Before getting to the other room where the injured trainees were taken care of, Cao Yun really observed everything going on in the building. What really intrigued him was how she could make people so respectful of her despite the way she was treating them at their arrival. And he quickly understood that. This first training was not simply to make the newly acquired slaves stronger. She was quite literally breaking them, not just physically but also mentally. They had no time to think about anything else but surviving.
Although the instructors were making sure that no one died during the fights, there had to be accidents. And the pain was deterrent enough for the slaves to give their best. Besides, they were all rather young. Not a single one of them was older than sixteen. Thus, they were easier to manipulate. After months or even years of such a brutal treatment, even the will of demons would suffer. Then, she simply had to promise them strength and status. Before long, they would respect her and some would even be glad they had been bought by her. This was rather wicked in fact.
Obviously, Cao Yun didn't like that at all. However, he had to admit that such a method was extremely efficient. Moreover, such an army of slave warriors might be useful to him, and not just in the Desolate Sepulcher. Furthermore, many of those slaves were now in the Empyrean Asura Theocracy's army. There might be ways to use that to his advantage in the future. Anyway, he had to work together with Boss Gui for the time being. Once again, he felt the Unclean Evil in him get agitated. In front of him were boys and girls sometimes even younger than he had been when his family was slaughtered. Some of the girls were the same age as his little sister. And they were in an incredible torment, both physically, and worse than all, mentally. And yet, he wouldn't do anything to help them.
Cao Yun was trying to convince himself that, should his plans succeed, the slaves would be set free, it didn't really alleviate his shame. Once again, he felt as though he was just trying to justify his own weakness and cowardice. It was true though, he couldn't do anything for them now. But that didn't mean he would abandon them. Besides, he couldn't save everyone and neither did he want such a thing. That responsibility was too much. However, he couldn't simply ignore what was going on right under his nose.
After observing the violent training of the young slaves, Cao Yun followed Boss Gui and Miss Wo into another room. There, the injured slaves were put into small basins full of dark blood. Immediately, Cao Yun's nose recognized the same poison he had smelled all over the place. This time, it really wasn't subtle at all. All this time, even Cao Yun had a hard time analyzing the poison because it was too faint. But in those basins, the poison was extremely potent. And since the slaves were injured, it was able to enter their bloodstream very easily. Besides, they were barely conscious so they wouldn't notice anything strange at all. Apparently, the instructors themselves were unaware of what was really going on.
Most likely, they thought that those were just medicinal herbs of some kind. But Cao Yun was absolutely certain that mixed in the blood was the altered venom of some demonic beast. Considering that the slaves were fighting Lake Walking Scorpions, he tried to compare it with their venom. This wasn't the same thing, but it was very similar. Unfortunately, Cao Yun had only an academic knowledge of the ecosystem of the Desolate Sepulcher. In other words, even if he now knew all the common species of this continent, he couldn't know the smell of their venom without experiencing it himself. Knowing what a flower looked like was easy through a book, but knowing its smell without actually smelling a real one was very difficult.
While the young alchemist was observing the basins intently, Boss Gui was observing him. She had agreed to show him her greatest secrets with too much eagerness. Cao Yun suspected that she was looking for something. But since he didn't know what it was, he simply didn't pay it any mind. He would cross this bridge when the time was right. Once again, she surprised him by allowing him to literally take some of the blood.
Analyzing it, Cao Yun was able to discover many herbs along with the scorpion venom. The mixture was rather clever, but it was far from perfect. Most of the herbs were meant to soothe the body and heal the slaves yes. But some were there to mitigate the effects of the venom as well as to speed up its spread throughout the bloodstream.
Boss Gui brought Cao Yun to her office where she let him use his cauldron to perform some tests on the mixture of blood, herbs and venom. He spent several days working on it. All the time, Boss Gui was watching him. Not a single one of his movement escaped her eyes. Of course, he took a few pauses. Boss Gui had arranged for him to have a room all for himself. After making sure that the room was appropriately isolated, Cao Yun used it to meditate and cultivate a little.
His mind cultivation was going very well. In fact, being in such a place with slaves being tormented all around him was good for his Unclean Evil. And because it was good for his cultivation, it increased his own shame and things snowballed from there. Although cultivating shame was improving his Unclean Evil, it could also be dangerous. If his Unclean Evil went out of control, he would give birth to a powerful inner demon. Of course, he had ways to deal with it, but turning his sea of consciousness into a battleground wasn't the most optimal way of cultivating his mind and soul.
In order to improve his mind cultivation, Cao Yun also used the calligraphy he had in his spatial ring. It truly was incredible, but it wasn't miraculous either. For a time, Cao Yun hesitated to work on his third Turbid Demon. He had already chosen it, the Stinking Lungs. After the Po of Jing and the Po of Qi, it was the Po of Shen. Shen was the spirit. For example, Cao Yun had the character of Shen the Fire Spirit in his sea of consciousness. The mind referred to someone's intellect and knowledge while the spirit was related to their aspirations, their motivations, their will even. The Shen wasn't exactly the mind itself but the general controlling the other parts of the mind. Yi the Earth Intent and Zhi the Water Will were both under the jurisdiction of Shen the Fire Spirit.
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As a Turbid Demon, the Stinking Lungs was related to corruption. And Cao Yun was starting to feel like his ambitions and desires were corrupting him. Besides, Dian Mo kept telling him that he was changing because of his mind cultivation. Maybe working on the Turbid Demon of corruption could help him make sure that this wouldn't happen. As much as Cao Yun was trying to say that he was the same man, he wasn't too sure. After all, the mere fact that he had learned about the fate of his sister had changed him. But it was difficult to tell whether the circumstances had changed or whether he had changed. Everything was always changing after all.
