Ice-Fire Body Tempering

Dugu Yan sat cross-legged, beginning to absorb the soul bone.

This soul bone had been purchased from the Dou II timeline. To secure the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Ye Guchen had spent a fortune; after all, one must be willing to invest to see a return.

In just a moment, Dugu Yan's soul power aura began to swell: level thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five!

The Ten Thousand Year Soul Bone had provided Dugu Yan with three levels of soul power.

As the fluctuations in her soul power gradually subsided, Dugu Yan slowly stood up, looking at Ye Guchen with excitement.

She twisted the corner of her clothes, and though many words of gratitude came to her lips, only two remained.

"Thank you!"

Ye Guchen waved his hand, his tone casual: "No need for formalities. Since you are a guest elder of my Hundred Treasures Pavilion, this is only right and proper."

He spoke lightly, but his heart was bleeding.

That Ten Thousand Year Soul Bone had cost him a full three million Gold Soul Coin!

However, on second thought, taking just one immortal herb from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well would immediately recoup the cost.

"Next, I will guide the toxins for you."

Dugu Bo's voice rang out, interrupting Ye Guchen's thoughts.

He walked behind Dugu Yan, pressed his palms against his granddaughter's back, and emerald-green soul power seeped into her body like threads of silk.

Dugu Yan's martial soul was the Jade Phosphorous Serpent, inherited from Dugu Bo's lineage.

Over the years, while the toxins in her body were not as severe as Dugu Bo's, they had still accumulated significantly.

Ye Guchen handed the Toxin-Purging Pill to Dugu Yan's lips: "Swallow it."

As the pill entered her stomach, a warm sensation immediately arose within Dugu Yan, as if something were flowing slowly through her meridians.

Dugu Bo's soul power followed, guiding that warm force to peel away the toxins attached to her flesh and meridians, layer by layer, before injecting them into the newly absorbed soul bone.

This process lasted for about half an hour.

When the last wisp of toxin was channeled into the soul bone, Dugu Yan's pupils and hair gradually turned black.

"It is done." Dugu Bo withdrew his palms and let out a long, heavy breath. He felt no fatigue, his eyes filled with excitement.

The boulder that had weighed on his heart for over a decade could finally be moved at this moment.

Dugu Yan opened her eyes and moved her body, finding it felt lighter, though nothing else had changed.

She had not been deeply poisoned, so she had not experienced the agony Dugu Bo suffered; had he not told her, she wouldn't even have known she was poisoned.

"Grandfather, I feel... everything has become lighter!"

Dugu Bo nodded, looking at Ye Guchen with a complex gaze:

"Little Friend Ye, this favor, this old man will remember."

"You are too kind, Your Excellency." Ye Guchen smiled, then changed the subject, "Next, we should discuss the poison within your own body."

Dugu Bo raised an eyebrow: "How much confidence do you have?"

"Seventy percent!"

"Although Your Excellency Dugu is poisoned too deeply, seventy percent confidence is already very high. Besides, even if the detoxification fails, the situation will not be worse than it is now."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Whenever the topic of detoxifying Dugu Bo came up, Dugu Yan always seemed anxious.

"The toxins in Your Excellency Dugu's body are complex. I still need to prepare, preferably by refining an enhanced version of the Toxin-Purging Pill."

Hearing this, Dugu Bo nodded; he knew his own condition best.

"Very well! Little Friend Ye, feel free to refine your pills here. You may use any herbs in the garden as you wish."

Although his body from the Dou II timeline had been frantically studying herbal knowledge for the past half-month, if Dugu Bo were to catch him in the process of refining pills, his lack of expertise would be exposed.

I need to find a way to make him leave voluntarily.

The trick that never failed was, naturally, to claim that the pill-refining technique was a family secret that could not be leaked. Dugu Bo, a man who prioritized his family above all else, would understand this best.

Immediately, Ye Guchen looked at Dugu Bo and scratched his head.

"Well, pill refining is a secret of my family, I wonder if..."

At this, Dugu Bo understood Ye Guchen's meaning and felt nothing was amiss.

"Hahaha, rest assured and refine your pills. This old man has a residence at the back of this valley; Yan-yan and I can wait there."

Hearing this, Ye Guchen cupped his hands to Dugu Bo in thanks.

"Thank you for your understanding, Your Excellency Dugu."

