A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality (Chapter 1401-Chapter 1600)

The items on the list given to him by the elderly man were all extremely difficult to find, but there was still hope for him if he had a time period of 1,000 years to find two-thirds of the items on the list.

With that much time allotted to him, Han Li was relatively confident that he'd be able to achieve such a feat.

However, what he had to do now was to return to his cave abode on the island as quickly as possible, then go into seclusion so he could consolidate the rewards that he'd reaped from this trip. Once he reached the pinnacle of the late-Deity Transformation Stage, he'd be able to take the Black Flame Pills and attempt to progress to the early-Spatial Tempering Stage.

During this journey, he'd encountered so many beings at the Body Integration Stage and witnessed them in battle on many occasions. From that experience, he felt as if he'd attained some enlightenment, and was more confident in his ability to break through his next bottleneck.

Even though the demon monarchs had refrained from giving him much guidance in cultivation, they were all immensely powerful beings, and just seeing them in action had been an invaluable experience for Han Li.

After all, how many Deity Transformation cultivators could witness battles between Body Integration Stage beings in person?

All of these thoughts were rapidly racing through Han Li's mind, and it only took him mere moments to establish his future cultivation plan.

He then swept a hand over his storage bracelet, and a jade slip immediately appeared over his palm.

This was none other than the jade slip that the elderly man had given him, and within it was recorded the new Azure Essence Sword Art.

Han Li instantly split his spiritual sense into two with a small portion of it controlling his body in its advancement and inspecting his surroundings, which most of his spiritual sense seeped into this jade slip.

Initially, his expression remained quite calm, but as he furthered his understanding this sword art, his expression gradually became more solemn, and his brows were tightly furrowed by the end.

After a while, he heaved a long sigh and flipped his hand over, upon which the jade slip disappeared amid a flash of azure light.

A contemplative look then appeared in Han Li's eyes.

He had roughly read through the contents of the sword art and committed it to memory. It was quite clear that this so-called new sword art hadn't really brought many changes to the original 13 layers of the cultivation method, and the insignificant changes that had been made didn't impact him in any way.

The main difference was the five additional layers of the sword art after that.

These layers of the sword art corresponded to the three tiers of the Deity Transformation Stage, as well as the early and mid tiers of the Spatial Tempering Stage. If he were to cultivate the sword art in its entirety, it'd support him to the late-Spatial Tempering Stage.

If Han Li hadn't cultivated the Provenance True Devil Arts, he would perhaps truly be quite interested in this cultivation art.

As things were at present, he could only pick a few useful secret techniques and abilities from the last five layers of the sword art to cultivate. After all, he was walking the path of simultaneous cultivation, so it certainly wouldn't be wise for him to spend so much time on this cultivation art.

Of course, he was only able to achieve these things as he'd mastered the first 13 layers of the sword art in advance, and he was also a late-Deity Transformation cultivator himself.

Otherwise, even if other high-grade cultivators were to obtain this sword art, they wouldn't be able to make use of it at all.

The things enclosed in the final five layers of the sword art that Han Li was most interested in was a pair of new sword formations, one of which was named Spring Dawn, while the other was called Azure Coil.

These two sword formations used in conjunction with the final five layers of the sword art would be immensely powerful, and allow him to challenge beings of a higher cultivation base than himself. Even without cultivating the final five layers of the sword art, those two sword formations could still be unleashed, but the requirements on the flying swords used in that case were extremely stringent; they had to be extremely pure wood-attribute flying swords that had been nurtured to an extremely high level.

Han Li's current 72 Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords couldn't satisfy this condition, so he had to refine them again.

Among these two sword formations, Spring Dawn was something that he could unleash with his current cultivation base, but Azure Coil would only be something that he could cultivate and study after reaching the late-Spatial Tempering Stage.

As such, Han Li directed his attention to the refinement method for the flying swords enclosed with the sword art.

However, a bewildered look appeared on his face only after a brief inspection of the refinement method.

The method wasn't very difficult, but the process during which the swords were refined had to be an extremely lengthy one, and during this time, his flying swords would be extremely brittle and frail, making them unusable in battle. Only after completely refining the swords and achieving a state of oneness with them would be able to display their true power.

According to information in the refinement method, he'd have to rid his flying swords of the Auric Essence he'd refined into them as well, and in that case, he wouldn't be able to unleash his Aureate Sword Formation.

That was making Han Li rather hesitant.

Not being able to use the flying swords for an extended period of time wasn't too much of a concern. After all, he wasn't relying on them as a crutch anyway. However, losing the Aureate Sword Formation really was something that made him feel quite indecisive.

The new sword art stated that Spring Dawn and Azure Coil were both far superior in power to the Aureate Sword Formation, so it only made sense to sacrifice it for those two other sword formations.

However, Han Li had never witnessed those two sword formations in action, yet the Aureate Sword Formation had helped him defeat powerful enemies on more than one occasion, so he was inevitably going to be rather hesitant.

He wasn't planning to cultivate the last five layers of the Azure Essence Sword Art, so it was a mystery just how much power he'd be able to unleash with those two sword formations with just his refined flying swords alone.

If it turned out to be the case that those two sword formations were inferior in power compared to the Aureate Sword Formation, then he'd have incurred a massive loss while expending a lot of time and effort.

Just as Han Li was trying to make a decision about his sword formation, his expression suddenly changed as he stood still on the spot.

He peered into the black mist off to one side, and a dark expression appeared on his face as he said in a cold voice, "What are you doing lurking in the shadows over there? Were you planning to attack me?"

He then raised a hand, and a thick bolt of golden light shot forth amid a loud thunderclap, forming a head-sized ball of golden lightning that hovered in mid-air.

The surface of the ball was crackling incessantly with arcs of lightning and shimmering with golden runes, creating quite an intimidating sight to behold.

"You're not a Tian Peng being?" A surprised voice sounded from the direction that Han Li had turned his attention toward.

"Who are you and how do you know that?" Han Li asked as his eyes narrowed.

"Hehe, if you're truly a Tian Peng being, there's no way you'd be able to remain completely unaffected here even as a Great Spirit General, let alone a mere Spirit General," the voice replied in a cold manner.

"Oh? Sounds like you know a lot about Tian Peng beings and this place. Why have you still not shown yourself? Come out and speak to me face to face!"As soon as Han Li's voice trailed off, the golden ball of lightning before him abruptly disappeared.