Peeping into the Immortal Road

Chapter 56 The fifth level of Qi refining
After the apprenticeship banquet, Ji Chang returned to his room. He raised his hand and waved it. The table was instantly filled with all kinds of magical instruments, talismans and elixirs.

These are the gifts given by the guests at the teacher-apprenticeship banquet.

Master Mo Dan did not keep these gifts for himself, but left them all to Ji Chang.

Many of the fellow practitioners who came to attend the apprenticeship banquet were cultivators in the late stage of Qi Refining, as well as cultivators from immortal cultivation families.

Therefore, there are naturally many rare items among these gifts.

Ji Chang made a rough count and found that the number of spirit stones alone reached as many as two or three hundred.

However, among all the gifts, the most eye-catching one was the first-grade top-grade magic weapon, the Beast Taming Ring, presented by Chen Yinghu on behalf of the Chen family.

A complete top-grade magic weapon is worth at least hundreds of spirit stones.

What's more, the market price of a rare beast-taming instrument like the Beast-Taming Ring is undoubtedly higher.

The beast-taming magic weapon is mainly used to restrain and enslave monsters.

For ordinary cultivators, it is quite difficult to tame a monster.

Even for a beast tamer, it is not an easy task.

The monsters are unruly and difficult to control, so the monks often need to go through a fierce battle to make them lose the power to resist and then impose the mark of slavery on them.

However, during this process, the monks must remain vigilant at all times to guard against the monsters' cunning feigned death and sudden attacks, as they could die if they are not careful.

Even if the monks can successfully impose the slavery mark, the monster will often lose its true value due to its damaged body after being seriously injured.

As for those weak monsters whose strength is far inferior to that of cultivators, although they are easy to subdue, training them requires a lot of resources and time, and it is difficult to form reliable combat power in a short period of time.

Of course, there are also some monks who are able to inherit tamed spirit beasts from their elders or families.

But not all monks can have such blessings. More monks still need to rely on their own efforts and luck to find suitable spirit beasts.

Beast-taming magic weapons usually have powerful abilities to trap and restrain beasts, and can directly attack the weaknesses and lifelines of monsters.

The monks only need to activate their magic weapons to easily restrain the monsters that are stronger than themselves, and then force them to sign a slavery contract.

Normally, except for those monks who specialize in the art of taming beasts and those who come from wealthy families, few monks would choose to raise spiritual beasts.

Although spiritual beasts play a significant role in enhancing the combat effectiveness of cultivators, for ordinary cultivators, raising spiritual beasts is undoubtedly a considerable expense.

Because of this, beast-taming instruments on the market are relatively rare.

Originally, Ji Chang had planned to find a weapon refiner to help him refine a beast-taming weapon when needed in the future.

However, at this apprenticeship banquet, Chen Yinghu actually presented a top-grade beast-taming weapon.

Ji Chang shook his head gently, and used his magic power to begin refining this magic weapon.

A few days passed quietly, and when Ji Chang opened his eyes again, a white jade ring was floating in front of him, emitting a faint purple light.

A satisfied smile appeared on Ji Chang's face; he had successfully refined the Beast Taming Ring.

"With my cultivation and power at the fourth level of Qi Refining, it is still a bit difficult for me to control this first-grade superior magic weapon."

Although top-grade magic weapons are powerful, they also consume more mana. If Ji Chang wants to use them for a long time, he needs to rely on the help of elixirs.

After putting away the beast-taming ring, Ji Chang took out the alchemy book and began to study it carefully.

……

Two years later, Ji Chang successfully broke through the fifth level of Qi Refining and made a further improvement in his cultivation. This speed of cultivation was much faster than Ji Chang had expected.

Originally, according to his estimation, it would take him three years to successfully break through to the fifth level of Qi Refining.

However, after switching to practicing "Five Poison Fragments", Ji Chang discovered that his practice speed was even faster than before.

"This book "Five Poison Fragments" is definitely not that simple."

You should know that the "Five Poison Fragments" that Ji Chang practiced only contained a part about snake poison.

But even so, it is still much stronger than the immortal cultivation methods such as "Snake Taming Art" and "Eternal Spring Skill".

"Perhaps, the complete version of the Five Poisons Sutra may be a foundation-building technique."

Ji Chang made a bold guess.

If he could get the complete version of "Five Poison Fragments", perhaps in the future he would not need to specifically spy on the cultivators of the Wang family in Jiaozhou to seek the foundation-building method of liquefying mana.

However, Ji Chang was not optimistic about whether the Cangling Chen family possessed the complete version of the "Five Poisons Sutra".

If the Chen family had the "Five Poisons Sutra", they would not be like they are now, just a Qi refining family, serving as dogs for the Wang family of Jiaozhou.

Ji Chang has been in Cangyu Market for several years, and has Master Mo Dan, a cultivator in the late Qi Refining stage, as his master.

His vision has changed a lot since then, far beyond what he could have achieved when he first entered the world of cultivation.

With Ji Chang's current knowledge, he knows that there is actually only one true immortal cultivation family in Jiaozhou, and that is the Wang family of Jiaozhou.

Strictly speaking, the so-called Qi-refining families in the other eight counties cannot be compared with the real immortal cultivation families. They can only be regarded as casual cultivation families.

Since these families did not have any foundation-building cultivators, they were not recognized by the Huangquan Sect. Even if they were exterminated, no one cared.

The reason why these families were able to survive was entirely due to the support of the Jiaozhou Wang family.

Just like the three major powerful families in Heishan County back then, they were affiliated families supported by the Cangling Chen family in the secular world.

Today, these Qi-refining families in the eight counties of Jiaozhou are essentially eight affiliated families supported by the Wang family of Jiaozhou in order to better integrate resources.

This also explains why there are many late-stage Qi Refining cultivators like Master Mo Dan in Cangyu Market. They did not look for spiritual places in Jiaozhou to establish families.

In contrast, Taizhou, north of Jiaozhou, has only one foundation-building family, the Han family, but it owns several markets.

This is exactly the method of ruling chosen by the Han family, which is completely different from the approach of the Wang family of Jiaozhou.

Because of this, like the independent cultivators in the market town, the eight Qi-refining families in Jiaozhou had their skills blocked by the Wang family of Jiaozhou, and did not have the foundation-building method of liquefying mana.

The cultivators in their family, no matter how talented they are, find it difficult to successfully break through to the foundation-building stage.

There is even a possibility that they will be noticed by the monks of the Wang family and forcibly abducted into the family as a tool for reproduction.

Rumor has it that the reason why Cangyu Market was established decades ago was because the Chen family once offered a clan member with superior spiritual roots to the Wang family.

This was used as a bargaining chip in exchange for the opportunity to establish a market town.

The Wang family therefore put pressure on the Qian family, forcing them to hand over the precious spiritual land, and together with the Chen family, they established the Cangyufang City.

This rumor was suppressed by the Chen family in the market town, but it became a hot topic again because of the Qian family's tacit approval.

(End of this chapter)