“Who would’ve thought your cultivation technique was so formidable? You’ve refined such enormous quantities of spiritual energy, yet your cultivation level barely shows any visible improvement. Though you cultivate slowly, fighting across realms shouldn’t pose much difficulty for you.” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs couldn’t help but sigh in admiration.

Over the past ten-plus days spent inside Ye Kong’s head, Old Ancestor Yellow Springs had learned quite a few of Ye Kong’s secrets. He was particularly impressed by the cultivation technique Ye Kong practiced.

Generally speaking, when judging the quality of an immortal cultivation technique, the most important metric is cultivation speed. Everyone wants fast – the faster the better.

They pursue realm advancement at all costs. Only by raising their realm can they gain more formidable abilities, more powerful spells, and cultivate more impressive magical artifacts.

Demon cultivators are the most extreme pursuers of speed. They don’t hesitate to kill for spiritual energy to accelerate their breakthroughs. “So-and-so reached Nascent Soul in a hundred years” – these are the stories they love discussing most, always with envious tones.

But they forget that towering buildings rise from level ground. What determines a building’s ultimate height isn’t the speed of construction, but the foundation – the pilings, and the solidity of each layer below, and the layer below that, and layer after layer beneath.

That’s why bottlenecks exist. When a building rises too high with an unstable foundation, trying to build higher becomes impossible. Build any higher and it collapses.

Of course, cultivation can’t literally “collapse,” and qi deviation isn’t that common. But bottlenecks definitely exist. Many cultivators are fast in the early stages, but at a certain point they hit a bottleneck they can’t break through. They waste decades, even centuries, ultimately unable to advance, waiting for their death. This is extremely normal.

The Five Elements Ascension Scripture was different. It went against the grain, emphasizing that each layer formed the foundation for the next. Each layer required massive amounts of time and absorbed enormous quantities of spiritual energy, completely disregarding speed. Its characteristic was slowness – extreme slowness, slow as a snail.

But the benefits of the Five Elements Ascension Scripture were astonishing. Because the foundation was solid and stable, bottlenecks were basically a non-issue.

And does cultivating slowly necessarily mean weakness? Not at all. My realm may be lower [noodles]than yours, but my spiritual energy is no weaker than yours. So am I necessarily weaker when we fight?

Ye Kong drew the last wisp of spiritual energy into his Qi Sea and finished his session. Smiling, he said, “Fighting across realms is certainly possible. With the right magical artifact, fighting five or six layers above my level wouldn’t be difficult.”

“Five or six layers!” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs was somewhat shocked. Generally speaking, cultivators who could fight three levels above their own thanks to powerful magical artifacts were already exceptional. But fighting five levels higher was absolutely astounding – that crossed into entirely different stages.

For example, if an early Foundation Establishment cultivator fought a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator, that was easily achievable with a powerful magical artifact. But if an early Foundation Establishment cultivator wanted to fight a late Foundation Establishment or even peak Foundation Establishment cultivator, that was too shocking. The gap across so many levels was enormous. Many early Foundation Establishment cultivators couldn’t even survive one exchange against a peak Foundation Establishment opponent.

“Truly powerful. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a formidable technique on Cangnan Continent, and it’s actually best suited for trash Five Spiritual Roots cultivation. If word got out, even trash would become treasure.” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs shook his head in amazement.

“This is called turning waste into treasure.” Ye Kong smiled and sent his spiritual consciousness into his Spirit Platform. Ignoring Old Ancestor Yellow Springs, he flew up above the old ghost’s head to flip through the Complete Collection of Talismans again.

After these past ten days of closed-door cultivation in three sessions, Ye Kong’s spiritual power had greatly increased. The Complete Collection of Talismans had revealed a new page to him.

However, Ye Kong felt quite frustrated. Every day he looked at these spirit talisman creation methods but couldn’t practice them even once. His hands truly itched.

Today another page opened. One of the spirit talismans drawn on it caught Ye Kong’s attention because he had no idea what this spirit talisman was for.

