Under the illumination of the Immemorial Altar Lamp, faint ripples enveloped them and they sank into a strange state. This blessing delighted Long Chen.

Although the Immemorial Altar Lamp’s blessing was not as monstrous as the Xuantian Tower’s blessing, its energy continued in an unending stream. It had definitely been worthwhile nourishing it.

As long as the Immemorial Altar Lamp wasn’t contaminated with the Death Qi of living organisms, it would never extinguish, allowing them to enjoy this blessing for as long as they desired.

Long Chen also took out yuan spirit stones and began to absorb their energy. For others, absorbing one stone took three days normally. But with the Immemorial Altar Lamp, that time was cut down to half a day.

As for Long Chen, he fully absorbed all the energy in a yuan spirit stone in just a few breaths.

As he absorbed more and more yuan spiritual energy, he had an urge to cry. His 108,000 runes were like hungry wolves fighting over a small piece of meat. It felt like each wolf got less than a trace of meat, making them howl in frustration.

As for the other disciples, Long Chen could clearly feel their original runes growing as they absorbed the yuan spiritual energy.

Others only had one original rune, while he had 108,000. Although his runes didn’t have as much energy as each of theirs in a one to one ratio, ten of his runes definitely contained more energy than one of theirs.

Even counting in a ten to one ratio, his consumption was still ten thousand times greater. That made him feel a sense of crisis. In the cultivation world, the most terrifying thing was not having powerful enemies, but a lack of funds.

He sensed the others’ progress and found that they condensed a second original rune in just three yuan spirit stones. For them to condense all nine original runes and merge them into the foundation of their immortal platform would probably require around fifty yuan spirit stones. Then they would be at the first Heavenstage of Foundation Forging.

Theoretically, the second Heavenstage’s runes would require twice the amount of energy of the first Heavenstage. Then that would be one hundred. And then the third Heavenstage would be two hundred. Then for the ninth Heavenstage… each disciple would require over ten thousand yuan spirit stones.

Ten thousand yuan spirit stones! And that was a conservative estimate! It would most likely take even more than that.

Right now there were thirteen thousand five hundred members of the Dragonblood Legion. The number of yuan spirit stones he had was not close to enough to allow all of them to reach the peak of Foundation Forging.

But what was worse was that even after absorbing a thousand stones for just his first rune, there was still practically no growth.

Long Chen steeled himself and spent a whole day. After absorbing thirty-six thousand yuan spirit stones, he condensed his second rune. When he was finished, he found that his two runes were like conjoined twins. They were not separate entities, but one whole body.

When the second rune was condensed, he clearly felt his 108,000 acupuncture points enlarge, and even the divine runes of Split the Heavens grew larger, as if their limit had increased.

“Could it be that the size of Split the Heavens’ divine runes are in accordance with the size of the acupuncture points? So then the larger my acupuncture points, the stronger they’ll get?” Long Chen was quite surprised.

Split the Heavens’ divine runes had originally been at the center of his corresponding acupuncture points, but after reaching Foundation Forging, those runes had been squeezed below, while his original runes took that position. They seemed to be afraid of his original runes and resigned themselves to staying beneath them.

As for his original runes, they ignored Split the Heavens’ divine runes. They both minded their own business. With the formation of his second original rune, his acupuncture points grew, and Split the Heavens’ divine runes grew with them. But even after strengthening, they stayed in their original position, not daring to move in the face of his original runes.

However, this consumption was too terrifying. Just on his own, his consumption could almost match the whole Dragonblood Legion’s.

When he saw that the Dragonblood Legion’s disciples had already condensed their third rune, he received a large blow and decided to go into private seclusion.

When he absorbed yuan spirit stones, the Immemorial Altar Lamp wasn’t able to help much. The Nine Star Hegemon Body Art was already strong enough to almost instantly suck the yuan spirit stones dry.

Returning to his room, he first refined a mountain of medicinal pills and elixirs for selling in the outer sect. These medicines were all ones that were used often, and so their price was cheaper. The outer sect disciples were big fans of them.

