With these words, Zhao Shanling left to make his own preparations.

Before leaving, he reminded Nie Tian that he shouldn’t walk around at will, and that he might catch others’ attention once he left the range of his spell.

The two of them had taken all of the most valuable spiritual materials. Many sects must not be happy about it.

If Nie Tian was somehow discovered by people from the Heaven Palace Sect or the Spirit God Sect, he would most likely be in danger.

With a thought, Nie Tian summoned the Bone Blood Demon from within his ring of holding as Zhao Shanling disappeared behind the rocks.

The seventh grade outsider corpses were also summoned from within their storage ring and placed on the rocky ground one after another.

Only the Fiend’s corpse, which contained deadly toxins, was left within the storage ring.

He thought that he might give it to Li Langfeng after his business with Zhao Shanling was over.

Li Langfeng, who practiced poisonous incantations, must have ways to extract substances that would help with his cultivation from it.

“You may take all of these outsider corpses’ blood now.” Nie Tian sent a wisp of a thought to the Bone Blood Demon.

The Bone Blood Demon’s grayish-green eyes instantly beamed with the light of desire. Without any hesitation, it started draining and refining the outsider blood with the Blood Refining Incantation.

“Nine Stars Flower...” As soon as he pointed at another storage ring, the glass utensil that held the Nine Stars Flower flew out of it and floated in the air.

Through the glass, the Nine Stars Flower could be seen with great clarity. It had a fleshy, green stem and roots. Each and every one of its nine silver blossoms was in the shape of a pentagram.

Tiny sparks of starlight could be seen flickering around its blossoms. At first glance, it looked as if it was wreathed in a sea of tiny stars.

“If the powerful experts from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace searched for these flowers after first coming to the Domain of the Falling Stars, they must be of great use to me.

“But why did the outsiders carry them around?

“Also, since they can’t be found in the Domain of the Falling Stars, this one shouldn’t be just in the third rank. The Spirit Condor must have intentionally lowered its rank since I’m the only one who’ll be interested in it.”

With these thoughts in mind, Nie Tian opened the utensil and took the Nine Stars Flower out by its stem.

However, as soon as his fingers made contact with it, the vortex of star power in his spiritual sea seemed to be stirred.

His vortex of star power suddenly accelerated as wisps of star power started streaming out of it and flowing towards the flower in his hand.

Nie Tian’s expression flickered.

“This flower is actually channeling star power from me? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

The nine blossoms of the plant glittered with silver light as it received Nie Tian’s star power. Numerous sparks also started to shine brightly within them.

Nie Tian went blank briefly before trying to channel star power from the plant in the same way he channeled star power from Star Stones.

SHEW!

To this surprise, the Nine Stars Flower instantly morphed into a streak of light that shot towards his spiritual sea.

It vanished completely within the blink of an eye.

Nie Tian then examined himself with rapt attention and discovered that the flower had appeared at the bottom of his vortex of star power, in the depths of the lake of stardew.

Stardew was the essence of star power.

It didn’t matter whether he channeled star power from Star Stones or the starry river in the heavens. After rounds of refinement, stardew would form and descend to the bottom of the small lake at the bottom of his vortex of star power.

That was where the Nine Stars Flower had taken root.

Then, Nie Tian was surprised to find that the flower was actually draining his stardew.

As the Nine Stars Flower rapidly channeled stardew into itself, it became increasingly full of vigor, like a fish that had been returned to water.

Bits of starlight shone increasingly brightly within its nine blossoms.

That wasn’t all. Nie Tian also noticed that another vortex in his spiritual sea was going through changes: his vortex of wood power.

His vortex of wood power was also spinning faster than usual, and the liquidized wood power at the bottom of it was also disappearing at a noticeable rate.

What shocked him was that the disappearing liquidized wood power that contained rich life force was somehow reappearing at the bottom of his vortex of star power through some profound method he couldn’t fathom.

