"Hoo~ As expected, villains die from talking too much."
After meditating for three days, Yang Hong exhaled a turbid breath and slowly stood up, stretching his body. The sound of popping joints echoed continuously from him.
He hadn't engaged in such strenuous physical activity in a long time.
"However, a great battle like this every now and then isn't bad. It can strengthen the body and help with the control of one's own power."
Doing a few simple stretching exercises made Yang Hong feel incredibly refreshed.
Looking at the demonic beasts once again engaged in chaotic combat outside the golden lightning, and then at the wildly growing demonic plants in the distance, Yang Hong finally felt at ease.
"It seems there are no other demons in this secret realm. Otherwise, such mindless demonic beasts should have been organized."
"But this secret realm likely harbors the residual souls of various demonic races, or incomplete demons. Otherwise, there wouldn't be such a diverse array of demonic beasts and demonic plants."
"The next step is... a protracted battle. I hope to deplete the origin of this secret realm's heaven and earth before the inner demon fully revives."
After forming a basic judgment of the secret realm through observation, Yang Hong began his daily spiritual plant empowerment.
"Ding~ You empowered the ninth-grade spiritual plant Sky Thunder Bamboo with 2000 days of cultivation, receiving a 3x cultivation return, gaining 6000 days of cultivation."
After the death of the inner demon manifestation, it seemed as if the spiritual energy of heaven and earth had partially recovered, but the empowered cultivation and return multiplier had both seen significant improvements.
The empowered cultivation of two thousand days was maintained for a full half-year. Meanwhile, the return multiplier rapidly increased, soaring directly from 3x to 100x within that half-year.
Then, it became stuck, ceasing to increase for the time being.
"Ding~ You empowered the ninth-grade spiritual plant Sun-Kissed Fruit Tree with 2000 days of cultivation, receiving a 100x cultivation return, gaining 200,000 days of cultivation."
As the prompt sounded, vast spiritual energy poured into Yang Hong from the secret realm space. However, the power of this 200,000 days of cultivation, at the ninth layer of the Mahayana realm, merely circulated through his body before being immediately transformed into immense magical power and dispersed through the Tai Yin Qiong Liu Paste and Sun Creation Technique, nourishing the spiritual plants within a thousand-mile radius around Yang Hong.
As the laws of creation and time dispersed with the magical power, the countless spiritual plants within a thousand-mile radius began to grow wildly.
Under Yang Hong's guidance, the growth of the spiritual plants continued to plunder the heaven and earth origin of this secret realm.
Within the thousand-mile radius, there were no longer any demonic beasts. All that remained were piles of massive bones, not yet fully decayed, slowly turning to ash under the roots of the spiritual plants.
The demonic plants within the thousand-mile radius had also vanished, transformed into the growth energy of the spiritual plants and as reference specimens for evolution.
"Ding~ You empowered the ninth-grade spiritual plant Sky Thunder Bamboo with 2000 days of cultivation, receiving a 100x cultivation return, gaining 200,000 days of cultivation."
[Ding~ Ninth-grade spiritual plant Sky Thunder Bamboo has advanced, upgrading to first-grade Immortal Thunder Bamboo.]
Just as Yang Hong was preparing to switch to a new spiritual plant for cultivation, a prompt that hadn't sounded for several hundred years suddenly echoed in his mind.
Simultaneously with the prompt, the golden Sky Thunder Bamboo, which he had just released, emitted a faint, ethereal white light that engulfed its本体.
"Huh! It actually cultivated into an immortal treasure! Unexpected, truly unexpected!"
"However, the spiritual energy absorbed during this advancement is quite substantial."
While the evolution of a spiritual plant into an immortal treasure was cause for celebration, the ravenous absorption of spiritual energy made Yang Hong a little uneasy.
The spiritual aura of the spiritual plants within a three-mile radius was visibly decaying.
Without delay, Yang Hong directly injected all the spiritual energy he had just obtained from 200,000 days, combined with the law of creation, into this evolving Immortal Thunder Bamboo.
