Previously, he had used vines to assist in cultivating this secret technique. Now, with the Purple Light Vine, his confidence in successfully cultivating it has increased significantly.
With a thought, Zhang Ling caused the entwined Purple Light Vine to quickly coil around several times, directly enveloping the spirit light mass above his head.
Similarly, dense and tiny vines also emerged from his body, completely enveloping him and forming a vine cocoon.
In this way, streaks of lightning, either azure or black, were continuously guided onto Zhang Ling's body.
Unlike when he was previously cultivating the Thunder Light Spell, where he was simply guiding individual bolts of lightning, the Yin and Yang Thunder Light Spells were constantly colliding on his body, causing him to tremble occasionally.
If he didn't already have experience with introducing lightning into his body and his physical strength wasn't so resilient, this step would have been difficult to sustain.
For a time, azure-black spiritual patterns emerged on Zhang Ling's body. These spiritual patterns constantly wriggled on his body, making them look quite bizarre.
This scene continued for a very long time until the Thunder Light spiritual patterns gradually stabilized, transforming into tattoo-like lightning patterns that floated around his lower abdomen.
These patterns appeared to be imprinted on the surface of his body, but in reality, they didn't completely cover him. Instead, they covered the hair-thin vines that had been refined from the Purple Light Vine.
By using the Thunder-attributed Purple Light Vine, the chances of successfully cultivating this secret technique greatly increased.
Otherwise, directly introducing the Thunder Light Spell, which contains both Yin and Yang Thunder spiritual energy, into his Dantian - energy center, might have resulted in an accident similar to the first time he cultivated this secret technique, causing it to explode directly in his body and severely injure him.
This could also be considered a safety measure.
Once all the Thunder Light spiritual patterns stabilized, the thunder patterns turned dark and dull, but every ten or so breaths, they would flash with azure-black spiritual light.
Only then did Zhang Ling let out a long sigh of relief, having initially completed the second layer of the Thunder Essence Imbue Technique.
Next, he would have to continuously merge the Thunder Light Spell into his Dantian - energy center through his own spiritual power, which would be considered the successful cultivation of the second layer. During this process, the thunder spiritual energy merged into the Dantian - energy center would refine the spiritual power within his body.
Of course, the thunder-attributed spiritual power contained in the Thunder Light Spell would also be continuously consumed during this process, requiring him to once again merge Heavenly Thunder and Water strong Divine Thunder to assist in cultivation.
Fortunately, the Thunder Light Spell had already been successfully condensed, making it much easier to merge Heavenly Thunder and Water strong Divine Thunder.
With that stone mirror containing Yin-attributed Water strong Divine Thunder in hand, he didn't need to worry. Every so often, the stone mirror would automatically generate Divine Thunder.
As for the Yang-attributed Heavenly Thunder, he would have to collect it again, but there was no rush. The second layer of cultivation required him to completely refine the spiritual power within his body. Zhang Ling estimated that it would take at least thirty to forty years of arduous cultivation, a long process.
Only through this long period of accumulation, refining his spiritual power step by step, could he increase his chances of forming a Nascent Soul.
Therefore, although secret techniques are magical, one must still put in hard work.
For the next half year or so, Zhang Ling continued to cultivate in seclusion within the cave dwelling, but what frustrated him was that the progress of his cultivation seemed to have stagnated.
The Jade Phoenix spiritual power that Ding Ruozhao had transferred to him during those ten years of hard work was completely exhausted in the eighth year.
During those eight years, his cultivation speed was more than three times faster than usual, equivalent to more than thirty years of hard work.
But now he hadn't broken through to the late stage of his cultivation. Speaking of which, his current realm had reached the peak of the Golden Core middle stage, only half a step away from breaking through to the late stage.
The spiritual power within his body had increased by more than half compared to before, but this half step had indeed been progressing slowly in the past two years, with no signs of breakthrough.
Knowing this situation, Zhang Ling realized that he had encountered another cultivation bottleneck.
Therefore, for the next few months, besides cultivating for three hours every day, he spent the rest of his time researching other things.
During this time, he cultivated many spiritual herbs and flowers, and the number of mature Earth Spirit Bees exceeded 100,000.
Once all released, they would pose a great threat to Golden Core middle-stage cultivators.
However, the individual strength of the Earth Spirit Bees did not increase. For this reason, Zhang Ling also looked for several books related to insect control, using some of the secret techniques to cultivate the spirit bees, but the effect was not ideal.
It is worth mentioning that, after feeding a large amount of ice-attributed spiritual herbs and flowers, the two Ice Spirit Silkworms obtained unintentionally from absurdity made rapid progress in cultivation and have reached the level of second-order demon beast.
These Ice Spirit Silkworms can spit extremely cold air. The two Ice Spirit Silkworms, combined, can likely defeat fourth-order demon beast.
However, after reaching the second order, the speed of progress has also slowed down a lot. But Zhang Ling has many spiritual herbs and flowers for them to use, as well as Ice mulberry fruits, so he is not worried about their advancement.
The Ice Spirit Silkworms have excellent talent. As long as they are carefully cultivated, it is possible to cultivate two fifth-order demon insects in a hundred years. By then, his strength will increase a lot.
In this way, Zhang Ling spent more than half a year leisurely and busy.
One afternoon, a white spiritual talisman suddenly flew to Fire Cloud Island. The next day, he left Fire Cloud Island and went to Myriad Manifestation City.
……
Arriving at Myriad Manifestation City, Zhang Ling did not stay long in the market, but went directly to the White Chen Hall in the center.
He came here because it had been nearly a hundred years since he came to Myriad Manifestation City. The sound transmission talisman that flew in yesterday said that the hundred-year lease of Fire Cloud Island that he had rented was about to expire, asking if he wanted to continue renting or change to another island.
Coming here was naturally to pay the spiritual stones, Zhang Ling wanted to continue renting Fire Cloud Island.
He had lived in Fire Cloud Island for many years with peace of mind and did not want to change to another place. He also planned to continue cultivating in seclusion for a period of time, hoping to break through to the late stage.
After entering the White Chen Hall, he immediately received courteous treatment. An old man of the same Golden Core middle stage received him.
This was the convenience brought by cultivation. Seeing that he was here to renew the lease of the island, the old man naturally agreed readily. At the same time, he intentionally or unintentionally recommended several better islands, saying that the rental price would remain the same.
This was obviously to win him over, but Zhang Ling just responded with a smile and refused, only asking to renew the lease of Fire Cloud Island for another hundred years. The old man naturally had no dissatisfaction and easily handled it for him.
Afterwards, the two exchanged cultivation experiences for most of the day before Zhang Ling bid farewell.
After leaving, he went to the market of Myriad Manifestation City to stroll around. Unexpectedly, he met an acquaintance while strolling, and then this person invited him into a Laiyun Inn.
The person who invited him was an old man with white hair and youthful face. It was none other than the Fire Dragon Shangren, whom he had met not long after forming the Golden Core.
After sitting down in the quiet room of the inn, Fire Dragon Shangren brewed a pot of spiritual tea and then began to talk.