As for himself, he had the primal chaos space, and refining these medicines didn’t take any capital from him. However much they were sold for was how much money they made. Qian Duoduo had told him several times that if they increased the price so that they sold at eighty percent the price of what the Ten Thousand Pill Hall sold their medicines for, there would still be countless people buying their products, and they would make several times the profit.

That was because Qian Duoduo was still under the impression that Long Chen was secretly buying all his ingredients from outside. He felt they weren’t making enough. Although they sold a huge amount, their profit had to be limited.

But Long Chen declined, because this was how business was done. If you wanted to lower the price, there’d be no problem. But if you increased the price, no matter what reason you gave, it would cause some people to be dissatisfied.

That would influence the overall mood of the buyers. In any case, his medicinal pills were all obtained for free, so continuing to sell like this was fine.

At the same time, he also prepared enough medicines for Meng Qi’s food balls. Meng Qi had already issued missions to gather some resources. That way they could save some money, while also giving their money to the outer sect’s disciples.

As for the remaining portion, they had no choice but to buy them themselves. Although the Ten Thousand Pill Hall was enemies with Long Chen, they didn’t dare to make things too hard on Meng Qi. Therefore, they managed to buy what they needed.

Meng Qi spent each day playing with Cloud. When a Magical Beast was just born was the best time to accompany and play with it, as that was the best way to form mutual trust and bonds.

At the same time, Meng Qi needed to keep a constant watch over Cloud and adjust things. If she felt any aspects of it were imbalanced, she would prepare some special food. She had to make up for its innate deficiency, and the best time to do so was while it was still young.

With everything settled, Long Chen got to work on condensing his third original rune. As a result, his expression immediately darkened.

The third original rune took forty thousand yuan spirit stones. He felt like he was about to go crazy. For others, condensing the original runes on the same level would take the same energy. It was just condensing them all in the end that would take some more energy.

But he had spent four thousand more yuan spirit stones condensing the third original rune versus the second. When he condensed the fourth one, it took forty-five thousand yuan spirit stones. He really did feel crazy now.

This was essentially a bottomless pit! Each original rune was costing him more and more.

After three days, Long Chen’s face was as dark as the bottom of a pot. That was because after condensing nine original runes, he had actually condensed a tenth.

For the first nine, he had spent six hundred and thirty thousand yuan spirit stones. But on the tenth one, he suddenly needed one million two hundred thousand yuan spirit stones.

On the fifth day, he condensed an eleventh original rune after spending two million four hundred thousand yuan spirit stones.

On the tenth day, he condensed a twelfth original rune, costing him four million and eight hundred thousand yuan spirit stones.

On the twentieth day, a thirteenth original rune appeared, and nine million six hundred thousand yuan spirit stones turned to dust.

“What am I supposed to do?!” Long Chen let out a crazy roar.

He hadn’t even condensed the foundation of his immortal platform. Just condensing these thirteen original runes had taken eighteen million yuan spirit stones. Anyone would probably go crazy.

“I refuse to believe this! You’re after all my money, aren’t you?!” raged Long Chen. “Fine, let’s play then! If you have guts, just try taking all my yuan spirit stones!”

Long Chen clenched his teeth and continued absorbing yuan spirit stones. After thirteen original runes, he didn’t condense another one. Instead, they began to compress.

As he constantly poured in more yuan spiritual energy, his thirteen original runes, which were like thirteen babies holding hands, slowly merged.

But this process was incredibly slow. As they merged, they formed a circular foundation. This was the foundation of the immortal platform, and at the center of it was a strange design. It was a flower with thirteen petals.

As soon as the foundation formed, an explosive sound came from his body, and his aura soared out of his control.

A pillar of light pierced the roof of his residence and into the sky. All the surrounding clouds were blown away, and then Long Chen’s residence collapsed on itself, turning to rubble. All of Crouching Dragon Mountain was shaken.