Generally, talisman functions were nothing more than attacking people, providing assistance, enhancement, sealing, and so on. But this talisman was clearly different. Its name was “Five Percent Fortune Talisman.”

Of course, from the name, using this talisman increased the success rate of doing certain things – increasing the possibility of success by five percent. But the usage instructions didn’t specify. What exactly did this increase fortune for?

Did it increase the success rate of breaking through realms, or the success rate of artifact refinement? Or was it for everything? Use this talisman and the god of fortune descends? Like in the Monopoly game?

Ye Kong felt this guess wasn’t very reliable.

He flew down to ask Old Ancestor Yellow Springs. The old geezer hadn’t heard of it either. After thinking for a long time, he speculated, “Most likely it increases the success rate of refining magical artifacts or pills. I’m not very proficient in those areas, so I’ve never heard of this fortune talisman.” After Old Ancestor Yellow Springs finished speaking, he earnestly advised Ye Kong, “Little brother, let me give you a piece of advice. Focus on cultivating and raising your realm. Don’t waste time on these trivial matters. Do you know how many of those formation array geniuses and artifact refinement geniuses ultimately ascended? They wasted their time on these things. Even those Pill Kings who refined pills no one else could make – how many of them ultimately ascended? Listen to my advice. You have such an excellent cultivation technique. Focusing on cultivation is the right path.”

Ye Kong naturally heard that Old Ancestor Yellow Springs was speaking from the heart this time. Smiling, he said, “Seems Old Ancestor belongs to the bitter cultivation type, ignoring everything else and only focusing on realm advancement.”

Old Ancestor Yellow Springs nodded, then continued, “Of course, as a cultivator, just practicing basic cultivation techniques isn’t enough. You still need certain skills. This way you have additional support abilities and can earn spirit stones… However, I suggest you focus on pill refinement or formation arrays as support skills. Knowing pill refinement means having various supplementary and enhancement elixirs, which helps accelerate your breakthrough speed. Formation arrays are even more powerful – confusion arrays, illusion arrays, killing arrays. Each type of formation has marvelous functions. On this dangerous continent, learning one more formation means a greater chance of survival.”

Ye Kong understood his meaning. He was saying pill refinement and formation arrays were more useful than talismans. He asked, “Old Ancestor, are talismans really useless? I think those talismans are all quite formidable.”

“Ignorant!” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs snorted disdainfully. “Talismans are only used by low-level cultivators. Those Fireball Talismans, Earth Escape Talismans, Swift Movement Talismans – they only provide auxiliary functions. Against Nascent Soul stage, they’re completely useless!”

“That’s not right. You’re talking about low-grade talismans. Of course they can’t deal with Nascent Soul stage…”

“But high-grade talismans were lost in ancient times, and even mid-grade talismans aren’t widely circulated!”

“Oh, I see.” Ye Kong nodded, muttering to himself, “Seems it’s not that talismans aren’t powerful, but that high-level talismans are all lost. But this young master here… hehehe…”

Old Ancestor Yellow Springs didn’t catch on at first. He felt rather displeased. The old ancestor rarely spoke sincerely, yet the guy completely ignored his advice.

“You still want to mess with those damned talismans?” [Read on Jormuntl]Old Ancestor Yellow Springs asked angrily.

“Yeah, hehehe.” Ye Kong smiled. He’d love it if all talisman creation methods in this world were lost. Then his Complete Collection of Talismans would be one of a kind in the entire world! For others, learning talismans was a waste of time. But not for this young master. This young master has this book. The talismans inside – you otherworld natives have never even heard of them!

“Not listening to the old man…” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs shook his head. He was about to say something when suddenly he thought of something. He sharply raised his head and asked, “Could it be you know the creation methods of those lost spirit talismans?”

“Just a few.”

Though Ye Kong didn’t tell the whole truth, Old Ancestor Yellow Springs was already extremely shocked. He exclaimed, “Ancient legends say those high-grade spirit talismans and supreme-grade spirit talismans had earth-shaking power. You… you really know them?”

