The rate at which the pill's potency dissolved was much faster than before. Consequently, his efficiency in refining spirit pills naturally increased.

That Faelan Blackwood truly hadn't lied, no wonder he dared to swear a Providentia oath right in front of him.

However, Leaf Gray quickly figured out why this technique was being peddled everywhere.

Gluttonous Feast could double cultivation efficiency. At first glance, it sounded incredibly heaven-defying, but in reality, cultivators who used spirit pills for cultivation would accumulate pill toxins. Once pill toxins built up, the spiritual power within the body would become sluggish and murky. The more pills one refined, the more pronounced this effect became.

Therefore, after cultivating for a period of time, cultivators would usually stop taking spirit pills and instead find ways to resolve the pill toxins.

In other words, under normal circumstances, whether a cultivator refined pills quickly or slowly didn't make much difference; slower even had its own benefits...

But Leaf Gray was different. He had the talent tree to incinerate pill toxins. Spirit pills entering his stomach only transformed into spiritual power, purer than that of ordinary cultivators even after extensive tempering. Thus, the efficiency boost from Gluttonous Feast was genuine and substantial for him.

The combination of the talent tree and Gluttonous Feast was simply a perfect match!

Realizing this, Leaf Gray couldn't help but feel excited. From now on, his cultivation would undoubtedly save him a lot of time.

However, this also meant that on the path of pill-assisted cultivation, he was destined to go further and further down the rabbit hole.

The potency of one spirit pill was quickly consumed. The spiritual power within Leaf Gray's body gradually became abundant. Perhaps because of the cultivation session, his stomach began to growl loudly. Leaf Gray immediately took out some food from his storage bag and began eating heartily.

Then he discovered something interesting: his ability to digest food had also improved.

All fifteen spiritual apertures of Gluttonous Feast were distributed near the stomach. When the technique operated, the entire stomach writhed violently, like a millstone. Under that powerful grinding force, it could not only rapidly refine pill potency but also digest food.

After some investigation, Leaf Gray found that the reason Gluttonous Feast could do this wasn't solely due to digestion, but more importantly, absorption. Mere digestion was useless; only through absorption could cultivation efficiency truly be enhanced.

Through his perception, Leaf Gray discovered that if those fifteen spiritual apertures were connected according to a certain pattern, it formed a design that looked somewhat familiar to him...

After a moment's recollection, he raised his hand and channeled spiritual power to construct a Spirit Pattern.

It was the third Spirit Pattern he had acquired: Spirit Gathering.

As soon as the Spirit Gathering Pattern appeared in his hand, it generated an intangible pulling force, causing the spiritual energy in the surroundings to flow towards it.

The Spirit Gathering Pattern was an extremely complex and profound design, constructed from spiritual power. The pattern he got by connecting the Gluttonous Feast apertures according to a certain rule was undoubtedly much simpler, but the two seemed to share the same origin!

Was it a coincidence? Or did the cultivator who created the Gluttonous Feast technique draw inspiration from the structure of the Spirit Gathering Pattern?

The main function of the Spirit Gathering Pattern was to gather heaven and earth spiritual energy. If pill potency was likened to spiritual energy, then Gluttonous Feast was also gathering, but it transformed the gathered pill potency into spiritual power for the cultivator to absorb.

Thinking this, a vague idea suddenly popped into Leaf Gray's mind, but when he tried to clarify it, he found he couldn't quite grasp it for the moment.

He fell into deep thought, letting the Gluttonous Feast continue operating...

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth around him, drawn by some inexplicable force, converged towards Leaf Gray, merged into the Spirit Gathering Pattern in his hand, then dissipated, repeating this cycle.

However, Leaf Gray soon discovered that a portion of the heaven and earth spiritual energy was actually flowing into his abdomen. As the Gluttonous Feast ground away, it transformed into his own spiritual power...

This surprised him.

He had been cultivating recently mainly by refining spirit pills, supplemented by refining essence into energy, primarily because the efficiency of inhaling and exhaling heaven and earth spiritual energy was too low. His body had difficulty accepting spiritual energy, as if an invisible barrier covered him, isolating him from the ambient spiritual energy.

Even the efficiency of cultivating using spirit stones wasn't high. Strictly speaking, spirit stones were condensed spiritual energy. If he struggled to accept spiritual energy, naturally he couldn't readily accept the power of spirit stones either.

But now, even without actively cultivating, Gluttonous Feast was actually gathering and grinding some spiritual energy for refinement...

This also indirectly verified Leaf Gray's earlier conjecture: the creator of the Gluttonous Feast technique must have drawn upon the construction of the Spirit Gathering Pattern; otherwise, the two wouldn't share similar properties.

Of course, the amount of spiritual energy gathered by Gluttonous Feast this way wasn't substantial. The true purpose of this technique was still to refine things that entered the stomach; gathering spiritual energy was just a secondary effect.

Thinking this, the vague idea in Leaf Gray's mind suddenly became clear!

Gluttonous Feast could gather spiritual energy. The Spirit Gathering Pattern could also gather spiritual energy. Both shared the same origin.

The effect of the Gluttonous Feast technique was brought about by the interconnected operation of fifteen spiritual apertures, so the key lay in the apertures.

What if he applied the Spirit Gathering Pattern directly onto a spiritual aperture?

What would happen?

Leaf Gray was startled by his own bold idea.

Although he was just a minor cultivator who had only been practicing for a few months, largely ignorant of many common knowledge in the cultivation world, he still knew the importance of spiritual apertures to a cultivator. It could be said that if a spiritual aperture developed problems, the cultivator's entire life could be affected.

When he obtained the Spirit Gathering Pattern, he had investigated its properties and ultimately concluded it was garbage, because his body had difficulty accepting external spiritual energy; even activating the Spirit Gathering Pattern wouldn't be of much use.

But it seemed he had entered a mental blind spot. The Spirit Gathering Pattern couldn't just be applied to his hand; it could be applied elsewhere.

For example... inside a spiritual aperture!

If this idea of his proved true, then Spirit Gathering would be far from garbage; it might even become the most useful Spirit Pattern he had.

The more he thought about it, the more feasible the idea seemed. Leaf Gray stopped operating the Gluttonous Feast technique and switched back to Cicada's Transcendent Metamorphosis.

The main reason other cultivators wouldn't dare to apply a Spirit Pattern to their own spiritual apertures was the complexity of constructing a Spirit Pattern. Even the most experienced Spirit Pattern Masters could fail in the construction. If the Spirit Pattern construction failed, the spiritual power used to build it would explode, subsequently causing damage to the spiritual aperture.

But Leaf Gray had no such concerns. He currently mastered three Spirit Patterns. Each time he obtained a Spirit Pattern, a large amount of information about it flooded into his mind. He had never failed in constructing a Spirit Pattern before.

Even so, Leaf Gray didn't dare to experiment on his Origin Spiritual Aperture. He chose another aperture instead.

The Origin Spiritual Aperture was the most important one. If something went wrong there, it would truly be disastrous. If other apertures had issues, perhaps there might be ways to remedy them.

Focusing his perception on the location of that chosen aperture, Leaf Gray concentrated slightly, channeled his spiritual power, and applied a Spirit Gathering Pattern onto that aperture.

However, in just an instant, the Spirit Gathering Pattern was scattered by the flowing spiritual power within his body.

It wouldn't work. He needed to adjust his approach. He couldn't apply the Spirit Pattern inside the aperture itself, otherwise it simply couldn't be maintained.