Once the two had walked far away and Ye Guchen confirmed their auras had retreated to the back of the valley, he had Tian Meng shroud the spring area with his spiritual power.

Even if Dugu Bo were to spy, he would only see a blurred silhouette of someone refining pills.

After doing all this, Ye Guchen took a deep breath and cast his gaze toward the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

The hot spring and the ice spring converged, where billowing white mist and congealing frost battled in the air.

On the bank, a snow-white herb shaped like an octagon and a crimson, apricot-like plant grew in silence.

Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.

Infernal Delicate Apricot.

Ye Guchen did not hesitate. Using the method Tang San employed in the original work, he used a wooden blade and a jade shovel to quickly harvest the two immortal herbs, swallowing them both at once.

The moment the ice and fire exploded on his tongue, he almost thought his mouth would be torn apart.

Two diametrically opposed forces surged down his throat like a pair of venomous dragons, tearing through his meridians along the way. A chill welled up from the depths of his bone marrow, as if it would freeze his blood into ice shards; meanwhile, a scorching heat erupted from his dantian, as if it would burn his internal organs to ash.

Ye Guchen gritted his teeth and leaped into the confluence of the springs.

The extreme cold and the brutal heat washed over every inch of his flesh in turns. This pain was not sharp like an external wound, but a tearing sensation that went deep into the marrow, radiating from the inside out. Veins bulged on his forehead, and his fingernails dug deep into his palms.

However, at the very moment the medicinal power was about to spiral out of control, his thick level fifty-four soul power surged instinctively. Like an iron-fisted general, it forcibly suppressed and guided these two violent forces, integrating them into his limbs and bones in an orderly fashion.

His cultivation speed was much faster than Tang San's back then; after all, the foundation of level thirty-something and level fifty-something were simply not in the same league.

But the pain did not diminish because of this.

For a moment, the ice and fire stalemated at his dantian, as if they were about to tear him in two. Ye Guchen let out a muffled groan, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth as he fought to keep his consciousness from fading.

He had experienced the agony of death more than once; what was this bit of pain?

He cursed inwardly, forcing himself to endure it while remaining fully conscious.

About four or five hours later, the excruciating pain of the ice and fire merging finally began to recede. It was replaced by an unprecedented sense of clarity, as if every inch of his meridians had been widened and every muscle had been reforged.

Ye Guchen opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. A gentle, warm luster flowed faintly beneath his skin, and as he lightly clenched his fingertips, he could feel power surging and swelling within his flesh.

He tried to circulate his soul power to resist the erosion of the springs—the extreme cold and heat that previously required his full effort to withstand now felt like nothing more than bathwater that was slightly too hot or too cold, requiring no effort at all.

"My constitution has improved significantly." Ye Guchen clenched his fist, feeling quite satisfied. "If I were to absorb a soul ring now, I should be able to withstand one of seventy or eighty thousand years."

This was a transformation at the physical level; therefore, his soul, which belonged to the Dou II timeline, did not receive any benefits.

Rising from the spring and shaking the water droplets from his body, his gaze swept over the dazzling array of immortal herbs nearby.

"No rush." Ye Guchen suppressed the restlessness in his heart. "Once I finish detoxifying Dugu Bo, asking him for a few stalks won't be a problem."

He took out his alchemy furnace and retrieved several Toxin-Purging Pill from his Soul Tool—a grade higher than the batch he had used for Dugu Yan.

Refining pills on the spot was impossible; the true key to purging the toxins from Dugu Bo lay in his own blood, which had undergone a qualitative change after consuming the immortal herbs.

Extracting blood, adding it to the pills, and refining them anew.

The flames beneath the furnace danced as Ye Guchen carefully controlled the heat, fusing the blood with the medicinal pills.

A batch of modified, upgraded Toxin-Purging Pill was freshly produced, and he proceeded to refine three more batches in succession.

Twenty pills in total. One per week; that would be enough.

Storing the pills in a jade bottle, Ye Guchen put away the furnace, stood up, and shouted toward the back of the valley: "Your Excellency Dugu, the pills are ready!"

A moment later, Dugu Bo's deep voice came from afar, carrying a hint of irrepressible anticipation: "Little Friend Ye, wait a moment; this old man is coming right over."

In that voice, there was also the faint sound of hurried footsteps crushing gravel.

A dignified Title Douluo was actually walking faster than usual.