Qin Haoxuan immediately understood the sect's painstaking intentions. Hauling water was itself a trial, tempering one's Dao heart. Otherwise, with Taichu Sect brimming with experts, wouldn't it be far more time-saving and effortless to open a channel and divert Spirit Spring water from several miles away?
After finishing the water hauling, even Qin Haoxuan, a Witch Cultivator, was somewhat exhausted. After greeting Xu Yu and Murong Chao, he hurriedly wolfed down a meal in the dining hall, then went into the thicket to cultivate and meditate.
His cultivation lasted until nightfall. Gu Yunzi arrived as expected, and when he saw Qin Haoxuan sitting in meditation and practicing qi, a trace of satisfaction flickered across his lips.
"This is your medicine for today. Hurry and take it." Gu Yunzi handed the Corrosion Pill he had long prepared to Qin Haoxuan. With that gentle smile of a lofty senior on his face, had the Undying Witch Demon not exposed him the previous night, Qin Haoxuan might truly have believed he was a fated benefactor who appreciated and intended to nurture him.
Taking the Corrosion Pill, Qin Haoxuan recalled the Undying Witch Demon's words that it could not harm him. After hesitating briefly, he still swallowed it. After all, his being poisoned to death by the Corrosion Pill would do that Old Devil no good. There was no reason for him to deceive him.
The Corrosion Pill melted upon entering his mouth, turning into a sweet fluid that flowed into his stomach. The muscles throughout his body again felt as though they were being scorched by fire. Waves of heat surged from his dantian to every part of his body, as if he had been thrown into a brazier, seeking to refine away every impurity within him.
Qin Haoxuan clearly sensed that the medicinal power of this Corrosion Pill was utterly incomparable to last night's. It was at least ten times stronger.
After swallowing the Corrosion Pill, the waves of heat pouring from his dantian differed from the blazing heat left behind in his body by the One-Leaf Golden Lotus.
The One-Leaf Golden Lotus's heat erupted from within outward. He could draw in spiritual energy to neutralize its medicinal power, eventually transforming that scorching heat—which could burst his body apart—into incomparably pure spiritual energy that nourished his body and watered the Immortal Seed.
Yet the Corrosion Pill's heat flowed from outside inward. It seemed determined to devour all the vital essence within him. Not only could it not be neutralized with spiritual energy, but the more he circulated spiritual energy, the more potent the Corrosion Pill's poison became.
On the surface, it appeared to strengthen his physique, but over time, it would stiffen every function of his body.
This heat did not merely corrode Qin Haoxuan's body. A portion of it even branched off and flowed toward his mind.
The Corrosion Pill's medicinal power was corroding his consciousness!
"This medicine is called the Corrosion Pill. Long-term consumption can make your body impervious to blades and spears, leaving your entire body rigid as a zombie while greatly increasing both attack and defense! It will also erode your consciousness. Before long, you will become a mindless walking corpse, completely controlled by others."
Recalling what the Undying Witch Demon had said the previous night, Qin Haoxuan sneered inwardly. A high and mighty hall master would actually treat a junior with no grudge against him like this. Merely because that junior was suited to becoming a corpse soldier, he would deceive him into doing this! Fortunately, I have the Great Dao Heart Seed Demon Technique to dissolve it. Otherwise, I really would have been at your mercy, carved up like fish on a chopping block! Now, let your poison pill become the spiritual medicine that strengthens my body!
Gu Yunzi, who had been closely observing Qin Haoxuan, saw the agonized struggle on his face and could not help nodding with a sigh. "Under the corrosion of the Corrosion Pill, anyone else would have been unable to bear it and dispersed their cultivation long ago. Yet he has persisted until now. His Dao heart truly is not bad. What a pity he is merely a weak seed. If his aptitude were a little better, he might have been worth cultivating! What a pity! I should encourage him and see whether he can persist until he fully digests this Corrosion Pill's medicinal power. If he can, I can save several precious Corrosion Pills."
