Withered Blood Secret Realm

The Law Enforcement Hall spent three days thoroughly investigating the Corpse Dismemberment Cave. Finding nothing, they finally withdrew.

As for whether anyone was still monitoring him from the shadows, Song Wen had no way of knowing.

Over the next few days, he casually strolled through the market every day and noticed no signs of law enforcement disciples conducting further inquiries.

Even so, he refrained from selling Essence Blood in large quantities, choosing instead to dispose of it sporadically, just a bottle or two at a time.

A month passed. Once he was certain the heat had completely died down, Song Wen resumed his previous operations.

However, he grew even more cautious. Each time he sold Essence Blood, he split the batch across several different shops, altering his spiritual aura and disguising his appearance for every single transaction.

Time flew by, marking Song Wen's sixth year since joining the Corpse Demon Sect.

Throughout these years, he rarely stepped beyond the sect's immediate boundaries.

For the mandatory annual sect missions, he exclusively selected tasks that could be easily resolved by spending Spirit Stones.

Just last year, an opportunity had arisen to transfer to a different duty station, but he actively chose to remain in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave.

On this particular morning, Song Wen emerged from his cave dwelling early. Instead of heading toward the Corpse Dismemberment Cave, he made his way up to the summit of Corpse Demon Mountain, arriving at the grand plaza outside the sect's main hall.

This was the first time Song Wen had ever set foot near the main hall.

As the public face of the Corpse Demon Sect, the structure was naturally grand and imposing. As an outer sect disciple, Song Wen normally lacked the status required to ascend to the summit plaza.

Today, he had come because the Withered Blood Secret Realm, located in the southwestern region of the Tuocang Mountain Range, was on the verge of opening.

The Withered Blood Secret Realm was jointly controlled by the Corpse Demon Sect, the Profound Yin Cult, and the Crimson Blood Sect, opening only once every thirty years.

Entry was strictly limited to Qi Condensation cultivators. Most of the spiritual herbs growing within were Tier 1 materials suited for the Qi Condensation stage, though a small number of extremely rare Tier 2 spiritual herbs could also be found.

For instance, two of the three primary ingredients required to refine a Foundation Establishment Pill-the Heavenly Spirit Fruit and the Jade Marrow Mushroom-grew within the secret realm.

It was precisely because of these two herbs that the three great sects attached immense importance to every opening of the Withered Blood Secret Realm. After all, Foundation Establishment cultivators were the core bedrock of any sect.

While the spatial restrictions of the secret realm did not inherently limit the number of entrants, the three sects had established a strict quota to prevent overexploitation and ensure the long-term sustainability of the resources. They agreed that each sect could dispatch a maximum of one hundred disciples per opening.

Song Wen's sole objective in entering the Withered Blood Secret Realm was to secure a Heavenly Spirit Fruit.

To withstand the looming threat of Shi Shou, Song Wen had spent the past few years relentlessly stealing Essence Blood from the Corpse Dismemberment Cave, converting it into vast amounts of resources to force his cultivation forward.

Half a year ago, while cultivating the Divine Restriction Technique, he had devoured countless wandering residual souls within the Corpse Dismemberment Cave and supplemented them with cultivator souls purchased from the market.

To his immense surprise, his mental power had shattered the shackles of the Qi Condensation stage that had bottlenecked him for a year, directly transforming into Divine Sense-a trait exclusive to Foundation Establishment masters.

Furthermore, backed by an abundant supply of Spirit Stones, pills, Corpse Fiend Qi, and his own surging vitality, his cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds.

Eight months prior, after consuming the Snake Scale Fruit he had retrieved from the underground cavern beneath the ancient battlefield, he successfully broke through to the ninth layer of Qi Condensation. Following eight months of continuous tempering, his cultivation had reached the peak of the ninth layer-the state of Qi Condensation Grand Perfection. He was now a single step away from Foundation Establishment.

Yet, this single step was an unbridgeable chasm, one that was notoriously difficult to cross.

To preserve his life against Shi Shou, Song Wen had to achieve Foundation Establishment as quickly as possible.

Though he possessed the Divine Sense of a Foundation Establishment master, his actual cultivation level lagged behind, leaving him at a halfway point. In a direct confrontation, he would be no match for Shi Shou.

The most straightforward path to a breakthrough was, naturally, to consume a Foundation Establishment Pill.

Generally speaking, a Qi Condensation Grand Perfection cultivator like Song Wen-who was only twenty years old and at the absolute peak of his physical vitality and spiritual essence-would have a very high success rate if he used a Foundation Establishment Pill, easily exceeding fifty percent.

