Taking the pill

Sure enough, as the medicinal power dissolved, the pain was astonishing. But compared with the ordeals he had endured before, this little bit of pain was nothing.

He gathered his mind and guarded his spirit, circulating the Still Water Art. His thoughts settled, following the medicinal power as it coursed through him.

In less than half an incense stick's time, the medicinal power of the Divine Essence Pill had been fully absorbed.

Immediately afterward, he swallowed a second pill.

As the western sky's drifting clouds painted the window beside him half crimson, as if drunk, Xu Yi stopped taking pills. Looking at the five Divine Essence Pills left in the square box, he couldn't help shaking his head with a bitter smile.

Cao Er had said that people usually encountered the Pill Decline threshold after taking eighteen Divine Essence Pills.

But when Xu Yi took the fourteenth Divine Essence Pill, he had already clearly sensed the medicine's effects weakening considerably. After the fifteenth pill went down, the pain remained, and countless bumps still rose across his body, yet he could no longer feel the warmth nourishing him.

It was obvious: he had reached the Pill Decline threshold too soon.

Thinking it over, he soon accepted it. He had put his body through too much, and when he had opened his Qi Sea, he had taken a top-grade Divine Essence Pill. It wasn't surprising that he encountered the Pill Decline threshold for Divine Essence Pills ahead of time.

He bit the tip of his left middle finger. A bead of blood, round as a pearl, welled up in his palm. Before long, it spread, staining his whole hand.

Though Xu Yi's meridians were ruined and his qi and blood depleted, his cultivation realm remained. The thickness of his blood had not