Even though he was isolated, the young human didn't work on his Qi cultivation. As much as he wanted to become a Spirit Warrior as fast as possible, he had no intention of revealing his true nature. Besides, he could still just use his blood to temper his meridians. It was a way for him to advance his Qi cultivation without directly working on it. At the same time, he was sending his Golden Blood through his spine. His current 5th-grade Golden Blood Child stage required for his Golden Blood to ascend his spine all the way to his heart. This was the Shendao, the Heart Gate. Forcing it could be dangerous as it could injure his heart.
After some hesitation, he decided to try out something. Taking a single drop of the venom mixture, Cao Yun absorbed it into his own flesh. All around the drop of venom, he was sending his Black Heart Flame, just in case. If things went bad, he could burn it all away in an instant. As an alchemist, controlling toxin, poison and venom was rather easy. Thankfully, this venom wasn't too strong for him. Furthermore, the herbs were indeed lowering its potency. Such a venom could not injure Cao Yun at all. In fact, his blood could completely annihilate it even without his Black Heart Flame.
Since the herbs were negating the effects of the venom, it would have no impact on Cao Yun as he wasn't a Blood Child like the other young slaves. Thus, he carefully used his Black Heart Flame to burn away some of the herbs in the drop he had absorbed. The process wasn't easy but Cao Yun's mastery of alchemist made things smoother. While trying to purify the venom, he still burned away a few drops of it. But in the end, he succeeded and found himself with the pure version of the venom. According to him, it was probably a 4-star Human poison. In other words, it wasn't too dangerous for Accomplished Demons but it was absolutely deadly for Blood Children.
Controlling the pure venom, Cao Yun mixed it with his blood. And although the effects were small, he did feel something. His Golden Blood became hotter and was attacking his own flesh with more vigor. That was when he understood the training of Boss Gui. The effect of that venom was to raise the temperature of the blood while increasing its flow. Like that, the poison would spread even faster throughout the bloodstream. Then, it would corrode the flesh from within. Cao Yun could imagine the painful death that would result from it. But before death, ironically, the cultivation of the victim would be pushed forward. For a Golden Blood Child, it wouldn't be very efficient. But still, since it could help the blood circulate faster and increase its vigor, it would still yield some effect nonetheless.
For demons who had taken this poison since a young age, it would certainly have a positive impact on their overall cultivation. The mere fact that they became Golden Blood Children at a younger age than most was helpful in itself since their essence and vitality were necessarily stronger. However, there were drawbacks since their bloodstream would be coated with this venom, accumulating more and more toxins. At one point, they would hit a wall, just as if they had trained by swallowing pills. Since they were meant to be slave warriors, this wasn't much of an issue. Besides, no demon could go further than the Accomplished Demon realm anyway.
The biggest issue was cultural. For demons, soiling their blood in such a manner was absolutely out of the question. Using herbs to alter their blood, and even pill, was considered as neutral, even though some demons scorned such practices. However, when it came to poison or venom, all demons were opposed to their uses with a passion. The Sisters of the Abyss were adamantly opposed to such heresy and so was the Nalupu Kingdom. Even the nomad tribes who hated the Nalupu Kingdom still respected the Sisters of the Abyss. As such, they also refused to use any form of poison despite living in the desert with many venomous and poisonous species.
Now that he understood the mixture better, Cao Yun did try it on himself. Unfortunately, it didn't help him at all. His control over his blood and his Golden Blood in particular had already reached a plateau. Even with this venom, it didn't increase the flow of his Golden Blood, especially not in his spine.
The next day, he kept on analyzing the mixture with his alchemy in front of Boss Gui. Of course, he had already found out the secret of it, but he was putting on a show so as to not reveal how he had truly figured it out.
"Boss Gui, this mixture is indeed intriguing."
"Did you find anything interesting about it? Could you have a way to make it even more potent. To be honest, I'm not too good when it comes to alchemy. I mostly invented it through trial and error. After stumbling upon some strange herbs, I tried out their effects on my slaves. Sadly, many died or were terribly damaged before I could create my current blood mixture."
"Unfortunately, this is a very intricate mixture of herbs and blood indeed. I was able to sense other things within, but I would like to have a complete list if at all possible. That being said, I do think there are ways to improve it."
In the room they were in, there were only two other persons apart from Cao Yun and Boss Gui, Miss Wo and Xixue. However, Cao Yun decided not to talk about the venom within. First of all, he didn't want to show all his cards right away. But even if he had wanted to, he would not talk about poison or venom in front of either Xixue or Miss Wo. Apart from Boss Gui, he didn't know who was aware of the true nature of the mixture. Until then, he would keep it a secret.
Cao Yun looked at Miss Wo. She wasn't as impassible as always. In fact, he saw both disappointment, relief but also doubt. This was a very strange combination of emotions she went through all at once. Very subtle movements of her facial muscles and her chest betrayed her in Cao Yun's eyes.
"Miss Gui, I am almost certain that I can refine the perfect pills for your slave warriors. Although I can't promise anything about how effective they will be, I can assure you they will yield good results in the long run."
Everyone noticed that Cao Yun had changed his address. Now, he was talking to her as an equal. However, Boss Gui wasn't ready to do so just yet.
"I am glad to hear your promises, Lord Mo. However, I would need something a bit more substantial. I received a letter from Lady Gu Xue. After hearing about you, I tried to find out more. But I found nothing, so I had my suspicions. After seeing your fight though, my suspicions are now gone."