Aided by this immense spiritual energy, the ethereal white light brightened slightly, but it continued to drain the spiritual energy from the surrounding spiritual plants.
"Something's wrong!
This isn't draining spiritual energy; it's directly plundering the life origin of the spiritual plants."
"This immortal treasure is too overbearing! It seems to have some of the domineering nature of demonic plants."
After infusing the spiritual energy equivalent to 200,000 days, Li Sen touched his chin, unable to help but sigh.
The evolution of the immortal treasure was rather overbearing.
He turned and continued to empower other spiritual plants, injecting all the returned spiritual energy into this Immortal Thunder Bamboo. He did this until he had used up his remaining 22 empowerments for the day, with all the spiritual energy injected into it, yet it still hadn't completed its evolution immediately.
It wasn't until the third day that he used the feedback spiritual energy from 60 empowerments, plus the price of 73 Sky Thunder Bamboo plants regressing from ninth-grade to fourth-grade, before this immortal treasure finally completed its evolution.
However, the moment the Immortal Thunder Bamboo completed its evolution, Yang Hong could feel a warm and gentle immortal aura emanating from it.
The newly born Immortal Thunder Bamboo was jade green, less than a zhang tall, and as thick as three fingers. It looked utterly ordinary, like a common bamboo in the mountains.
If not for the extraordinary aura it exuded, he would have thought the Sky Thunder Bamboo's evolution had failed.
Even the Golden Thunder Bamboo that had degenerated to fourth-grade was resplendent with golden light, with occasional flashes of lightning, clearly indicating it was no ordinary item.
"This should be returning to simplicity, right?"
"Now, I am truly looking forward to tomorrow's arrival, wanting to see if the system can grant me immortal energy cultivation for empowering an immortal treasure."
Yang Hong's hands trembled slightly as he caressed the first immortal treasure he had cultivated, and the first immortal treasure he had ever seen.
However, immortal treasures were not only highly attractive to him but also possessed an extremely powerful allure for demonic beasts.
Roar~ Roar~
Bang bang bang~
As the aura of the Immortal Thunder Bamboo continuously overflowed, demonic beasts and demonic plants that smelled this aura madly surged forward, completely disregarding the Golden Thunder Demon Extermination Array that Yang Hong had set up.
Even if they were to be charred to cinders by the golden lightning, they charged forward relentlessly.
Crack~ Crack~ Crack~
It wasn't just living creatures like demonic beasts and demonic plants. Even massive skeletal remains buried deep underground pushed aside the soil and crawled out.
Skeletal remains hundreds of feet tall, from near to far, continuously emerged. And the farther away the skeletal remains, the more colossal they were.
Beneath the skeletal remains, ghostly spirits and demonic souls also emerged from the ground, densely packed and uncountable.
"Hiss~ This Hong Dong Secret Realm is merely said to be a place for immortals to train disciples?
How can it contain so many terrifying things after being demonized?"
"Immovable King's Wrath, Pure Glazed Fire~"
Yang Hong retracted his divine sense, a wry smile on his face as he continuously deployed the Yin Yang Two Forms Spirit Transformation Array. This array used Buddhist and immortal flames to purify demonic energy and was also effective at exterminating ghostly spirits.
As for the massive skeletal demonic creatures, they could only be gradually resisted and ground down by the Golden Thunder Demon Extermination Array.
Yiya~ Wu Wu~ Gya Gya~
As soon as the third Yin Yang Two Forms Spirit Transformation Array was set up, endless ghostly spirits surged into the thousand-mile space purified by Yang Hong.
Golden lightning flashed, instantly scattering all the ghostly spirits.
However, they were merely scattered. These ghostly spirits quickly recondensed and continued to fly towards the Immortal Thunder Bamboo.
Only upon reaching the Two Forms Array would they be directly burned into demonic energy by the immortal and Buddhist flames, and then absorbed by the Two Forms Array.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the demonic souls would become nourishment for the Two Forms Array.