Chapter 337 – Not Giving Up
This kind of top quality spirit stone was called a “fake top quality spirit stone.”
After seeing the description of this pill recipe, even with Wang Lin’s mental fortitude, he was shocked. This pill recipe was too vicious.
It said that all fake top quality spirit stones had a thread of blood inside them, but they could only be seen by the origin soul of a Soul Formation or above cultivator.
He took out his top quality spirit stones and carefully looked at them one by one.
“I didn’t think that all them would have a thread of blood except for one…” Wang Lin pondered for a bit before disappearing.
Ten days later, Wang Lin’s group appeared in an ancient transfer array at the edge of Chu.
This time, when using the ancient transfer array, Wang Lin wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not, but he heard a faint sigh of relief.
This sound came from the top quality spirit stone.
They returned to the valley in Chu. This place hadn’t changed at all since they left it. Lu Fei and Tie Yan went to where each of them were before and continued to cultivate to condense the spiritual energy in their bodies so that they could reach the peak of the late stage of Nascent Soul sooner.
Wang Lin’s life calmed down again. He continued to treat Li Muwan’s body while Li Muwan studied the rank 6 pill recipe. Many of the ingredients were already extinct, so her job was to find replacements.
She wasn’t afraid of dying, but she didn’t want to leave Wang Lin. In order to stay with Wang Lin, she put all of her effort into studying this pill recipe.
Sometimes she would raise her head and see Wang Lin cultivating nearby. Her eyes would be filled with tenderness, and inside that tenderness there was sadness and love.
Li Muwan sighed in her heart.
After a month of trying to find replacement ingredients, Ouyang Zi was also called over by Wang Lin. Unfortunately, the other rank 5 alchemist, Tian Yunzi, died when he tried to reach the Nascent Soul stage years ago. With the three of them studying the recipe, the process would be a lot faster.
Ouyang Zi was crazy about alchemy. It was as if he was born to do alchemy. When he saw the rank 6 pill recipe, it was as if he had come across his purpose in life. He immediately became like a madman and began to study the substitutions and combinations of the 138 ingredients.
Whenever they found a replacement, Liu Fei and Song Qing would search around and send over the ingredient.
If it was something the Cloud Sky Sect didn’t have, they would buy it at a high price from sects of other countries.
If that was still not possible, they would find information about the location of the ingredient and have Lu Fei and Tie Yan gather them.
Time quickly passed by. Two years later, of the 138 ingredients, only three were left. Sadly, they still hadn’t found replacements for these three.
In these two years, Ouyang Zi had forgotten about everything else. He was completely focused on the rank 6 pill recipe.
As for Li Muwan, in these two years, she slowly aged. Her skin was no longer snow white; it was now starting to show a bit of gray.
Two years of endless body maintenance done by injecting spiritual energy into her body wasn’t able to stop the life and death cycle of the heavens.
The reluctance in Li Muwan’s eyes became even stronger.
On this night, it began to rain inside the valley. After Li Muwan fell asleep, Wang Lin stood in the rain by himself while looking at the mountain in the distance. The pain in his heart became even stronger.
“Wan Er’s body is becoming weaker and weaker. If she tries to reach the Nascent Soul stage by force, her body will not be able to handle it. It will be destroyed. At that moment, the incomplete Nascent Soul will only dissipate. I won’t even be able to extract her soul…”
Wang Lin stared into the distance and let out a sigh. He looked very sad as he took out a wine gourd and took a big gulp. He sat down and leaned against the stone house.
This wine was the fruit wine. There wasn’t much of it left in Wang Lin’s bag. Every time he drank this, he would think of Da Niu bringing him wine.
“Uncle Wang, you came to the capital to make a lot of money so you can go back home to marry your wife, right?”
“After uncle has made a lot of money, he is going to go home to get married”
This scene from the past appeared in his mind. He finished drinking all the wine in a few gulps, then he raised his head and looked up at the sky.
Just at this moment, a scream of excitement came from Ouyang Zi’s room. Shortly after, Ouyang Zi came running out from the room. He was startled to find Wang Lin out in the rain. He quickly walked up and said, “Sect master, I found the substitute ingredients for the last three ingredients!”
Wang Lin’s eyes became serious as he looked at Ouyang Zi.
Ouyang Zi quickly took out a jade. He handed it to Wang Lin and said, “Those three ingredients are extinct, but I found a combination of 37 other ingredients that will have the same effect. Although the effect will be weaker, it shouldn’t deviate too much from the original.”
Wang Lin accepted the jade, scanned it with his divine sense, and instantly memorized it.
Ouyang Zi said, “These ingredients are quite rare. The Cloud Sky Sect only has four of them. We will have to go to a rank 4 cultivation country to get the rest.”
