A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality (Chapter 2001-Chapter 2248)

By the time Han Li returned to the pavilion he was staying in, it was already close to nighttime.

Zhu Guo'er was elated to see Han Li again. Without Han Li's protection, she would most likely be enslaved by someone else soon. Even though Han Li had searched her soul once, he hadn't abused her in any way thereafter, so she naturally didn't want to switch to a different master who could potentially treat her far worse than Han Li did.

Han Li quickly dismissed her, then activated all of the restrictions he had set up before taking a seat on a futon.

After that, he flipped a hand over to produce a jade box, then swept a sleeve toward it, releasing a burst of azure light that stripped away the talismans plastered to the box.

The lid of the box was opened, revealing a shimmering golden thumb-sized bead. The surface of the bead was very smooth, and it was giving off a faint rank odor.

Han Li flicked a finger toward the bead, and a speck of azure light sprang forth before vanishing into the bead in a flash.

Moments later, the sound of crashing ocean waves rang out from the bead, following which it released a burst of gentle golden light, which transformed into a miniature golden whale projection that began to dance around the bead.

The projection was only around a foot in size, but it was extremely life-like.

Han Li's expression remained unchanged upon seeing this, but he suddenly extended a pristine white hand out of his sleeve, then reached into the golden light to grab onto the bead.

Magic power was injected incessantly into the bead, and in the next instant, the golden whale projection suddenly swelled drastically to over 100 feet in length, filling up virtually the entire top floor of the pavilion.

At the same time, a golden horn that was around a foot in length had appeared on the whale projection's head, and golden scales of different sizes had emerged all over its body, giving it a very menacing appearance.

A pleased look appeared on Han Li's face as he released the bead and ceased his magic power output.

The whale projection instantly disintegrated into specks of golden light, and the golden bead also returned to normal.

Han Li placed the bead back into the jade box, then reapplied the talismans before stowing it away into his storage bracelet.

He had naturally chosen this Golden Whale Bead for a reason, but it was yet to be seen whether he would truly be able to make use of it.

However, the greatest reward he had reaped was not this precious spirit bead. Instead, it was that head-sized piece of Foreign Devilish Metal.

As soon as the thought of that piece of devilish metal crossed his mind, a rare hint of excitement flashed through his eyes, and he took a deep breath before releasing the piece of metal out of his storage bracelet.

The piece of devilish metal hovered before him, and he slashed a finger toward it.

A streak of azure light swept forth in a flash, slicing the piece of metal in half and revealing an egg-sized object.

He made a grabbing motion to draw the object into his grasp, and it was revealed to be a grey crystalline ball.

The excitement in Han Li's eyes became even more pronounced at this sight of this crystalline ball, and he slowly reached out toward it in a careful manner.

During this process, the sleeve around his arm was torn away, and a series of golden shimmering scales appeared over his skin, making his arm significantly thicker than before.





Chapter 2071: Arrival of Allies


His entire hand swelled to form a huge golden hand that grabbed onto the bead, and golden light flashed from his fingers as countless golden runes surged out of his palm.

The runes instantly enshrouded the bead and formed a golden ball of light.

Han Li immediately began to chant something upon seeing this, and a thin translucent thread shot forth out of each of his fingertips before vanishing into the golden ball in a flash.

In the next instant, a wisp of barely visible grey Qi emerged out of the golden ball along the translucent thread before being drawn into Han Li's grasp.

After that, Han Li closed his eyes and began to refine this peculiar wisp of energy.

Golden light swirled over his body, and his aura also began to fluctuate in power in a strange sequence.

Several hours later, he reopened his eyes, and they were filled with elation. He could clearly sense that his magic power had been further enhanced by a tiny amount.

"This really is the same energy as the energy in that piece of Foreign Devilish Metal! If I can find more of this type of Foreign Devilish Metal, it won't be impossible to enhance my magic power to the Grand Ascension Stage! That could save me over 1,000 years of arduous cultivation. It looks like I'll have to make a trip to the Blue Waterfall Lake if the opportunity arises," Han Li murmured to himself.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Han Li suddenly extended a finger, and a strand of green Qi was suddenly forced out of his fingertip.

"As expected, this energy has appeared as well. Looks like I have no choice but to continue to seal it within my second Nascent Soul's body," Han Li mused as his brows furrowed slightly.

The amount of grey Qi that he had refined was less than 10% of what the entire crystalline bead contained; if he could refine all of the energy within the bead, then that would enhance his magic power by over 10%!

As a safety precaution, Han Li had decided against refining all of the energy at once. Instead, he was planning to refine the energy bit by bit over the span of around half a month, making sure to consolidate his cultivation base in between each bout of refinement. This would prevent any potential negative effects from having his magic power enhanced too quickly.

After all, the mysterious energy that he had obtained on this occasion was more than 10 times as much as last time.

After making that decision, Han Li swept a sleeve through the air to release around a dozen golden and silver talismans, all of which adhered themselves to the golden ball of light, thereby tightly sealing it.

He then produced a pristine white vial and gently shook it to release a burst of five-colored light that enshrouded the golden ball.

After that, he stowed the small vial away and entered a meditative state once again.

During the next half a month or so, Han Li remained in the pavilion and finally refined all of the energy within the crystalline ball into magic power, thereby significantly enhancing his cultivation base.

During the next few days, Han Li explored various parts of Illusion Night City and purchased some books, as well as specialty local products from the city. He also visited the Myriad Slave Tower several times, and he was finally able to purchase the refinement technique for the Devil Crystal Puppets.

In exchange for the puppet refinement technique, he had to fork out several top-grade devilish treasures and an astronomical sum of devil stones, but he felt this to be worth it.

This puppet refinement technique was completely different from those he had seen in the Spirit Realm.

Instead of instilling spiritual sense into the puppet to activate them, these Devil Crystal Puppets were activated through restrictions and treasures that had been set up in advance. Thus, even the lowliest of cultivators could easily control the most powerful Devil Crystal Puppets. On top of that, there was no limit to the number of puppets that could be controlled, and even low-grade devilish beings could control an army of these puppets with ease.

Han Li was naturally very surprised to hear this, but unfortunately, nothing was perfect in this world.

These Devil Crystal Puppets did indeed have many incredible advantages, but they also had many flaws, the most prominent of which was that due to the fact that they couldn't be controlled through spiritual sense, they could only follow some simple instructions through their core restrictions.