Cultivation Begins From The Desert

With Lu Xuewei's current cultivation, coupled with the numerous life-saving cards I have bestowed upon her, I am not worried about her encountering danger when venturing into the Desert Sea.

Therefore, after sending Lu Xuewei off, I sent a communication to Zhou Guangxiang, who is far away at Red Tiger Mountain, instructing him to gather clan members without urgent tasks to head to the Red Tiger Mountain Oasis in preparation for the clan meeting to be held three months later.

Whenever the Zhou Clan holds a clan meeting, it signifies important announcements are to be made, so clan cultivators who can attend these meetings strive to participate to grasp the clan's changes firsthand or take the opportunity to show their face before the Supreme Elder, Zhouyang.

One must know, since Zhouyang returned from his travels in the Liuyun Continent Cultivation Realm, he has rarely appeared in front of clan members except for a few significant clan celebrations, causing many to only have seen this illustrious ancestor's likeness in portraits, rarely seeing his true form in person.

Especially in the past twenty years, he spent his time in seclusion, with those Zhou Clan members in their twenties or thirties growing up listening to legends of their Supreme Elder, yet always lacking the opportunity to witness him in the flesh.

When this news of the forthcoming clan meeting reached their ears, excitement was palpable, each dropping everything to rush back to the Red Tiger Mountain Oasis to seize the chance to see their idol in person.

However, Zhouyang was in no hurry to head to the Red Tiger Mountain Oasis.

After issuing the clan meeting notice, he entered the Artifact Refining Chamber, intending to elevate his artifact refining skills to the Tier Four High-grade level.

When he initially created the spiritual artifact and received celestial favor, his artifact refining skill saw tremendous advancement, nearly reaching the level of a Tier Four High-grade Refiner.

If he had dedicated years of effort to study artifact refining then, he would certainly have become a Tier Four High-grade Refiner.

Yet at that time he was eager to advance his cultivation to prepare for the battle of Rhino Horn Continent, thus temporarily putting this task aside.

In the years since, although he didn't dedicate himself to researching artifact refining, he gradually touched upon that boundary through several Tier Four spiritual artifact refinements.

This time, having broken through to Late-Stage Purple Mansion, his cultivation will not improve significantly in the short term, he plans to break through that boundary, enhancing his artifact refining skill.

Zhouyang possessed ample materials for refining Tier Four High-grade spiritual artifacts, mostly obtained from the demon beasts and barbaric beasts he had slain, and a smaller portion from cultivators who had fallen to his hands.

This time he plans to use the turtle shell fragments of the Tier Five Lower Grade Demon Beast "Gen Mountain Turtle" as materials, adding some hard spiritual gold to refine a shield that he can use—a Tier Four High-grade Defense Spiritual Artifact.

That "Gen Mountain Turtle" was killed by him using the "Profound Sun Purple Sky Divine Thunder" jade talisman bestowed by Master Cyan Yang, its shell cracked by powerful thunder, unable to be used as a whole to refine Tier Five spiritual artifacts.

Therefore, Zhouyang later disassembled it into fragments, ready to utilize its inherently strong and thick material to refine a batch of Tier Four defensive spiritual artifacts.

The artifact refining process went relatively smoothly, after failing three times, Zhouyang successfully refined the spiritual artifact shield he desired.

This Tier Four High-grade spiritual artifact shield used the turtle shell of the Tier Five Demon Beast "Gen Mountain Turtle" as its main material, easily blocking flying swords and attacks of other same-tier spiritual artifacts, and it is additionally endowed with the "Shield of Earth" protective divine technique, which upon activation can block a Tier Four High-grade spell attack without breaking.

With this spiritual artifact protection, unless encountering a Tier Five Demon Beast or a Golden Core Stage cultivator, Zhouyang, just relying on this artifact and the "Celestial Silkworm Treasure Robe" he wears, can disregard the attacks of the vast majority of same-tier cultivators.

But after successfully becoming a Tier Four High-grade Refiner, Zhouyang did not emerge immediately; instead, he took out another batch of materials to continue refining.

"I wonder if my idea will succeed?"

In the Artifact Refining Chamber, examining the fiery-red fox fur in his hand, Zhouyang's eyes flashed with a hint of anticipation.

The fox fur he held was left by the Three-tailed Demon Fox he had slain, which he had skinned along with the complete fox tail to refine a magical robe endowed with the clone life-saving divine technique.

Choosing to first attain Tier Four High-grade Refiner before refining this artifact aimed to maximize the success rate, knowing he had only one chance.

Since the Three-tailed Demon Fox was merely a Tier Four Lower Grade Demon Beast when alive, Zhouyang set low requirements for this artifact, merely at the level of Tier Four spiritual artifacts.

With his current Tier Four High-grade Refining Skill, the success rate of refining a Tier Four Lower Grade spiritual artifact exceeds sixty percent, barring particularly bad luck, failure is unlikely.

Because the robe's purpose is solely to bear the clone life-saving technique of the Three-tailed Demon Fox, Zhouyang imposed no defense requirements upon the robe, directing primary focus during refinement on activating that clone life-saving divine technique.

