Chapter 174: Spirit Building

Mo Wuji completely disregarded the pain throughout his body, and exerted maximum strength in his legs, exploding forth with top speed, aiming towards the Sky Channel Flower.

The Sky Channel Flower was floating just like that in the mist, and he easily harvested this single flower, sending it into a jade box.

After obtaining the Sky Channel Flower, Mo Wuji did not want to hang around this area a second longer, hence he turned around and charged out of the fog. At this point in time, he was thankful that he possessed spiritual will, as without it, it would not be possible for him to enter such a location.

With blistering speed, Mo Wuji used a mere incense's time to exit this gorge, ending the nightmare of being trapped in the fog.

Soreness and pain in his body soon came wave after wave, prompting him to take a few more Poison Cleansing Pills, before leaving the gorge for good. The fog was rather mysterious, and he could not deduce what sort of poison it was.

This time, Mo Wuji went in a direction completely different from the one he came from. Passing through the even weirder land of weeds and broken walls was one thing he never wanted to do again. This time, he did not even take reference from the Honest Qi's map.

After running for three days, something didn't feel right. His body was slowly hardening, an obvious sign that he had been poisoned.

I have to cleanse myself of poison before carrying on. Mo Wuji gazed around. Other than a swamp on one side, everywhere else were barren wastelands, without a single hiding spot in sight.

The choice was obvious. Mo Wuji could only enter the swamp. He did not even know how seriously poisoned he was. If it was very serious, he might have had to spend long hours to cleanse it out of his systems, hence the location he chose had to be hidden and secure.

Swamps usually had little human traffic, so as long as he could find a good hiding spot, it would suffice.

...

Half a day into Mo Wuji's foray in the swamp, he still could not find a good place to conceal himself. By then his whole body was already covered in mud, but this was not of priority to him now. The gradual hardening of his body was getting worse, and who knew when he would turn into a human statue like those others in the foggy gorge.

The Lost Sky Ruins were indeed too dangerous. Although he did not go to an especially treacherous place, two life threatening incidents had occurred already.

Three familiar figures soon appeared in Mo Wuji's field of vision, and he quickly fell prone on the ground of the swamp. He could recognise those three as the people that tried to rob him of his storage bag back then, and only let him go after he gave them the map and book from Honest Qi.

Who knew that after so long, he would bump into those three by coincidence again. This time he definitely could not be discovered by them, otherwise it would be seeking death in his current hardened state.

As he was covered in mud from head to toe, now that he dove into the swamp water, even if one looked in his direction, it would be difficult to detect his presence. Thankfully the three of them did not find Mo Wuji, looking around for a moment, before swiftly leaving in another direction.

Their actions greatly puzzled Mo Wuji. There was no mention of this swamp in the book, so what were the three of them doing here?

Recalling that they were trying to buy a storage bag by force, he inferred that these three had found something good. From the looks of things, this could have been the location of that thing. He remained prone in the mud for another half an incense's time, and only rushed towards the location where the three people were after confirming that they were gone for good.

It was a small hill in the swamp, which was a common sight in swamps. In its surroundings, other than some potholes, there were many aquatic plants covering the area.

There's nothing here? Mo Wuji thought to himself as he circled the small hill two times. On the third time, he finally found out what was wrong with it. One of the aquatic plants at the base of the small hill was rather slanted. If it weren't for his close inspection, this detail would not have been spotted. Not only that, there was not a single drop of water around this aquatic plant.

Walking over, Mo Wuji pulled at the plant, which revealed a hole before his eyes. The hole extended into the small hill beside it. Dense spiritual energy emanated out of the hole, which caught his attention. Thus, he immediately jumped into the hole, at the same time restoring the aquatic plant back to its original state.

The deeper into the hole he went, the denser the spiritual energy became. Even though Mo Wuji felt great discomfort due to the hardening of his body, being bathed in such rich spiritual energy alleviated its effects.

Half an hour of walking later, he stopped, shocked by the scene before his eyes. The ground was littered by spirit stones, and in front of him lay a spirit stone quarry that had barely been mined. If Mo Wuji did not know what those three people wanted an extra storage bag for, he would have been a dumb pig. So the three of them found a spirit stone quarry, and even with 10 storage bags, it would not have been enough, much less one measly storage bag from him.

From his estimates, those three people should not be returning soon, hence he sat in the middle of the spirit stone quarry and began analysing the poison within him. Countless minutes passed, and Mo Wuji's shoulder was filled with sweat. He was sure that out of all the Channel Opening Stage cultivators, no one could be as familiar with his meridians as himself. Every single meridian was blown open by his efforts in guiding lightning through them.

However, even with his high level of familiarity with his body's condition, he could not find anything wrong it it at all. Which meant that he had no idea how he got poisoned, and by what poison.