Like translucent and sparkling dew, drops of green, liquidized wood power gradually appeared on the Nine Stars Flower’s stem, before its stem absorbed them like a sponge absorbing water.

As the Nine Stars Flower continued to receive nourishment from his star power and wood power, Nie Tian had a feeling that the plant had become fully alive again.

That was when Nie Tian came to the conclusion that, even though this Nine Stars Flower had been stored in this special utensil right after it had been picked, the container couldn’t completely stop it from withering.

It would eventually die at a certain point since it couldn’t receive the nourishment it needed.

However, there were two kinds of nourishment that could restore life to it within his spiritual sea: concentrated wood power and star power.

Now that the Nine Stars Flower had absorbed these powers from him, it gradually came back from the verge of death.

Nie Tian smiled bitterly. “This plant is so ironic. I got it to make me stronger with its power. Who would have thought that it would end up taking power from me...”

Since he was being quickly drained of his star power and wood power, he couldn’t expand his spiritual sea and make preparations for his next breakthrough.

From the look of it, it wouldn’t be very long before his vortexes of star power and wood power were completely drained.

With a reluctant expression, Nie Tian took out some Star Stones and started channeling star power from them to form more stardew, so that the Nine Stars Flower’s needs would be satisfied.

As he did that, he finally found a phenomenon that cheered him up.

He discovered that, with the Nine Stars Flower at the bottom of his vortex of star power, the efficiency of him channeling and refining star power had become considerably higher.

From what he had discovered so far, this was the only benefit the plant had brought him.

However, as he recovered wood power with some wood-attributed spiritual materials, the efficiency of him channeling and refining wood power didn’t seem to have changed at all.

Then, while the Bone Blood Demon continued to absorb outsider blood with the Blood Refining Incantation, he replenished his star power with one Star Stone after another.

The new stardew was absorbed by the Nine Stars Flower as soon as it was generated in his vortex of star power, which made Nie Tian increasingly tired.

...

On this day, as soon as he returned, Zhao Shanling said, “Get ready. We’re leaving now.”

Nie Tian opened his eyes and discovered that the Bone Blood Demon had already drained the blood of the eight outsider corpses.

A death aura that was identical to the one in the depths of the Death Reign silently wreathed the Bone Blood Demon, as if it had formed a small, deadly realm around it. Any living being that dared to enter it would lose their lives.

Eyes narrowed, Zhao Shanling ran his gaze up and down the Bone Blood Demon, then said, “It seems to me that this Bonebrute puppet of yours possesses the strength of a late seventh grade outsider now. So I guess even those outsiders’ blood can’t help restore it to its peak strength within a short time.”

Nie Tian smiled bitterly. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy for it to recover its eighth grade bloodline power.”

Zhao Shanling nodded slightly. “Yeah, there’s only a limited amount of flesh power within the outsider blood, after all. After their death, those outsiders will continuously lose their flesh power as time passes. There’s actually more flesh power left in their bones and internal organs. But this is already very impressive.

“Now, come with me.”

With a casual flick of his sleeve, a glowing spatial rift was created in front of them.

Nie Tian returned the Bone Blood Demon and the outsider corpses to his ring of holding, and then followed Zhao Shanling into the spatial rift.

In the next moment, he and Zhao Shanling appeared at the heart of an extinct volcano in the Realm of Unbounded Desolation.

There should have been boiling lava where they were floating, but it had now become an enormous empty hole that stretched into the depths of the earth.

Meanwhile, strong, twisting spatial fluctuations continued to come from the bottomless hole.

Nie Tian looked down and saw that streaks of light would flash across the pitch-black hole from time to time.

A strange feeling that he was sinking towards it sent a cold chill down his spine.

“Space disruption!” he exclaimed. “Are you taking me to a space disruption zone?!”

With a nasty grin, Zhao Shanling shoved him into the bottomless pit. “Exactly!”