Chapter 42 - Ascension to the 3-Star Realm
Yaan once considered the Rank 3 boundary ascension pill to be a valuable asset beyond his means. This pill was a far off goal, a resource so valuable that he might need to work for many years before he could accumulate enough money to afford it.
Now, not only did he buy the pill with a mere fraction of his wealth, he was even able to purchase multiple supplementary tinctures and potions to enhance the effect of the medicine! The boundary ascension pill didn’t guarantee success when crossing the boundary, but it was by far the most reliable, most affordable and safest method of ascension.
Last time, Yaan simply consumed the Rank 2 boundary ascension pill and let it run its course whilst he focussed on ascending from the Qi Gathering realm to the True Yuan Qi realm. Strangely enough, the chances of the body’s ascension succeeding were greatly increased when simultaneously undergoing the equivalent Qi refining ascension.
Now though, Yaan couldn’t undergo the Qi refining ascension, his dantian was crippled and he was no longer a Qi master. The previous success rate of 90% when using the Rank 2 pill alongside the Qi refining ascension would drop to 80% when ascending to Rank 3, but it was actually half this, just 40%, when undergoing the physical ascension alone…
A 40% chance of success, a 60% chance of failing and receiving serious backlash. When attempting to breakthrough a second time after already failing once, the success rate dropped even further.
Yaan of course wasn’t willing to accept such awful odds. So, he gathered every possible useful pill, potion and tincture before beginning. He even made up an expensive medicinal bath to assist with his breakthrough!
After placing all of the pills and medicines on a tray to the side of the medicinal tub, he stripped down and slowly entered the tub. His expression changed the moment his toe touched the dark green thick liquid.
“This is going to hurt…I should just expect it at this point. Hah…”
He lowered himself into the tub, not too slow and not too fast, then forced himself to go all the way under and remained submerged for a full minute. He didn’t close his eyes, and when he resurfaced, his vision was burning and he could hardly even see. Luckily, Yaan was careful with his entry and knew exactly where every medicine was placed on the bath-side table.
Yaan tried to ignore the ongoing powerful corrosive sensations across his body and swallowed three pills and potions. He then rubbed a tincture across his forehead, before briefly dropping below the surface yet again. Once he could feel the other pills and the tincture taking effect, he resurfaced and immediately picked up the boundary ascension pill.
All of these medicines he had consumed and rubbed onto his skin had the effect of amplifying the process ten fold. Ten time the success rate, ten times the improvement, and of course, ten times the pain. He swallowed the pill without dwelling on it too much, overthinking it wouldn’t achieve anything. No matter what, he needed to attempt the ascension…no, he needed to succeed in ascending!
Yaan had already experienced this sort of ascension once, and although it was now a higher realm ascension, not to mention ten times more torturous when combined with the corrosive medicinal bath, it was still within Yaan’s range of pain tolerance. He calmed his breathing and slowly felt the changes to his body, watching as each minute alteration grew exponentially, until the changes left him feeling shocked.
His skin burned with a searing heat, itched tremendously, and felt like it was being frozen and chiselled off, all at the same time. Ah, looking down, it really was flaking off! As his smooth skin peeled away and fell into the dark sludge below, a new layer of more perfect, ever so slightly pale skin was made visible beneath.
Right now, Yaan’s organs were twisting in his stomach, quite literally. This movement process should usually be small and barely noticeable, but his organs were now convulsing within his body rapidly and unpredictably. It was so extreme that every now and then, Yaan stumbled, almost falling face first into the sludgy medicinal bath on multiple occasions. This horrific looking occurrence would probably continue until his organs finally settled into an appropriate position.
The bones were strengthened as the bone continually compressed inwards whilst new bone formed above. His bone density increased greatly with each movement, slowly building up the durability to incredible levels. Tendons and muscles attached to one another and to the bone, forming a much more perfect system which would make injury less likely, and power generation twice as efficient.
The blood refining that Yaan had endured after consuming the Rank 2 blood refining pill some months ago, resulted in a slightly unexpected change. Usually, reaching the 3-Star realm would allow a demon to gain a single drop of blood essence, but Yaan possessed nine such drops already! When half of his blood was rapidly burned away just like that time from before, he suddenly remembered the pill gifted to him by Ghu Nadda’s great grandfather.
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That pill contained an extremely dense bloody energy which was filled with the essence of blood and slaughter, but most of all, vitality.
It was a good job that he quickly swallowed this pill, because just three seconds after half of his blood was refined into a single drop, it happened once again. Luckily, this pill gifted by the Ghu Clan Elder was incredible. No matter how rapidly his blood declined, it recovered by half in a single second. This rate of recovery was so intense that it actually surpassed his body’s blood refining step, the final step of the 3-Star ascension! As more blood was recovered beyond his maximum capacity, his blood suddenly became ten times more dense, giving Yaan the urge to cough out a few pints of this excess blood.
Instead, he stopped, enduring the rising pressure with blood shot eyes as a crazy idea formed in his mind.
Yaan had a wide selection of pills, potions and tinctures placed besides him. This selection contained everything valuable and potentially useful that he owned, just in case something came up. And now, the one thing he really didn’t expect to use became Yaan’s godly serum to facilitate his crazy idea!
