In the cultivation that followed, Ye Liuyun began condensing Spirit Yuan using his new method.

He discovered that the Xuan Yuan, which had originally changed color after absorbing the power of heaven and earth, had reverted back to gold.

All that heaven and earth power had completely merged into the Xuan Yuan, transforming it into Spirit Yuan. As his Spirit Yuan circulated once through the new meridian pathways, it could automatically absorb the surrounding spiritual energy and heaven and earth power, generating even more Spirit Yuan while also achieving a compressing and refining effect.

The Yuan Condensation Art he had previously learned from the Tyrant Dragon was replaced by this new method of condensing Spirit Yuan—more efficient, and less taxing.

The only drawback was that the Yuan Conversion Cauldron could no longer fully meet his needs. The Spirit Yuan it converted still required several internal circulations before it could be completely transformed.

However, his Spirit Yuan was far more refined than his previous Xuan Yuan. Once the Spirit Yuan in his Yuan Core was filled to capacity, it amounted to three times what he’d had before—and the more refined his Spirit Yuan became in the future, the greater that gap would grow.

The Energy Storage Stones, on the other hand, worked just fine. He fed Spirit Yuan in, and Spirit Yuan came out. His Spirit Yuan and his clone’s Spirit Yuan could still be exchanged and used interchangeably.

"The benefits still outweigh the drawbacks—at least my strength has grown," Ye Liuyun concluded.

After remodeling both his meridians and his Spirit Yuan, Ye Liuyun finally entered a state of focused cultivation. Although the Yuan Conversion Cauldron couldn’t fully satisfy his needs, the energy it converted was still far faster than what he could produce on his own.

Now that he had time to cultivate, he set aside the galactic origin energy and decided to save it for when he needed to break through.

Ten days later, the martial cultivators who had been guarding him outside had already left the Barren Sea World, boarded a flying vessel, and set course for the Bridge Star System.

Ye Liuyun had already swept clean all the resources the Barren Sea World had to offer, so there was no reason to linger. He planned to return to the Bridge Star System first and let the demon beasts and the women go there to train and seize resources.

He himself intended to remain in the Fire Seal Star System and continue seeking worthy opponents to sharpen himself in combat. But he would at least see them safely out of the Fire Seal Star System before parting ways.

Of the thirty-six prisoners he currently held, only eight remained alive after the fighting, including the three Guiyi Eighth Layer powerhouses. Cold Qingxiao and Cold Qingyao had fought relentlessly and were utterly exhausted. The two siblings, combined with the two Winged Dragon feral beast, could hold their own against mid-stage Guiyi Eighth Layer cultivators. Without the two of them, this group would have been wiped out long ago.

The martial cultivators of the Barren Sea World had also stopped following them. Most of those who had attacked them before were Guiyi Seventh and Eighth Layer cultivators, and after suffering heavy casualties, they recognized this group’s strength and no longer dared to scheme against them.

But the sight of Cold Qingxiao and Cold Qingyao fighting on behalf of outsiders, along with the other martial cultivators Ye Liuyun had captured—many of whom were recognized as members of powerful local clans—caused word to spread quickly. It was said that all of them were under Ye Liuyun’s control.

Several major clans had already learned of this and begun sending people to intercept them. The Cold Clan in particular, knowing full well how formidable the siblings’ combined attacks were, dispatched an elder at the early stage of Guiyi Ninth Layer to lead a team of ten early-to-mid Guiyi Eighth Layer cultivators to cut them off.

By this time, Ye Liuyun had already converted all the Xuan Yuan in his Yuan Core into Spirit Yuan.

The Spirit Yuan once again radiated golden light from within the Yuan Core. The power it contained was three times greater than his previous Xuan Yuan. With his Spirit Yuan alone, he could now directly contend with Guiyi Sixth Layer martial cultivators.

Factor in his spatial power and heaven and earth power, and facing Guiyi Seventh Layer cultivators was no longer a serious problem.

The effects of the Dan Spirit had long since faded, but the feeling of commanding the grand momentum of heaven and earth had left a deep impression on Ye Liuyun, further honed through extensive combat. His understanding and application of heaven and earth momentum had reached a level where he could be confident of encountering no bottlenecks in future breakthroughs within the Guiyi realm.

In future battles, however, he would need more practice and refinement of his heaven and earth power to recapture that level of effect.

His current cultivation still focused primarily on refining Spirit Yuan. He worked on filling all the Energy Storage Stones while also training his divine soul to channel heaven and earth power for attacks.

When he had previously slain Young Master Piaoyao, it was the heaven and earth power unleashed under the Dan Spirit’s influence that had destroyed one of his divine souls with a single punch. Once he mastered this technique, he would never need to fear even the most powerful divine souls in the future.

For now, though, with the Dan Spirit’s effects gone, his divine soul’s ability to channel heaven and earth power was noticeably weaker—not yet as strong as his Soul Blade.

After refilling all his Energy Storage Stones, Ye Liuyun appeared aboard the flying vessel. He had originally wanted to spar with the group to familiarize himself with the might of his Spirit Yuan, but found that everyone’s true essence had been completely depleted and they were all deep in cultivation to recover.

Their storage rings had already been taken by Ye Liuyun, so for these past days they had been relying on resources from captured storage rings to cultivate.

Seeing that they had fought hard and suffered greatly—some still bearing unhealed wounds—Ye Liuyun immediately roused them, drew them all into his clone’s spatial world, and gave them some origin power to speed up their recovery.

He then switched to a faster flying vessel, had the Guiyi Ninth Layer Metal Puppet pilot it, and set off toward the Bridge Star System.

He deliberately activated the vessel’s formation that blocked divine sense detection—all to bait any martial cultivators with designs on him into making their move.

He was stopped just as quickly, but the moment they spoke he realized they’d come to demand a hostage, not to finish the chase that had started in the Desolate Sea

That didn’t stop him from striking first

He released his two remaining clones on the spot; the three of them surged forward, channeling divine essence and world-force against the warriors. The strongest of the enemy—a Unity Eighth-Step—he left to the metal puppet.

The brief clash proved how much his recent training had paid off

His divine essence, spatial power, and world-force let him toy with Unity Seventh-Step experts. While trading blows with one foe he could even detach a soul-shadow to assault another.

Killing a soul with world-force alone took too long when numbers were against him; impatient, he reshaped the soul-shadow into a blade and hacked enemy spirits apart in a single stroke.

So he cleared the field of weaker targets first, then let his soul-shadow practice on what remained.

Ye Liuyun and his clones finished their share in moments. The survivors were only middling Unity Seventh-Step fighters; cutting them down became effortless.

Once the metal puppet slew their leader it stepped aside, content to watch Ye Liuyun hone his edge on whoever was left.