As a cultivator aged, their physical and spiritual essence inevitably began to deteriorate. This decline became particularly pronounced after the age of forty, causing the success rate of Foundation Establishment to plummet.

It was a universally accepted truth in the cultivation world that breaking through after the age of sixty was virtually impossible.

This was precisely why the major sects actively scoured the lands for young talents; the earlier a disciple reached Qi Condensation Grand Perfection, the greater their prospects of reaching Foundation Establishment.

Song Wen had begun looking into the availability of Foundation Establishment Pills a year ago.

Given his status as an outer sect disciple displaying a mere fifth-layer Qi Condensation cultivation, it was utterly impossible for him to obtain one through official sect channels.

According to his inquiries, the only nearby venue that regularly offered Foundation Establishment Pills for sale was the Zhaoshan Market, located several thousand li away.

A massive trading group known as the Kundi Merchant Alliance operated there, occasionally putting Foundation Establishment Pills up for bidding during their major auctions.

However, they only offered two or three pills per auction. With so many desperate bidders and so few pills available, every auction ignited fierce bidding wars among smaller cultivation clans and minor sects.

The final transaction price for a single Foundation Establishment Pill consistently exceeded thirty thousand Spirit Stones.

Even if Song Wen managed to scrape together such a colossal fortune, surviving the aftermath of the auction would be nearly impossible. Alone and without backing, he would be hunted down instantly by the powerful factions and entrenched clans waiting outside.

Left with no other choice, Song Wen decided to seek an alternate path to Foundation Establishment.

Unlike ordinary cultivators, his mental power had already evolved into Divine Sense, meaning a Foundation Establishment Pill was not an absolute necessity for his breakthrough.

The process of Foundation Establishment consisted of two primary stages.

First, compressing the spiritual energy vortex within the Dantian's sea of qi into liquid true essence.

Second, forging one's mental power into Divine Sense.

Since Song Wen had already completed the second step ahead of time, he only needed to fulfill the first.

He reasoned that even without a pill, he could eventually achieve a breakthrough through patient, step-by-step cultivation. However, that path could take years, a decade, or even longer.

Song Wen did not have the luxury of time to slowly temper his cultivation; he needed an external catalyst.

Through an alchemist in the underground black market, he learned that the Heavenly Spirit Fruit-one of the core ingredients of the Foundation Establishment Pill-possessed the exact medicinal property required to facilitate the liquefaction of spiritual qi.

Consequently, his focus shifted entirely from the finished pill to the raw Heavenly Spirit Fruit.

As a vital component for breaking through, the Heavenly Spirit Fruit was exceptionally scarce in the cultivation world. The major sects strictly controlled its growth to supply their own alchemists, ensuring it almost never appeared on the open market.

This scarcity was what drove Song Wen to target the Withered Blood Secret Realm.

To maximize their gains, disciples from the three great sects engaged in brutal, uninhibited slaughter within the secret realm during every opening. The casualty rates were horrifying, sometimes leaving fewer than one in ten alive.

Such a grim survival rate caused ordinary disciples to avoid the place like snakes and scorpions.

As a result, those who chose to enter were either exceptionally confident in their own combat prowess or driven to desperation by circumstances.

The Corpse Demon Sect had previously attempted to force its strongest disciples to participate, but those drafted against their will simply hid in secure corners of the realm until the gates reopened.

Though they survived, they brought back almost nothing. To the sect, the minor low-grade herbs they managed to stumble upon were as useless as rotting wood and withered weeds.

Following that failure, the Corpse Demon Sect relaxed the cultivation requirements, permitting any disciple who had reached at least the mid-stage of Qi Condensation to apply.

Since they could rarely fill the hundred-man quota with powerful late-stage disciples anyway, they figured it was better to bolster their numbers. Perhaps a few lucky individuals might stumble upon rare spiritual medicines by sheer fortune.

To incentivize its disciples to brave the dangers, the Corpse Demon Sect allowed them to keep twenty percent of their total harvest as a personal reward.

Song Wen, however, was not interested in a mere twenty percent payout. He intended to embezzle the Heavenly Spirit Fruits entirely-and the more he could secure, the better. In case the fruit's solo effects fell short of his expectations, every additional fruit would represent another chance at survival.

He knew that even if a disciple openly turned in a Heavenly Spirit Fruit, the sect would never allow them to keep it as part of their twenty percent reward; they would instead compensate the disciple with an equivalent value in Spirit Stones.

To bypass the sect's rigorous post-expedition searches and smuggle the fruits out, Song Wen had already devised a meticulous plan.

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