To lure Qin Haoxuan in, the Corrosion Pill Gu Yunzi had given him yesterday possessed only one-tenth the potency of a true Corrosion Pill. Given Qin Haoxuan's Witch Cultivator body, he had barely felt anything. But tonight's Corrosion Pill was a genuine Corrosion Pill, with poison ten times stronger than last night's.
"Hold your essence and guard the One. Calm your heart and quiet your qi. Do not use spiritual energy to resist it. This is the medicinal power taking effect, strengthening your physique!"
Gu Yunzi's gentle voice carried over, full of concern, yet to Qin Haoxuan's ears it sounded unbearably false and revolting.
"Persist, keep persisting! The longer you endure, the better the medicine's effect!"
As the pain on Qin Haoxuan's face deepened, Gu Yunzi, distressed over wasting the Corrosion Pill, spoke again to encourage him.
Wave after wave of heat rampaged through Qin Haoxuan's body, while the wave flowing toward his mind also began wreaking havoc. Just as he was about to be unable to hold on, the golden light that had been quietly resting in his mind suddenly flashed. The Corrosion Pill's medicinal power, which had been about to erode his divine consciousness, was entirely absorbed by the divine consciousness in his mind. At the same time, the Immortal Seed that had been quietly resting in his dantian suddenly produced a pulling force, swallowing every wave of heat causing trouble within his body.
Gu Yunzi could never have imagined that the Corrosion Pill's poison would be completely absorbed by Qin Haoxuan's divine consciousness and Immortal Seed. What remained in his body was the medicinal power that genuinely strengthened the physique, tempering his body.
After roughly a quarter of an hour, Qin Haoxuan exhaled heavily, withdrew his cultivation, and opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was Gu Yunzi's plump face, beaming with delight. He was presently wearing a kindly smile as he asked, "How do you feel?"
Qin Haoxuan answered, half truthfully and half falsely, "My whole body felt as if it were being burned by fire, but I gradually got used to it. Now my body has indeed become much stronger."
Since he could dissolve the Corrosion Pill's poison, leaving behind only the medicinal power that purely strengthened and tempered his body, he was happy to continue playing along. In any case, it was beneficial and harmless.
Gu Yunzi nodded with a smile and praised Qin Haoxuan a few times, though his heart was filled with doubt.
Even he would need to exert tremendous effort to force this Corrosion Pill's poison out of his body. Moreover, under its effects, ordinary people could endure at most the time it took to drink a cup of tea before they could no longer persist. Yet this fellow had lasted until he fully digested the Corrosion Pill's medicinal power. Was he even human?
Still, Gu Yunzi did not dwell on it. The more outstanding Qin Haoxuan performed, the greater the corpse soldier's power after it was refined, and the broader its potential for growth.
"Rest early. Don't wear your body down by cultivating blindly." After kindly reminding Qin Haoxuan, Gu Yunzi rode his sword away.
Watching Gu Yunzi's upright and dignified back recede into the distance, Qin Haoxuan could not help shuddering.
Immortal cultivators truly were terrifying. These old monsters who had lived for centuries regarded human lives as mere weeds. For their own selfish desires, they poisoned and destroyed others' lives, not even sparing members of their own sect.
Gu Yunzi was already like this. The Undying Witch Demon, who had spent his entire life in the demonic path, was surely even more terrifying. Although Qin Haoxuan had not yet noticed anything wrong with him, he was certainly plotting something against him.
That Old Devil claimed that when a man was about to die, his words became kind. That saying might apply to upright gentlemen with no intention of harming others. Good people did not live long, while evil people lived for a thousand years. If an Old Devil like him, who had muddled through the demonic path for an entire lifetime, were not so wicked that sores grew atop his head and pus ran from the soles of his feet, how could he have lived until now?
However, unable to make sense of it for the moment, Qin Haoxuan did not continue dwelling on it. After digesting the Corrosion Pill's medicinal power just now, he felt the Immortal Seed stirring restlessly, as though it were about to take root!
Once Gu Yunzi had left, Qin Haoxuan immediately closed his eyes and began sensing the changes in the Immortal Seed.