Moreover, due to the clone life-saving divine technique primarily residing within those three fox tails, Zhouyang, concerned about damaging them, dared not utilize the extremely high-temperature "Qianyang True Flame," opting instead for Earth Fire to conduct the refinement.

This undoubtedly increased the difficulty of refining the artifact further.

Fortunately, his luck wasn't too bad, and after a marathon refining process spanning five days and nights, the fox fur magical robe was completed by Zhouyang.

This newly refined Fox Fur Magical Robe is of the Tier Four Lower Grade, just as Zhouyang had anticipated beforehand. It indeed carries the clone life-saving divine technique of the Three-tailed Demon Fox.

However, this divine technique can only be used once. After one use, the three fox tails will be damaged and can no longer employ this divine technique.

This certainly does not satisfy Zhouyang, so he must further process the magical artifact.

Raising his hand, a black jade bottle appeared in Zhouyang's hand. He reached out and removed the cap from the bottle, giving it a shake, and the beast soul of the Three-tailed Demon Fox, captured fifteen years ago, emerged from it.

To attach a soul to an artifact, granting it an artifact soul, Zhouyang was no stranger to such practices.

The Mid-grade Spiritual Artifact "Celestial Thunder Horn," which he had already gifted to Zhou Guangxiang for protection, was an artifact soul treasure refined by him.

According to his estimates, if he could attach the beast soul of the Three-tailed Demon Fox to this newly refined magical robe, the robe's clone life-saving divine technique would no longer be limited to a single use but could be used repeatedly.

Woo woo!

Despite spending fifteen years in the Soul Nourishing Jade-refined bottle, the Three-tailed Demon Fox's beast soul had not completely lost its spirituality. Upon emerging from the bottle and seeing Zhouyang, the enemy who had killed it, it was frightened and attempted to flee.

However, before it could act, Zhouyang used the "Soul Capturing Technique" to confine it.

"To think its spirituality has not dissipated until now, it looks like I'll need to exert some extra effort."

Staring at the beast soul he had confined, which was now gazing at him with a pitiful expression, Zhouyang's eyes flashed coldly, showing no hint of pity as he clasped his hands into a spell, casting another secret technique, "Soul Cleansing Technique," on the beast soul.

This "Soul Cleansing Technique," as the name suggests, can cleanse the target's soul, wiping away all its original memories, turning it into a blank-minded fool.

However, to execute this secret technique, the prerequisite is to possess Purple Mansion Stage cultivation, having manifested the divine soul by opening the Purple Mansion.

Furthermore, for the secret technique to succeed, one's divine soul must be many times stronger than the target soul.

Zhouyang naturally met these two conditions. With a Seventh-Layer Purple Mansion Cultivation, his divine soul was far superior to even a Ninth-Layer Purple Mansion Cultivator like Zhang Yunpeng, let alone the beast soul of a Tier Four Lower Grade Demon Beast.

At this moment, using the "Soul Cleansing Technique," he swiftly erased all memories of the Three-tailed Demon Fox's beast soul, and while the soulless beast soul was still in a daze, he quickly cast spells to meld the beast soul into the fox fur magical robe.

Everything proceeded unexpectedly smoothly. The beast soul of the Three-tailed Demon Fox, perhaps due to its recent memory wash or the familiar aura exuding from the fox fur magical robe, showed little resistance as it integrated into the robe, becoming the artifact soul.

"It's done!"

With a face brimming with joy, Zhouyang reached out to seize the magical robe, his expression beaming as he released his Divine Sense to inspect this artifact soul treasure.

A moment later, he put down the robe, his face a mixture of disappointment and realization, unable to help but mutter to himself, "So that's how it is! So that's how it is!"

"Indeed, I was oversimplifying it. Such a divine technique, even when wielded by the demon fox during its lifetime, came at no small cost. How could it possibly be used repeatedly?"

Even though the fox fur magical robe had gained an artifact soul, it was not as Zhouyang had imagined it could perpetually reuse the clone life-saving divine technique. Instead, its usage limit had increased to three times.

Once the three uses of the clone life-saving divine technique were exhausted, the entire robe, along with the artifact soul within it, would be destroyed and dissipate, with no possibility of repair.

However, Zhouyang now understood that this was not due to a flaw in his Artifact Refining Skill but because the divine technique of the Three-tailed Demon Fox was too otherworldly. Its cultivation could not turn this divine technique into a common tool.

If the Three-tailed Demon Fox were to advance to become a Tier Five Demon Beast, perhaps then this divine technique could be used frequently. In such a case, an artifact refined from its fox fur might accommodate the divine technique's repeated use.

Consequently, while he felt somewhat disappointed, he did not hold much resentment and accepted the situation, stowing away the magical artifact.

At this point, more than two months had passed since he had entered seclusion for artifact refining, with less than a month remaining until the family meeting he had announced.

Therefore, upon emerging from seclusion, he immediately had Zhou Guangxiang, who was stationed at Cyan Wolf Peak, come to guard Lingxi Peak so he could travel alone on the Golden-winged Thunder Eagle to Red Tiger Mountain Oasis to preside over the family meeting.

Meanwhile, since there was sufficient time, he did not take the shortest route to Red Tiger Mountain Oasis but flew along the oasis passage route, inspecting the state of the oasis passage along the way.