A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Immortal Realm

Han Li passed by the nearby bookshelves, and only upon reaching the crystal pagoda did he discover that there weren't any runes engraved upon it, nor was it any type of immortal treasure. Instead, it was just a special storage structure.

Each level of the pagoda was split up into eight grids, placed in each of which were many jade slips and scriptures.

The bottom level was the one with the largest area, and it was also the one that had the most scriptures, most of which were in the form of books and scrolls. The scriptures were densely packed together, and each grid contained around a hundred of them.

Each successive ascending level was smaller than the previous one, so there were fewer scriptures inside, and the top level only contained eight scriptures, all of which were jade slips.

Having been given permission by Daoist Xie to access the scriptures as he pleased, Han Li didn't hesitate to pick out one of the jade slips before pressing it against his own glabella to inspect its contents.

Moments later, he set the jade slip down with an intrigued expression.

The jade slip contained a puppet refinement cultivation art called the Hundred Refinement Puppet arts.

The cultivation art was very complex, and just in terms of material selection alone, there were three sub-categories, laying out the environmental, timing, and human factors that had to be taken into consideration. Furthermore, there were very detailed descriptions of how the use of different materials would affect the puppet that was refined, as well as how different environment and timing factors impacted the puppet refinement outcome.

However, Han Li was currently more interested in looking at some scriptures related to bodily refinement, hoping to find something that could suppress or resolve the issue of his true spirit bloodline backlash.

......

Seven days flew by in the blink of an eye.

Han Li was seated with his legs crossed in a corner of the hall, carefully reading through a scroll that was titled "Origin Star Blood Refinement Arts".

Compared with other bodily refinement cultivation arts, which generally instructed one in how to refine their physical bodies, this one was very bold and innovative, proposing the possibility of using starpower to directly refine one's blood.

Using this cultivation art, one would be able to accumulate large amounts of starpower in their blood, so if they were to sustain any blood injuries during battle, they would be able to use the blood that flowed out of their wounds against their enemies, often catching the enemy off guard.

On top of that, the more starpower one accumulated in their blood through the use of this cultivation art, the more drastically their powers would be enhanced by the use of certain blood-incinerating secret techniques.

However, the cultivation process was extremely difficult and perilous, requiring one to directly guide starpower into their own bloodstream, which was an excruciating and high-risk procedure.

If one were to lose control of the starpower in their blood as it passed through certain vital regions like their heart or dantian, then that could spell instant death.

Han Li was very intrigued by this cultivation art, but he had no intention of pursuing it as it was explicitly stated that this cultivation art wasn't suitable for those with special bloodlines.

This was because cultivators with special bloodlines would find it more difficult than the average cultivator to integrate starpower into their blood. Given how complex Han Li's bloodline already was, pursuing this cultivation art would be no different from committing suicide.

However, there were certain parts of this cultivation art that were useful to Han Li for reference purposes. In particular, the methods laid out to quell potential unrest in the starpower in one's blood were very insightful for Han Li.

Hence, his intention was to extract the useful parts of the cultivation art and incorporate them into his own cultivation.

Some time later, he closed the scroll, then massaged his own temples as he rose to his feet and placed it back onto the crystal pagoda.

Over the past few days, he had read through all of the scriptures on the pagoda, but he hadn't found much useful information.

Even the Origin Star Blood Refinement Technique couldn't completely resolve the problems that he was currently facing.

However, there were some bandaid solutions laid out in the cultivation art that he was eager to try out.

With that in mind, he left this side palace and made his way toward the other one.

As he passed by the star array at the center of the palace, he noticed that Daoist Xie had already been completely enveloped within a layer of dense crimson light, making it impossible to see him from the outside.

As soon as Han Li entered the other side palace, he felt as if his entire body had been enveloped in a burst of gentle, warm pressure that provided an extremely comfortable sensation.

He inspected his surroundings momentarily to discover that the entire area was riddled with all types of runes, and flashing star designs had been engraved onto the ceiling and the ground beneath his feet.

Bursts of rippling white light were sweeping over these flashing stars, presenting a stunning sight to behold.

The starpower here is extremely abundant. As expected of Brother Xie's former place of cultivation...

