Analyzing all the pills he had refined, Cao Yun was both happy about his performance and frustrated by the quality of the pills. He would have preferred to obtain better pills. But all things considered, this was truly a great accomplishment. After all, he wasn't even a Spirit Warrior, yet he had been able to refine a difficult 4-star Heaven pill to success. That was simply unheard of. At the moment, he thought back about Feng Yingyue and his sister Mei Hua.
There was no doubt that both women would have been able to refine a Heaven pill even before becoming Spirit Warriors. In fact, he was convinced that even without the 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' method he had given them, they would have succeeded. After watching them during the Alchemy Conference, he was certain of it. But even they would have not managed to do such a thing. After all, Cao Yun could project his Flying Poison outside of his body because it belonged to the Drop of Wrath. With the usual 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks', he would have never been able to achieve such results.
Thus, he decided not to complain about the quality of the pills. That would have been a bit too much.
Anyway, now that he had the pill he needed for his Golden Blood, Cao Yun left his laboratory and entered his cultivation room. For Accomplished Demons and Spirit Warriors, most of their cultivation was purely internal. In fact there were few ways of advancing their cultivation apart from silent meditation. At the very least, nobody knew of many ways, and those were not very useful in the general case. As a Golden Blood Child though, Cao Yun had many physical techniques that could help him circulate his blood and improve his body. This was also the case for his very last grades before attempting the Lesser Tribulation. Unfortunately, he couldn't train like that out in the open.
But thankfully, forming one's Golden Blood didn't require any external physical stimulus. Indeed, everything was going to happen in his Lower Dantian and his kidneys, the Golden Palace. In fact, it would be like alchemy and like he had proved to himself, Cao Yun was extremely good at alchemy. That didn't mean that he wasn't a bit tense though. After all, there was no coming back after forming his Golden Blood. This wasn't like refining a pill. If he made a mistake, he couldn't simply refine another batch as he had only one body.
Although this wasn't a tribulation per se as his life was not in danger, this was still a very delicate and important moment in one's blood cultivation. In fact, the inability to form qualitative Golden Blood could prevent someone from ever becoming an Accomplished Demon, no matter their later efforts. Most likely, this was what had happened to Lady Gu Xue. At that point, only precious pills and priceless treasures could give her hopes. Cao Yun could understand why she had had so much excitement after seeing his pills. Indeed, he had made sure that his pills were specialized around blood and essence with a quality slightly superior to what he could see on the market. Like that, there was nothing too extraordinary while still catching the eye of everyone.
Just like for his refinement, Cao Yun spent a lot of time getting ready for the moment. He circulated his blood cultivation again and again. Following 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace', he condensed all of his blood in his heart, around his Drop of Wrath and used his Black Heart Flame to temper it. Eight times. Twenty-four times. Thirty-six times. Sixty-four times. One hundred and eight times. Those numbers were more symbolic than anything else. But they were useful to focus his mind. By that point, his blood was as pure as it could get without forming his Golden Blood.
Obviously, he also focused on his Jing. Marrow and Jing were not one and the same, just like blood and Qi were different. But one's marrow contained and transported most of one's postnatal Jing. Indeed, although ancient cultivators had once believed that the heart was responsible for creating blood, that was the role of one's marrow. And Jing's role was to create Qi within the Lower Dantian through the use of prenatal Jing. That prenatal Jing was mostly stored in one's kidney.
With his current cultivation, Cao Yun envisioned his kidneys as one big Golden Palace. And within was a golden pellet, the Golden Fate, the representation of his prenatal Jing. Thanks to what blood essence he had extracted from Mo Wang, Cao Yun had already improved his Golden Fate a little. He had also developed his Kidney Fire. Said Kidney Fire was an emanation of his prenatal Jing and thus of his Golden Fate. Indeed, this Kidney Fire was the energy that could turn postnatal Jing into Qi. But it could also deplete one's prenatal Jing and thus one's vitality and lifespan. By improving one's control over their Kidney Fire, it would preserve the Jing.
Preserving one's prenatal Jing was also the reason why many demons and humans were careful about not having too many children. Of course, very powerful cultivators or mortals who had no hopes of achieving much could still produce many children, but those were exceptions. And there were also other reasons not to have many children. Human especially were wary of wars and feuds within their own bloodline. Indeed, the Hongchen Kingdom's survival was based upon its unity.
The Rune of Fire was helping Cao Yun a lot. Thanks to it, he had a better control over both his Kidney Fire and his Black Heart Flame. Although he couldn't bring the Kidney Fire in his heart, he could send his Black Heart Flame in his Lower Dantian, fusing both flames. And he could easily control several tongues of fire at the same, with very different properties in them, even mixing the properties of his Drop of Wrath in them too.
After working on his blood, Cao Yun obviously worked on his Golden Fate. After using his flames on it for a very long time, they were shining so bright that they would have blinded his physical eyes. In fact, the entire Golden Palace was shining as though it were a literal sun in his body. At the same time, the Demon Palace in Cao Yun's sea of consciousness began to shine a little as well. It was very faint, but there was no doubt about it. However, Cao Yun was just too busy working on his own cultivation. And at that point, he had no fear of Dian mo betraying him anymore.
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Finally, the young man was ready.
In the center of the room surrounded by array formations and incense sticks, Cao Yun was sitting in the lotus position, cross-legged with both soles and palms turned toward the sky. In front of him, there was a small pill. It was reddish with tinges of shiny silver moving across its surface. Obviously, this was the Resplendent Mercury Breath pill. Sitting on a tiny cushion, it began to levitate and entered Cao Yun's mouth. His body was absolutely still and it was already radiating pure vitality. Without the array formations, everyone in Ruohe would have felt that someone was trying to break through. But they would also have felt that Cao Yun was only a 3rd-grade Golden Blood Child, albeit with an impressive blood.
