Chapter 21 Trial and Training

Xiao Lin has never been a hesitant person. After figuring out the path he would take in the future, he began to think about his own path of cultivation.

Now, the second path to join the five major sects has been completely cut off. The only remaining path is to enter the cave and pick purple spirit flowers, which is the most dangerous and has the lowest probability of success.

In order to increase the probability of success, Xiao Lin believes that there is only one way to improve his own strength.

For the next three days, Xiao Lin stayed in the room. Except for eating a meal every day, he did not step out of the room. During these days, he carefully read the book [Common Sense of Cultivation] and silently recalled some important points explained in it after reading it. Fortunately, his memory has always been very good, and he doesn’t know if it is because of practicing the Dry Water Sutra. Although his memory is not perfect, it is not far away.

In the past few days, he finally figured out a few things. One thing was about flying weapons. It turned out that after entering the third level of Qi Refining, cultivators could fly low-grade magic weapons in the air. Although the speed was not necessarily very fast, it was at least much faster than his Qinggong. The method of flying weapons was not rare. There were many handwritten copies for sale in the market. After all, the art of flying weapons was a common ability of low-level cultivators.

Then there were spells. Spells were a means for cultivators to improve their combat power. Of course, there were many other ways for cultivators to improve their combat power, such as flying magic weapons, using some talismans containing spells, and some side paths, such as traps and poisons.

But there is no doubt that spells are the only way for most low-level cultivators. Spells are divided into basic spells, primary spells, intermediate spells and advanced spells according to the level. Each level of spells is divided into three levels according to the proficiency of spells and the speed of casting, namely spell level, silent level and perfect level. When ordinary cultivators practice a spell, they need to chant spells to match the mana in their bodies at the beginning, and then cast spells. As the number of spell casting increases, the number of chanting spells increases, and the casting of spells becomes more and more proficient. Finally, they can cast spells by silently chanting spells in their hearts. At this time, the speed will be much faster than chanting spells, and the power will be much greater. By chanting spells silently, the speed and proficiency of casting spells will be improved again, and finally there will be a chance to practice to the perfect level. The perfect level spell has only one performance, that is, instant casting. This instant spell is not only powerful, but also hard to defend against. It is one of the most powerful attack methods of cultivators.

However, it is not easy to cultivate a spell to the perfect level. It requires countless castings to improve proficiency. This process is extremely long, and as the spell level increases, the number of castings required to improve proficiency increases exponentially.

Therefore, most cultivators in the cultivation world choose one or two spells as their main spells, because for ordinary Qi Refining cultivators, it is not easy to cultivate a basic spell to the great perfection. After all, casting spells requires the support of mana. A Qi Refining cultivator can only cast a dozen basic spells with his mana. Even if he cultivates to the great perfection of Qi Refining, he can only cast twenty or thirty times. This is the limit. Once the cultivator's mana is exhausted, it will take at least half a day to recover. From this, it can be seen how difficult it is to cultivate a spell to the great perfection level.

This also led to the fact that most cultivators, in addition to practicing one or two basic techniques, mostly bought some magic tools to improve their combat power. Of course, those with more wealth could also buy some talismans, which sealed a spell and could be cast instantly. However, the price of talismans was also very high. Basically, except for some disciples of large sects, few casual cultivators could afford them.

After learning about this, Xiao Lin began to think about his own path of cultivation. On the fourth day, he checked out without hesitation, and then went to the market in the east of the city. He sold the spiritual fog grass to a cultivator in the Qi Refining Period at a very low price of 20 low-grade spiritual stones. Then, he took the 20 spiritual stones to buy a book of magic formulas for controlling instruments and several basic spells, and some low-level spiritual medicines for healing and detoxification. With the remaining spiritual stone, he bought a map of the distribution of monsters around the Wuyin Immortal City, and then left the city.

There is a volcano three thousand miles away in the south of Wuyin Xiancheng. This volcano has not erupted for hundreds of years, but there are many fire pools around the volcano. These fire pools are like pieces of rubies, dotted around the volcano for dozens of miles. There is little fire in these fire pools. They are all black rocks formed by the cooling of magma. However, there are also some fire pools where the magma has not completely cooled down, and countless sparks are still rising from time to time.

In these fire pools, there lives a monster called Fire Armor Beast. This monster looks a bit like a pangolin, but it is much larger than an ordinary pangolin and has sharp teeth. The most important thing is that this Fire Armor Beast can also cast the primary fire spell-Fireball.

