Longevity by Grinding Skills

After all, Ye Xuan had been the one to provide the coordinates for this World Heaven, so he couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t be discovered by the Golden Core True Monarchs of the Taihua Spirit Void Realm.

Especially True Monarch Qing Yuan.

Now that he had made an enemy of him, and given True Monarch Qing Yuan’s reputation, he was certain to be the vengeful type. To guard against the possibility of being found, Xu Yunfan couldn’t afford to take things slow.

Cultivators always raced against time. Opportunities were fleeting, and if not seized firmly, one’s entire path of cultivation could collapse.

Over the following period, Xu Yunfan didn’t dare to slack off in the slightest. He became a God Hunter in the dead of night, his figure melting into the shadows of the Aitila Celestial Realm as he roamed from place to place.

At first, Xu Yunfan naturally didn’t set his sights too high. He mostly focused on weak Divine Spirits like Delis, who hid in remote, small towns.

The major Pantheons of Aitira were already deeply entrenched. Rashly moving against them would likely bring trouble upon himself. Now was not the time.

His targets were the Divine Spirits who existed outside the three major Pantheons, possessing all sorts of peculiar Divine Formats and authorities.

These Divine Spirits were frail, and because they were unwilling to be bound by the three major Pantheons, they cherished their freedom. Most of them sought out the gaps and empty lands untouched by the influence of the major Pantheons to spread their faith.

Based on the intelligence he had filtered from Delis—who had spilled everything after being "re-educated" dozens of times.

It was only natural for Xu Yunfan to lock his targets on the fringe gods. These were the ones who also occupied the bottom rungs of the divine ladder—their authority was weak, their followers were few, and they were far from the centers of powerful Pantheons.

Aitira, the Wilderness West Field. The terrain here was rugged, and the kingdoms were relatively isolated from one another, mostly surrounded on all four sides by great mountains.

To call them kingdoms was a stretch; it was more accurate to call them villages or castles. These places were basically territories developed by landless nobles, which had evolved over hundreds or even thousands of years.

One such Divine Spirit was a so-called god of bountiful harvests, who watched over a few barren fields in a poor mountain valley. Its idol was nothing more than a few stones piled up haphazardly by the mountain folk.

Xu Yunfan appeared before the crude altar like a phantom. Before the astonished mountain god could fully gather its Divine Power, a subtle streak of Divine Sky Finger Force had already pierced through its hastily erected Divine Art barrier and accurately stabbed into the core of its Divine Format.

Soul Search, strip the Golden Nature, refine the Divine Format, send it into the Star Spirit Banner...

The process was as smooth as if it had been practiced a thousand times over.

A brand-new, unblemished strand of Immortal Golden Nature with no attributes was extracted. Under Xu Yunfan’s refinement, its foreign imprint was removed, transforming it into pure, non-attributed Golden Nature, which finally merged into his own Dao Foundation.

The Divine Format, in turn, became a wisp of nourishment for the Star Spirit Banner.

A water god of ripples and breezes dwelled in a nameless little lake. Her domain was merely the lake’s surface, a few miles in radius, and her followers were the fishermen who occasionally passed by.

As long as those fishermen prayed devoutly and presented offerings, they would be blessed with a good catch.

Xu Yunfan directly unfurled the Star Spirit Banner’s domain, forcibly severing her connection to the meager Wish Power.

The weak water god, having lost her source of power, was completely helpless under the suppression of the Star Spirit Banner’s ethereal glow. Her Divine Format was stripped away, her Golden Nature extracted.

Her struggles were like a small pebble tossed into a lake, creating only a trivial ripple before vanishing without a trace.

An Ancient Tree Spirit, naive and newly born, was attached to an old oak tree. It had just condensed a Divine Spark and had yet to even fully form a proper Divine Format.

Xu Yunfan didn’t even need to use powerful Magic. Relying solely on the capturing power of the Star Spirit Banner, he yanked the fragile Spiritual Origin, along with its faint Golden Essence Prototype, into the banner.

Inside the banner, the spirit was swiftly transformed into the lowest level of Star Spirit, while the sliver of Golden Nature was thoroughly refined and absorbed under Xu Yunfan’s guidance.

...

In the days that followed, Xu Yunfan didn’t stop for a moment.

He used the local information obtained from Delis’s memories, combined with his own powerful Divine Sense scans, to specifically pick off Divine Spirits that were weak, isolated, and barely capable of self-preservation.

Avoiding the attention of powerful Divine Spirits or Pantheons was his primary principle.

He strove to end every hunt before his target could send out an effective warning.

The ethereal glow of the Star Spirit Banner became the final resting place for these weak Divine Spirits. Their struggles and cries were all firmly imprisoned within the banner’s small world.

"It’s hard to imagine that even things like this are called Divine Spirits. The gods of your Aitira are truly a dime a dozen."

Xu Yunfan shook his head slightly, a tree branch in his hand.

This had been taken from a Tree God in a forest. Its true form was a towering tree, and the essence of its Vitality had condensed into this branch.

Its true strength would have been a challenge for even a Late-Stage Qi Cultivation Cultivator.

Moreover, its methods of attack were simplistic and appallingly crude.

Most of those who became Divine Spirits were just lucky souls who had been granted a Divine Format by Aitira’s Celestial Dao.

Their lifespans were even a mere thousand years. If they didn’t improve, all that awaited them was death.

Delis’s cheeks flushed as she heard this, and she retorted, "The Wilderness West Field has scarce Vitality. Basically, no powerful Divine Spirit would give it a second glance, so it naturally became a paradise for these kinds of gods."

Xu Yunfan was more than happy with this state of affairs. For him, as long as there was a Divine Format, he could harvest Immortal Golden Nature. It was a walk in the park.

Those who were good-looking, had decent strength, and showed some potential were all thrown into the Star Spirit Banner. After being "re-educated" by the banner, they became Banner Spirits.

After striking a dozen or so times in a row, Xu Yunfan was like a reaper sweeping through a wheat field, harvesting them one after another.

By now, fourteen strands of pure Immortal Golden Nature had been successfully stripped and refined.

Of course, not every extraction was perfect.

While refining a weak divine being who controlled shadow-stalking, the target detonated a part of its Divine Format’s Origin at the last moment. This caused the core Golden Nature’s structure to vibrate violently, and a strand of the overly berserk energy spun out of control and dissipated during the extraction.

Another time, while hunting a guardian of an ancient cemetery, the Divine Spirit’s Divine Format core was entangled with a strand of deathly resentment that was difficult to remove. Because its worshippers were mostly cultists, even the pure Immortal Golden Nature was tainted with a hint of something ominous.

After weighing his options, Xu Yunfan decided to abandon the extraction of the Golden Nature to avoid contaminating his own Dao Foundation. He decisively refined and dispersed the entire Divine Format, along with its strand of Golden Nature, converting it into pure Wish Power to supplement the Star Spirit Banner.

Despite these losses, thirteen incomparably condensed, purplish-gold threads now floated steadily within the core of Xu Yunfan’s Dao Foundation, emanating an eternal and undying aura.

Thirteen strands of his very own Immortal Golden Nature.

This number already far exceeded the minimum standard of nine strands required for Foundation Establishment Perfection.

He could clearly feel that with the support of this Golden Nature framework, his Grotto Heaven Embryo had become more stable, its boundaries clearer. The Thunderbolt star-motes within it also circulated more smoothly, with a kind of complete and harmonious rhythm.

Although his Magical Power hadn’t skyrocketed, its purity, circulation speed, and his comprehension of and affinity for the Life and Death Principle contained within the Divine Sky Scripture had all risen to a completely new level.