In the mountain cave, Lu Ye continued his intense cultivation, swallowing one Spirit Essence Pill after another. As one spirit acupoint filled, the barrier of the next acupoint would break, and when he was tired, he would sleep, and when he was hungry, he would eat.
The days passed without much event, even a bit monotonous and dull, but Lu Ye felt the continuous accumulation of spiritual energy within his body, knowing that this was the process of becoming stronger.
Before reaching the Spirit Stream Realm, he had maintained a frequency of opening one acupoint every three days, consuming about six Spirit Essence Pills each time.
Now that he had reached the Spirit Stream Realm, he could still maintain the speed of opening one acupoint every three days, but the consumption was greater, requiring about eight to nine Spirit Essence Pills to open each acupoint.
The reason he could still maintain the speed of opening acupoints was that his cultivation had improved, and the efficiency of refining Spirit Essence Pills was faster than before.
Previously, it took half a day to completely refine one Spirit Essence Pill, and he could only refine two pills a day. But now, if he was sufficiently focused, he could refine three pills.
As a result, although the consumption was greater, he could still maintain the speed of opening acupoints.
In a hurry, half a month passed, and the last Spirit Essence Pill was used up.
Lu Ye examined his cultivation level, which was still at the first stage of the Spirit Stream Realm. However, he had already opened fifteen spirit acupoints, and the fifteenth acupoint was not yet full of spiritual energy.
He was only three acupoints away from the second stage of the Spirit Stream Realm! If he could advance to the second stage of the Spirit Stream Realm, his strength would definitely increase significantly. For now, although his spiritual energy reserves had increased greatly, the newly opened acupoints were not yet integrated, and they could not provide much assistance in battle.
He still had some ore that could be exchanged for spirit stones. With his previous experience, he planned to go down the mountain again to the Tianji Merchant Alliance.
He walked out of the cave leisurely. The sun was high outside, but the dense canopy of the forest allowed only a few rays of light to penetrate the thick leaves, forming patches of light on the ground.
Lu Ye squinted slightly, and after a moment, he took a step forward once he had adjusted.
Not far away, he suddenly heard some unusual commotion. He frowned slightly and quietly approached the source of the sound.
A moment later, he hid behind a large tree and looked ahead.
In that direction, three cultivators stood there as if facing a great enemy, each looking as if they had lost a loved one, their expressions tense, and one of the female cultivators was almost in tears.
Not far from these three cultivators, a large, snow-white tiger with a robust body was pacing back and forth. Its amber eyes occasionally glanced at the three cultivators, giving off a great sense of pressure.
As it paced, it spoke: "Open your storage bags and throw them on the ground, then get out of here. Otherwise, this great king doesn't mind eating you!"
Lu Ye's eyes twitched at the authoritative and aged voice. He had heard it once before, but it was ultimately confirmed to be the trick of the spirit named Yi Yi.
The three cultivators were clearly terrified. One of them, trembling, unfastened the storage bag from his waist, opened the restriction lock, and threw it on the ground. He looked at the tiger in fear and pleaded, "Great King, please calm down. We did not mean to offend. Everything is here. Please let us go."
The tiger glanced at the storage bag on the ground and roared, "Get out!"
The man immediately turned and ran away without looking back.
With his lead, the other two cultivators also quickly threw down their storage bags and fled for their lives.
After confirming that the three cultivators had run far away, the tiger slowly approached. However, before it could get close, someone suddenly appeared and grabbed the three storage bags.
The tiger was startled and leaped backward. A small figure floated out from its head, staring at Lu Ye in shock, "That's our stuff!"
Lu Ye held the storage bags and checked them, frowning.
He found that the contents of these storage bags were pitifully few. Each person only had a few Spirit Essence Pills, some herbs, and various daily necessities. As for spirit stones, there was not a single one.
Cursing them as poor devils, Lu Ye took out the Spirit Essence Pills and divided them into two portions. He kept one portion for himself and threw the other to Yi Yi, "A share for everyone who sees!"
Yi Yi was shocked by his actions and pounced at him, "Give it back to me!"
"Clang!" The long sword was drawn, and Lu Ye looked at the approaching Yi Yi with a smile.
Yi Yi's body froze in front of the sword, her teeth grinding in anger. She cursed him, her mouth like honey.
"Shall I call those three people back?"
Yi Yi immediately shrank back, unwillingly retreating. She knew that the Spirit Essence Pills in Lu Ye's hands were not going to be returned. She could feel that Lu Ye had become much stronger than he was over a month ago. If they really fought, the tiger would not be a match for him.
However, the experience of having her things stolen made her feel extremely wronged, and she muttered words like "shameless" and "vile."
"Ask me a question," Lu Ye said.
"I won't tell you anything!" Yi Yi gritted her teeth.
"If you answer well, I'll give these things back to you," Lu Ye waved the stolen goods, a few Spirit Essence Pills, which he did not really care about.
"Hah!" Yi Yi laughed disdainfully, acting as if she despised money, perched on the tiger's head, sat up straight, and lifted her head, "Ask away!"
"Why are those people so afraid of you? I saw many demon cultivators in the market below, and they didn't seem that impressive."
This puzzled Lu Ye. Those demon cultivators were definitely stronger than the tiger. Logically, cultivators who were used to seeing demon cultivators shouldn't be so terrified of an untransformed demon beast, being frightened into a panic by a few words.
"You don't understand," Yi Yi said smugly, "Transformed demon cultivators and untransformed demon beasts are different..."
After her explanation, Lu Ye finally understood. Not all demon beasts chose to transform, either due to intelligence issues, personal choice, or bloodline inheritance. In any case, a significant portion of demon beasts still maintained their original forms.
These demon beasts did not speak when their strength was low, but when their strength reached a certain level, they could speak human language.
In other words, demon beasts that could speak human language were equivalent to strong beings. How strong they were, at the very least, was not something these low-level cultivators in the outer regions could provoke.
So the combination of the tiger and Yi Yi was very intimidating, and many cultivators who ventured into this area suffered as a result.
"Is that so!" Lu Ye understood, feeling that he had learned more about the common knowledge of the cultivation world.
He threw the stolen goods away and turned to leave the mountain.
Yi Yi checked and confirmed there were no problems, then shouted at Lu Ye's back, "Are you leaving?"
"None of your business!" Lu Ye's voice came from a distance.
"Damn!" Yi Yi muttered, turned to hug the tiger's head, and said sadly, "Amber, we are so pitiful!"