The Immortal Seed was indeed changing, but it was not Rooting. Rather, it was growing larger. The Immortal Seed continuously drew in the spiritual energy from his dantian and slowly expanded at an extremely sluggish pace...
This growth was not the shriveled Immortal Seed becoming plump. It was simply becoming larger.
After sensing the Immortal Seed's strange transformation, Qin Haoxuan immediately racked his brains, recalling the cultivation books he had read.
The books clearly stated that a shriveled Immortal Seed could never become a plump Immortal Seed, under any circumstances. Yet there was not even a record of an Immortal Seed growing larger as his had. It was clear that nothing like this had ever happened before.
An hour later, the Immortal Seed within Qin Haoxuan had doubled in size before finally stopping. As it grew larger, the hard shell wrapped around it became thinner and thinner, further proving that it had not grown normally, but had been inexplicably swollen by something.
What was happening? Could the Undying Witch Demon be behind this? The thought flashed through Qin Haoxuan's mind, but he quickly dismissed it.
If that Old Devil could control changes in his Immortal Seed from so far away, he would have escaped Immortal-Slaying Poison Valley long ago. There would have been no need for him to lie there for thousands of years.
Could it be the Corrosion Pill's poison? The more Qin Haoxuan considered it, the more likely it seemed. This inexplicable change had occurred only after the Immortal Seed absorbed the poison within the Corrosion Pill.
But Qin Haoxuan did not dare ask anyone what harm might result from the Immortal Seed growing larger. If others learned of this, what if those immortal cultivators, driven mad by cultivation and devoid of all humanity, captured him for dissection and study?
After examining himself, Qin Haoxuan discovered that after the Immortal Seed grew larger, it vaguely showed signs of Rooting. Yet with the Immortal Seed now transformed into this state, fortune and disaster were impossible to predict. He could not feel happy no matter what.
The Undying Witch Demon, the culprit behind Qin Haoxuan's Immortal Seed mutation, opened his eyes. A trace of crafty delight appeared in his murky gaze. After Qin Haoxuan's Immortal Seed absorbed the Corrosion Pill's poison, the Undying Witch Demon had used his modified Great Dao Heart Seed Demon Technique to plant a wisp of demonic qi inside it. Now that wisp of demonic qi had devoured the Corrosion Pill's poison and finally fused with Qin Haoxuan's Immortal Seed, becoming an Immortal-Demon Seed.
What the Undying Witch Demon had not expected was that Little Snake was not the main body at all. His true body was actually human!
At the thought that his future body would be an Immortal-Demon Seed, something demonic-path powerhouses had schemed by every possible means to obtain, the Undying Witch Demon's eyes immediately flashed with an ambition he had not felt in thousands of years!
He had thought he would have to endure in this cursed place until his lifespan ran out, eventually turning into a handful of dust. Who would have thought that disaster would bring fortune? Though he had suffered here for thousands of years, if he could refine the Immortal-Demon Seed that countless demonic-path powerhouses dreamed of obtaining, then even suffering here for several thousand more years would be worthwhile.
Demonic Seeds differed from Immortal Seeds. Their foundations and methods of Rooting differed as well. Immortal Seeds naturally formed a taproot system, with a thick and long main root that grew lateral roots from itself. But when Demonic Seeds first grew their immortal roots, they formed a fibrous root system, with no main root at all—only a mass of tiny hairlike roots. They could rapidly absorb vast amounts of spiritual energy, so at the beginning, their cultivation speed was much faster than that of immortal cultivators.
As Immortal Seeds grew, they gradually produced numerous fibrous roots to become complete. Demonic Seeds, meanwhile, gradually formed a main root as they grew, establishing the backbone of their roots and stems. Only by possessing a main root could they step onto the true Great Dao of longevity.
Because of the difference between Immortal Seeds and Demonic Seeds, before reaching the Immortal Tree Realm, when immortal cultivators and demonic cultivators of the same level fought, the immortal cultivator would often be defeated. But beyond that point, the demonic cultivator's advantage weakened.
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