Han Li strode over to a lotus flower cushion at the center of the palace before sitting down onto it with his legs crossed.

A burst of white light instantly appeared beneath his backside, and it was as if he had just sat down onto a soft and warm padded chair.

After taking a seat, he took a moment to collect himself, then began running through the Origin Star Blood Refinement Arts in his mind, but didn't begin cultivating it right away.

He ignored the part of the cultivation art that detailed how to incorporate starpower into one's blood, choosing to only examine the parts that laid out how to quell and suppress the starpower in one's blood.

According to the cultivation art, starpower was very similar in nature to true spirit bloodlines in that if it were to spiral out of control, then it would simultaneously incinerate one's blood essence while also bursting through one's blood vessels, resulting in self-detonation.

Given Han Li's tremendous physical constitution, he was fairly confident that he would be able to avoid the fate of self-detonation, but he would still inevitably perish if all of the blood essence in his body were incinerated into nothingness.

Only after some extensive contemplation did Han Li commence his cultivation.

......

Over eight years flew by in a flash.

Inside the side palace, Han Li was seated with his legs crossed atop the lotus flower cushion. At this moment, his skin was as red as blood, and plumes of pink mist were rising up from his body, transforming the surrounding area into a pink sauna.

His eyes had also turned bright red, but he was looking very calm and collected as he made a strange hand seal while chanting an incantation, following which he gently laid down to his right with one hand supporting his own head, looking as if he were about to take a nap.

As soon as he adopted this pose, the starpower in his body instantly surged through his entire body from head to toe, then back to his head, going back and forth in a stable fashion to slowly suppress his violent true spirit bloodlines.

The bright red coloration of his skin also slowly faded away, returning to his normal complexion.

I've finally done it! Looks like all this time and effort hasn't gone to waste!

Han Li rolled over and sat back up as a pleased smile appeared on his face.

Over the past eight years, Han Li had spent some time browsing through the scriptures in the other side palace, but the majority of his time had been spent cultivating the Origin Star Blood Refinement Arts in seclusion.

After countless attempts, he had finally begun to master the way to quell his own true spirit bloodlines.

Han Li rose to his feet and stretched lazily as he looked up at the flashing stars engraved onto the ceiling above. The stars formed a series of constellations that hung up in the sky like jade belts, presenting a beautiful and ethereal sight to behold.

He was in quite a good mood, and he murmured to himself, "Looks like it's another bright and starry night."

He had discovered very early on that even though this crystal palace was situated beneath the lake of blood, it was connected with the sky outside, and whenever night fell, the stars on the ceiling would light up just like the stars in the sky.

The clearer and brighter the night sky was, the brighter the stars in the palace would glow, and the more abundant the starpower that they would release.

After observing the stars on the ceiling for some time, a thought suddenly occurred to Han Li, and he rummaged around in the front of his own robe momentarily before pulling out the Heaven Controlling Vial and setting it down onto the ground.

The light cascading down from the ceiling shone down onto the vial, basking it in a gentle glow, clearly illuminating all of the patterns on its surface.

However, even after waiting for a long while, the vial didn't display any change at all.

Han Li's brows furrowed slightly as he murmured to himself, "Looks like the starlight produced by these stars still can't match..."

All of a sudden, his voice abruptly trailed off as a layer of hazy white light appeared around the vial, and the entire vial took on a translucent appearance as a series of specks of white light took shape around it, forming a giant white halo that was giving off a soft glow.

However, the rate of accumulation of specks of white light was quite slow, far slower than what could be achieved through the absorption of organic starlight.

Han Li observed the Heaven Controlling Vial for a moment long before stowing it away again. He had only brought it out as an act of curiosity, and he wasn't actually planning to manifest any spirit liquid with it. After all, he had no use for the vial's spirit liquid in the Scalptia Spatial Domain.

After stowing the vial away, he stood up and made his way to the other side palace.

......

One day, roughly a month later.

Han Li was seated with his legs crossed, and he pulled four items out of his sleeve before setting them down in front of himself one by one.

The four items were four ancient statues that seemed to depict some type of devilish being with three heads and six arms, but each of them were displaying different expressions and poses.