Crow Immortal: I Can Duplicate Infinite Resources

Chapter 265: Cultivation and Gathering

Han Yu didn’t bother asking how his flock managed to communicate complex instructions to the giant black bear.

The following day, he resumed his rigorous cultivation schedule.

After completing his core energy cycles, Han Yu set to work on his arsenal. He replicated several vials of the Hundred Flowers Poison Elder Wen had given him. He then meticulously coated the Thousand-Year Sunkwood Heart—which he had crudely refined into a specialized, single-use Magical Artifact meant to be detonated via the Object Explosion Technique—with a fresh, lethal layer of the toxin.

Ever since breaking through to the Foundation Establishment realm, Han Yu felt an underlying paranoia regarding combat. Relying solely on basic illusions and standard techniques to defeat peers of the same realm felt far too precarious.

Whether it was Foundation Establishment techniques, Talismans, Magical Artifacts, or his sword arts, he lacked the absolute, one-hit-kill certainty he craved. This was especially true now that he was operating outside the safety of Wanchun Valley. The wilderness was an entirely different beast than the sparring rings of his Sect. Out here, enemies might harbor vicious, insidious secret arts he had never encountered. He absolutely refused to give an opponent the luxury of exchanging blows to test his strength.

Consequently, the Star Luo Threads had become his primary opener. The invisible threads allowed for rapid, untraceable probing. If the threads failed to secure a quick kill, he would immediately escalate to his true trump card: the Invisible Spindle.

If the Spindle failed, he had the Green Wood Thunder Pill on standby. For absolute defense, he held the Protection Talisman from the Sect Leader. And if all else failed, his ultimate escape hatch was the mysterious Teleportation Slate.

Han Yu possessed an incredibly robust survivability toolkit: the Green Wood Protection Technique, his wood-spirit refined body, the Sect Leader’s defensive Talisman, and the profound vitality generated by the Blood Refining Technique. However, Han Yu operated on the principle of absolute overkill. When encountering an enemy in the wild, one must strike with overwhelming, lethal force immediately. Using one’s own life to test the depths of an enemy’s trickery was the pinnacle of stupidity.

The only reason he didn’t open every fight with the Green Wood Thunder Pill was because the explosive force of a mid-stage Golden Core attack would act as a massive flare, instantly exposing his location and drawing the scrutiny of every major Sect in the region.

Thus, the Thousand-Year Sunkwood Heart, rigged to explode and drenched in Hundred Flowers Poison, served as his strongest, most discreet offensive option just below the Thunder Pill and the Invisible Spindle. The sheer, instantaneous kinetic and toxic violence of detonating a thousand-year-old spirit wood core vastly eclipsed standard Foundation Establishment attacks, his crow swarms, or his Sword Heart sword arts.

Arsenal prepared, Han Yu consumed a Purple Yang Fruit.

While this specific fruit did little to directly boost raw spiritual energy, its ability to purge bodily impurities and forcefully clear the mind of distracting thoughts was phenomenal.

A profound sense of physical lightness and extreme mental clarity washed over him. With the Purple Yang Fruit active, he no longer needed to burn through his stock of Mystic Heart Fruits to achieve the hyper-focus required for comprehending complex techniques.

Han Yu withdrew a Jade Slip and began his studies.

Having painstakingly copied the entire Wanchun Valley Technique Pavilion into his Storage Bag, Han Yu was painfully aware of the sheer volume of knowledge he still needed to digest. Time was his most precious commodity.

If circumstances permitted, he would have gladly locked himself in a lightless cave for decades to study and cultivate in peace. But the existential crisis facing his Sect, compounded by the Myriad Phenomena Sect branding him the prophesied Demon Star, forced his hand. He had to accelerate his cultivation by any means necessary, which meant braving the treacherous storms of the outside world to hunt for resources.

If he relied solely on standard, daily cultivation, there was no guarantee he would breach the Golden Core realm within the next twenty years. And once the Myriad Phenomena Sect finished their current purges and turned their fanatical gaze back to him, they wouldn’t listen to reason or explanations from Wanchun Valley. They would simply point their fingers and slaughter everyone associated with him.

Setting the Jade Slip down, Han Yu spent an hour mentally integrating the dense array theories he had just memorized. Feeling a wave of mental fatigue setting in, he finally stood and walked out into the cool night air outside the mountain god temple.

His massive lead raven descended from the canopy, flanked by two smaller crows.

Master. The two scouts monitoring the Seeking Truth Daoist Temple have returned. The temple is operating normally. I have already dispatched fresh scouts to maintain the watch, the raven reported telepathically.

The two smaller crows simultaneously projected their collected memories directly into Han Yu’s mind, providing a rapid, comprehensive briefing on the Daoists’ movements.

“Excellent. Maintain the surveillance. Do not relax your guard for a single breath,” Han Yu instructed.

