Chapter 11Chen Zhen couldn"t sleep so he sat there and meditated on all the information he had learned so far. He was interrupted from his thoughts by the clone informing him of its a.s.sumption that as long as he could drastically increase the size of his dantian, then when the other two souls finally awakened, he would be able to greatly increase is strength once again. The clone didn"t go into much detail, but it felt excited with its on conjectures.
Shanggu Julong returned quickly with the carca.s.s of ow very large spirit beast. One was a Thunder Bison, which was a rank 2 spirit beast, and the other was a Fire Ox, also a rank 2 spirit beast. The Thunder Bison was twice the size of any earth bison. It was similar in size to an elephant. It has two sharp horns on its head that even in death glowed and sparked with a fierce lightening power. As Shanggu Julong skinned and butchered the Thunder Bison he explained the defensive and offensive characteristics of the spirit beast. He explained the differences in rank between spirit beast and how it corresponded to cultivators. Chen Zhen was shocked to know that every one rank of a spirit beast equaled two ranks of a cultivator. So if a cultivator wanted to hunt a rank one spirit beast, then that cultivator would have to be at least a level 2 body refinement cultivator. To be safe most cultivators wanted to be at least level four to solo hunt a rank 1 spirit beast, in order to ensure they would return home safely. Otherwise level two body cultivators would hunt in groups to be safer.
Shanggu Julong continued to explain which parts of the body were more nourishing to a cultivator"s body and would help speed up their improvement quicker. He showed which parts could be sold for medicinal materials to an alchemist shop, and which parts could be used to refine weapons by a blacksmith. The more mature the spirit beast was the more profit could be made of the materials. Besides hunting to feed their families, many later stage body refinement cultivators hunted spirit beast to harvest materials for sale.
After butchering both spirit beast Shanggu Julong sat Chen Zhen down and showed him the spirit cores of the Thunder Bison, and the Fire Ox. The difference between a regular wild beast of the field, a spirit beast, and a demon beast is the cultivation level of the spirit beast. Animals didn"t have to cultivate like humans did. As long as an animal was strong enough to survive in the wild for many years it would naturally ingest the vital blood energy of its enemies. This would allow it to develop of time a spirit core in its body. Once a wild beast developed a spirit core its attack power and life span would have a qualitative increase. As a spirit beast attacked and killed more spirit beast, not only would it take in the vital energy of its prey it would eat its spirit core as well strengthening its own spirit core. This is how spirit beast would increase its rank, until it finally reached the demon beast rank. Because of all the vitality that was absorbed from its prey the natural defense of spirit beast was twice that of human cultivators. That"s why human cultivators level had to be twice the rank of a spirit beast in order to fight one. Even then being able to win was not ensured.
"For the next couple days you will ingest the meat of these spirit beast to help advance your cultivation. But before we do I wish to perform a simple exam to determine your elemental affinity. This is a completely harmless process that will help you find what elements your most compatible with, so we can use the best resources in your cultivation.", Shanggu Julong said to Chen Zhen, "Outside you will find an array that I have set up. You will simply need to sit in the center of the array. Around you, you will find different spirit stones representing the elements of fire, water, earth, lightening, wind, and ice. The colors of the stones are red, blue, brown, yellow, green and white. The array will circulate the different energies into your body, and whichever colors appear around your body are the elements you"re compatible with."
Chen Zhen was kind of excited to try this out, it sounded very cool to him. As Chen Zhen ran outside like a little kid getting a chance to play with his new toy, Shanggu Julong was shaking his head chuckling to himself.
Chen Zhen quickly sat down in the middle of the array. As soon as he sat down the array lit up brightly. Fire was the first one to circulate thru him, a bright red glow soon enveloped his body. Water and earth followed but neither color showed on his body. After lightening circulated thru his body a bright yellow light joins the red one on his body. Wind and ice followed after without leaving any new lights on his body. Just as Chen Zhen was about to get up all of the spirit stones lit up brightly. The energy in the stones shot to a spot in front of Chen Zhen"s face. The colors started swirling and formed a rainbow colored glow before him.
Shanggu Julong instantly sensed when there was a change to the array. This array had been used for centuries and there was never any problem with its functions. The moment something strange began to happen Shanggu Julong was shocked and confused at the same time. Shanggu Julong appeared behind Chen Zhen so fast it seemed he had teleported behind him.
The rainbow swirling glow suddenly shot inside of Chen Zhen"s chest. Chen Zhen flinched are first because he expected something painful to happen. To his surprise he felt nothing. No pain or any type of discomfort, it wasn"t even a pleasant feeling, he literally felt nothing at all. When Chen Zhen looked at his body he saw a black glow had joined the red and yellow glows that already surrounded his body. As Shanggu Julong and Chen Zhen pondered what this black glow meant, all the energy from the spirit stones was absorbed into Chen Zhen"s body.
Turning his head to look at Shanggu Julong, "What does that mean?" , Chen Zhen asked.
Thinking for a while, "Your elemental affinity with fire and lightening is expected because of the souls of Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian sharing your body. As for the black element, I have never seen this before. My best guess is this is the nature of your body from your world. You can absorb all of the elements of this world. Even though we already knew this, this lets us know that you can make every energy in this world your own source of power. You can"t manipulate them as you wish, but you can use them as a way to increase your cultivation. You"re very, very lucky. Any Heaven or Earth treasure you find will be usable by you. You don"t have to look for specific cultivation materials, spirit herbs, or alchemic pills, because all of them are usable by you. If my guess is correct this is truly amazing! Quickly follow me"
When Chen Zhen followed Shanggu Julong into the shack, Shanggu Julong stood behind the table. With an excited grin on his face Shanggu Julong waved him hand, and the once empty table was filled with hundreds of spirit stones piled high to the ceiling. Chen Zhen was shocked when he saw all of those spirit cores. Most of them were from the water, earth, wind, and ice.
"Starting tomorrow we will be testing out my theory. Besides eating the spirit beast meat, you will try absorbing the energy in these spirit cores. If this works and you can make this energy your own you will be able to progress very quickly thru the entire body refinement stage in a couple of weeks!", Shanggu Julong said with an excited grin on his face.