Drain the Blood of a Hundred Herbs, Add More Fuel to the Ultimate Dao Furnace

Deep within the underground treasury, the light was dim. A few fallen luminous stones on the walls barely illuminated the surroundings.

Lu Chen strode toward a corner.

A massive crude iron vat stood there. Its surface was carved with densely packed dust-repelling and preservation formation patterns. Around the rim, there was even a formation lock that flickered with a faint blue glow.

Lu Chen raised his right hand, his five thick fingers clamping directly around the formation lock.

He had no spiritual energy to unravel those complicated immortal formation patterns. He relied on nothing but absolute brute force.

One hundred thousand jin of force surged inward through his finger bones.

"Crack! Bang!"

An ear-splitting sound of tearing metal exploded through the treasury. The formation lock, which even peak Qi Refinement cultivators would have needed great effort to unlock, shattered on the spot. It broke into more than a dozen pieces of scrap iron, clanging against the stone tiles.

Lu Chen yanked open the heavy iron vat lid.

Inside, a hill-sized pile of second-tier Scarlet Flame Boar leg meat was instantly exposed to the air.

An overwhelmingly thick stench of blood, mixed with the rank odor unique to raw meat, burst from the vat and slammed into his face.

Lu Chen's shriveled stomach convulsed violently once more.

He had no intention of lighting a fire and cooking it.

His broad hands plunged into the vat, seized several dozen jin of raw meat veined with blood and streaked with pale fascia, and brutally stuffed it straight into his mouth.

"Riiip—"

His teeth snapped madly shut, savagely tearing through the tough raw fascia. He ripped away huge chunks of meat still clinging to bone. The muscles along both sides of his jaw bulged into high arcs from the sheer exertion.

The Ultimate Dao Furnace within him was driven to full speed in that instant.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

Lu Chen's heartbeat was deep and powerful, echoing through the empty treasury. Each beat made the surrounding air hum and tremble.

A series of muffled thunderous roars came directly from his stomach.

The dozens of jin of demon-tainted raw meat had barely slid down his esophagus into his belly. It did not need long to digest.

A terrifyingly pure yang blood vitality instantly wrapped around it from every direction.

Crushing it. Incinerating it.

Lu Chen stopped chewing and opened his broad mouth.

"Hoo—"

He exhaled a scorching breath of turbid air from the depths of his lungs. Mixed within it were black bone fragments that his fleshly body could not digest at all.

The bone fragments and turbid air slammed viciously into the treasury's bronze walls, striking them with a rapid crackling sound.

Even the heavy metal wall plating shuddered faintly beneath the swell of that blood vitality.

The meat of a second-tier Scarlet Flame Boar already contained the savage instincts and chilling demon qi of a demonic beast. That demon qi tried to surge back up through his esophagus, freeze his internal organs, and wreak havoc in his stomach and intestines.

The instant it emerged, it crashed head-on into that absurdly powerful Ultimate Dao stomach.

The pure yang blood vitality throughout Lu Chen's body crushed over it. Without any guidance from an immortal cultivation technique, the purest heat and power incinerated the demon qi until nothing remained.

All harmful impurities were forcibly stripped away.

At the bottom of the Ultimate Dao Furnace, only the most primal and pure essence of life remained.

That refined essence transformed into a scorching warm current that surged wildly through his limbs and bones.

When Lu Chen had forcibly endured that Foundation Establishment cultivator's Azure Wood Demon-Slaying Sword Formation outside the treasury earlier, his blood vessels had been dried out by sword qi and several thick tendons had snapped. They were immediately wrapped tightly by that warm current.

Violent blood-producing functions roared in succession from the depths of every piece of marrow throughout his body.

Fresh dark-red blood was continuously forced out, filling the previous deficit.

After an entire Scarlet Flame Boar leg had been devoured, the overwhelming hunger in his stomach, so intense it could nearly drive one mad, finally receded.

The meat was finished, and his foundation had been reinforced. It was time for stronger medicine.

Lu Chen turned and strode to the gloomy wood rack on the other side, where pills and spiritual herbs were stored.

Both hands repeatedly grabbed at the exquisite jade boxes.

Priceless century-old blood ginseng and Fire Ganoderma radiating high heat were all swept into his grasp.

The spiritual herbs were still stained with plenty of dirt. Several thick roots were tangled together, and their skins carried the earthy smell of freshly unearthed soil.

