Chen Ye truly wished he could ask Su Chunyi for another share of the alchemy ingredients, so he could let loose, splurge for once, and try to form two dantian qi seas.
But as soon as the thought arose, he immediately suppressed it.
One couldn't be too greedy. Asking for more ingredients at a time like this would be as good as openly driving up the price.
He had worked hard to build a connection with this prodigy of the Qinghe Sword Sect, and their relationship was just beginning to warm up. He absolutely couldn't offend her out of momentary greed.
Besides, there was no need to rush. The book had already made it clear: a qi sea could be torn down and rebuilt whenever one wished.
With that in mind, Chen Ye put aside his rash idea and focused on refining the Qi Condensation Pill.
The Qi Condensation Pill wasn't difficult to make. Even if he had only a large pot to slowly stew the ingredients in, given enough time, he could still manage it.
But the ingredients Su Chunyi had provided were all rare, high-grade goods. How could Chen Ye bear to muddle through and waste them?
Following the instructions in the ancient text, he carefully laid out a formation inside the cave, intending to draw in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and create the best possible conditions for alchemy.
Seeing this, Su Chunyi wanted to step forward and help, but she soon realized that the formation Chen Ye was setting up differed greatly from what she had learned.
What surprised her even more was that the formation seemed to gather spiritual energy even more effectively than the one taught in her sect. The advantage wasn't significant, but if she were doing the work, the same ingredients and the same amount of time would likely produce only about seventy percent of the results.
Were Rogue Cultivators really this formidable these days?
Su Chunyi was full of questions. She wanted to ask what was going on, but feared he might think she was trying to steal his secret arts.
Chen Ye, however, had noticed her curious expression early on. He laughed heartily and said without reservation, "Miss Su, if you have any questions, just ask. The texts you lent me have been a tremendous help. I've been wondering how I might repay you."
Hearing him say this, Su Chunyi's reservations vanished, and she began asking questions in detail.
Chen Ye answered everything she asked, holding nothing back.
The formation's primary purpose was to gather spiritual energy, ensuring that it was dense and rich in the surrounding area during alchemy. That way, it could effectively reduce impurities and pill toxins in the medicine, greatly improving its potency.
In theory, it was a simple formation everyone knew. But when setting it up, Chen Ye had boldly removed many of the incantations, making the overall structure simpler and clearer. Instead, its effectiveness had improved.
After listening intently, Su Chunyi frowned slightly and offered her opinion. "That would indeed gather more spiritual energy, but I'm afraid the energy drawn in would be somewhat impure."
Spiritual energy wasn't a single, pure substance. In the eyes of Qiling Realm cultivators, all things in the world appeared in different colors; in reality, these were the outward manifestations of different kinds of spiritual energy. Alchemy, forging, and cultivation each required different attributes of spiritual energy, so formations that gathered it naturally had their own specializations.
According to the principles of the five elements' generation and restraint, when water-aspected spiritual energy wasn't needed, one had to use the Kun trigram as the main element and supplement it with things like jade to set up the formation. That was how water-aspected spiritual energy could be suppressed.
It was a complicated but not especially precise discipline. One wouldn't see the absurdity of tossing down a random pebble and breaking a sect's grand formation, but neither could one set down a small stone and create an unparalleled formation that blotted out the sky.
By "impure," Su Chunyi meant that Chen Ye's formation had removed most of the steps used to filter spiritual energy, pursuing quantity at the expense of quality. As a result, the spiritual energy it drew in was not only mixed across the five elements, but also included some rotten and filthy energy, such as yin spirit energy.
Chen Ye replied, "It's fine. The Qi Condensation Pill is a low-grade pill, after all. Mixed spiritual energy won't affect its quality. What matters is how fast it's refined. The faster the process, the better the pill's effects."
Su Chunyi was about to ask more when a bone-chilling gust of wind suddenly howled into the cave. Its mournful wail sounded like a child weeping in the dead of night, a woman's shrill scream, or the faint final gasp of someone on the verge of death...
Chen Ye and Su Chunyi's expressions changed drastically.
This was no illusion, nor some marvel of nature. It was the work of genuine ghosts.
They were the lingering souls of the dead, drawn in by Chen Ye's formation. These souls had long since lost the ability to think, retaining only the resentment they had held in life, and now they let out one terrifying, bloodcurdling sound after another.
Souls this weak weren't worth worrying about—not to mention Su Chunyi, even Chen Ye could handle them without concern. The problem was, where had so many resentful souls come from?
A person's spirit was incredibly fragile. Even a cultivator with Mo Ci's level of cultivation would see his spirit rapidly dissipate after death. The chaotic howls of resentment and the fact that so many lingering souls had managed to persist meant there had to be some extraordinary place nearby.
The two exchanged a glance, each understanding what the other was thinking.
Chen Ye set down his pots, ladles, and bowls, then said gravely to Su Chunyi, "Miss Su, we should investigate the source of this yin wind first."
Su Chunyi nodded. She hadn't expected something ghostly to be lurking near the cave. They were only lingering souls, but it was best to disperse them as soon as possible, lest they harm anyone innocent.
Chen Ye murmured an incantation, formed a hand seal, and drew a talisman to ward off evil. His eyes instantly turned a brilliant gold. He had become increasingly proficient and effortless in using the Spirit Eye Technique. As for Su Chunyi, she merely blinked, and brilliant golden light rippled through her limpid eyes.
"Ah, well..."
Chen Ye sighed inwardly. As expected of a cultivator whose realm was far above his own—she cast spells who knew how many times faster than he did.
Still, speed didn't matter. The results were the same either way.
In Chen Ye's eyes, several faint black lines appeared. They were the visible form of yin energy.
Chen Ye and Su Chunyi walked side by side, following the winding trail of yin energy. They hadn't gone far. After passing two small peaks and traveling less than ten li, a vast mountain hollow came into view.
But the moment they looked into it, Chen Ye and Su Chunyi's faces turned terribly grim.
More than a hundred rotting corpses lay piled inside, each one in a gruesome and horrifying state.
The bodies were at different stages of decay. Some had already turned into heaps of putrid flesh, while others still retained something of a human shape. They had clearly died at different times. This was evidently an atrocity that had gone on for a long while.
Looking more closely, one could see that the hearts had been cut out of every corpse.
Chen Ye shuddered all over. Su Chunyi made no effort to hide her fury.
"This is the Blood Refining Technique of the demonic sects! Some demon is using human blood to cultivate."
Su Chunyi's words felt like a real sword's edge pressed against Chen Ye's skin, leaving him chilled to the bone.
Chen Ye couldn't help reflecting that it was no wonder the righteous sects were so merciless in their slaughter of demonic cultivators. Sometimes, even their own kind couldn't stomach the methods of the demonic sects.
Among the corpses in this pit were even three-year-old children. Chen Ye wanted to kill the culprit himself.
Chen Ye said, "Miss Su, judging by the bodies at the top, they've been dead for several days. That demon might not be nearby."
Su Chunyi replied, "No matter. I can find him."
Su Chunyi formed a sword seal with her right hand. Ten thousand beams of sword light turned into threads, weaving a net in the air above the corpse pit.
The sword light was so fast that even Chen Ye's Spirit Eye couldn't make it out. He had no idea what the sword net was for.
A moment later, the sword net transformed into millions of runes, bursting apart like fireworks.
The light scattered, leaving behind a bright trail that pointed straight ahead.
Su Chunyi said to Chen Ye, "That demon is three hundred li to the northeast!"
Chen Ye: ...
A tracking range of three hundred li. Master, we demonic cultivators really haven't seen enough of the world.
Before you continue