Xiao Fei put away the bronze bowl after he had played with it enough. He now had a good understanding of spiritual treasures.
The bronze bowl did indeed contain a trace of spiritual consciousness, but it was not powerful. It was completely different from the "Bloodthirsty" evil blade he had obtained last time, and it would not directly manifest into human form to betray him.
It seemed that the "Bloodthirsty" blade he obtained last time was purely an anomaly, a troublemaker.
He had kept track of "Bloodthirsty's" whereabouts afterward. With its special attributes, finding it was easy.
Ever since "Bloodthirsty" left, it had remained in a valley and had not moved.
The area surrounding that valley had become a dead zone. Anyone or any beast that approached would explode and turn into a mist of blood, which would then be absorbed by "Bloodthirsty."
Once, a Nascent Soul stage demon cultivator, disbelieving this, attempted to subdue "Bloodthirsty." After entering the valley, there was no further news of him.
Xiao Fei had no intention of retrieving the somewhat rebellious "Bloodthirsty" for now. Since it was disobedient, he would let it continue to roam freely. He was currently doting on the obedient and adorable bronze bowl.
After Xiao Fei and Huang Feifei returned to Meteor Island with the flying giant boat last time, they had stayed on the island to cultivate.
Now, Zhu Yu was leading another flying giant boat to conduct guerrilla warfare on the Eastern Continent.
In any case, the human race was now fighting with nothing to lose, like barefoot individuals facing shoddy shoes. They could do as they pleased anywhere on the Eastern Continent.
Before Zhu Yu left, Xiao Fei lent him a group of strangely shaped and ugly puppets to excavate spirit stone mines.
He intended to charge an exorbitant rental fee. Additionally, Zhu Yu could purchase pills from him using the spirit stones he excavated.
The pills provided by Xiao Fei were rare varieties that even cultivators with spirit stones could not buy in the cultivation world.
If everything went as expected, Zhu Yu should bring back a lot of spirit stones for Xiao Fei this time.
Xiao Fei desperately needed spirit stones, but so far, he had only managed to gather over a billion. He was still a hundred thousand miles away from his goal of tens of billions.
Without sufficient spirit stones, he would not dare to break through to the next realm.
If he were to be drained dry, or even reduced to nothing, he might not even have a chance to regret it.
His goal for spirit stones was still a distant prospect. He couldn't put all his eggs in one basket, so he decided to first advance the "Wind Thunder Battle Body" to the fourth level.
The "Wind Thunder Battle Body" was a body-refining technique with a total of nine levels. Levels one to three were for the Nascent Soul stage, levels four to six for the Soul Transformation stage, and levels seven to nine were called Void Refinement.
Regarding the Void Refinement realm, no one in the entire Eastern Continent had ever heard of it, nor had any texts described the Void Refinement stage.
Since he couldn't break through to the Soul Transformation realm now, he decided to focus his attention on cultivating the "Wind Thunder Battle Body."
During this period, he had refined over a dozen batches of pills using ten-thousand-year-old spiritual herbs in his spatial dimension, which would be enough for him to use for a considerable time.
Ever since he increased the time flow in his spatial dimension to 50 times, the growth of spiritual herbs had accelerated, and the ten-thousand-year-old spiritual herbs in his dimension had increased significantly. In any case, there were more than enough to supply his own needs.
In the following days, Xiao Fei consumed pills daily and entered secluded cultivation. The third level of the "Wind Thunder Battle Body" was gradually reaching perfection.
While he was in secluded cultivation, human cultivators in various regions, inspired by the previous great victory, took the initiative to attack the demon race, making the demons increasingly uneasy.
Furthermore, with the flying giant boats and Zhu Yu, a Soul Transformation stage cultivator, acting as bandits, they frequently raided demon strongholds and robbed spirit stone mines.
This caused considerable distress throughout the demon race.
Although the demon race still had over ten Soul Transformation stage powerhouses, the human cultivators fully embraced the spirit of guerrilla warfare, refusing to engage in direct confrontations. The Eastern Continent was vast, and they could go anywhere.
Zhu Yu had been out for five years before returning to Meteor Island with his flying boat loaded with spoils.
The spoils brought back included not only spirit stones but also a large quantity of other rare materials.
These rare materials could be used for alchemy, artifact forging, talisman crafting, and other purposes, as they were consumables with high consumption rates during warfare.
Zhu Yu returned the rented puppets to Xiao Fei and paid a substantial amount of spirit stones as rent.
He then purchased pills from Xiao Fei with the remaining spirit stones he had.
After consuming such egg-sized pills last time, he had been unable to forget them. With one pill in his stomach, his cultivation had soared rapidly. It was incredibly satisfying!
After Zhu Yu's team returned to Meteor Island, Huang Feifei took over the command and set out on an expedition.
Xiao Fei, as before, handed over the group of ugly-looking puppets to Huang Feifei, but he did not charge rent. Instead, he gave her a few pills.
Huang Feifei's expedition also took five years before she returned to Meteor Island. She, too, brought back a large quantity of spoils.
Huang Feifei knew that Xiao Fei needed spirit stones, so she unconditionally gifted him all the billions of spirit stones she had obtained this time.
Xiao Fei, naturally, did not want Huang Feifei to suffer a loss, so he gave her some additional pills.
"Young Master, approximately how many more spirit stones do you need?"
Xiao Fei pondered for a moment upon hearing this and decided to tell her the truth.
"I need to accomplish a major task this time, requiring at least over ten billion, preferably two to three hundred billion."
Even though Huang Feifei was mentally prepared, she was still shocked by this enormous sum.
"Young Master, according to the intelligence I have gathered and analyzed, the total amount of spirit stone veins in the entire Eastern Continent, if all excavated, is only around ten billion."
Huang Feifei had to deliver this grim news to Xiao Fei so that he could prepare himself psychologically.
Xiao Fei was not too surprised by this. He had already anticipated it, which further strengthened his resolve to switch to cultivating the "Wind Thunder Battle Body."
"Additionally, there is some not-so-good news. The spiritual energy in the entire Eastern Continent has already been depleted by about one to two tenths."
The spiritual energy in the Eastern Continent was originally not very dense, and it was insufficient to support the cultivation and combat of Soul Transformation stage cultivators.
Now, due to the war, many spiritual veins had been destroyed, and many spirit stone mines had been excavated.
Most of these excavated spirit stones were hidden by Xiao Fei, while some were used on the battlefield.
For instance, colossal entities like the flying giant boats were major consumers of spirit stones, and many formations and other items also consumed spirit stones rapidly during warfare.
The remaining spirit stone mines and spiritual veins were further polluted by the demon race into demonic energy.
Moreover, if this trend continued, and the war persisted, the spiritual energy of the Eastern Continent would continue to be depleted.
In the end, regardless of which side emerged victorious, they would only inherit an Eastern Continent with depleted spiritual energy, rendering it unsuitable for cultivation.
"Alas..."
Xiao Fei sighed, but he was powerless. Although he knew the outcome, he could do nothing to prevent it.
The demon race would not cease their invasion of the Eastern Continent. After all, this world did not originally belong to the demon race, so why should they cherish it?
In the face of the demon race's aggression, the human race, for the sake of survival, could not abandon their resistance, and the fighting would continue.
"Regardless, we must continue to excavate spirit stone mines and collect spirit stones. Rather than leaving them for the demon race, it's better to seize the spirit stones ourselves."