My Portable Spirit Farm: Rise of the Humble Servant

Chapter 228: Shedding Dust Pill Formula

Chen Ping stared at the blade, his heart hammering against his ribs.

The sheer, oppressive weight of the sword’s aura eclipsed any Dharma Artifact he had ever encountered. It was even more terrifying than the imposing flying sword strapped to the back of Qingyun Sect’s Headmaster, Li Lingfeng—a weapon widely suspected to be a genuine Dharma Treasure!

This was a weapon of mass slaughter. An artifact that only a true Violet Palace realm expert could fully refine and unleash.

A cold, horrifying realization washed over him. If Old Ghost Han’s remnant soul had managed to summon this sword during their battle in the tomb, Chen Ping wouldn’t have lasted a single exchange. The sheer disparity in weapon tiers would have instantly annihilated his soul.

“Too close… I really gambled with my life this time. Thank the heavens I kept that old ghost scrambling long enough to prevent him from drawing this.”

A layer of icy sweat slicked Chen Ping’s spine, quickly followed by a profound wave of relief.

He snapped the jadeite box shut. Instantly, the suffocating, razor-sharp sword intent vanished from the air.

While the flying sword was a priceless killing tool, it was absolutely untouchable for him right now. Genuine Dharma Treasures possessed a nascent sentience and were heavily branded with their master’s spiritual imprint.

With his current Foundation Establishment cultivation and comparatively weak Divine Sense, attempting to violently erase the imprint of a late-stage Violet Palace overlord was nothing short of suicidal arrogance.

It would take years, perhaps over a decade, of agonizing, water-dropping-on-stone effort to slowly grind the imprint away. Forcibly refining it now would only invite a catastrophic spiritual backlash.

“It goes on the shelf for now. I’ll wait until I break through to the Violet Palace to claim it,” Chen Ping muttered.

He gingerly set the box aside, forcing himself to look away. Staring at an apex weapon he couldn’t wield would only breed reckless temptation.

He turned to the third box.

Chen Ping rubbed his hands together, silently praying to whatever heavens were listening. Please, let it be another miracle.

He popped the lid. Resting inside was another pill formula inscribed on beast hide.

However, this hide was vastly superior to the others. It was incredibly soft, yet possessed a terrifying tensile strength. It had clearly been flayed from a high-tier, exceptionally powerful spirit beast.

When his eyes locked onto the three ancient characters stamped at the top of the scroll, his heart completely stalled. The blood roared in his ears.

Shedding Dust Pill!

Those three simple characters sent Chen Ping into near hyperventilation.

Shedding Dust… Shedding the mortal shell? Could this really be it? The legendary pill designed to violently force a breakthrough into the Violet Palace realm?

Chen Ping forced his breathing to steady and meticulously devoured the text.

Moments later, a wave of absolute, unadulterated ecstasy crashed over him!

Han Feiyu hadn’t been lying! That greasy, silver-tongued bastard had actually told the truth! Old Ghost Han really did possess a Violet Palace breakthrough formula!

The text’s preamble was clear: To shed the dust is to sever the mortal coil, stepping into an entirely new stratum of existence.

In practical terms, it was the exact definition of breaking through to the Violet Palace realm—the first, agonizing step toward forging an Immortal body.

Chen Ping understood the lore perfectly.

A Violet Palace cultivator boasted a terrifying lifespan of 480 years. Compared to a mortal’s meager 40-year existence, it was more than a tenfold increase. That staggering gap was the literal dividing line between a long-lived apex predator and a fleeting mayfly.

Furthermore, a Violet Palace expert began to physically manipulate the ambient laws of heaven and earth, awakening true divine abilities. The difference between them and a mortal was as vast as the gulf between the clouds and the mud. Calling them Immortals was no exaggeration.

Therefore, the violent ascension to the Violet Palace was literally the process of shedding mortal dust.

Ancient cultivators really had a flair for poetic naming, Chen Ping mused, grinning like a madman as he continued reading.

The formula meticulously detailed the required ingredients: three primary components—the Purple Sun Tree Heart, the Ice Mystic Fruit, and the Fire Spirit Grass!

There were also over 20 auxiliary herbs, but while expensive, they were relatively common and acquirable with enough Spirit Stones.