Thoroughly disappointed, Mo Wuji kept the , and furrowed his brows. Now he had found the Sky Channel Flower, but if he could not resolve this poison, finding the flower and the location of this spirit stone quarry would be meaningless.

He then retrieved and opened up the jade box from his storage bag, revealing a beautiful purple flower lying in the center. One the lid of the jade box came off, the refreshing fragrance gave Mo Wuji a sense of satisfaction in his heart.

Could this Sky Channel Flower counter the poison? Something that an old chinese traditional medicine practitioner on Earth came to mind. Most poisonous plants have their antidote growing not far away from them. While such a saying was not very scientific, but Mo Wuji was in a rush to find an antidote.

Since the Sky Channel Flower could survive in the poisonous fog, this meant that it did not fear the poison. Perhaps, the Sky Channel flower could really be the antidote.

At this point, Mo Wuji quickly popped many Energy Gathering Pills into his mouth. He usually rarely used pills to cultivate, so why now in an environment rich in spiritual energy? All he had on his mind was to quickly reach the Great Circle of Channel Opening Stage Level 12, then attempt to advance to Spirit Building Stage.

Even if there were a Channel Opening Stage Level 13, he would still try to breakthrough to SPirit Building Stage using the Sky Channel Flower.

Cultivating in a spirit stone quarry, was many, many times more effective than simply using spirit stones. This was because before spirit stones are dug out, they possessed some sort of harmony with the heavens and earth, which made them even more suitable for cultivation. Coupled with Mo Wuji's intense absorption rate of spiritual energy, cultivating in a spirit stone quarry was one thing, but using pills on top of that, his cultivation speed simply couldn't get any faster.

In a short span of two days, he had reached the later stages of Channel Opening Stage Level 12. Gulping down many more Energy Gathering Pills, Mo Wuji continued absorbing spiritual energy wildly.

To be able to cause the spiritual energy around him to form a whirlpool, it was never before seen for a Channel Opening Stage cultivator. As his speed of absorbing spiritual energy was very high, his rate of improvement was also very high. However, Mo Wuji did not feel happy at all. It had been almost three days already, and his body was getting stiffer by the day.

Finally, he hit the Great Circle of Channel Opening Stage Level 12. This was the moment he had been waiting for, as he put the Sky Channel Flower that he prepared into his mouth.

There was a rose-like fragrance to the Sky Channel Flower, and also a light, sweet taste. But before Mo Wuji had the time to savour its flavor, a wild stream of spiritual energy gushed into his body, lighting him on fire from the inside.

The terrifying burning sensation brought him back to the days when he just started training in the Seven Styles Lightning Sky. His innards all seemed as though they were going to burn into ashes.

At this moment, happiness began to fill Mo Wuji's heart. Based on his experience with Seven Styles Lightning Sky, he did not have to worry about being burnt to death by the Sky Channel Flower. He was also elated, as his stiff body had began to soften up too. As expected, the effects of the poison was starting to disappear, seemingly burnt to a crisp by the strong spiritual energy from the Sky Channel Flower.

His guess must have been right. The Sky Channel Flower really was an antidote for the poison that causes one's body to stiffen up.

Mo Wuji carried on without a care in the world, pushing his energy circulation to the maximum in an attempt to advance to the next stage.

The spiritual energy originally exploding out of the Sky Channel Flower combined with the large amount of spiritual energy he absorbed seemed to push his body to the brink of bursting after a few circulations. This was the most dangerous moment, as he knew from the past experiences of guiding lightning to open his meridians. All of the burning hot spiritual energy was directed into his 100th meridian.

"Bang!" Mo Wuji felt his 100th meridian becoming unblocked. This was the first time that there was such a large shock from opening a single meridian.

The frightening amounts of spiritual energy finally had somewhere to escape to, which made him feel waves of comfort hitting him all over.

After that, he shockingly found out that not only was his Immortal Mortal Technique's energy circulation even more complete, but the speed of absorbing spiritual energy had increased insanely. A part of his elemental energy had begun accumulating in his 100th meridian too.

What Elder Dai Zhu said was not totally accurate. After the 100th meridian was opened, one could not only store spiritual energy, but also increase one's rate of cultivation.

A mere incense's time passed, and the spiritual energy within Mo Wuji's meridians gave off a whooshing sound as it circulated through his body, while the surrounding spiritual energy rushed towards him. A newfound strength from surpassing the Channel Opening Stage permeated every pore in him, and the spiritual energy in his meridians finally formed a wall, a large pulsating elemental energy wall.

Spirit building finally succeeded. With many emotions welling up within him, Mo Wuji stood up. He was a mortal with no spiritual roots, and after countless hardships and trials, even with multiple brushes with death, he had finally completed building the spirit.

All of this was what he had fought hard to obtain.