The Monarch of Soul Divergence yelped in alarm, "Yi! That seems to be a Dream Prominence Fruit. It's already turned a deep purple. It should have medicinal properties over ten thousand years in age at the very least."
Forcing down the excitement in his heart, Han Li said with a calm tone, "It is unknown just how long this abandoned medicinal garden has existed. It would be odd if its potency wasn't at least ten thousand years of age!" He didn't immediately pick any of the fruit. Instead, he observed them for a long while before turning around to examine another corner of the garden.
"Dragonweave Grass! Wind Spirit Flowers!" As Han Li muttered the names of these long extinct spirit medicines of immense potency, his eyes shined with increasing excitement.
"I'm surprised you're so familiar with medicinal herbs. There were even some I hadn't heard off." Monarch Soul Divergence said with a surprised tone.
Han Li raised his head to look at another direction and smiled, saying, "Could it be that Senior is teasing me? I am only able to recognize a third of the plants here. I will be needing your help to identify most of them."
Perhaps believing this to only be a trivial matter, Monarch Soul Divergence didn't press Han Li too hard. Rather, he coldly snorted and said, "Although I've touched upon the topic of pill refinement, I haven't delved too deeply into it so I will only be able to help you identify them. That over there is..."
Han Li nodded as he listened. Then he summoned a faint green jade slip into his hand and immersed his spiritual sense into it, staying still as if probing it.
Monarch Soul Divergence tactfully kept silent as Han Li did this. After the time it took to finish a meal, Han Li withdrew his spiritual sense from the jade slip, wearing a pensive expression.
This jade slip was given to Han Li by the Drifting Cloud Sect's Cultivator Song and recorded many ancient spirit medicines and pill formulas. He was relying on it to recognize many of the spirit medicines in the garden.
After Han Li looked through it, he spotted two ancient pill formulas that he was able to immediately refine. It used a few of the ancient spirit herbs that he had found inside the garden along with a few of the materials he had received in exchange for the copper lantern from the battle at the border. With these ingredients, he barely had enough materials to create the so-called Fuchsia Cloud Pill.
According to the pill formula, it was a cultivation progression pill that was rare even in times of antiquity. Its medicinal power was excessive for an early Nascent Soul cultivator like Han and was more appropriate for a mid Nascent Soul cultivator. If Han Li were to take it, a portion of its medicinal strength would be wasted and his meridians would swell until they tore, arousing intense pain.
There was also another pill by the name of the Snow Soul Pill that he had high hopes for refining. However, he was still missing a few precious ingredients to refine it and would have to find them in the outside world.
Although the Snow Soul Pill wasn't a medicine pill that progressed cultivation, it was a supplementary medicine that increased the glacial power of a cultivator's ice techniques. The pill formula only gave a vague description of its effects, but it was certain to be unordinary, given the rare materials that it used.
As for the other medicine herbs in the garden, they weren't enough to complete a formula and would be used for later.
Han Li's thoughts continued to churn over how he could use these medicinal herbs and he couldn't help but turn giddy.
Although Han Li had been kept busy ever since he had entered the Nascent Soul stage and never had the opportunity to enter seclusion for a long period of time for cultivation, the thought of looking for appropriate cultivation medicine and an opportunity to seclude himself for many years had been on his mind for a while. It appeared his efforts had paid off now that an opportunity presented itself.
If the Fuchsia Cloud Pill was as miraculous as the pill formula had described, it would be able to push him to the peak of the early Nascent Soul stage. Afterwards, he could attempt to break through the bottleneck to the mid Nascent Soul stage.
Additionally, a few of these medicinal herbs could be replanted when he returned and he could further mature them with the use of the green liquid, making even more Fuchsia Cloud Pills.
As for the Snow Soul Pills, they were also rather useful to Han Li. His Celestial Ice Flames and Purple Apex Flames were both glacial abilities and the pill was suitable in boosting their power.
With his tentative plans finished, Han Li let out a long breath and his face betrayed a rare expression of happiness. If everything went as planned, the dangers he had braved in Devilfall Valley as well as the destruction of various treasures and puppets would've been well worth it.
