Chapter 186: Chapter 186

After creating the Innate Earth, Sha Chen was overjoyed.

He quickly transplanted some high-quality Spiritual Medicines, especially the First-class Elixirs, all of which he moved to the Innate Earth.

Originally, the fast-growing First-class Elixirs, once transplanted to the Innate Earth and irrigated by the Mysterious Heavenly Water, grew at a much faster rate, as if divinely aided.

Sha Chen could visibly see the First-class Elixirs grow rapidly, at a rate at least ten times, if not dozens of times, faster than before.

What would have taken him decades, or even a century, to cultivate in the Post-Heaven Earth, he could now likely obtain, fully grown, within a year and a half.

In other words, Sha Chen could harvest a batch of First-class Elixirs almost every year, making them available annually.

He was ecstatic and immediately planted all the First-class Elixirs he had, including those previously in the ground and those later provided by Dragon Girl and Ao Lie.

He took them all out and planted them directly. Even then, they only occupied about one-tenth of the Innate Earth’s land.

Sha Chen looked at the Elixirs in the field, smelling their intoxicating fragrance and watching them grow as rapidly as infants. He felt completely satisfied. However, there were still some disappointments.

It’s a pity there are so few Elixirs, Sha Chen mused. And cultivating a single plant is quite difficult. Leaving one for personal use and its seeds for replanting means they can only be cultivated generation by generation.

That is to say, these Elixirs were essentially one-of-a-kind.

Only after an older plant had grown, bloomed, and borne fruit could the best seeds be selected from its fruit to cultivate the next plant.

It was practically impossible to cultivate several plants from a single one and then have Elixirs flourishing everywhere after a few generations; that was simply not feasible.

Each was unique, passed down in a single lineage from one generation to the next.

Some Elixirs might even be lost to time, so it was already quite remarkable that these Elixirs could maintain such a singular line of succession.

To acquire more, one could only obtain better cultivation methods from elsewhere.

Sha Chen possessed the Dan Scripture, which gave him some insights into Elixir cultivation, allowing him to grow quite high-quality ones.

But at most, he could prevent them from being lost. The idea of cultivating two plants from one would likely only be possible after dozens of generations of effort.

But that would require a massive amount of fertilizer and meticulous care.

Sha Chen’s fertilizer came from the soil itself; the Innate Earth contained sufficient nutrients and vital energy to meet the Elixirs’ needs.

However, Sha Chen simply did not have the time to meticulously tend to every single Elixir. His days were consumed by cultivation, leaving no time for such management.

It was fortunate he possessed such fertile land; otherwise, if he had to rely on the heavens for sustenance, Sha Chen might have starved to death.

There’s another drawback too,

Elixirs are truly imperious.

Sha Chen heaved a long sigh, then began to loosen the soil, turn the earth, and transplant all the First-class Elixirs, caring for them meticulously.

After settling the planting of all the First-class Elixirs, he counted them and found close to eight hundred plants, a considerable number.

Many factions led by peak Daluo Golden Immortals were not as wealthy or lavish as he was.

The Tongtian Hierarch had previously gifted him three hundred plants; otherwise, despite Sha Chen’s many years of accumulation, he would have only possessed five hundred.

Every time he acquired a pure First-class Elixir, he was reluctant to consume it directly. Instead, he would plant it for a year, cultivating superior seeds capable of producing the next generation. Only then would he harvest its mature fruits.

Through painstaking accumulation, and relying on the large quantity of resources brought back by Ao Lie and Dragon Girl this time, he finally had about eight hundred plants.

However, out of the eight hundred First-class Elixirs, only about five hundred could be directly refined to increase cultivation level, fortify the Primordial Spirit, or enhance the physical body.

The rest were mostly for crafting special Immortal Pills, which needed to be refined and then traded for necessary resources.

Even so, Sha Chen was satisfied.

Sometimes, special Immortal Pills could be exchanged for resources far exceeding their expected value, like those Dragon Girl brought back, which yielded a tenfold profit.

But such ventures were too risky and unsustainable; Sha Chen did not quite approve.

He preferred a slow, steady stream of income, prioritizing safety above all.

The First-class Elixirs, along with osmanthus trees and flat peach trees, were planted in the Innate Earth, while other Elixirs were planted in the Post-Heaven Earth.

The area was much wider now, and a large tract of land even lay empty.

When will I be able to fill all this space? That would be perfect, Sha Chen sighed, thinking to himself.

He did have many second and third-class Elixirs on hand, but most had already been planted. The remaining ones were largely unplantable.

Either their roots had been damaged during picking, they couldn’t meet the conditions for proper cultivation, or they had lost a significant amount of Divine Power, making planting them a waste.

Hence, most of them had to be refined, rendering them uncultivable.

It was only because the First-class Elixirs were of a higher grade that their harvesters treated them carefully, allowing them to be cultivated once more.

After dealing with the Elixir plants, Sha Chen took out the Shilong Zhenyuan, planning to dedicate himself fully to enhancing his physical body.

He went to the lightning-attraction platform, sat cross-legged, then took out the Shilong Zhenyuan, cut off a portion, and swallowed it for refining.

A tremendous devouring power was unleashed, and even with his current formidable physical strength, he felt some pain.

The divine power of the Shilong Zhenyuan was so vast that Sha Chen, after swallowing it, felt as if his body was about to burst.

He hastily circulated the True Dragon Body Forging Technique to refine it.

This isn’t enough, he thought. I must find a way to help my body digest it. Otherwise, the delay will waste the power of the Long Yuan.

It would be best to find an external stimulus for my body to enhance its absorption and refining processes.

