'What is that?!"

Sheng Xin turned to the woman and told herself she should start searching for her name—maybe even mention it to the man she was about to turn into a scapegoat. "I thought Zhen Yu would like it, Mother."

"He would... Sheng Xin Cheng! He's not a disciple of those... beasts!" The woman practically screeched. "Throw that away!"

"I'm keeping it," Sheng Xin narrowed her eyes. "It's up to him to decide if he likes it or not."

The rat was in the second stage of foundation establishment, a realm above body refining. She couldn’t afford to throw such a creature away. She would fight for it.

"Why, exactly?" the woman inquisitively prodded. "It’s not like you to buy rats out of nowhere! You’re supposed to be a noble lady, not some peasant buying vermin!"

"I want a gift for Zhen Yu," Sheng Xin replied, knowing that pushing that narrative would help convince her.

As expected, the woman's expression softened, and she sighed in resignation. "I’m glad he finally got through to you. Fine! Fine! You can keep that thing, but make sure it stays in your room. I don’t want to see something so unsightly first thing in the morning."

Sheng Xin smiled. "Thank you. I’ll do that."

Things had fallen into place.

Sheng Xin left the woman to her own devices and entered the safety of her room. She remembered that earlier this morning, there had been a door she hadn’t checked, specifically the one next to her bed.

It wasn’t surprising that it led to a bathroom. With her suspicions confirmed, she went inside, stripped off her blue robes, and began mixing the bottles of earth and fire Qi.

She sealed the cap just as sparks started to fly, and before it could explode, she opened it again and took a big gulp.

Sheng Xin gritted her teeth as her stomach began to churn. The violent reaction sloshed inside her, tearing apart her organs with the force of a hurricane.

Sheng Xin inhaled, then closed her eyes and began meditating.

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The power of two rival elements was hard for a normal cultivator to control. Most who attempted this stunt ended up crippled, and for a mortal to imbibe a liquid reacting so violently would be a death sentence.

But not for Sheng Xin. She was well-versed in guiding Qi, even if violent, through her channels. And although it destroyed her very being, the ambient Qi she inhaled and circulated healed the damage. Not fully—never fully—but just enough.

Naturally, the first thing she tempered was her dantians and Qi channels. Strengthening this base would make body refinement more efficient.

The process Sheng Xin was undergoing was simple: first, a whirlwind of violent Qi would destroy her channels, and then, before they ruptured, she would let them pass and allow the ambient Qi she was absorbing to repair the damage.

She repeated the cycle over and over, ignoring the pain of destroying her own channels and the relief that followed as they were repaired.

A full cycle of energy meant that by the time it reached the parts it had previously destroyed, they would have been repaired just enough to resist destruction again. It was a delicate process—one wrong move could cripple her forever.

But Sheng Xin wouldn’t allow that. She refused to.

She forced herself through the pain and allowed her Qi channels to adapt to the constant stream of damage, getting stronger with each cycle of destruction and repair.

After hours, the warring earth and fire Qi were finally overtaken by the ambient Qi in Sheng Xin’s system, and she was able to take a breath of relief—but only for a moment.

She continued cultivating, this time in the normal fashion, allowing the ambient Qi to strengthen her body by infusing with her physical self.

When she finally finished, Sheng Xin stood up from the pile of blood and black waste that had accumulated on the floor.

She would have to clean it, and she did, wiping her cultivation waste off the floor as her bathtub filled with water, leaving no trace of her misdoings.

She didn’t stop until the floor was back to how it had been when she first entered the bathroom.

Sheng Xin dipped her entire body into the tub. The hot water relaxed her tense muscles and cleaned the bile off her body, allowing her pores to begin absorbing Qi from the environment.

She had stopped cultivating, so her channels weren’t fully repaired—and that was her intention. Besides Qi, she had something else in mind that could fill the gaps left by the existing damage to her channels.

Sheng Xin left the bathroom wearing an indigo robe over her sleek body. She approached the squirming rat, caged in the corner of her room with no escape except death.

She placed her glowing palm on its back and activated her technique.

The All-Devouring Maw was, and always would be, her best work.

Absorbing living beings wasn’t strange for a demonic cultivator. Every single one had a method for it, whether it be the common soul furnace, dual cultivation, essence stealing, or something else.

The All-Devouring Maw was unique to Sheng Xin in the sense that it was tailored to her soul, and the technique was attached to it. This allowed her to benefit directly from the things she absorbed.

A thin, membranous film of Qi spread from Sheng Xin’s palm and onto the rat, enveloping the rodent like a snail devouring its meal. The screeches were soon drowned out, followed by the creature’s flailing—its last-ditch effort at survival—before everything halted as the film consumed it whole.

The digestion process was slow. It usually was when Sheng Xin was in this stage of her new lives, but that was fine since it allowed her to translate the rat’s essence into something she could use.

She removed every other trace beyond the rat’s hardiness from its essence, gathering it into her soul.

Slowly, the circular ball of Qi Sheng Xin was holding shrank, and before long, the rat was no more. All that remained was its cage.

Sheng Xin stood up and made her way to her bed. She sat cross-legged and began cultivating.

She used the rat's essence to influence the Qi she was inhaling, suffusing the two together so that the hardiness she had gathered from the rodent would infuse with her Qi channels.

The damaged parts were replaced by the new type of Qi as it traveled across Sheng Xin’s system, causing the healed cells to grow hardier and tougher than the rest of her body.

Over time, these new cells would spread, mixing and blending with the other toughened cells around them, causing Sheng Xin’s channels to grow more powerful.

Any future damage within the channels would simply cause the hardened cells to adapt after recovery, making them better suited to resist it the next time.

Sheng Xin’s first steps in tempering her body had been successful.