The pill’s efficacy was staggering. A low-grade Shedding Dust Pill unconditionally boosted the odds of a Violet Palace breakthrough by 30%! A middle-grade pill offered 35%, a high-grade offered 40%, and a flawless top-grade pill promised an apocalyptic 50% increase!

Chen Ping’s breathing grew ragged.

A 50% increase! It was enough to drive any Foundation Establishment Grand Perfection cultivator into a bloodthirsty frenzy!

But then he hit the primary ingredient list again, and his manic grin faltered.

The Purple Sun Tree Heart.

The Purple Sun Treasure Tree was a mythic-tier flora. It took two entire millennia just to reach maturity. Once grown, it only produced a meager handful of Purple Sun Fruits every 400 years.

Those fruits were the core ingredient for the cultivation world’s mainstream breakthrough supplement: the Violet Palace Pill.

The Violet Palace Pill was excellent. A standard batch offered a 30% breakthrough chance, scaling up to 40% for high-grade. Only its top-grade variant fell short of the Shedding Dust Pill, capping out at 45%.

Given the relative availability of the fruit versus the Tree Heart, the Violet Palace Pill was vastly more cost-effective.

However… Chen Ping shook his head slowly.

The Violet Palace Pill formula was monopolized by the world’s apex sects. Getting his hands on a copy was a literal pipe dream.

The Shedding Dust Pill’s requirements were borderline impossible, yes, but he actually possessed the complete formula. For Chen Ping, having the blueprint meant he had hope.

The real nightmare was acquiring the Purple Sun Tree Heart.

The Tree Heart was the literal, condensed life essence of the entire Purple Sun Treasure Tree. Harvesting the heart meant practically murdering the 2,000-year-old tree. It would require another agonizing millennium to slowly regenerate, during which it would bear zero fruit.

Any major sect or ancient family lucky enough to possess a Purple Sun Treasure Tree treated it as the absolute, untouchable bedrock of their legacy. They would gingerly harvest the fruits every four centuries, but they would never, under any circumstances, butcher their golden goose just to extract the heart!

Consequently, Purple Sun Tree Hearts simply did not exist on the open market. Even the fruits were ruthlessly hoarded and strictly embargoed by the elite sects.

“I’ll just have to rely on my heaven-defying luck in the future,” Chen Ping sighed, rubbing his temples.

The Mystic Primordial Pill formula was a financial black hole, but this Shedding Dust Pill formula demanded an ingredient that was literally unbuyable!

Even with his Black Earth and its terrifying 50-fold growth acceleration… he would first need to acquire a viable seed or cutting of a Purple Sun Treasure Tree.

The difficulty of that task was comparable to scaling the heavens barehanded.

The other two primary ingredients—the Ice Mystic Fruit and Fire Spirit Grass—were agonizingly rare, but they at least existed in circulation. With enough capital and connections, he could eventually track them down.

The Tree Heart was the unsolvable equation.

I’ll have to plan this out meticulously. Maybe I can find a way to secure a Purple Sun Fruit and extract its seeds, or somehow bribe my way into acquiring a live cutting…

Chen Ping chewed on the thought, but his confidence was abysmal.

The major sects weren’t idiots. To maintain their absolute monopoly, they would ruthlessly sterilize any fruits or cuttings that left their borders. If he wanted viable stock, he would likely have to risk everything on an insane, suicidal heist.

Chen Ping’s face darkened into a bitter scowl.

Stealing the foundational legacy of a massive, ancient sect?

“Difficult. As difficult as ascending to the blue sky,” he muttered, exhaling a long, heavy breath.

The path to the Violet Palace was truly paved with razor blades.

I’ll just have to take it one step at a time. Having the formula is infinitely better than having nothing. As long as I hold the blueprint, an opportunity will eventually present itself!

Forcing his frustration down, Chen Ping reached for the second-to-last box. His mood had stabilized significantly.

He popped the lid.

There was no ancient scroll. There was no terrifying weapon.

There was only a single, solitary seed.

It was roughly the size of a longan fruit and completely forged in a deep, metallic dark gold. Its surface was aggressively etched with an impossibly complex, profoundly esoteric matrix of patterns.

They weren’t carved. They were naturally occurring. Looking closely, the patterns seemed to be constructed from millions of microscopic, shifting runes, radiating an aura that was ancient, obscure, and violently primal.

The exact millisecond Chen Ping’s eyes locked onto the seed, his pupils shrank to pinpricks.

These patterns… this aura… It’s too familiar!