Cultivation Begins From The Desert

Zhouyang and Xu Song waited for a month in the underground ruins, and there was still no news of the fall of the wolf-shaped demon soul.

No news means good news.

Therefore, Zhouyang didn't want to wait here any longer and immediately bid farewell to Xu Song, saying, "Since that demon soul is fine, Senior, you continue to study the teleportation array. Junior will take his leave first."

After speaking, he left the underground ruins directly and returned to Rhino Horn Continent.

After returning to Rhino Horn Continent, Zhouyang was in no rush to enter seclusion. Instead, he took the time to inspect various spirit mountains in the oasis to get a good understanding.

During this inspection, he specifically went to see the spirit beasts bred by the Zhou Family on Rhino Horn Continent.

At the Black Mud Pond Ranch, he saw the Iron Armor Rhinoceros, Cyan-spotted Deer, White-tailed Black Sheep, and Fire-Fierce Horse spirit beasts raised by the Zhou Family.

Among these four types of spirit beasts, the Iron Armor Rhinoceros was undoubtedly the most powerful. Once mature, this spirit beast has a significant chance of advancing to Tier Three, which can be used as a war beast.

However, due to the special environment of the Boundless Desert Sea, such war beasts can only be used for defending or attacking the oasis, as their effectiveness greatly diminishes in the sandy sea.

Therefore, the Zhou Family did not breed too many of these spirit beasts, only taming seven in total.

As for the Cyan-spotted Deer and White-tailed Black Sheep, although these are Tier Two spirit beasts, both the deer meat, antler, deer blood, as well as lamb, goat milk, and wool, have significant economic value and are very worthy of being bred on a large scale.

Among them, the antlers of the Cyan-spotted Deer and the tail wool of the White-tailed Black Sheep are one important alchemy material and an excellent choice for talisman brush bristles, respectively. Both could become a major specialty spirit object for the family, similar to the spider silk from the Flame-devouring Spider.

As for the Fire-Fierce Horse, besides having good combat capability, this Tier Two spirit beast also possesses a high load capacity, capable of swiftly moving even when carrying three thousand pounds, and can travel thousands of miles in a day.

Rhino Horn Continent is a vast oasis. From the east to the west, even with light body techniques, a Qi Cultivation Stage cultivator can't traverse the entire journey in less than seven or eight days, considering the time required to rest and replenish magical power and physical energy along the way.

While the Shatuo Beast is adept at moving on sand, its speed, when running on flat ground, is only slightly faster than an ordinary horse, not offering much help for Qi Cultivation Stage cultivators in travel.

The appearance of the Fire-Fierce Horse has solved the problem of long-distance travel for Qi Cultivation Stage cultivators.

This spirit beast can travel thousands of miles in a single day, taking just over a day to run from the east to the west of Rhino Horn Continent, greatly solving the problem of travel for Qi Cultivation Stage cultivators.

Additionally, this spirit beast also has certain combat capabilities, able to launch flame arrows equivalent to a Tier Two Middle-Grade spell, making it usable as a battle pet.

The Zhou Family currently breeds 34 Cyan-spotted Deer, 45 White-tailed Black Sheep, and 27 Fire-Fierce Horses, which are still relatively few in number.

Given the vastness of Rhino Horn Continent, with most other kinds of demon beasts on the oasis eradicated by the Zhou Family, this land could certainly support the grazing of a thousand Tier Two spirit beasts.

The large-scale breeding of spirit beasts holds great promise.

Next, Zhouyang went to see the lake that housed the Wolf-mouth Fish.

There are several large lakes on Rhino Horn Continent, and the lake where the Wolf-mouth Fish resides is the second-largest lake, its water area equivalent to a small oasis. The clear waters of the lake originate from an underground spring at the lake's bottom, which directly connects to an underground dark river.

The Wolf-mouth Fish entered the lake from this underground dark river.

The Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Zhou Family once detected the presence of a Tier Three Water Demon during the exploration of that underground dark river.

Currently, to prevent a Tier Three Water Demon from entering the lake from the underground dark river to feed on the Wolf-mouth Fish, Zhou Guangxiang personally went underwater and set up a Tier Three Middle-grade Water Array at the entrance of the underground spring to block the path of demon beasts entering the lake, as well as the path of the Wolf-mouth Fish returning to the underground dark river.

The Zhou Family's so-called breeding of the Wolf-mouth Fish actually involves arranging for some people to regularly throw demon beast meat and spirit grain into the lake so that the Wolf-mouth Fish can eat their fill and reproduce as quickly as possible.

Once the fish population reaches a certain size, Foundation Establishment cultivators personally use specially crafted fishing net artifacts to catch them.

This rudimentary breeding method, due to the unique geographical environment of the Boundless Sea of Sand Cultivation Realm, unexpectedly works quite well.

During Zhouyang's inspection of the lake, he couldn't help but catch a fish to eat, and the result was highly satisfying. The delicious taste of the fish indeed left him lingering, as he hadn't tasted fish in a long time.

After inspecting Rhino Horn Continent, Zhouyang returned to Lingxi Peak to begin practicing magic and swordsmanship.

After his spirit pills were exhausted, he realized that unless he obtained a large number of spirit pills capable of refining his cultivation, his cultivation level would not progress significantly in the short term.

