At the beginning, I cleaned the Sutra Library and completed the incomplete skills.

As the incantation finished,

Li Lan felt a surge of magical power within his dantian, like a stream, flowing through his meridians and into the sandalwood spirit bean in his hand.

With a flick of his wrist,

the walnut-sized spirit bean rapidly took root and sprouted in mid-air.

Before it even touched the ground, a lifelike spirit bean soldier was born.

Compared to the ordinary bean soldiers of previous years, this one was clearly much more refined.

Its body structure was no longer crude,

resembling a carefully sculpted work of art by a skilled craftsman, with every line perfectly placed.

A pair of eyes seemed to be inlaid with two amethyst gemstones,

their shimmering light bestowing upon it a hint of sentience.

The armor it wore was also not as simple as that of ordinary spirit bean soldiers.

Each sandalwood plate that made up the armor was as smooth as a mirror,

overlapping and interlocking like fish scales, neat and orderly.

Of course,

the most striking thing was the aura emanating from this spirit bean soldier.

As its master, Li Lan could clearly feel

a vortex of magical power slowly circulating within its body.

This spirit bean soldier, refined from a spirit plant over twenty years old,

was actually at the first level of Qi Refining!

Moreover,

Li Lan could even control it to independently absorb the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Although the magical power converted each time was extremely meager, less than one ten-thousandth of a five-spiritual-root cultivator,

it truly broadened his horizons.

After all,

Li Lan never knew before that

these spirit bean soldiers summoned by spells could actually cultivate.

If a sandalwood spirit bean over twenty years old was already like this,

what about those forty or fifty years old?

What about those hundreds or thousands of years old?

Could they eventually develop their own sentience like spirit plants and demon beasts?

Now, Li Lan had changed his previous thoughts.

He felt that the complete "Secret Manual of Qimen Spells" should not have exaggerated.

In ancient times,

the great power who created this spell of scattering beans into soldiers might have truly been able to summon heavenly soldiers and generals.

Li Lan gently exhaled, suppressing the restless emotions in his heart.

His current cultivation realm couldn't even refine spirit beans that were forty or fifty years old.

These things were still too distant for him at the moment.

Li Lan casually took out two magical artifacts and handed one to the spirit bean soldier.

He then issued an order for it to attack him.

After some testing,

Li Lan discovered that this spirit bean soldier indeed possessed the strength of the first level of Qi Refining.

Moreover,

the sturdiness of its body

could almost be described as having copper skin and iron bones,

not inferior to even a high-grade first-order magical artifact.

This meant that

if he encountered an emergency in the future,

using it to restrain cultivators at the second or even third level of Qi Refining would not be a problem.

Li Lan was quite satisfied with this.

Using this spirit bean soldier at the first level of Qi Refining to mine spirit stone ore wouldn't cause it to be damaged by the recoil, right?

With a thought,

this twenty-year-old spirit bean soldier automatically left the cave dwelling.

It headed towards the central area of Immortal Trace Valley.

As it approached the area covered by those purplish-black vines, Li Lan had the spirit bean soldier slow down.

He still remembered how these vines hunted those cultivators.

The ordinary spirit bean soldiers of previous years,

due to their weak magical power, would not provoke the pursuit of these vines.

Now, this spirit bean soldier at the first level of Qi Refining was not necessarily the same.

Li Lan didn't want this bean soldier, which he had just created, to be destroyed by these vines.

Therefore, when crossing this area,

he was particularly careful.

He constantly used the other dozen or so ordinary spirit bean soldiers, scattered around, to observe the movements of the purple vines.

If they reacted, he would not hesitate to command the spirit bean soldiers to retreat.

However,

to Li Lan's surprise,

even when this twenty-year-old spirit bean soldier walked all the way to the side of the sandalwood old tree,

the purple vines did not show any hostility.

Could it be that,

as far as they were concerned, the magical power of the first level of Qi Refining was still too weak?

Or was it that,

it had nothing to do with the amount of magical power,

and these purple vines simply wouldn't attack puppets without sentience?

Li Lan didn't know the specific reason.

Nor was he interested in delving into it.

Anyway, the current situation was only beneficial to him, with no harm.

Li Lan immediately drove this spirit bean soldier at the first level of Qi Refining to pick up the spirit-splitting pickaxe and mine the spirit stone ore.

With a clang, the pickaxe went down,

and cracks began to spread rapidly like spiderwebs on the smooth surface of the spirit stone ore.

This twenty-year-old spirit bean soldier was indeed not comparable to ordinary bean soldiers.

This could be seen from the efficiency of a single pickaxe swing.

With the protection of the magical power of the first level of Qi Refining,

the recoil from mining the spirit stone ore was also negligible.

The last trace of worry in Li Lan's heart also disappeared without a trace.

He gave an order, letting the spirit bean soldier complete the mining task on its own.

Li Lan wasn't idle either.

He commanded the remaining spirit bean soldiers to continue searching the Guangji Temple ruins,

to see if there were any other good things left behind.

He himself was busy with other things.

Over such a long period of time,

Li Lan had collected quite a few other rare spirit plants in the central area of Immortal Trace Valley.

He had just gathered enough materials for several Rank-Breaking Pills.

Last time he failed to break through to the fifth level of Qi Refining, and he only had one Rank-Breaking Pill left in his hand.

Li Lan knew his own aptitude.

A mere Rank-Breaking Pill couldn't put his mind at ease.

Just in case,

Li Lan decided to refine a few more for backup.

Let's not mention the specific process of refining pills for the time being.

The ordinary spirit bean soldiers that were scattered out had made new gains during this period.

They scattered around,

searching every corner of the Guangji Temple ruins in Immortal Trace Valley.

They identified the Pill Chamber, Scripture Pavilion, Spell Pavilion, Equipment Room, and many other ruins.

Most of the places were empty.

Only two places still had remnants, which aroused Li Lan's interest.

In a side room of the main hall of Guangji Temple,

there was a small sand table, seemingly like a miniature world.

It was unknown what kind of spell had been cast on it, but the sand table seemed to possess a unique life.

Snow-white clouds floated in the sky,

and cranes and flying boats occasionally passed through them.

Mist-like spiritual energy slowly drifted through the mountains and forests.

A gentle breeze stirred, causing every leaf to rustle softly.

Li Lan easily recognized that the sand table depicted the former scene of Immortal Trace Valley.

At that time,

Guangji Temple didn't seem to have been reduced to ruins yet.

The solemn and majestic main hall was mysterious and towering, and the towering mountain gate was extraordinary, with even magical power flowing on it.

From a glimpse, one could also feel the power of the Guardian Array of the year.

Li Lan stared at it carefully for a long time,

but didn't find any trace of the sandalwood spirit tree in this lifelike sand table.

This was very intriguing.

Did the cultivator who refined this sand table deliberately leave it out,

or was it that this old tree, nearly five hundred years old, was also transplanted here later?

Li Lan couldn't figure out the reason.

He simply stopped delving into these old, stale matters.

According to the positions depicted on the sand table,

he began to command the spirit bean soldiers

to go to the ruins of various medicine gardens, selectively picking spirit plants.