After using the earth escape technique for 10 days, Wang Lin finally returned to the cave from the Corpse Valley.
After he appeared outside the cave, he carefully observed his surroundings. After making sure there were no abnormalities, he jumped out and threw the dragon corpse on the ground.
The ground immediately trembled. This loud sound startled Li Muwan. After Wang Lin called her, she opened the formation and revealed her head. However, shortly after, her eyes were attracted by the dragon corpse and she was in a daze for a while.
After Wang Lin dragged the dragon into the formation, he said to Li Muwan, "Is it enough to use its bones to set up a formation?"
Li Muwan nodded in a daze. Her mind was in a mess. She had read about this dragon in some ancient books. It was a spirit beast comparable to a late stage Nascent Soul cultivator. It could be said that its body was full of treasures.
There was a dragon core inside its head. It was a natural pill that could increase one's cultivation level with just a bit of refining.
Dragon skin was the best material to make defensive armor.
Dragon bones, dragon tendons, and so on were all rare treasures.
The most precious thing was the dragon's bone marrow!
The dragon's bone marrow was determined by its lifespan. The longer it lived, the less bone marrow it would have and the better its effects would be. Once it completely transformed into a real dragon, its bone marrow would turn into a dragon core.
A dragon core was something that cultivators dreamed of. It was rumored that after consuming it, one would gain the body of a dragon and be able to change between the two. From then on, there would be no bottlenecks or restrictions on one's cultivation level.
However, one dragon core required the dragon to exist for 9,990,000 years.
This determined that up until now, there were no clear records of anyone who had consumed the Dragon Pill. Even its effects were only rumors.
After throwing the dragon to Li Muwan, Wang Lin ignored it and walked back into the cave.
Aside from the furnace, this trip was quite successful. As for the furnace, Wang Lin learned from Sang Muya that all the tools in the Sea of Devils could be bought at a place called the Refining Sect.
The Refining Sect had many branches and shops in many places. The closest one was Nan Dou City, which was 400,000 kilometers away.
However, things like furnaces were often very expensive. Wang Lin pondered for a long time, especially after hearing Sang Muya mention that the Fighting Evil Sect's sect head spent more than half of the sect's spirit stones to buy a good furnace. He gave up on the idea of going to Nan Dou City to buy one.
Wang Lin temporarily put the matter of the furnace out of his mind. Now that the Nine Skeleton Formation had the dragon bones, it would be a lot stronger. Now that he had the power to protect himself, Wang Lin decided to go into closed door cultivation to break through to the Core Formation stage.
In one of the stone rooms, Wang Lin sat down in the lotus position. After sealing the door with a boulder, he slapped his bag of holding and more than 30 flying swords flew out. Wang Lin's eyes lit up. He pointed at the ground and the flying swords all flew down. Not long after, a hole was dug deep into the ground.
Wang Lin's eyes became serious. He shot out a ray of light that turned into a white ball of light. The color of the ball of light changed until it was light blue.
Wang Lin slightly frowned, but he soon relaxed. Although a normal rank 1 Earth Yin couldn't compare to the Corpse Valley, it was enough to cultivate the Underworld Ascension Method.
He jumped down into the hole. In the depths of the hole, the extreme Yin quality reached the normal rank 3 Earth Yin. This was the limit. Wang Lin scattered the ball of light and closed his eyes to meditate.
Wang Lin had cultivated the Underworld Ascension Method once before. Picking it up again, he felt like he was very familiar with it. The cold Yin energy was slowly absorbed into his body.
Time passed by slowly. Three days later, Wang Lin opened his eyes. He was deep in thought. Then, he slapped his forehead and the heaven defying bead appeared.
Drops of cold Yin dew seeped out of the bead and were collected by Wang Lin one by one.
Time flew by. Every day, aside from cultivating the Underworld Ascension Method, Wang Lin didn't forget to collect the cold Yin spirit liquid. After he had collected enough, he would take half of his time to enter the heaven defying bead space and consume the cold Yin spirit liquid to cultivate.
Just like that, his progress was very fast. In just one month, he had condensed two cold cores. Only one was left before he could fuse the three cores and reach the Core Formation stage.
This last cold core took a bit longer to condense. After all, Wang Lin could only condense two cold cores back then, but now that he was at the peak of the Foundation Establishment stage, there was no way he would need to cultivate for several years to condense the third cold core of the Underworld Ascension Method.
As for this third cold core, Wang Lin was confident that he could finish it within three months. Just like that, he was very calm. Every day, aside from cultivating and collecting the cold Yin spirit liquid, he would take some time to slowly cultivate the Devil.
Wang Lin had tried many times before, but he couldn't directly control the Devil with his divine sense. Therefore, he could only use the method of feeding the Devil slowly.
Speaking of the Devil, it was very useful to Wang Lin. He constantly pulled out the souls from the soul flag and imprinted them with his divine sense before feeding them to the Devil.
The souls inside the soul flag were all cultivators from the Sea of Devils, and most of them were actually disciples of the Fighting Evil Sect. According to Sang Muya's explanation, almost all of these souls were victims of the sect that fought with him over the years. After they were killed by him, he extracted their souls and sealed them inside the soul flag.