At the moment the pill entered his mouth, he swallowed it and it immediately began to melt. It turned into a heavy and viscous liquid that slowly slid down his throat. Before it could move freely, Cao Yun's mind was all around it, guiding it first in his heart.
There, the liquid mixed with his blood. Already his blood was heavy and difficult to move. But when the two began to mix together, it created something that was barely liquid anymore. Cao Yun had literally used all of his blood condensed into a single drop. For that first step though, he didn't use fire at all as he didn't want the two substances to merge. No, the medicinal essence of the Resplendent Mercury Breath pill was supposed to act as some form of binder for the real fusion between his blood and his essence.
Thus, the silvery substance and his blood intertwined with each other but without really merging. At any moment, Cao Yun could easily separate them. However, they were easier to move together that way. Slowly, they went into his Lower Dantian. That first step was a success. As soon as they entered his Lower Dantian, he released his control over them. Immediately, as the pressure was released, they filled his entire Lower Dantian and exerted a lot of pressure on all its walls. Physically, Cao Yun could feel an intense pressure almost trying to rupture his abdomen. If his Lower Dantian had not been strengthened before, it would have never been able to support this kind of force. Cao Yun had also moved most of his Water Qi out of his Lower Dantian for the process so as to not deplete it.
The second phase was now to liquefy his Golden Fate and to send it in his Lower Dantian. For other demons, they would use their own kidneys, their Golden Palace, to form the Golden Blood. But Cao Yun had found out that using his Lower Dantian would be better. It would resist much more than his kidneys and thus, Cao Yun would be able to push the process further and further in order to create the best kind of Golden Blood. In fact, he had hopes of exceeding any other demon before him. By using the best of two cultivation systems at the same time, his results would be twice as good with half the efforts.
In his lower back, the Kidney Fire and the Black Heart Flame completely engulfed the Golden Palace. Within, there was now a sea of black, red and golden flames twirling around. A mere mortal would have been burned to cinders if an ounce of those flames entered their body. For Cao Yun though, that was no problem at all. Besides, he had an excellent control over those flames. The Golden Palace's gates were shut completely closed as both pressure and temperature increased. Being careful, Cao Yun took his time.
His physical body was sweating profusely. There were traces of few impurities in his sweat here and there. The young man's body had still some toxins from previous pills in it. That process was apparently getting rid of some that his own body had not been able to extract on its own. In fact, some of those were toxins that had been in the Resplendent Mercury Breath pill itself. Because of the extreme temperature within his abdomen and despite the lack of blood, his skin was also turning a bit reddish.
SLowly but surely, the Golden Fate was dripping drop after drop. It was being melted by the ocean of flames within the Golden Palace. After at least three hours, the entire Golden Fate had been turned into a golden liquid. Then, Cao Yun opened the gates of the Golden Palace. This was a delicate procedure as he guided the golden liquid into his Lower Dantian thanks to his internal flames. There were two crucial points. He couldn't lose a drop of that golden liquid and he couldn't allow anything to leave his highly pressurized Lower Dantian while opening it.
His flames formed some kind of bridge between his Golden Palace and the cauldron that was his Lower Dantian, linking his Mingmen with it. Once the golden liquid was fully aggregated on the surface of that cauldron, Cao Yun's flames sealed it as he was letting the Golden Fate within. As soon as he opened his Lower Dantian, the pressure tried to let the silvery and bloody mixture out. Thankfully, his flames endured as long as necessary for his golden liquid to enter. As it was lighter, it sank into his Lower Dantian with more ease. And once it was entirely inside, Cao Yun closed it off once more.
His Kidney Fire and his Black Heart Flame were now completely enveloping his Lower Dantian. Even his own will and intent had a hard time getting inside because of the pressure and the temperature. His awareness was mostly focused on the surface of his Lower Dantian so he could manipulate the flames as was necessary to optimize the result. The medicinal essence of the Resplendent Mercury Breath pill was being completely consumed as both his blood and his liquid Golden Fate were mixing with one another.
On the outside, his body was starting to shiver. It had been many hours now that he had no blood circulating in his flesh. Although he was making do with his Qi, this wasn't the same thing. For the time being, his body was still made of flesh. Of course, he didn't need to eat, drink, sleep or even breathe as much as a mere mortal. But depriving his body of blood completely for so long was a real trial for his flesh. At the same time, there was an intense heat permeated throughout his body and his mind was pushed to the limit. The strain on his entire being was immense. Hopefully, this wouldn't take too long...
And it took one more hour.
The young man was shaking uncontrollably by that time. But finally it was over!
All of a sudden, he completely released all of his tension and his posture changed, his body slouched. But from within, a new blood flowed through his veins. Leaving his Lower Dantian, there was now a bright red blood with flashes of gold within that entered his bloodstream. As it was filling his empty blood vessels, Cao Yun felt life coming back to him. There was an immense vitality permeating through his entire being. All around him, there was an aura that burst outward. Without the array formations, it might even have damaged the very walls of his cultivation room.
Cao Yun had never felt so alive. For a few hours his body had almost been stopped and he had been close to death. But suddenly, he was reborn. His breakthrough had clearly been a huge success. No demon or asura had ever had such a resplendent Golden Blood in their veins.
Then, a voice resounded.
"Congratulations, boy!"