Eventually, Nie Tian only found out about the origins and uses of the Nine Stars Flower and the leaves of the Tree of Godly Spirit from his trip to the Records Pavilion.

He still knew nothing regarding the flame spark.

Recently, whenever he refined his spiritual cores, he would feel like he was stuck at a bottleneck. He thought the reason lay with his wood power core.

For some reason, every time he refined his wood power core, he would feel disturbed and uneasy.

This was the first time he had ever had this peculiar feeling.

It seemed that even though he had figured out the profound uses of the tree leaves and Nine Stars Flower, it didn’t help him break through the bottleneck.

“Wood power core…” Deeply baffled, he muttered inwardly as he walked out the gate of the Records Pavilion towards the Vast Heaven Pavilion.

Along the way, many Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace disciples secretly kept their eyes on him.

As he arrived in front of the Vast Heaven Pavilion, a figure suddenly flashed into appearance.

Nie Tian hastily bowed respectfully. “Grand elder!”

Clearly, he hadn’t expected the person to be Mo Heng.

Mo Heng’s figure looked blurry and illusory as he waved his hand slightly, signaling him not to stand on ceremony. “Let’s talk inside.”

The two of them then quickly entered the Vast Heaven Pavilion.

Only after that did Mo Heng’s figure grow clear, assuming a clear appearance, as if his true self had finally arrived.

Mo Heng seemed to have some scruples, as if he didn’t want people to know that he had come to meet Nie Tian in private.

“Didn’t they say that you weren’t in the Realm of Fragmentary Star, grand elder?” Nie Tian asked curiously.

He had asked Tao Jin on their way to meet Wei Lai, and learned that Mo Heng hadn’t returned from his trip.

“I just got back,” Mo Heng explained lightly before asking in a low voice, “Tao Jin told me that you seem to have run into some difficulties in your cultivation. Wanna talk to me about them?”

“Of course.” Without holding anything back, Nie Tian told him out his problem with refining his flame power, wood power, and star power cores, and how he would feel disturbed and stuck.

“Let me see.” With these words, Mo Heng flicked his finger.

A small amount of pure spiritual power that was completely bereft of any attributes flew smoothly into Nie Tian’s spiritual sea in his dantian region.

Like an eye, the spiritual power flowed around within Nie Tian’s spiritual power. In one moment, it observed his flame power core closely. In the next moment, it focused on his star power core and wood power core.

However, Nie Tian’s spiritual sea didn’t reject it the whole time.

“Pure spiritual power without any attributes... such a strange person...” Nie Tian wondered, finding this intriguing.

So far, he had met more Qi warriors than he could count, but every single one of them had specific cultivation attributes, such as fire, lightning, ice, wood, and many others.

The rarest of all was time power, which his master practiced, and spatial power, which Pei Qiqi practiced.

However, the bit of glowing spiritual power that flew out of Mo Heng’s fingertip into his spiritual sea was bereft of any attributes. It was nothing but pure spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth, the same as the spiritual power within spirit stones, spirit jades, and spirit crystals.

Perhaps that was the reason why his spiritual sea didn’t reject it.

Soon, that bit of glowing spiritual power flew to Nie Tian’s pure spiritual power core, which also didn’t have any attributes.

After examining it for awhile, the bit of spiritual power flew out of Nie Tian’s spiritual sea and vanished into Mo Heng.

“Did you repeat the refinement of your flame power, wood power, and star power cores this whole time?” Mo Heng asked. “I bet the Nine Stars Flower, leaves of the Godspirit Tree, and that flame spark that I don’t recognize have greatly improved your efficiency when refining those three cores, right?”

Nie Tian nodded gently. “That’s right.”

Mo Heng sighed. “You’ve erred from the right path. Don’t you see that the ultimate foundation of us Qi warriors is that pure spiritual power core? The spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth and spirit stones are sources of power our ancestors found after searching for countless years.

“Only after that did people gradually develop different attributes, such as flame, wood, and lightning, and derive methods to practice such attributed powers.

