If he wanted to rescue Shan Wugu, then increasing his strength was the only way. If so, then there were two choices placed in front of Qin Yu.

One, he would desperately try to increase his cultivation. If he could make a breakthrough in his Five Element Golden Cores and reach the Nascent Soul realm, then even if he were to come face to face against the Demon Monarch he could still put up a fight.

Two, he could refine the Five Element Magic Swords. The Five Element Sword Diagram formed the Five Element Swords and possessed an incredible power, but only by matching them with the true Five Element Swords could one utilize their power to the max.

The former was extremely difficult but was fundamental. The latter was relatively simpler but was more auxiliary.

There was nothing else to say. Then, it was best to try and accomplish both together.

He turned back and looked towards the bustling Homehold City. It was clear that what happened to the demonic path branch division had already been discovered by others.

Qin Yu tidied his thoughts. He stepped forwards and his figure howled into the wind.

Two days later, Severed Spirit Mountain.

As Qin Yu travelled here, he found that the spiritual strength of the woods and mountains had become much richer; this was likely related to the ancient cultivator’s cave dwelling. But, the fact that the Radiant Red Wood was planted in the valley should also be one of the reasons. After all, Radiant Red Wood inherently possessed the ability to gather the strength of the world and form its own domain.

Perhaps because of this reason, it wouldn’t be long before this Severed Spirit Mountain would attract a massive number of cultivators due to the abundant amounts of heaven and earth spiritual strength. This would be a considerable annoyance. Perhaps he should think of a solution to avoid being disturbed ahead of time.

Qin Yu thought for a moment. He looked up towards a distant mountain top. Then, he made a sword with his fingers and swiped forwards, causing a flash of white sword light.

Rumble rumble –

The entire mountain top was sheared off, becoming as smooth as a mirror. With a flick of his sleeves, an invisible strength grabbed onto the mountain top, slowly crushing and molding it until it turned into a massive monument with an inscription that crashed down.

“The surrounding 300 miles are forbidden from entering. Anyone that enters shall die!”

There were faint traces of sword intent percolating between every word. Although it wasn’t much, it was enough to horrify the heart. Qin Yu’s lips curved up in a smile. This should be about enough.

Severed Spirit Mountain was extremely large. To try and claim the entire region might be a bit too overbearing, but a 300 mile range was just right.

After a moment, the mountain valley came into sight. After looking over it for a moment, Qin Yu frowned. The array formation was still intact, but there were places where it had been broken.

His first thought was that someone had discovered the Radiant Red Wood!

He leapt up. He passed through the fog and landed on the ground, then turned to see the well-growing Radiant Red Wood.

Qin Yu relaxed a bit, but in the next moment he couldn’t help but frown a little.

Buzz –

Buzz –

With the buzzing of wings, a group of Yinyang Twin Ants flew out from the Radiant Red Wood. There was a considerable number of them – it was clear they had increased their numbers with several new generations while he was gone. This wasn’t surprising to begin with, but these Yinyang Twin Ants actually held a faint trace of hostility towards him.

This was a bit wrong.

Qin Yu’s sharp eyes locked onto a slightly larger Yinyang Twin Ant in the group. Its aura seemed slightly off.

He thought for a moment and came to a stunning discovery. This aura didn’t seem like that of a normal Yinyang Twin Ant; it was similar to the ant king’s situation.

In other words, someone had subdued the ant to control the ant swarm, and then had left them here.

It seemed that someone had indeed visited here already and had also discovered the existence of the Radiant Red Wood. Yet for some unknown reason, that person didn’t touch it but had instead brought the ant swarm under his command to help him guard it.

Qin Yu almost laughed out loud from anger.

Not too long ago someone has said that he wasn’t to their tastes. That was fine and dandy, but now someone actually reached out their hand into his chest; how ridiculous of them.

It had always been this young master who had seized the treasures of others. This was his first time experiencing the same.

