Long Chen returned to Xuantian City and saw some Dragonmark warriors patrolling. He couldn’t help being speechless.

“Who told you to patrol?” he asked.

“It was big brother Gu Yang,” one of them replied.

“Go back. This broken city is already this worn down. Even if a thief came, they would just leave with tears. There’s nothing to steal. Other than the cultivation region, the other places don’t need to be so heavily guarded.”

Long Chen sent the Dragonmark warriors on their way. Gu Yang’s thinking was definitely too rigid. All the wealth within Xuantian City had been sucked dry by Guo Zhengyang. Even if you invited people to come and steal from here, no one would do it.

Walking into the city lord’s mansion, he arrived at a small underground formation. At the center of it was a platform.

Long Chen placed all the spatial rings he had gotten from Guo Zhengyang other than the one with yuan spirit stones in it.

Activating the formation, a ray of light shone on the platform, and the spatial rings instantly vanished.

Within multiple recesses of the formation, hundreds of yuan spirit stones shattered.

“This transportation really is expensive.” Long Chen couldn’t help but sigh emotionally. This was a special transportation formation and could only transport small things. Usually, it was used to transmit news, as it was unable to move people.

But for just a few spatial rings to cost several hundred yuan spirit stones, it was truly expensive.

Other than a few dozen disciples guarding the outside, Long Chen and the rest of the Dragonblood Legion were in seclusion. The others were cultivating under the blessing of the Immemorial Altar Lamp.

Long Chen began to crazily absorb yuan spirit stones. There was nothing else to do these days, as Guo Ran needed some time to fix the flying boats.

Without a flying boat, there was no way to go hunting far away. Flying in the air personally without anywhere to land was too dangerous.

As for the shore or the sea that was close to the land, there weren’t many sea demons. Su Mo and the others were hunting in that region, but most likely they hadn’t even killed as many sea demons as they had people. There was basically no profit to be had.

Long Chen crazily absorbed yuan spirit stones, but now he came up with something different from others. He was no longer absorbing them handful by handful.

Instead, he gave all these yuan spirit stones to Lei Long and Huo Long. They devoured them and then transmitted their energy to him.

This was definitely a terrifying way to absorb yuan spiritual energy. Anyone else would instantly explode when so much yuan spiritual energy was poured into them.

Even Gu Yang, someone who walked the path of a body cultivator, would at most be able to absorb energy from ten yuan spirit stones at a time. Any more and his body wouldn’t be able to handle it.

He gave all the five hundred million yuan spirit stones to Lei Long and Huo Long. He then directly absorbed their energy from them. This would save him the trouble of refining them one by one.

Furthermore, he could also control the speed at which he absorbed the energy. Right now, Lei Long and Huo Long were incredibly powerful existences. That was especially true of Lei Long. It had fully absorbed all the energy from when Long Chen had gone through tribulation, and its combat power was even greater than Huo Long’s now.

It was only because they were strong enough that Long Chen dared to do this. The two of them ended up being like a huge reservoir of energy for Long Chen.

As he extracted a torrent of yuan spiritual energy, he sensed the flower design on his immortal platforms rapidly revolving. A new rune quickly condensed.

That rune then greedily absorbed yuan spiritual energy until it was fully satisfied and then a new rune was formed.

With his experience reaching the first Heavenstage of Foundation Forging, Long Chen decided not to even bother looking at how much this was costing him. He was basically cultivating with his eyes closed.

Ten days later, an explosive sound rang out from his body as he entered the third Heavenstage.

This time, he had been prepared, and he didn’t cause a disturbance like when he had reached the first Heavenstage. Sensing the immortal platforms in his body, he sank into thought.

Other people would condense nine runes into a foundation for their immortal platform. For the second Heavenstage, they would condense eight runes into the second level of their immortal platform.

Following that pattern, their immortal platforms would end up being a conical shape in the end.

But his immortal platforms were different. The foundation was condensed through thirteen runes, and the second level was also condensed with thirteen runes. The size was also the same.

The third level had also taken thirteen runes. If this continued, his immortal platform would end up cylindrical, different from everyone else’s.

“Whatever, you can be whatever shape you want. Time to continue cultivating. Hmm, what the fuck?!”

Long Chen was just about to continue when he let out a startled cry. He saw that Lei Long and Huo Long no longer had any yuan spirit stones in their bodies.

“They’re gone?! Five hundred million yuan spirit stones disappeared just like this?!” Long Chen couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked again and again before accepting that this was reality.

Five hundred million yuan spirit stones had only let him advance two Heavenstages. Long Chen was in despair. How was he supposed to cultivate in the future?