The only thing that made him anxious was the loss of his two Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords that were infused with Auric Essence. But since the two swords were his personally bonded magic treasures, he didn't need to fear having them seized by others as they would be bonded to him as long as he breathed. At worst, he would have to spend a bit of effort to find them and shouldn't prove too difficult.
Had Han Li known that his flying swords had fallen into the hands of the Elder Devil, his thoughts wouldn't have been anywhere near so relaxed.
Then without another thought, Han Li slapped his storage pouch and took out over a dozen jade boxes of varying sizes, suspending them in the air in front of him.
Han Li then lowered himself and began to carefully pick the spirit herbs. After he finished digging up one plant by the roots, he left the rest of them alone and slowly made his way across different fields of plants.
Regardless of whatever spirit medicines they were, Han Li uprooted a single plant from each of them so that he could further nurture them on the outside.
But after Han Li did this once through for each plant, his expression sank and became unsightly. It seemed that there were three medicine herbs in the garden that couldn't be replanted.
There was one plant that was like the Spirit Kindle Fruit. When they left their original spot of growth, they immediately withered and lost their medicinal qualities while another plant combusted and disappeared as soon as it was picked. As for the last kind, it was particularly strange; it wilted as if in fear and dissolved into liquid.
Han Li felt particularly annoyed. There were only a few spirit medicines in this world that couldn't be replanted, but there were three of these plants in this garden. What made Han Li particularly depressed was that one of these plants was a primary ingredient for the Fuchsia Cloud Pill.
It was a small red herb that appeared as scarlet as flame. After circling around it several times, his expression turned as cold as ice. But something suddenly came to mind and after a moment of hesitation, he took out his small green bottle from his robes.
This bottle had remained hidden on Han Li's person with a mysterious technique. Unless he perished, there was no way of anybody else discovering it.
"What's that?" The Monarch of Soul Divergence curiously asked.
"It's nothing, only a magic tool." Han Li casually replied. He then carefully opened the bottle with both his hands.
As a result, nothing strange happened. After waiting a moment more, Han Li frowned before carefully closing it and putting it away. This dimensional space had no sun, moon, or stars. It came as no surprise that the small bottle didn't have any effect here, but he still felt disappointed nevertheless.
Under these conditions, Han Li couldn't refine many Fuchsia Cloud Pills no matter how long he stayed here. He would only be able to refine as many of those pills as the present herbs would allow him.
Han Li sighed and then turned his head upward to look at the sky with squinted eyes.
Regardless of the medicine pills, he had another urgent matter to resolve. He needed to figure out a way to return to the mortal realm.
This time, he didn't have another person with him to form a joint attack, and from his recent examination with his spiritual sense, there were no unstable areas in any of the walls. He tried to look up above and down below, but there was some sort of restriction that repelled his spiritual sense.
As for Silvermoon, she had already gone into the ground with her earth movement techniques to take a closer look. All that was left was for him to personally go and look what was up above in the grey clouds.
Given the recent display of the restriction's power, Han Li was unwilling to casually stir it and provoke his own doom.
Just as he lowered his head in thought, silver light flickered from the ground. Silvermoon reappeared and hastily saluted Han Li.
"Master, I've finished my inspection. Although there is a restriction down below, it is fragmented. I managed to dig through the hole, but I didn't find anything of interest. I'm afraid I must disappoint Master." Silvermoon stated with a regretful tone.
Han Li's expression remained the same and he slowly nodded. He then raised his head to the sky and said, "It's alright. So it turned out there wasn't a gap through the ground."
"Does Master plan on searching up above?" Silvermoon asked with a tone of worry.
With a firm voice, Han Li said, "Yes. With the walls and ground having no holes, I can only risk some danger and go up. Since the silver flame only killed the Elder Devil, it shouldn't take action against human cultivators. Otherwise, I may truly be trapped here for the rest of my life." His body then glowed with azure light and he floated up to the sky.