“Just something an old man I met in my youth taught me. I’ve never tested them, so I don’t know if they’re real.”

“Oh.” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs showed some disappointment on his face. Then he continued, “When you have the ability to venture out, quickly gather the talisman-making materials. I really want to see if those high-grade talismans are truly that formidable.”

“Don’t worry. With our relationship, I’ll definitely let you be the first to see them.” Ye Kong smiled.

“Hmph, what relationship do we have?” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs sneered coldly. “You better be careful! This old ancestor is constantly thinking of every method to break free. When I charge out of that golden light, that’s when I’ll seize your body. You take care of yourself, naive and ignorant brat!”

Though Old Ancestor Yellow Springs spoke coldly and ruthlessly, Ye Kong felt the old geezer didn’t really think that way. So he smiled, “Well then, this young master will wait for you to seize my body.”

Ye Kong was about to leave his Spirit Platform when Old Ancestor Yellow Springs called out from behind, “Hey, don’t rush off.”

“What? Something else?”

“Mm, ahem, it’s like this.” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs seemed very embarrassed to speak, but finally stammered out, “Last time… didn’t you promise this old ancestor you’d help me find a body with exceptional spiritual roots for me to seize?”

“Yeah.” Ye Kong nodded. “This young master isn’t like you Cangnan Continent people who forget debts of gratitude so easily. This young master’s words are as good as gold! Whatever I promise someone, I’ll definitely do!”

“Good!” Old Ancestor Yellow Springs was overjoyed. Then with a fawning smile he said, “Then could you… also find me one with mixed Five Spiritual Roots? Hehehe.”

Ye Kong immediately understood. He asked in surprise, “You also want to cultivate the Five Elements Ascension Scripture?”

“Yes! Hehehe. Little brother is truly exceptionally intelligent. I knew from first glance that you were brilliant and extraordinary, destined for greatness.”

“Cut it out with that nonsense.” Ye Kong interrupted impatiently. Then he asked, “You’re already at Nascent Soul stage. If you want to switch basic cultivation techniques, you’d have to start from the beginning. Even though your spiritual consciousness is strong, re-cultivating would still take a lot of time.”

Old Ancestor Yellow Springs had already thought through the key points. He nodded, “After seizing a body, if I continue cultivating my original sect’s technique, I’d certainly reach Nascent Soul stage quickly. But advancing further would be extremely difficult. Ascending would be a pipe dream. Since you have a technique that guarantees ascension, how could I pass it up? When we ascend to the upper realm, we two could keep each other company, right?”

Ye Kong chuckled, “No wonder you’re being so helpful with your advice. So this was your plan all along.”

Ye Kong’s mind turned. He felt this arrangement was actually good. If he agreed to Old Ancestor Yellow Springs’ request, the old ghost would definitely help him wholeheartedly. Moreover, only he could understand the Five Elements Ascension Scripture. Old Ancestor Yellow Springs would never again think of killing him.

Mind made up, Ye Kong smiled, “Actually, agreeing to you isn’t out of the question. But let me make it clear – only I can read that scripture. If I die, you’ll never be able to ascend.”

“Of course, of course.” Hearing his agreement, Old Ancestor Yellow Read on Jormuntl Springs immediately nodded with great joy. “This old ancestor will definitely give my all from now on, work tirelessly. Little brother, you’re like a father reborn to me. This old ancestor lives for you, dies for you…”

“Alright, alright. Lived so long and you still can’t even flatter properly.” Ye Kong left his Spirit Platform and opened his eyes. Though he’d agreed to Old Ancestor Yellow Springs, he wouldn’t rush to help him. At least not until his own cultivation surpassed Yellow Springs and he could protect himself. When dealing with Cangnan Continent cultivators, you had to be extra careful.

Ye Kong stood up and removed the spirit stone from the formation’s core. The Spiritual Cultivation Formation immediately vanished.

Leaving his room, preparing to go out and eat some food, he heard some bad news – Lu Qin was sick.