Time passed bit by bit. When most of the souls inside the soul flag were devoured by the Devil, a trace of Wang Lin's divine sense was quietly condensed inside the Devil's body.
The Devil didn't even know that Wang Lin's divine sense had already appeared inside its body. It still harbored evil intentions and was secretly looking for an opportunity to escape.
In the blink of an eye, Wang Lin had already been in closed door cultivation for three months. The third cold core in his body had already taken shape. In these three months, he went out several times.
The stone chamber that Li Muwan was in was filled with medicinal herbs and materials. She had even gotten some soil from somewhere and planted some spirit grasses in it. Around the spirit grasses, she had arranged some middle-grade and low-grade spirit stones according to some kind of array formation, ensuring that the spirit grasses could grow with abundant Spiritual Qi.
A small I5 pill furnace was placed in the center of the stone room. Next to it was a pile of dregs from failed alchemy. Ever since Wang Lin went into closed door cultivation, Li Muwan began to refine pills.
In addition to the dregs on the ground, there were also some scattered jade slips. Whenever Li Muwan suddenly had an inspiration or deviated, she would immediately take out the jade slips to record and search.
Of the four stone rooms in the cave, one was used by Wang Lin for his closed door cultivation. Aside from the alchemy room and the planting room, the last room was transformed by Li Muwan into a bathroom.
The fog in the Sea of Devils was very humid. Even inside the cave, the clothes on one's body would often become wet. As a girl, Li Muwan really couldn't stand this. Adding on the sticky feeling on her body, it took her a lot of effort to create this bathroom.
Wang Lin completely ignored this bathroom. He only needed to use his spiritual energy to absorb the cold air from his clothes into his cold core.
The Nine Abandonment Skeleton Array outside the cave abode, with the flood dragon bone as the core of the array, suddenly increased in power. According to Li Muwan, this array could no longer be called the Nine Abandonment Skeleton Array, but the Nine Abandonment Dragon Array.
Once this formation was activated, it could trap a Core Formation cultivator for a few months and even a Nascent Soul cultivator for a few days.
There was one thing that Li Muwan felt regretful about, and that was that the dragon was already dead. If she could capture it alive and take its soul, then not only would the formation be able to trap people, it would also be able to attack. Anyone below the Nascent Soul stage would without a doubt die. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator would be covered in dust.
Unfortunately, the soul of the dragon was too difficult to obtain, so Li Muwan could only dream about it.
As for the dragon, the dragon core in its brain was left by Li Muwan for alchemy. Once she had a better furnace, she would refine it.
It took her nearly a month to cut off the flood dragon's skin with her flying sword. Then, she stacked them together for future use.
In addition, there was also a tendon of the dragon. This tendon was the third magical thing in the body of the dragon besides the bone marrow and brain core. If a refiner sacrificially refined it, the size could be controlled and it could be divided into countless branches.
The last thing was a small bottle of bone marrow. This bone marrow was too precious. Even if it was used for alchemy, Li Muwan was afraid that if the alchemy failed, the loss would be too great. So after handing these things to Wang Lin one by one, she reluctantly withdrew her gaze.
Wang Lin kept the bone marrow and the tendon of the dragon, and left the rest to Li Muwan for her to deal with.
Under the skillful hands of Li Muwan, the dragon skin was made into two inner armors.
After wearing one, Wang Lin pondered for a while and threw the other inner armor, which was obviously only for women, to Li Muwan.
Li Muwan smiled without saying anything. After receiving it, she directly put it into the storage bag without thanking him.
After making the two inner armors, there was still a lot of the dragon skin left. Wang Lin put it into the storage bag to exchange for other materials in the future.
Just like that, the entire dragon skin was turned into various treasures.
Another month passed. On this day, the third cold core in Wang Lin's body was finally formed. The three cold cores were located on his head, chest, and abdomen. Strands of cold spiritual energy circulated between the three cold cores.
Wang Lin opened his eyes. His eyes were filled with excitement. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. He was ready to fuse the cold cores back into one.
Situ Nan once explained in detail the process of combining the three cores of the Underworld Ascension Method. This process was divided into the initial stage and the deeper stage. If he could achieve the initial stage, then he would be half a step into the completion stage. When the deeper stage is reached, he would take the Distant Sky Dan and rush to the completion stage. He was 80% confident that he would be able to complete the completion stage.
He didn't let Li Muwan refine the Distant Sky Dan. After all, this required a good cauldron. There was only one half-finished Distant Sky Dan, so he had to make sure that it was as powerful as possible.
At the same time, he made two preparations, which was to use the bloodsucking vines to make a substandard Distant Sky Dan.
In the past, he felt that the cauldron of the Nan Dou City's Crafting Sect was too expensive. Now that he had the dragon skin, he should be able to exchange for it. If he still couldn't get one, Wang Lin decided that he had to get one no matter what.
Thinking of this, he took a deep breath and began to combine the three cores.
(To be continued)