If he used the remaining yuan spirit stones he had, perhaps he would be able to reach the fourth Heavenstage. That would leave him at the mid Foundation Forging realm.

But then what about the Dragonblood Legion? Long Chen was speechless. It seemed his cultivation would have to slow down for now.

He stood up and stretched. He did a few exercises, and he felt his body overflowing with energy. It felt like his energy was about to explode out of his control.

Sensing the energy coming from the 108,000 immortal platforms, he almost had an urge to pierce through heaven and earth. Clenching his fist, space rumbled.

“Fine, I admit I don’t begrudge it again.”

Sensing the immense power from his body, he felt much more at ease with having spent five hundred million yuan spirit stones.

Now, Long Chen’s thirst for money was growing greater and greater. It was no wonder the Huayun Sect believed in their Wealth God. Now even he was believing in it.

Money couldn’t buy happiness, but now Long Chen was experiencing how painful it was to not have money.

Without yuan spirit stones, there was no way for him to cultivate. With this new method involving Huo Long and Lei Long, he was confident that if he had enough yuan spirit stones, in less than three months, he would be able to reach the peak of Foundation Forging. Unfortunately, there weren’t that many ifs in this world.

After sighing emotionally, he left his room. Going out into the city, he saw that Su Mo and the others were still nowhere to be found. After asking around, he learned that Guo Ran had already fixed the flying boats while he had been in seclusion. Therefore, Su Mo, Mu Qingxuan, Hua Shiyu, and Wang Zhen had taken the flying boats and gone hunting.

As for Gao Xianyang, he didn’t send any word, and Long Chen couldn’t be bothered with him. As long as he didn’t cause trouble, Long Chen wouldn’t give a damn.

Once Long Chen was out, he saw that the Dragonblood Legion’s warriors had already reached the fourth Heavenstage, and quite a few had reached the fifth Heavenstage.

Suddenly, the sky darkened and a huge figure appeared in front of Long Chen. It was so fast that Long Chen hadn’t sensed it at all before it arrived.

It was the Cloud Chasing Heaven Swallowing Sparrow. It was now over six hundred meters long, and its feathers had grown out, making it appear like a majestic steed.

Right now, its aura was equivalent to a sixth rank Magical Beast, but its power was even greater than a seventh rank Magical Beast.

“Brother Long!” Wilde jumped off from Cloud’s back. During this time, Cloud had ended up close to Wilde.

The two of them were both gluttonous. Previously, before the flying boats were fixed, the others hadn’t dared to go too far, afraid of being surrounded by sea demons. But these two were different. Cloud was incredibly fast. Its very name was a sign of its speed and devouring power.

Even though it was only at the sixth rank, even ninth rank Magical Beasts wouldn’t be able to catch up to it.

Cloud needed a large amount of flesh and blood, while Wilde also needed to constantly eat. Because of this, Meng Qi had finally agreed to let them go out.

However, she had only permitted Cloud to eat seventh rank sea demons and below. They were still in the midst of patching its innate deficiency, so it couldn’t grow too quickly.

So when they went out, the eighth rank sea demons went to Wilde, while the smaller ones ended up as Cloud’s snacks.

The amount they ate was absolutely astonishing. No matter how much they ate, they never got full. Meng Qi had even bought a King item bowl for Wilde before leaving.

It was a spatial tool that could suck in dead sea demons and compress them. Thousands of sea demons could be compressed into the size of a thumb through this bowl, and Wilde could gobble them up after that.

Although Wilde’s cultivation base was unclear, strange lines had now started to appear on his body. It was as if he was undergoing some kind of transformation, and his aura was also growing more terrifying.

As for Cloud, it had it much easier. It simply opened its mouth, and sea demons would fly in without being able to resist. Thousands or tens of thousands would be swallowed all at once. That was its innate swallowing ability. Those sea demons that were swallowed into its stomach would instantly be killed.

Long Chen checked Wilde’s body and saw that his cells had long since been fully activated, and now each one of them was in the midst of transformation.

According to Wilde, he was unbearably hungry every day. Long Chen knew this was a message Wilde’s body was sending him. It meant he was probably about to advance.

But Wilde’s body was different from others. The way he advanced was also different. Right now, what Long Chen needed to do for Wilde was make him full.

“Brother Long, there aren’t enough ninth rank sea demons around. I can’t get full.” Wilde rubbed his head sadly. Eighth rank sea demons didn’t fill him up at all, and he was in a constant painful state of hunger.

“Alright. Gather up everyone. We’ll also go out hunting.” Long Chen patted Wilde comfortingly.