Furthermore, in a few years, he would have to travel through a large-scale remote teleportation array to explore and travel in the region where the Great Brightness Immortal Palace is located. Thus, before setting off, his focus naturally should be on enhancing his combat capabilities.

Given that he currently lacks for magical artifacts and spirit talismans used in magical combat, if Zhouyang wants to increase his combat power, he can only focus on magical techniques and swordsmanship.

After his cultivation reached the Late-Stage Purple Mansion, he could already practice some immensely powerful Tier Four High-grade Spells.

Even though learning these spells now, without decades of hard practice, they are essentially unusable in the ever-changing scenarios of actual combat.

However, sometimes, like when attacking arrays or some fixed targets, these spells can still serve their intended purpose, so it is very necessary to learn and master them.

Some auxiliary spells, once learned, can be of great use when encountering problems.

Of course, what Zhouyang truly devotes himself to studying thoroughly is the sword technique "Great Derivation Sword Technique."

As Zhouyang's cultivation level rose higher and his knowledge widened, his evaluation of this sword technique has also elevated increasingly.

If he were to evaluate it, this sword technique, if it could be completed with the remaining three layers, would definitely be an heirloom comparable to top-level cultivation techniques.

Unfortunately, these top-tier inheritances have a common requirement of extremely high aptitude and understanding.

Zhouyang's divine sense is innately strong, which made his practice of the "Great Derivation Sword Technique" in the early stages unimpeded, with rapid progress.

However, further along, when learning those advanced sword arrays, the advantage of divine sense was less crucial compared to the comprehension of swordsmanship.

Zhouyang's talent in swordsmanship isn't poor, but it's merely above average. Learning ordinary sword techniques isn't an issue, but when it comes to the advanced sword arrays within the "Great Derivation Sword Technique," it becomes quite laborious, requiring great effort to gain insights.

It was precisely because he felt this limitation, in recent years that he focused primarily on enhancing his cultivation.

For a cultivator, many divine techniques and secret arts difficult to comprehend at a lower cultivation realm become significantly easier to understand at a higher cultivation level.

Now that Zhouyang is cultivating the subsequent advanced sword arrays from the sword technique at the Late-Stage Purple Mansion, it is indeed much smoother than back at the Early-Stage Purple Mansion.

Thus, in the following three years, Zhouyang devoted nearly eighty percent of his time to the practice of the sword technique.

After three years of wholehearted practice, Zhouyang achieved great insight into the third advanced sword array "Eight Desolates and Six Harmonies Demon-Slaying Sword Array," within the "Great Derivation Sword Technique," and was not far from becoming proficient.

This "Eight Desolates and Six Harmonies Demon-Slaying Sword Array," as its name implies, is a sword array specifically created to target large-sized demon beasts. Mastering this sword array means Zhouyang will find it much easier to deal with those massive demon beasts in the future.

However, to set up this "Eight Desolates and Six Harmonies Demon-Slaying Sword Array," requires commanding sixteen flying swords to form the array, which means Zhouyang will need to find materials and refine four more "Great Derivation Divine Light Swords" to truly bring the sword array to effect.

With Zhouyang and the Zhou Family's current status, finding these materials is not difficult; moreover, he knows where to mine the most crucial material "Fire Separation Essence Gold."

However, just as Zhouyang instructed to spread the word that he is willing to trade Tier Four Spirit Talismans and magical artifacts for "Taiyi Essence Gold" and other sword refining materials, and was preparing to personally visit the place where he initially discovered the "Purifying Blue Lotus Flame" once more, a communication flying sword meant for rescue reached his hand.

The communication flying sword was sent by his senior disciple Lu Xuewei, conveying an extremely important matter inside.

After receiving the communication flying sword, Zhouyang did not dare delay for even a moment and urgently rode the Golden-winged Thunder Eagle rushing to where Lu Xuewei was located.

More than an hour later, he found Lu Xuewei in the desert sea, her face pale as a blossom.

"You're injured, let's skip the formalities for now and take this healing spirit pill first."

With a wave of his hand, preventing Lu Xuewei from making salutations, Zhouyang tossed a bottle of healing spirit pills.

The healing spirit pills Zhouyang carries are certainly not ordinary; at the very least, they are Tier Three Top Grade spirit pills.

After Lu Xuewei took the spirit pill and slightly activated her energy to refine it, she felt much better.

At this point, without waiting for Zhouyang to prompt, she explained the reason for seeking help in concise terms.

"Two days ago, while looking for an oasis, I suddenly sensed a massive surge of spiritual power in the far distance. Out of curiosity, I went to check it out, only to see an enormous Earth Dragon Worm undergoing the Celestial Thunder Tribulation!"

"The thunder tribulation was incredibly perilous, and the Earth Dragon Worm ultimately failed to achieve bloodline ascension, failing to advance to a Tier Five Demon Beast and falling under the thunder tribulation, leaving behind some remains not destroyed by the tribulation."

"I originally intended to collect those remains, but unexpectedly, a Tier Four Demon Beast and several Tier Three Demon Beasts attracted by the thunder tribulation's waves surrounded me before I managed to gather the remains."

"Thankfully, with the numerous life-saving talismans you bestowed upon me, Master, I managed to withstand the first fierce wave of attacks and escaped the scene using the Blood Escape Technique!"