"Huh! This appears to be a Wanmeng Fruit — it's turned deep purple. It would need at least ten thousand years of medicinal potency to achieve that color." Dayan Shenjun's startled voice rang out.
"Who knows how many tens of thousands of years it's been since anyone set foot in these ruins of a medicinal garden. If the herbs hadn't reached ten thousand years of potency, that would be the strange part." Suppressing the excitement churning inside him, Han Li kept his composure. He didn't rush in to harvest anything right away. Instead, he stood quietly observing for quite some time before turning and heading toward another corner.
"Dragon Pattern Grass."
"Wind Spirit…"
…
Every time Han Li arrived before a patch of spiritual herbs, he murmured the names of these extraordinarily rare plants — species long since extinct in the outside world.
Every last one of these herbs possessed at least ten thousand years of spiritual essence, and Han Li's eyes grew ever brighter with each discovery.
"I didn't expect you to be so familiar with spiritual herbs. There are several among the ones you've named whose properties even I can't identify." Dayan Shenjun couldn't help himself any longer and spoke in surprise.
"Is Senior perhaps making fun of this junior? I'd say I can recognize about a third of the spiritual herbs here at best. I'll need Senior to point out the rest." Han Li lifted his gaze toward the herbs in other directions and gave a slight smile.
"Hmph! Although I've dabbled somewhat in alchemy, I never studied it in any great depth. I can only help you identify a few more. Those over there are…" Dayan Shenjun apparently felt this was a minor matter and didn't make things difficult for Han Li, easily naming several more spiritual herbs along with their effects.
Han Li nodded as he listened. He flipped his hand, and a pale cyan jade slip appeared in his palm. Without the slightest hesitation, he immersed his spiritual sense into it, standing perfectly still as if searching for something.
Dayan Shenjun knew better than to interrupt and fell silent.
A full half hour passed before Han Li withdrew his spiritual sense from the jade slip, a contemplative expression on his face.
This jade slip was the very one given to him by the Song woman of the Luoyun Sect. It contained records of numerous ancient spiritual herbs and pill recipes, and it was entirely thanks to this object that he could identify so many herbs and spirit woods in this garden.
But after a careful review, Han Li found that among those ancient formulas, only one could be immediately assembled and refined. Some of the ingredients were the ancient spiritual herbs he had just identified, while the rest were materials he had obtained from the border wager-battle and as ransom for the bronze lamp ancient treasure. Combined, they just barely sufficed for the ingredients of a pill called the "Crimson Cloud Pill."
According to the recipe, this ancient medicinal pill — even during the Primordial Era — was a rare cultivation-enhancing elixir. For a cultivator at the early Nascent Soul stage like Han Li, its potency would actually be somewhat wasteful and overly fierce. The optimal time to consume it would be upon reaching the mid Nascent Soul stage.
If an early-stage Nascent Soul cultivator took the Crimson Cloud Pill, not only would a portion of its medicinal power go to waste, but he would also have to endure the excruciating pain of his meridians swelling and even tearing apart.
Besides the Crimson Cloud Pill, there was another elixir called the "Snow Spirit Pill" that had a real chance of being refined. The primary ingredients for this pill could be assembled to eighty or ninety percent completion from the garden's herbs and the materials he already possessed. The remaining few ingredients, though rare and difficult to find, could potentially be obtained in the outside world.
Though the Snow Spirit Pill was not a cultivation-enhancing drug, it was a supplementary elixir that could push a cultivator of ice-attribute techniques to a whole new level. The recipe only gave a passing mention of the pill's effects without going into detail. However, any pill requiring such a vast array of rare ingredients was surely no ordinary thing.
As for the remaining herbs in the garden, there was no way to assemble any other ancient pill recipe. He could only gather them up and keep them in reserve.
Han Li's mind raced as he sorted through the uses for these herbs. Even though he was usually calm and composed, he couldn't help but feel waves of excitement!
He had been at the early Nascent Soul stage for some years now. Although he had been busy the entire time without ever finding the chance to truly seclude himself for long-term cultivation of his magical power, wasn't that precisely because he lacked suitable pills to promote his advancement? That was why he had been unconsciously wandering about, searching for his own opportunities.
Now it seemed those efforts had truly not been in vain. His opportunity had finally arrived.
If the Crimson Cloud Pill's effects were truly as miraculous as the recipe claimed, the quantity of spiritual herbs here would be enough to push his cultivation to the peak of the early stage, after which he could attempt to break through the bottleneck and enter the mid Nascent Soul stage.
Furthermore, he could take some of these herbs back to transplant, then use the Green Liquid to continue accelerating their growth. That way, his supply of Crimson Cloud Pills would become practically inexhaustible.
And the Snow Spirit Pill would be equally useful to him.
After all, both the Qianlan Ice Flame and the Purple Heavenly Fire he had refined were extreme cold techniques. This pill would be perfect for enhancing their power.
Having made his plans, Han Li let out a long breath. A rare look of genuine pleasure surfaced on his face. If everything truly went as he had planned, then his risky venture into the Fallen Devil Valley would not have been in vain. The various treasures and puppets he had lost in the process were insignificant by comparison.
The only thing still weighing on his mind was, naturally, the two flying swords embedded with Geng Essence that he had lost. However, since the Green Bamboo Bee Cloud Sword Set were his natal treasures, as long as the owner remained alive, no one could simply seize them by force. Once he got out, it would just take some effort to track them down again — hardly an impossible task.
Han Li had no idea that the flying swords had fallen into the hands of another Ancient Demon, and so naturally enough, that was how he reasoned.