This kind of monster has another characteristic, usually living in groups. Although not every fire pool has this kind of fire armor beast, as long as there is this kind of fire armor beast in a fire pool, there must be several of them. This kind of fire armor beast is not very valuable to cultivators. Only a piece of white scale armor on their abdomen has some value. It can be used as a material for refining a kind of primary magic weapon called white scale robe. The production process of white scale robe is relatively complicated, and the number of this kind of white scale armor required is relatively large. Usually more than 100 pieces of this kind of white scale armor can make a white scale robe. In Wuyin Xiancheng, ten pieces of white scale armor can be exchanged for a piece of low-grade spirit stone. However, this kind of fire armor beast has strong combat power. Among the ordinary primary-level monster beasts, its strength should not be underestimated. Due to these reasons, there are not many cultivators who come here to hunt fire armor beasts.

Xiao Lin chose this place for his first trial. The main reason why he chose the fire armor beast as his opponent was that he practiced water-attributed skills, and the several spells he bought were mainly water-attributed spells. Water overcomes fire, which made him finally choose this place.

Xiao Lin was squatting about ten feet away from a fire pool, staring at it intently. Next to the fire pool, a fire-armored beast as long as an adult's thigh was lying there lazily, looking very sleepy.

Xiao Lin was not naive enough to think that there was only one fire-armored beast in the fire pool. After two days of observation, he had confirmed that there were three fire-armored beasts in the fire pool, and the one he saw was the weakest of the three.

Xiao Lin knew very well that with the level of water arrows he had just practiced, it would be dangerous to fight against one fire-armored beast alone. If he faced three, he would definitely die. So he had to find a way to lure the fire-armored beast out. Only by fighting alone could he have a hope of winning.

But he observed from morning to night, and found that the fire-armored beast did not even lift its eyelids, and looked like it could not wake up. This gave Xiao Lin a headache, and he was so hungry that he felt dizzy and swollen. He had no choice but to retreat and return to a forest under the volcano. There was a small stone mountain there, and there happened to be a cave. Originally, there was a brown bear living in it. When it met Xiao Lin, the brown bear was in trouble. Not only was his home occupied by him, but he also became Xiao Lin's dry food, and was dried and hung in the cave.

In this way, half a month passed quickly. During this period, Xiao Lin went to observe the habits of the fire-armored beast during the day, and returned to the cave to practice the Dry Water Sutra at night. What made him depressed was that Ning Shuirujing's practice speed of the third level of the Dry Water Sutra was indeed as slow as a turtle. If it weren't for a little feeling, Xiao Lin would even doubt that it was the same whether he practiced or not.

But after observing for a period of time, he finally discovered a phenomenon that made him excited, that is, the fire armor beast would leave the fire pool once every half a month at the beginning of each month, go to a valley not far away to drink water, and by the way, eat a plant that emits a faint blue light. At this time, it was just when the fire armor beast was alone, and it was also the best time for him to take action.

One day, Xiao Lin finished dinner, closed his eyes and adjusted his breath for an hour, then got up and touched the valley where the fire armor beast drank water. Soon, he came to the valley, jumped lightly onto a big tree, and then waited quietly.

I don’t know how long it took, Xiao Lin heard the rustling sound of weeds falling in his ears, he was refreshed, and looked down carefully. Sure enough, a fire armor beast poked its head out of the grass and crawled towards the river in a swagger.

A long spell sounded in Xiao Lin's ears. In order not to alert the Fire Armor Beast, he lowered his voice. As the spell sounded, a water arrow about a foot long appeared above Xiao Lin's palm. The water arrow became more and more condensed with the spell.

The Fire Armor Beast, which was crawling towards the river, suddenly stopped. Its pair of soybean-sized eyes rolled around, as if it felt something was wrong. It tilted its head to look around, but did not find any danger, and then continued to crawl towards the river.

"Swish~" Suddenly, a sound of breaking through the air sounded, and with Xiao Lin's cold "go", the water arrow suspended in his palm suddenly turned into a green light and shot out.

At the moment the water arrow shot out, the Fire Armor Beast suddenly felt the danger. He turned his head sharply and saw Xiao Lin on the tree, but what caught his eyes was the water arrow flashing with green light.

"Squeak." Since Xiao Lin was attacking by surprise, the Fire Armored Beast had no time to dodge. It just slightly tilted its body and was hit by the water arrow. Immediately, a bloody cut was opened on the Fire Armored Beast's back. Blood flowed out of the wound. The Fire Armored Beast raised its head and roared, then opened its mouth and shot a fist-sized fireball towards Xiao Lin.

Xiao Lin was shocked. He didn't expect the Fire Armored Beast to be so alert. He used his Qinggong skills and jumped up. At the same time, he took out the ebony shield from his arms and threw it out. The ebony shield spun around and formed a shield about the size of a foot, blocking him in front of him.

At the same time, he chanted again. The low curse sounded particularly strange in this dark and silent night.

"Boom." The fireball hit the tree trunk and exploded immediately. The place where Xiao Lin was hiding on the tree was charred black. With a "squeak", the trunk broke and fell down in half.

Xiao Lin was terrified by this scene. If the fireball hit him, his fate would probably be no better than that of the tree.