99: Chapter 99 Body Refinement Level 5

On the evening of the day he returned from Black Wind Cliff, Jiang Yan lined up four jade boxes in his Cultivation room.

The moment the lids were lifted, the unique, cold, frosty aura of the star grass permeated the air.

The silvery-white star spots on the leaves of the largest plant shimmered faintly under the eerie green light of the night-luminescent pearl, like stars in the night sky that refused to fall.

The other three were smaller, with sparser star spots, but they were still far superior to those that occasionally appeared on the market.

He picked up the largest one, and as his fingertips touched the leaves, he could feel a faint chill seeping out from deep within the leaf flesh.

He activated the Void Realm Alchemy technique. Using his Divine Sense as the Cauldron and his spiritual power as the fire, a pale cyan spirit fire surged from his palm, enveloping the grass leaves.

The leaf flesh of the star grass was delicate; if the spirit fire were even slightly too fierce, it would disperse the star power within the star spots.

He could feel the resistance of the silvery-white sap flowing slowly through the leaf veins, like squeezing a very thin straw with his fingers; the slightest bit of excess force would burst the walls of the tube.

After simmering over a low heat for nearly half an hour, the first drop of silvery-white sap finally seeped out from the tip of the leaf.

The sap floated within his Divine Sense Cauldron, its surface shimmering with a pearlescent luster, and when brought closer, it smelled of the cold, frosty aura of the night sky.

He used poria powder to neutralize the cold nature and angelica oil to Seal in the medicinal potency. After refining all four Star Grasses, he ended up with eight First Grade High Grade star pills and twenty First Grade Medium Grade ones.

The High Grade pills were dark blue, with fine, dense pill patterns resembling star charts. Holding them in his palm against the light of the night-luminescent pearl, one could see needle-tip-sized silvery-white specks slowly drifting within the pills.

The Medium Grade pills were slightly lighter in color, with sparser star patterns, but their medicinal potency was still quite pure.

He divided them into two jade bottles, lining the bottom with a layer of soft wood shavings to prevent the pills from rolling and colliding.

That very night, he swallowed the first Medium Grade star pill.

The pill dissolved the moment it entered his stomach, its medicinal power turning into countless silvery-white, cold currents like fine needles, piercing through his Meridians and into his bone marrow.

The pain was not ordinary flesh pain—it was a strange itching combined with a piercing pain that drilled outward from the very depths of his bones.

His bone marrow was churned by the medicinal power; old bone tissue was stripped away layer by layer, while new bone tissue regrew, imbued by the star power.

He could hear the faint creaking sounds coming from within his bones, like an old tree having its branches frozen and cracked in a snowstorm.

He sat cross-legged in the Spirit Gathering Array, teeth clenched tightly. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead one after another, dripping onto the collar of his robe and leaving a ring of dark, wet stains.

His spine remained as straight as a pine tree throughout.

From then on, he took one every few days. Two months later, he had finished taking the twenty Medium Grade pills.

The star patterns on his entire skeleton had merged into sheets—no longer the scattered, sporadic star points from before, but nebula-like patterns covering every single bone.

From his skull to his toe bones, from his spine to his finger joints, they were everywhere.

He looked down at the back of his hand; the silvery-white star patterns beneath his skin emitted a faint glow, like the luminescence of jellyfish in the deep sea drifting beneath his blood vessels.

His Body Refining cultivation had reached Body Refining Level Four.

Then came the High Grade star pills.

When the first one entered his stomach, that silvery-white cold current was no longer like fine needles, but had turned into an ice blade, stabbing straight into the depths of his bone marrow.

He let out a muffled groan. The star patterns on his chest suddenly lit up under the impact of the medicinal power, and the silvery-white light shone through his skin, illuminating the entire Cultivation room brightly.

The sparrow perched on the crooked locust tree outside the courtyard was startled and flew away; the flapping of its wings could be faintly heard through the courtyard wall.

After the light faded, a very thin silver mark appeared on the bone in the center of his chest—not a surface star pattern, but a brand deep into the bone marrow. When he pressed his finger against it, he could feel a faint pulse, as if something had been Sealed within the bone.

After taking all eight High Grade pills, he achieved Body Refining Level Five.

He rose from the stone bed, clenched his fists, and without using a shred of spiritual power, struck a punch at the stone wall of the Cultivation room using only the strength of his Physical Body.

Where the force of his punch passed, three radial cracks split the stone wall, the longest extending nearly ten feet. Stone debris from the edges of the cracks fell with a rustling sound, accumulating a thin layer of dust on the floor.