“However, the core foundation has never changed. It was still our spiritual power core, which is made of nothing but pure spiritual power.

“Attributed powers, such as flame power, wood power, and lightning power, have to mix with pure spiritual power in order to maximize their might. Otherwise, we could have simply forgotten about the cultivation of pure spiritual power, and focused on the powers of attributes instead.

“The same goes for our spiritual cores.

“Without pure spiritual power, we wouldn’t have been able to open up our spiritual seas to hold powers of different attributes in the first place.

“The spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth can mix with power of any attribute and become stronger. This is the most wondrous feature of spiritual power, and the core reason why humans have grown powerful.

“If you want to refine those three cores to the point where they’re ready for your breakthrough into the late Profound realm, you’ll have spend enough time and energy refining your spiritual power core first.

“If your spiritual power core is far too weak, then it won’t be able to help you refine your three cores of different attributes.

“It’s crucial to maintain a balanced cultivation when you refine your spiritual cores. The first step is to refine your pure spiritual power core. Then, you want to keep the same pace with the cultivation of the other three cores. If you focus all of your energy on one of them, you’ll lose balance.

“Once you lose balance, your disadvantage of practicing multiple powers simultaneously will be magnified. Conflicts might occur between your spiritual cores...”

Mo Heng took his time to explain the correct procedure to refine his spiritual sea, telling him that the reason why he had felt that he had reached a bottleneck and had great difficulty refining the three spiritual cores was because he had spent most of his energy refining his three attributed spiritual cores.

He had forgotten about the foundation, and been consumed with the fact that the Earth Cultivated grade treasures in those three cores were accelerating the speed at which he absorbed power.

“So does that mean I need to stop refining those three cores for the time being, and focus all my energy on refining my pure spiritual power core?” Nie Tian asked.

“Exactly,” Mo Heng answered with a certain look in his eyes.

“Thank you very much for clearing this up for me, grand elder!” Nie Tian expressed his gratitude seriously.

Mo Heng waved his hand. After pondering briefly, he took out a Sound Stone and handed it to Nie Tian. “I’ll stay in the Realm of Fragmentary Star for a while. If you run into other problems in your cultivation, just message me. Also, don’t mention our meeting to anyone, including Wei Lai.”

Though puzzled, Nie Tian promised that he wouldn’t.

“No one knows about my return, and I don’t intend to let them know,” Mo Heng added.

Nie Tian was puzzled. “But you showed up in front of the Vast Heaven Pavilion...” 

“You were the only one who could see and hear me. No one else could.” After uttering these words, Mo Heng turned around and left.

As soon as he walked out the front gate, he vanished into thin air like a puff of smoke scattering into the wind. Not even the slightest sign of his aura could be detected.

“That man is so strange... He was cold and distant when he examined my Blood Essence. But after that, he gave me all those contribution points, and assigned the Domain of Heaven Python, the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries, and the Domain of the Falling Stars to me. He even gave me the Vast Heaven Pavilion, which had been reserved for many years. And now, he pays me this secret visit, and solves problems for me...”

Nie Tian felt that Mo Heng seemed to be providing him with special care, and all of this seemed to have happened after the examination of his Blood Essence.

After Mo Heng left, Nie Tian pondered the matter for a long time, but still failed to think of an answer.

Afterwards, he focused on the refinement of his pure spiritual power core as Mo Heng had told him to, and temporarily ignored the refinement of his flame power, wood power, and star power cores.

It wasn’t long before he realized that the road Mo Heng had pointed out for him was completely right.

A few months later, even though he had focused on refining his pure spiritual core and completely ignored the other three cores of different attributes, as he attempted to practice the True Flame Incantation with the help of Heavenflame Crystals, he felt with great clarity that the speed at which he absorbed flame power had returned to a very high level.

Even the speed at which he channeled wood power had returned to its previous high level, and he no longer felt disturbed and uneasy.

Now that he finally understood the right order to refine his spiritual cores, his path of cultivation suddenly became surprisingly smooth. His previous feeling of being stuck at a bottleneck had completely vanished.

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