A majority of the Yinyang Twin Ants could still feel the aura of the ant king from Qin Yu’s body, so even though they were hostile towards him they hesitated. But, this clearly enraged the newly crowned ant king. It had already become the ruler of this swarm of Yingyang Twin Ants, so how could it allow the aura of another ant king to affect its authority?

With a loud scream, the ant swarm began to move restlessly, as if it could rush over at any moment. This caused Qin Yu’s expression to darken. He took out the Imperial Spirit Bag and with a thought the ant king and a massive number of Yinyang Twin Ants howled out. There was no longer any need to do anything else; they would clean up the scene themselves. As he saw the ant king menacingly rush forwards, Qin Yu knew that this matter would soon come to an end.

Sure enough, these other controlled Yinyang Twin Ants weren’t a match for the ant king at all. They were easily dismembered on the scene. But at this time, a black light erupted from an ant corpse, turning into a clattering skull that flew towards the ant king and drilled into its body.

Then, Qin Yu realized what this black skull was. The ant king’s thoughts started to turn chaotic, as if it wanted to escape Qin Yu’s control.

What a good cultivator; they actually left behind this sort of contingency plan. If Qin Yu weren’t here, even if the ant king killed all these traitors, he feared it would still be enslaved afterwards.

Qin Yu coldly snorted. He lifted a hand and the ant king fell onto his palm. A formidable divine sense rushed out like a tide, breaking into its body. In the next moment his divine sense entered into a blood red world. A black skull cackled, “Since you’ve come to my purgatory, there is nothing for you here but death!”

Qin Yu’s figure appeared. He glanced at the black skull once and slapped a palm forwards. The blood red world rumbled and exploded with a terrifying explosion. Across from him, the black skull wailed in misery. It never imagined that Qin Yu’s soul would be powerful to such a degree.

It turned to flee. But it froze in the next moment, tragically screeching as it shattered into countless pieces, collapsing with the blood red world.

Qin Yu opened his eyes. The ant king in his palm had a dispirited expression and looked towards him with pitiful eyes. He said, “Alright. I know you’ve been wronged. I will find this person later on and give you a confession.”

The cultivator who tried to control the ant king must be quite formidable – at least at the Nascent Soul level. But, he had wanted to kill Bloodthirsty Demon, so he had killed her; he didn’t fear this stranger at all. It would be best if this person came to pay a personal visit. To even think of touching his Yinyang Twin Ants – this person must be sick of living!

At the same time, in a remote cave dwelling, an old man in brown clothes fiercely opened his eyes and spat out a mouthful of blood, his entire face filling with rage.

“Damn it! You dare destroy my divine sense? After I leave seclusion, I will definitely tear you to shreds!”

Qin Yu returned to the valley and started to go into seclusion again. At the same time, he used the little blue lamp to hasten the growth of the Radiant Red Wood. Once the Radiant Red Wood started to grow Radiant Red Fruits, increasing his cultivation would be simple. Meanwhile, he began to refine the Five Element Swords.

Now, it was perhaps necessary to add an extra note. The cultivator that tried to control the ant king hadn’t touched the Radiant Red Wood, and while one of the reasons was because he didn’t want to affect its growth, the main reason was actually the one-eyed wild wolf. The wolf was originally the size of a small cow, but now it had grown to over 30 feet long. Its blue hair fell around it in glorious waves and its imposing majesty was astonishing. Moreover, its strength had risen to an astonishing peak Golden Core level.

In addition, Qin Yu could feel a terrifying aura slumbering deep within its body. If it really rose up in a life or death struggle, it could surely erupt with an even greater strength.

As for the other spiritual pet…if such a lascivious, greedy, gluttonous, sycophantic chicken could even be called a spiritual pet, well, it had been completely useless. According to the wild wolf, the chicken overlord had fled faster than the wind that day, completely disappearing without a trace. Still, Qin Yu had no choice but to praise its skillful escape methods.

Of course, the chicken overlord wouldn’t be ashamed by this. To use its own words, the enemy was far too formidable. If it stayed behind it would only have dragged everyone down. And if it were captured as a hostage instead, that would be even worse. If the wild wolf couldn’t win, then the chicken overlord was willing to endure the burden of this humiliation and wait for their master’s return, and then assist their master in fighting off the enemy.

