Chapter Fifty-Eight: Another Three Years

Time flowed quietly, the years passing like a shuttle weaving through silk. Day after day slipped by, yet He Song found that the matters at hand never seemed to diminish.

Since Wei Fan’s return from Qingyan Immortal City, He Song had immersed himself in the joy of practicing magical arts. Fireball Technique. Light Body Technique. These two foundational spells took He Song merely twenty days to master completely. They were much like the Spirit Rain and Spirit Arrow techniques, with little difference in the time required to learn them. Thanks to his stronger soul, He Song always outpaced other cultivators in acquiring new spells.

Even after reaching proficiency, able to cast Fireball and Light Body freely and with full force, He Song never neglected daily practice. Repetition deepened his understanding, increased the power, and shortened the time needed to cast. Such were the rewards of diligent training.

Besides these two arts, his daily cultivation grew much faster than before. Benefiting from the bottle of middle-grade Qi Gathering Pills Meng Guan had entrusted to Wei Fan for him, He Song—dwelling within the Spirit Gathering Array and consuming these pills—saw his cultivation soar at a startling pace.

Originally, He Song estimated it would take him four years to advance from the fourth to the fifth layer of Qi Refining. Yet, in the Spirit Gathering Array, with the aid of the Qi Gathering Pills, he broke through to the fifth layer in just three years. Though not a leap across major realms, it was a whole year faster than he had anticipated—a speed that filled him with both astonishment and delight.

The full-powered Spirit Gathering Array combined with those ten pills produced extraordinary results. He Song almost wished to invest all his spirit stones in more pills, hoping to maintain such rapid progress. With cultivation advancing so swiftly, surely he would gain more resources once he reached the late stages of Qi Refining. He could even move to a small courtyard in the inner circle of the Immortal Market, vastly improving his quality of life. But—

After weighing the pros and cons and verifying them himself, He Song shook his head and dismissed the idea.

A bottle of Qi Gathering Pills cost thirty spirit stones. With an annual income of ninety stones, he could only afford three bottles a year—thirty pills, barely enough for a month’s use. If he bought three bottles, there would be no hope of learning new spells; all his stones would go to pills, leaving none for magical arts. With nothing left, he might not even be able to afford common rice.

Moreover, after finishing the bottle Meng Guan had sent through Wei Fan, He Song discovered that while the pills sped up cultivation, they also brought pill toxins. By the tenth pill, the effects had waned noticeably, and his internal spiritual power grew harder to control, lacking the previous effortless flow. There was a sluggish, obscure sensation.

Yet, within a month after finishing the pills, his spiritual power returned to normal. Thus, He Song concluded that it took a month for the pill toxins from a bottle of ten pills to dissipate completely.

This toxicity was why he abandoned the idea of relying on pills for rapid improvement. Sluggish spiritual power is a grave danger for cultivators—it would make him a poor match for others in magical combat, and would hinder him even when breaking through bottlenecks.

Additionally, as He Song remained in the Spirit Gathering Array, the sluggish flow slowed his absorption of spiritual energy, thus limiting his growth. When the rapid gains from pills were offset by the slowed absorption during the month of toxicity, he was astonished to find that using pills barely exceeded the normal cultivation speed within the array. It fell far short of his expectations.

Realizing this, He Song abandoned the notion of spending all his spirit stones on pills for swift advancement. Whether he spent all his stones on pills or none at all, the difference in cultivation speed was negligible—so why hand his stones over to pill refiners? Better to invest them in spells, talismans, magical tools, and other ways to strengthen himself.

After all, He Song’s cultivation within the Spirit Gathering Array was already much faster than ordinary cultivators. The array was the root of this advantage. Without his successful arrangement of the array, he could never have achieved such speed.

Thus, taking pills brought no qualitative leap; it simply saved him the cost of buying them.

Now, three years had passed. He Song had successfully broken through to the fifth layer of Qi Refining—a small step into the middle stage. When he reached the sixth layer, he would have to decide whether to break through on his own or, like Meng Guan, save up for a Boundary Breaking Pill in Qingyan Immortal City.

During these three years, He Song had not neglected his study of the introductory treatise on array arts. With time and experience from setting up the Spirit Gathering Array, he mastered the Maze Array described therein, and managed to carve the necessary array foundations.

“With the Maze Array to conceal vision, hide aura, and confuse the mind, I needn’t worry about my spiritual fields being discovered. I am one step closer to opening them up!”

Having just completed the array foundations, He Song allowed himself a smile. Three years had been full and rewarding—cultivation, study, managing spiritual fields, small gatherings with Wei Fan and other friends, communicating with distant companions via Sound Transmission Technique. In all these ways, he had not been lonely.

Now, with all the array foundations carved, He Song felt a surge of satisfaction. Next came the moment of arranging the array. His expression grew serious as his gaze swept the quiet chamber, planning to set up the Maze Array within his own meditation room.