Sha Chen looked around; finding a medium capable of externally stimulating his body wasn’t easy at this time.

The daily thunder punishment had been somewhat effective.

But it was unclear whether the Jade Emperor truly intended to appease him. In any case, after issuing the decree to recruit him, the Jade Emperor had stopped inflicting the thunder punishment.

In the Jade Emperor’s eyes, this was an act of grace, intended to make Sha Chen feel grateful and indebted.

However, Sha Chen actually found it regrettable, as the thunder punishment could increase his cultivation level and stimulate his physical growth.

Right! I’ve mastered the Imperial Gods’ Thunder. Why not create my own thunder field, strike myself, and temper my body!

Sha Chen was a man of action; he acted immediately.

He formed the hand seals for the Imperial Gods’ Thunder. Instantly, terrifying lightning began to coalesce in the sky, and even he felt his entire body tremble.

He sensed he had retracted most of its might, using only one-tenth of the power for an initial test.

It struck his body, and he found he could withstand it. He then increased the strength to one-fifth and found it somewhat difficult to bear.

Thus, he started by tempering his body with the Imperial Gods’ Thunder at one-fifth of its power, planning to gradually increase the intensity later.

Rules are rigid, but people are flexible.

If Heaven does not send thunder punishment, I shall call down my own.

Sha Chen silently gave himself a thumbs-up for his cleverness and then began to wholeheartedly temper his physical body.

The universe is vast, the sun and moon eternal in the river of time.

In cultivation, time flows unnoticed. Roughly three years passed. Sha Chen had refined a little less than half of the Shilong Zhenyuan, and the Imperial Gods’ Thunder he wielded had also been raised to half of its maximum power.

His physical body had strengthened to the verge of reaching the minor completion stage of the Da Luo Dharmakaya, equivalent to a Middle-Level Daluo Golden Immortal expert.

If he were to succeed, Sha Chen’s strength would surely take another significant step forward.

Sha Chen sighed deeply. During his cultivation, he had learned that the scripture seeker had died en route, devoured by demons, and subsequently fallen into reincarnation.

However, just as Sha Chen had initially calculated, the scripture seeker would reincarnate carrying the memories of his previous life.

His clone, Hanshan, had also made contact with Chang E and received the Biyu Lotus Root body she had brought for him.

That body had been personally refined by Sha Chen, specifically to reconstruct a body for his clone, thus making this clone even more significant.

Sha Chen also instructed him to continue maintaining contact with the scripture seeker and to guide him when the time was ripe after the seeker’s rebirth.

The White Bone Demon was also with Hanshan, sharing a common enemy and jointly resisting Buddhism’s pursuit.

Jinzha had given up pursuing the two, delegating the task to other members of Buddhism. He, instead, personally took charge of matters concerning Sha Chen and the scripture seeker.

After all, these two were of the utmost importance.

There was another momentous event: Sun Wukong had broken through to the Da Luo Golden Immortal Realm, successfully weathered the heavenly tribulation, and subsequently incurred the dissatisfaction of Buddhism.

Even though he showed no intention of breaking free from his seal, Buddhism worried he might emerge prematurely. They also feared he was living too well and would slip from their control.

Therefore, Tathagata personally strengthened the seal. He rewrote the Six-Syllable Mantra and produced a section of the Demon-Sealing Diamond Sutra, inscribing it upon Five Finger Mountain.

Furthermore, he intensified the harshness of the environment around Five Finger Mountain, making it even more difficult for Sun Wukong to move. The space within the mountain was reduced to a mere ten-foot radius.

If Sun Wukong spat, it might land on his own feet.

The external environment of Five Finger Mountain became rife with miasma and pervasive poisonous fog. The seasonal temperatures were pushed to extreme levels.

In spring, the land withered, and everything dried up. Even the air was parched, so much so that Sun Wukong couldn’t even muster enough saliva to swallow.

In summer, the heat was unbearable, like being in a furnace. Open flames even appeared, scorching Sun Wukong’s fur.

In autumn, the land was shrouded in darkness. Endless nights outnumbered the days, and the air reeked of death, like the eighteenth layer of Hell.

In winter, it was unbearably cold. Hail fell from the sky, and frost formed, chilling to the bone, enough to freeze a person into an ice sculpture.

This was Buddhism’s doing, all designed to torment Sun Wukong.

Trapping him was not enough; they also wanted to torment him through his environment.

Naturally, Sun Wukong was furious. He tried to break the seal several times, but despite having reached the Da Luo Golden Immortal Realm, he was unable to break free.

However, the seal had begun to waver. It seemed that if he became just a little stronger, he could break free.

Sun Wukong saw a glimmer of hope and began to cultivate with even greater determination.

But whenever loneliness and torment gnawed at him, he couldn’t help but miss Li Bai, nearly reciting that famous age-old line: On the ninth day of the ninth month, I yearn for my brother, Li Bai.

As for Li Bai, that is, Sha Chen’s clone, he naturally did not dare to seek out Sun Wukong immediately.

That fellow had courted death by breaking through to the Daluo Golden Immortal Realm with such a great commotion, nearly getting Li Bai killed in the process.

Now, Li Bai had to lower his profile and wait for everything to calm down before he would seek out Sun Wukong.

Tathagata convened the Buddhist assembly to preach, discussing Sun Wukong and the situation of the other candidates for the scripture-seeking journey. Get full chapters from Nove1Fire.net

The Buddha asked, "How long has that insolent monkey been imprisoned?"

Guanyin replied, "Over one hundred and sixty years."

The Buddha asked, "Has he become obedient?"

Guanyin replied, "He constantly wants to curse and demand a one-on-one fight with the Buddha."