He was in no rush to collect the intelligence the Daoists were gathering for him; confirming they hadn’t betrayed him to the Mystic One Sect was the absolute priority.

Originally, Han Yu had planned to personally infiltrate the Mystic One Market to hunt for Spirit Stone Marrow Liquid. He had since discarded the idea. The Yulin Kingdom was infested with Rogue Cultivators, utterly ignored by the ruling Mystic One Sect. Han Yu could utilize this neglected underclass as a massive, decentralized intelligence network, saving himself immense risk.

If he could establish a firm grip on the local black market, he could use items these scavengers lusted after—Foundation Establishment Pills, Purple Yang Fruits, high-tier cultivation manuals—as leverage. With those incentives, he could easily compel them to scour the region and purchase Spirit Stone Marrow Liquid on his behalf.

Unless forced into a corner, he absolutely refused to risk his neck sneaking around the gates of the Mystic One Sect.

Another day passed in rigorous routine. Han Yu swallowed Gathering Origin Pills, washed down with Ancestral Tree Spirit Liquid and extracts from the Thousand-Year Sunkwood Heart to forcefully expand his Foundation Establishment spiritual energy. His Blood Essence reserves and the tensile strength of his Star Luo Threads swelled with daily practice. He consumed Purple Yang Fruits to study array Formations and Artifact Refining from his Jade Slips, while skimming various obscure cultivation arts to broaden his theoretical knowledge.

He also systematically banked a portion of his daily replication charges. If no immediate emergencies arose, he planned to spend the accumulated charges to duplicate his Talisman Treasures, the Sword Heart Spirit Crystals, and the Green Wood Thunder Pills…

His only lingering frustration was the Teleportation Slate. The artifact was simply too profound. Even after banking twenty days’ worth of replication power, he still couldn’t duplicate it. He suspected he wouldn’t be able to replicate the slate until his own cultivation boundary advanced significantly.

On the evening of the third day, just as dusk settled, the Bear King lumbered up to the temple steps.

“Master, it is time to depart for the Qingfeng Mountain gathering. The market opens at the hour of the Rat (11 PM – 1 AM).”

Han Yu raised an eyebrow. “Master?”

“The spirit crow brothers instructed me to address you as such,” the massive bear mumbled, its voice vibrating deep in its chest. “I may be physically older than them, but they have served you longer. I cannot challenge their seniority, so I must learn from their example.”

Han Yu smirked. The bear harbored no resentment; it was simply a profoundly straightforward, honest creature.

“That is acceptable,” Han Yu said.

He waved a hand, retrieving a life-sized puppet from his Storage Bag. “Take my puppet with you. As long as this puppet is by your side, it represents Daoist Heifeng. If you encounter any complications, you can communicate with me directly through it. Address the puppet as ‘Daoist’.”

“Yes, Master.”

The Bear King carefully hoisted the puppet, Li Ya, onto its broad shoulder and set off down the mountain toward Qingfeng Mountain.

Han Yu did not remain behind. He sat cross-legged on the broad back of his lead raven, soaring silently high above the tree line. The rest of the flock, including the flame-feathered crows, trailed behind him like a dark, silent comet tail.

While the odds of finding a truly heaven-defying treasure among bottom-feeding Rogue Cultivators were slim, the Mystic One Sect’s absolute negligence meant the Yulin Kingdom’s black markets were surprisingly robust. A significant number of Foundation Establishment Rogue Cultivators operated in the area. A chaotic bazaar mixing humans, vengeful ghosts, and Demon Beasts was bound to produce something interesting.

Furthermore, observing a black market devoid of Golden Core masters carried virtually zero risk for Han Yu. It was an excellent opportunity to expand his practical knowledge of obscure spiritual items, unorthodox cultivation arts, and local supernatural fauna.

Driven by the Bear King’s massive strides, they covered nearly a thousand miles in just two hours. With an hour still remaining before the market officially opened, they arrived at the dense, fog-choked forest at the base of Qingfeng Mountain.

As the Bear King approached the tree line, two pale, unnervingly stiff paper figures standing guard suddenly threw their heads back and shrieked in high-pitched, echoing voices: “The Bear King of Heifeng Mountain has arrived! The Bear King of Heifeng Mountain has arrived!”

The announcement caused a stir within the fog. Several figures—though calling them ‘people’ was a stretch—emerged from the gloom to greet the newcomer.

“What an auspicious night! Even the recluse of Heifeng Mountain graces us with his presence?”

A massive python, its scales gleaming with a sickly iridescence, slithered forward. Its forked tongue flicked as it spoke in perfectly articulated human speech.

Behind the serpent stood two humans draped in tattered gray robes, wearing polite, empty smiles, flanked by two terrifyingly pale yin ghosts whose feet hovered inches above the damp earth.