This pill was pure black and emitted an aura of death. It was clearly toxic, eating it would result in instant death. Yes, this was the pill that Yaan planned to use!
“Huh…!” The blood in his body almost exploded out with the next increase. Yaan didn’t hesitate anymore, swallowing this black toxic pill, along with a Rank 4 vital recovery pill.
The black pill was something he found in Shin Jinni’s spatial ring. Most considered it a poison, but some crazy demons with high cultivations actually used this type of pill to temper the body!
Rank 3 vital calamity pill.
Usually, it was insane enough to consume such a dangerous thing even when the pill was a rank below your demonic body. However, Yaan had the crazy idea to use the Rank 3 version, whilst he was ascending into Rank 3! He would use his ascension, combined with the shocking medicines currently in his system, to overcome this poisonous elixir!
Instantly, the rapidly growing blood in his body began to decline. Within three seconds, his blood volume and density returned to normal, but then instantly doubled…then returned to normal a second later, then-
“Shit!”
Yaan had once again underestimated a pill! He didn’t think too much and directly swallowed multiple Rank 4 recovery pills. It was only because he was mid-way through a realm ascension that this excessive mass of energy was just being continually sucked away. This was beyond exorbitant, his body was currently a battle field of different medicinal energies, all colliding, some combining, others battling against one another…it was pure insanity!
The energy rapidly exploded out into his body, it was absorbed, then decayed away with the vital calamity pill’s effect. Yaan ended up consuming more and more pills, potions, tinctures, and so on, trying to balance out the chaos in his body by adding even more chaotic elements to the mix.
It was somehow working, only he realised that this boundary ascension pill…was also lasting for ten times longer than it should! He did not anticipate this!
His body was like a bottomless pit, searching for more energy to devour. If he didn’t continuously feed the beast, he would end up devouring himself…or maybe the vital calamity would destroy him first.
Yaan almost cried 5 hours later, after consuming far too many Rank 4 recovery pills, along with countless other Rank 3 pills to supplement more energy and balance out various effects. It was a miracle that he had survived, though the price really was quite extreme…
“You’d think I would learn, but I’ll probably do something similar again.” He sighed and lamented his own eager idiocy.
Thump.
The moment he stepped out of the medicinal tub, Yaan only had time to sigh before falling unconscious on the floor. His body hit the floor weakly, but he didn’t even care. He was so exhausted that this wooden floor felt like a fine silk mattress.
Three days later, Yaan awoke lazily. For some time, he just lay there with a blank mind, not caring enough to get up, or to even think. Eventually though, his memories flooded back into his mind and he sat bolt upright. He quickly began meditating and examined his internal condition. Gradually, his expression became strange. After a full hour spent confirming that this was real, Yaan opened his eyes with a bright light that refused to hide from the world.
He was glad to find that he had succeeded in reaching the 3-Star realm! Well, the fact that he wasn’t half-crippled already proved this though.
By gripping and unclenching his fist, Yaan could feel just how much strength was now present within his muscles due to the vital energy that filled each and every speck of his flesh and blood. Likewise, the bones and tendons increased in resilience accordingly to support the strong muscles, whilst his organs were now hardened like steel plate armour, and were able to process anything and everything perfectly and rapidly. Even his brain improved as his processing speed, memory and foresight reached levels beyond any mortal.
His blood was also now far different compared to before. Firstly, he actually possessed 81 drops of his own essence blood! Normally, a 3-Star demon would have just a single drop of essence blood, so this situation was quite shocking. Possessing more essence blood could only ever be a good thing, it supported his entire body, accelerated his recovery rate and gave him a more majestic aura.
And of course, there was his vital energy itself. Whilst the quantity of vital energy had increased by 60-70%, this alone wasn’t the biggest point. The improvement to his vital energy was a qualitative one, the energy was more pure, more perfect, more powerful. It was dense and filled with a primal aura, this energy was far more useful compared to before.
What really shocked Yaan, was that his vital energy had already exceeded the initial stage and taken a big step into the early stage! He already possessed 12% of the vital energy needed to attain a 4-Star body and develop a vital core! Whilst this might seem like incredible progress, the earlier stages of the demonic body realms were much easier to progress through compared to the latter stages.
Yaan clenched his fist tightly.
The vital core…
Once he formed his vital core, he would be able to restore his dantian with ease! The 1, 2 and 3-Star demonic bodies were each superior to the last, but the 4-Star realm was a much bigger jump. At the 4-Star realm, a demon developed their vital core, a dense mass of energy located somewhere within the body, catapulting their supply of vital energy upwards by one hundred fold in a single instant!
With such powerful vital energy in this massive surplus, it became possible to use vital spells, vital treasures, and other unique methods to body temperers! Of course, Yaan intended to use his vital core to restore his crippled dantian, then to find a way back to the Qi refining path.
Restoring the dantian was only step one. After all, it was only possible to cultivate Yuan Qi either alongside the demonic body, ascending the realms side by side, or if the demonic body was weaker than the Yuan Qi cultivation realm. With a 4-Star demonic body, it was impossible to begin cultivating Yuan Qi from scratch. To find the method of returning to the Qi refining path, Yaan knew that he could only rely on Rui.