Published: September 2, 2025
Chapter 595: The Four Great Powers
The emergence of this matter both surprised Han Li and was somewhat expected.
The method of using pills to advance cultivation, although it can accelerate magical power progress rapidly—sometimes even reaching incredible speeds under certain top-tier holy medicines—was, after all, a bit of a shortcut. Once one’s magical power reached a certain level of profundity, the original effectiveness of pill power in improving cultivation would disappear.
This was because, as cultivation techniques advanced and the body’s meridians were constantly refined through the marrow cleansing classic, the amount of spiritual energy a cultivator could inhale at once increased continuously. At a certain stage, the efficiency of extracting spiritual power from pills and the speed at which a cultivator absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth would become nearly the same.
In this way, the pills naturally began to lose their effectiveness. Unless one could consume even more potent spirit pills, there was little to be done.
The reason Han Li’s pills, effective during his foundation establishment stage, lost their effect once he reached the core formation stage was this exact principle.
However, previously, this situation only appeared after crossing an entire major realm. But now, before even entering the nascent soul stage, these pills had already lost their effect.
This was something Han Li had not anticipated.
Because, according to the classics he had studied before, and the experiences of nascent soul cultivators he had obtained later, pills refined from level 6 demonic beast cores were less effective and somewhat understandable, but pills from level 7 demonic beast cores should have been effective at least before the nascent soul stage, although their effect would be greatly reduced compared to before.
This made Han Li feel somewhat puzzled.
After careful consideration, he could only attribute the premature ineffectiveness of his pills to a rarely seen drug resistance.
Of course, this was only one guess. Perhaps it also had something to do with the Jade Flame Wine he drank that day or the aura of spiritual communication he gained from Mei Ning.
One was originally not meant for human consumption, and the other was one of the seven great essential spiritual energies in the world—some unforeseeable aftereffects seemed quite natural.
Han Li had no intention of digging deep to uncover the true reason for the pills losing their effect.
Since the matter had already occurred and the fact could not be changed, he naturally did not want to waste energy on useless efforts.
He began to ponder his next steps.
In his hand was still a demonic core of an eighth-level poisonous flood dragon, but this thing was something that could not be bought even with spirit stones, so he was reluctant to refine it into pills for cultivation advancement.
Pill refining still had a high chance of failure, and even if he did manage to refine one or two, that amount would not be enough to push him into the false nascent soul realm.
Judging from the current situation, his only option was to cultivate diligently on his own like an ordinary cultivator.
This snail-paced cultivation speed was something he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Han Li couldn’t help but smile bitterly at the thought.
Fortunately, he was now only a little short of the great perfection realm. Assuming sufficient spiritual energy supply, it would probably take just over ten years to reach it.
In this case, he had to find a place with a decent spiritual vein to cultivate.
Otherwise, in a place with thin spiritual energy, his cultivation time would have to be multiplied. Naturally, Han Li would never do such a foolish thing.
But when it came to spiritual veins, Tian Nan and the Chaotic Star Sea were a bit different.
The Chaotic Star Sea had few people and many islands, with an almost unlimited area. Naturally, there were countless islands with spiritual veins of various sizes.
Tian Nan, on the other hand, was densely populated with a fixed land area.