It looked at Qin Yu with a haughty expression, as if saying, ‘you are all so stupid, how could you possibly hope to comprehend the exquisite and complex plans of this great overlord?’ After that, it was mercilessly kicked far away by Qin Yu and told to screw off, lest he pluck it in his anger and cook it in a pot.

But returning to the main subject.

The Radiant Red Wood was still in a growing period. According to its current speed, perhaps it would need another three months before it could produce Radiant Red Fruits.

During this time, Qin Yu started to refine the Five Element Magic Swords.

The magic sword refined from Skythunder Bamboo possessed the wood attribute. Then, there were still the elements of metal, water, fire, and earth that he needed to refine magic swords for.

For fire, he could use the Radiant Red Wood. He had taken a branch of it before, and as it absorbed the light of the little blue lamp, the quality of it had far surpassed that of the main body.

There also weren’t any problems for materials for the water-attribute magic sword. When he was at the sea race capital city, Soupman had gifted him the inner core of a deep sea snake monster. This was an excellent water-attribute treasure and was enough for him to refine an exceptional water-attribute magic sword.

Then, of the Five Element Magic Swords, he only lacked two – metal and earth.

Qin Yu searched his storage ring and discovered an accidental harvest. He found the ashy gray iron slab; it was something he obtained from the ancient Nascent Soul cultivator’s cave dwelling. With his current cultivation, when he took another look at this iron slab he discovered something unusual about it. If he wasn’t mistaken, it should be some sort of meteor metal; it would be ideal for forging a metal-attribute magic sword.

One month later, Qin Yu opened his eyes. He lifted his hands and four magic swords flew up, spinning around him and separating. They were in the colors of white, black, blue, and red.

Now, all he needed was an earth-attribute magic sword to complete the set!

When the Five Element Magic Swords were fully gathered together, Qin Yu could temper them with his blood, refining them into his dantian sea where they would each be nourished by his respective Five Element Golden Cores.

Walking down this road would lead to the path of one’s life magic weapon. Sword cultivators were generally like this. By doing this, not only could they greatly enhance the power of their treasure, but they could freely communicate with it and achieve the state of Unity as One. Of course, there were also disadvantages. If one’s life magic weapon was injured, the cultivator themselves would suffer corresponding injuries.

A life magic weapon was best integrated into the body at the same time it was refined, so that there wouldn’t be any gaps at all. Qin Yu flicked his sleeves and received the four magic swords into his storage ring.

Five-element treasures weren’t the same as five-element spiritual objects, so finding them wasn’t particularly difficult. Thinking about it, Qin Yu decided to momentarily place this matter to the side and spent the rest of his time raising the Radiant Red Wood. After Radiant Red Fruits formed, he could pick some and place them in his storage ring, then he could go out and look for an appropriate earth-attribute treasure. This would delay his cultivation as little as possible.

Now, all he had were some surplus pills in his storage ring that could help him cultivate temporarily. While it was impossible for them to last until his Five Element Golden Cores reached the Nascent Soul realm, for better or worse he could continue cultivating for a period of time.

Time passed peacefully and Qin Yu started a stable life of cultivation. But on some day, as night approached, it was like a star crashing into the sea, completely breaking apart this peace.

The little blue lamp didn’t shine!

That was right, it was exactly that. The dim sea-blue light, which bloomed with an incomparably accurate timing, didn’t appear this night!

When Qin Yu saw this, he nearly collapsed to the ground. His complexion paled and his clothes were soon soaked with a cold sweat. He never imagined there would be a day when the little blue lamp lost its light. Now that he witnessed this himself, he was horrified.

Ever since his time at the Eastern Mountain Sect, Qin Yu was well aware that he wasn’t some talented genius or anything like that, nor did he have a formidable bloodline. The little blue lamp was the root reason for why he was standing here today with everything he had. If there was a problem with it, then while he might remain a powerful cultivator in the future, his future road of cultivation would be thoroughly cut off!