As time passed, the Sha Ghost Cauldron stopped shaking. Shi Yue seemed to be dead.
Lotus Old Daoist did not open the lid right away. He continued forming hand seals, and a vast sea of Blood-colored Flame engulfed the Sha Ghost Cauldron.
Spring turned to autumn, and a year passed in the blink of an eye.
The high-ranking cultivators of the Heavenly Demon Sect finally noticed something was wrong. Qin Wuji and several hundred Heavenly Demon Sect disciples had vanished from within the sect, as though they had never existed.
With Qin Wuji absent for so long, the demonic coalition was left leaderless and plunged into chaos. The demonic factions began fighting fiercely over the position of Alliance Leader, and the Eastern Plains Cultivation World descended into utter turmoil.
In a gloomy underground hall beneath Illusion Demon Peak, Lotus Old Daoist sat cross-legged before a black cauldron. His face was pale, and his eyes were filled with delight.
"Even a Mahayana cultivator would be refined by me in a year."
The Sha Ghost Cauldron's greatest use was refining a cultivator's flesh and blood into Blood-colored Beads, leaving behind only their Essence Blood.
He changed his hand seal and struck the Sha Ghost Cauldron with it. The lid flew up, revealing a dragon-eye-sized Blood-colored Bead before him.
Lotus Old Daoist held the Blood-colored Bead between his hands, his eyes filled with joy.
"As expected of a Spirit Transformation cultivator. His Essence Blood is far purer than a Nascent Soul Cultivator's," Lotus Old Daoist murmured to himself.
He took out a large batch of Blood-colored Beads and tossed them, along with the one in his hand, into the Sha Ghost Cauldron.
One Spirit Herb after another, all meant to replenish qi and blood, was thrown into the cauldron—over a thousand in total.