was no such thing as surplus territory.
In terms of cultivation resources alone, the Heavenly South could not hold a candle to the Chaotic Star Sea.
This meant that if Han Li wished to continue cultivating, he would have to embed himself within a cultivator clan or under the banner of some cultivation sect.
Otherwise, with his abilities, while he could certainly sweep through whatever cultivator clan or smaller sect and forcibly seize some spirit vein territory, he would almost certainly find himself hunted by Nascent Soul cultivators once again.
Han Li was thoroughly sick of spending his days being chased around. All he wanted was to quietly condense his Nascent Soul.