Wang Lin stood up. With the jade in hand, he disappeared.
The moment he left, Li Muwan opened her eyes and revealed a trace of sadness.
“You can never see me during my loneliest hours because I’m only lonely when you’re not around.”
Two streams of tears rolled down from Li Muwan’s eyes. Thin lines had appeared on her forehead. She looked like she had aged ten years in the past two years.
Wang Lin didn’t waste too much time. Seven months later, he came back with a tired expression.
During these seven months, Wang Lin didn’t rest at all. He had gone to most rank 4 cultivation countries and even some rank 5 cultivation countries.
He finally managed to get all of the ingredients by either buying, trading, or stealing.
In these seven months, he experienced a lot of danger. The most dangerous time was in a rank 5 cultivation country against a mid stage Soul Formation cultivator with a very special domain. The domain was “forget.” Wang Lin was able to win in the end, but it was very close.
The forget domain really scared Wang Lin.
The other occasion was with a late stage Soul Formation cultivator. Although his domain was pretty normal, he was about to reach the peak of late stage Soul Formation. His domain was ever changing under his command.
In hindsight, Wang Lin calculated that this person’s power was slightly above Red Butterfly’s. In the end, Wang Lin fought to a standstill against this person.
In these seven months, Wang Lin realized that among Soul Formation cultivators, Red Butterfly wasn’t the strongest. Although these people hadn’t reached the Soul Transformation stage, they were very powerful.
Especially those with special domains; they had abnormal strength.
After returning to Chu, Wang Lin quickly moved toward the valley.
Inside the valley, Wang Lin spread out his divine sense and found that both Tie Yan and Lu Fei were both 500 meters closer to the pagoda than before. Both of their cultivation levels had raised a bit.
Wang Lin appeared outside the stone house. He opened the door and his body shook. What he saw was someone’s back.
This figure had a head of long hair, but half of the hair was white.
Wang Lin’s heart ached. He walked up and stood beside Li Muwan. He looked at her beautiful face that was now even older.
Wang Lin whispered, “Wan Er, I’m back. I have gathered the ingredients.”
Li Muwan faintly smiled. She didn’t say anything as she looked at Wang Lin. She whispered, “Don’t leave anymore, just spend more time with me. I don’t have much time left…”
Wang Lin looked at Li Muwan and once again said, with a serious expression, “You won’t die!”
Li Muwan bit her lower lip and gently nodded. She leaned against Wang Lin and closed her eyes.
Wang Lin’s return caused Ouyang Zi to become devoted in refining the rank 6 pill. His life’s dream was to refine a rank 6 pill. It was like his soul had been ignited.
Almost all of the substitute ingredients were things he chose after researching for a very long time. He used more than 1000 ingredients to replace these 138 ingredients. This calculation included the effect of each ingredient and how long it would take to refine each of them.
If he didn’t have the alchemy experience to back it up, there would be no way for him to refine it.
Even Ouyang Zi couldn’t be careless about this. He didn’t care about Li Muwan at all; this was just for himself. He was about to fulfill his life’s dream. He told himself countless times that he could fail as many times as he needed in his life, but he couldn’t fail this time.
As the refining process continued, Ouyang Zi’s temper became even worse. Sometimes he would even become impatient toward Wang Lin when he came to ask about the progress.
It was not because he wasn’t afraid of Wang Lin, but due to his personality. He had forgotten about the world; in his mind, only the pill mattered.
Wang Lin didn’t mind Ouyang Zi’s temper. In fact, he thought that among all the people in the Cloud Sky Sect, Ouyang Zi was the one to most likely reach the Soul Formation stage.
Because he was obsessed with alchemy, it was likely that he would be able to comprehend the heavens and gain a domain.
However, his cultivation was still stuck at the mid stage of Nascent Soul. If he could reach the peak of the late stage, then reaching the Soul Formation stage was only a matter of time.
The days slowly passed by. In the blink of an eye, three years had passed. Ouyang Zi’s refining was still going. It seemed like he was stuck at some kind of barrier, so his temper became even worse. One could occasionally hear him shouting in rage.
After Wang Lin’s return, he had spent every second at Li Muwan’s side. Her hair was now completely white. If it wasn’t for the fact that Wang Lin had been transfering spiritual energy into her non-stop for the last three years, her beauty would have long been dried up as time brought change…
Three more years had passed when Ouyang had a breakthrough in his alchemy. Although he hadn’t finished the pill, it wasn’t far away. The heavy smell of medication came from his stone house.
Li Muwan’s body had become extremely weak. She could no longer move; she could only lie in the bed and look at Wang Lin. The reluctance in her eyes became even stronger.