Soon, Dugu Yan sat cross-legged and began absorbing the Soul Bone.
The Soul Bone had been purchased from the Dou II timeline. Ye Guchen had spent a fortune to secure the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, after all. You had to invest to get a return.
In just a short while, Dugu Yan's Soul Power began to surge: level thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five!
The Ten Thousand Year Soul Bone had granted Dugu Yan three levels of Soul Power.
As the fluctuations in her Soul Power gradually settled, Dugu Yan slowly rose to her feet and looked at Ye Guchen, excitement in her eyes.
She pinched the hem of her clothes. All the words of gratitude that had risen to her lips dwindled to just two.
"Thank you!"
Ye Guchen waved a hand, his tone casual. "No need to thank me. As a guest of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, this is only what you deserve."
He made it sound effortless, but his heart was bleeding.
That Ten Thousand Year Soul Bone had cost him a full three million Gold Soul Coins!
But then he remembered that he could recoup the cost just by taking a single Immortal Herb from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
"Next, I'll guide the toxins out of you."
Dugu Bo's voice broke into Ye Guchen's thoughts.
He moved behind Dugu Yan and pressed both palms against his granddaughter's back. Green Soul Power seeped into her body in fine, silken threads.
Dugu Yan's Martial Soul was the Jade Phosphorous Serpent, passed down through Dugu Bo's line.
Over the years, the toxins in her body had not built up to the same severity as Dugu Bo's, but there was still a considerable amount.
Ye Guchen held the Toxin-Purging Pill to Dugu Yan's lips. "Take it."
As soon as the pill entered her stomach, a warm sensation spread through Dugu Yan, as if something were slowly flowing through her meridians.
Dugu Bo's Soul Power followed that warmth, guiding it as it peeled the toxins clinging to her flesh and meridians away, strand by strand, then channeled them into the Soul Bone she had just absorbed.
The process lasted about half an hour.
When the last wisp of toxin had been drawn into the Soul Bone, Dugu Yan's pupils and hair gradually turned black.
"That's it." Dugu Bo drew back his hands and let out a long breath. He felt not the slightest bit tired, and his eyes shone with excitement.
The boulder that had weighed on his heart for over a decade could finally be lifted.
Dugu Yan opened her eyes and moved around a little. She felt lighter, though nothing else seemed to have changed.
She had never been deeply poisoned, so she had not suffered the way Dugu Bo had. If he had not told her, she might never even have known she was poisoned.
"Grandpa, I feel... like my whole body's lighter!"
Dugu Bo nodded, his gaze complicated as he looked at Ye Guchen.
"Young Master Ye, I'll remember this kindness."
"Your Excellency is too kind." Ye Guchen smiled, then changed the subject. "Now, we should talk about the toxins in your body."
Dugu Bo raised an eyebrow. "How confident are you?"
"Seventy percent!"
"Although Your Excellency Dugu is deeply poisoned, seventy percent is still a very good chance. And even if we fail to remove the toxins, your condition won't be any worse than it is now."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
Whenever Dugu Bo's poison came up, Dugu Yan grew anxious.
"Your Excellency Dugu's toxins are complex. I still need to make preparations—ideally, I'll refine an enhanced Toxin-Purging Pill."
Dugu Bo nodded. He knew his own condition best.
"Very well! Young Master Ye, you can refine the pills here without worry. Feel free to use any herbs in the garden."
Though the body in the Dou II timeline had spent the past half month feverishly studying herbs, if Dugu Bo caught him in the act of refining pills, Ye Guchen's lack of knowledge would still be exposed.
I need to find a way to get him to leave on his own.
And the tried-and-true method was to claim that pill refining was a secret family art that could not be revealed. Dugu Bo, who always put his family first, would understand that better than anyone.
Ye Guchen looked at Dugu Bo and scratched his head.
"Um, pill refining is a secret family art that can't be passed on. I wonder if..."
At that, Dugu Bo understood what Ye Guchen meant. He didn't think there was anything unreasonable about it.
"Hahaha! Just focus on refining the pills. I have a residence at the back of the valley. Yanyan and I can wait there."
Ye Guchen clasped his fists at Dugu Bo in gratitude.