The simple defensive Restriction embedded in the inner layer of the stone wall flickered a few times from the force of the punch, but it did not shatter—though the edges of the Restriction patterns had already developed extremely fine, spiderweb-like cracks.

He withdrew his fist and looked at the back of his hand.

The silvery-white star patterns beneath his skin had lit up for an instant when his punching force was triggered, but now they had dimmed, returning to a faint, barely perceptible glow.

First Grade Medium Grade Magical Artifacts could no longer harm him.

After his Body Refining Breakthrough, Jiang Yan began making preparations to disperse his cultivation and switch to a new path.

He first spent a month concentrating on refining Magical Artifacts and Medicinal Pills.

He practiced Alchemy during the day and Artifact Refining at night; the spirit fire in the Cultivation room almost never went out.

The walls of the Artifact Refining furnace were burned deep red by the continuous high temperature, and a thick layer of various medicinal residues and metal scraps had accumulated in the belly of the furnace; each time he cleaned it, he could scrape off half a bowl of powder.

peiyuan pills, Spirit-Returning Pills, antidote pills, bone-mending pills—various Medicinal Pills were produced from the furnace batch after batch.

The quality was mostly High Grade, with the occasional Superb Grade.

He kept enough for his own use and sold the rest in batches through Sun Desheng of Qianbing Pavilion and various major Medicinal Pill shops in the city.

Each time he shipped goods, he used the Thousand Illusion Demon Mask to change into a different appearance.

Over the course of half a year, he had sold over two hundred Medicinal Pills and more than ten Magical Artifacts, earning over three thousand Spirit Stones.

He did not keep a single one of these Spirit Stones. Every time he saved up a sum, he would go to the market to purchase the Spirit Medicine and spiritual materials needed for after he dispersed his cultivation.

Refining the vermilion fruit was the most critical step.

That vermilion fruit, the size of an infant's fist, had been Sealed in the jade box for too long.

When Jiang Yan opened the lid, the temperature in the Cultivation room seemed to rise by a few degrees, and the air was filled with a scorching, fruity fragrance.

It was not the fresh sweetness of ordinary fruits, but something scalding, overbearing, like a red-hot iron brand suddenly pressed into his nasal cavity.

Under the stimulation of this fruity fragrance, the pitch-black vortex in his Dantian accelerated uncontrollably, and the flow of spiritual power was several times faster than usual.

He used three cold-natured auxiliary medicines—stone heart flower, clear spirit grass, and cloud-patterned orchid—to neutralize the overbearing fire poison of the vermilion fruit, and then used cinnabar to calm the heart and alum to astringe.

He pushed the Void Realm Alchemy technique to its limit, with four clusters of spirit fire simultaneously enveloping the medicinal materials, each with a different heat—the vermilion fruit was simmered slowly over a low heat, the auxiliary medicines were decocted over a medium heat, and the cinnabar and alum were melted over a weak heat.

The medicinal liquids clashed violently during Fusion. The crimson sap of the vermilion fruit and the cold medicinal liquid of the auxiliary medicines tumbled and collided within his Divine Sense Cauldron, like cold water splashed into boiling oil, crackling loudly.

His expression remained unchanged as his Divine Sense precisely suppressed every conflict of medicinal power, slowly kneading the four streams of medicinal liquid into one.

An accident occurred during the pill condensation.

The first pill embryo cracked on the surface the instant before it formed—not shattered, but a very thin crack suddenly appeared on the pill membrane, extending from the top to the bottom, and crimson medicinal liquid splashed out from the crack, to be burned to ashes by the spirit fire.

The ashes fell rustling onto the stone bed; he flicked a stream of spiritual power to blow the ashes away, did not stop, and immediately adjusted the heat.

He lowered the spirit fire temperature by ten percent, wrapped his Divine Sense tighter, and the remaining medicinal liquid re-condensed within the Divine Sense Cauldron.

Three pill embryos formed one after another.

The pill membranes were smooth as mirrors, and the pill patterns flowed ceaselessly like flames; through the pill membrane, one could see the magma-like luster slowly flowing within the pills.

The moment they formed, the three vermilion fruit pills hovered in mid-air, vibrating slightly, emitting a very faint humming sound—not a pill chime, but the sound of the Sealed fire-attribute medicinal power within the pills colliding back and forth against the inner walls of the pill membranes.

He placed the three vermilion fruit pills into a specially made jade box to Seal them separately, and carved two additional Spirit-Sealing Restrictions on the inside of the lid.