(Finally finished this chapter, I'm going to get some sleep. If you have any votes, toss me a few!)
Though the trip to the forbidden grounds had only lasted about ten days, Han Li felt as though years had passed. So when he lay down on the bed in the Hundred Medicines Garden, it felt incredibly warm and comforting.
He had gambled his life on this journey, and in the end he'd managed to keep his head and returned safely—having accomplished his goal perfectly. Now he fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, drifting off soundly and innocently, as though all the strife of the world had vanished from his dreams entirely.
He slept straight through until noon the next day.
When Han Li finally woke, he felt refreshed and energized. He immediately began laying out his plans for the future!
First and foremost, he needed to ripen the three main ingredients he'd brought back as quickly as possible for safekeeping. The arrangement of the other supplementary herbs could wait until later. But getting everything ready would be no small task—Han Li estimated it would take at least a few years of work before he could formally begin refining pills.
Since he now had all the spiritual herbs he needed, Han Li wasn't in a rush. Instead, he turned to sorting through his other spoils from the forbidden grounds.
The results were impressive: over ten mid-grade spirit stones, several hundred low-grade spirit stones, a large pile of spiritual tools of various grades, several sections of centipede monster shell, assorted materials from the Mo Jiao, a useless silver sword, and more.
But among all these things, two items in particular caught Han Li's attention.
A toy figure holding a bow, and a gleaming silver page.
The figure was carved primarily from wood, with ears, nose, mouth, and eyes all present—remarkably lifelike. It wore realistic iron armor from head to toe, and even the longbow in its hands was cast from bronze. This was the high-grade magical artifact "Puppet Archer" that Han Li had pilfered from his sect.
Since obtaining it, Han Li had never once taken it out to test. The artifact required a soul-splitting secret technique—one had to infuse a wisp of divine sense into the puppet before it could be controlled.
But who among Foundation Establishment stage cultivators would know how to split their soul? Only those at Foundation Establishment or above possessed enough divine sense to endure the pain of soul-splitting. Otherwise, a Qi Condensation cultivator's meager divine sense would likely shatter the person's mind before the split was even complete.
When cultivators talked about using divine sense to survey their surroundings or scan objects, that wasn't true soul-splitting at all—it was merely a small trick of projecting existing divine sense outward. But the soul-splitting achieved through the secret technique was equivalent to gaining one or more additional spiritual clones, primarily used for a single person controlling multiple artifacts simultaneously. The more splits one could manage, the more magical tools one could operate at once.
As for Qi Condensation disciples, in normal combat they could control at most two artifacts simultaneously. Any more than that and they'd lose the ability to manage them. Otherwise, who wouldn't carry five or six artifacts? Just hurl them all at an enemy at once—even if none hit, it would at least create enough chaos to buy time!
Han Li toyed with the puppet figure for a good while before setting it down. Then he picked up the silver page to examine it.
This silver page was a trophy Han Li had taken from the barefoot man of the Giant Sword Sect. Its surface was covered in raised and recessed lines—strange, peculiar patterns that looked thoroughly mysterious. Han Li studied it for ages but couldn't make heads or tails of it, so he had to set it aside for the time being.
In the days that followed, Han Li split his time between studying the silver page and waiting for word from the higher-ups—specifically whether what the old man had told him was true, that his reward would be discounted.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Uncle Wang and another, unfamiliar steward came to see Han Li, and they indeed brought only a single Foundation Establishment Pill as his reward. Their explanation was also essentially the same as what the old man had told him—the only difference being that the story of Senior Li taking his spirit herbs had been reframed as a filial offering that a disciple should rightfully make.
Han Li listened and let out a few cold laughs inwardly, though outwardly he put on a perfectly agreeable face, showing no objection whatsoever. This relieved both stewards considerably—they'd been prepared for a lengthy argument to smooth things over—and they departed with smiles.
After watching them leave, Han Li laughed at himself, then carefully stored away the new Foundation Establishment Pill. Now wasn't the time to take the pill and attempt his breakthrough. It would be better to refine his own Foundation Establishment Pills first and take them all together. After all, until he'd finished the pill refinement, Han Li wouldn't be able to settle into seclusion with any peace of mind!
And so, month by month, time slipped by. Three years passed in a flash, and Han Li's preparations for pill refinement were finally complete. During this not-insignificant stretch of time, a few notable things had happened.
During this period, Junior Sister Chen had taken a Foundation Establishment Pill from her reward and, after a full year of bitter cultivation, had successfully achieved Foundation Establishment two years ago, entering the Foundation Establishment stage. Her elder brother, however, was less fortunate—even after consuming the second Foundation Establishment Pill of his life, he still failed his breakthrough attempt and remained stranded outside the Foundation Establishment stage. It was said that the eldest young master of the Chen family had completely lost faith in the path of immortality and simply bid farewell to the sect, returning home to manage the family's affairs.
There was also another matter—Han Li had begun to gain a growing reputation in Yellow Maple Valley, becoming something of a minor celebrity!