"Thank you for understanding, Your Excellency Dugu."
Once the two had gone some distance, Ye Guchen confirmed that their auras had retreated to the back of the valley. Only then did he have Tian Meng use his spiritual power to shroud the spring area.
Even if Dugu Bo tried to spy, all he would see was a blurry silhouette refining pills.
Once that was done, Ye Guchen took a deep breath and turned his gaze toward the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
The hot spring and the icy spring converged. Billowing mist and gathering frost clashed in the air.
On the bank, an Immortal Herb with a snowy-white, octagonal body grew beside a red, apricot-shaped plant like a flame.
The Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.
The Infernal Delicate Apricot.
Without hesitation, Ye Guchen used the same method Tang San had used in the original story, quickly harvesting the two Immortal Herbs with a wooden knife and a jade shovel before popping them into his mouth.
The moment ice and fire exploded across his tongue, he almost thought his mouth was being torn apart.
Two utterly opposite forces, like poisonous dragons, plunged down his throat and tore through his meridians. A chill welled up from deep within his bones, as if it would freeze his blood into shards of ice; heat erupted from his dantian, as though it would burn his organs to ash.
Ye Guchen clenched his teeth and leaped into the place where the springs met.
Extreme cold and blistering heat washed over every inch of his flesh in turn. The pain wasn't sharp like an external wound; it was a deep, bone-piercing sensation of being torn apart from within. The veins on his forehead bulged, and his fingernails nearly dug into his palms.
Yet just as the medicinal power threatened to run wild, his abundant Soul Power at level fifty-four surged instinctively. Like an iron-fisted general, it forcibly suppressed the two raging forces and guided them in an orderly flow into his limbs and bones.
His cultivation progressed far faster than Tang San's had back then. After all, the foundation of someone in the thirties and someone in the fifties could hardly be compared.
But the pain did not lessen.
For a moment, ice and fire clashed in his dantian, seeming ready to tear him in half. Ye Guchen groaned, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, but forced himself to stay conscious.
I've experienced the pain of death more than once. What's a little pain like this?
He cursed inwardly and gritted his way through it while still awake.
After about four or five hours, the excruciating pain of ice and fire merging finally began to recede. In its place came a sensation of clarity unlike anything he had ever felt, as if every meridian had widened and every muscle had been reforged.
Ye Guchen opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. A soft sheen seemed to flow beneath his skin. When he lightly clenched his fingers, he could feel power surging through his flesh.
He tried circulating his Soul Power to withstand the springs' assault. The extreme cold and heat that had once required his full strength to resist now felt like bathwater that was only a little too hot or a little too cold. He could handle them with ease.
"My constitution has improved quite a bit." Ye Guchen clenched his fist, satisfied. "If I absorbed a Soul Ring now, I could probably withstand one of seventy or eighty thousand years."
The transformation was physical, so the divine soul in the Dou II timeline had not benefited much.
He rose from the spring and shook the water from his body, then looked over the dazzling array of Immortal Herbs surrounding him.
"No rush." Ye Guchen suppressed the urge welling inside him. "Once I've cured Dugu Bo, I can ask him for a few herbs. That shouldn't be a problem."
He took out his pill furnace, then pulled several Toxin-Purging Pills from his Storage Soul Tool. These were a grade higher than the batch he had given Dugu Yan.
Refining pills on the spot was out of the question. The real key to removing Dugu Bo's toxins was the transformation in Ye Guchen's blood after he had taken the Immortal Herbs.
Draw blood, add it to the pills, and refine them again.
The flames beneath the pill furnace flickered as Ye Guchen carefully controlled the heat, fusing his blood with the pills.
One batch of upgraded Toxin-Purging Pills was ready. He then refined three more batches in succession.
Twenty pills in all. One a week would be enough.
After placing the pills in a jade bottle, Ye Guchen put away the furnace and stood up. He called toward the back of the valley, "Your Excellency Dugu, the pills are ready!"
A moment later, Dugu Bo's deep voice rang out from afar, carrying a trace of barely contained anticipation. "Young Master Ye, wait a moment. I'll be right there."
In the distance, hurried footsteps crunched over gravel.
The dignified Titled Douluo was walking a little faster than usual.
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