Lu Chen did not hesitate in the slightest. He did not even look at the quality that would have made rogue cultivators outside fight until their heads split open. Dirt, roots, and all, he stuffed them into his throat and forcibly swallowed them.

Violent medicinal power exploded between the walls of his stomach.

There was no buffering from any alchemy furnace. Lu Chen directly used his fleshly body as a furnace to bear the medicinal power. Vast medicinal energy erupted wantonly within him.

That medicinal power was instantly force-refined by Ultimate Dao blood vitality, transforming into streams of crimson blood-vitality smoke.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss—"

The smoke blasted wildly out through tens of thousands of pores across Lu Chen's body.

The temperature in the treasury began to rise in a straight line. The originally cold underground space became unbearably hot in an instant. The air twisted violently beneath the raging heatwave, blurring the view.

At that moment, Lu Chen himself was a humanoid furnace spewing heat outward.

In a corner of the treasury stood a steel cage. Two low-tier spirit beasts were locked inside, kept for the amusement of those high-level rogue cultivators in the black market.

The violent pure yang heat swept straight over them, carrying the undisguised bloodline pressure of an apex predator.

The two low-tier spirit beasts could not even let out the most basic cries of agony.

Their eyeballs exploded on the spot. Black blood sprayed from their seven orifices, and they fell stiffly inside the iron cage, dying instantly. Before the pressure of an Ultimate Dao martial warrior, they were so fragile that they did not even have time to draw another breath.

An ocean of medicinal power and flesh-and-blood essence continuously circulated and poured through his body.

On the iron-gray membrane of Lu Chen's skin, several small bloody cuts left by flying swords visibly itched and contracted.

Before long, thick layers of blood scab formed over those wounds.

Lu Chen rolled his broad shoulders, and the muscles all over his body rippled.

The scabs immediately fell away in flakes, scattering over the bluestone floor tiles.

Beneath the fallen scabs was newly grown flesh, darker in color and denser in metallic texture. Not a single scar remained, and his skin carried a restrained black-gold luster.

The twelfth layer of Iron Cloth Shirt was thoroughly stabilized and perfected beneath the forceful accumulation of that immense blood vitality.

Far away, at the outer perimeter of Immortal-Breaking Mountain.

Within that extremely concealed cave halfway up the mountain, the thirty-thousand-jin City-Guarding Stele still blocked the entrance tightly, sealed without the slightest gap save for a small breathing slit at the very top.

A-Nan was curled up on that hard, dry boulder, covered by the Netherwind Wolf pelt that carried the scent of blood.

The little girl had been sleeping restlessly, her brows tightly furrowed.

Uneasily, she turned over on the boulder. Her dirty little nose twitched faintly at the air twice.

Across several li, the perception of her newly formed jade bones pierced directly through the night and layers upon layers of miasma.

She caught that warm blood-vitality fluctuation in the far distance, one that was expanding at tremendous speed and carried astonishing heat.

The little girl's taut nerves relaxed. The restless anxiety lingering in her heart completely settled, and she hugged the rag doll missing one ear tightly to her chest before falling back into a deep sleep.

Inside the underground treasury.

Lu Chen walked to a concealed compartment at the very back of the treasury.

His five right fingers tightened, crushing the flickering spiritual-energy restriction outside the compartment in one grip.

The compartment opened, revealing an exquisitely carved warm-jade box. A yellow seal marked with red lettering was pasted across its surface, bearing six large characters: "Tribute for Inner City Offering."

Lu Chen brutally tore off the seal and flipped open the jade box lid.

Inside lay a blood-red vine in silent preservation. A faint bloody glow flowed across its surface. It was an exceptionally rare century-old Blood Marrow Vine.

The medicinal nature of this spiritual herb was very mild, making it exceptionally precious.

Lu Chen did not intend to bring it back and feed it directly to A-Nan.

After returning to the cave on Immortal-Breaking Mountain, he would personally swallow it.

Using his own Ultimate Dao Furnace, he would thoroughly grind to dust that final trace of immortal heavenly dao laws hidden within the vine.

He would extract the purest life essence from it, then condense it into a drop of pure heart's blood and pass it to A-Nan.

Beside the hidden compartment was a huge pile of low-grade and mid-grade spirit stones radiating dense spiritual energy, stacked neatly in place.

To an Ultimate Dao martial warrior who did not even possess a dantian, the spirit stones that the cultivation world regarded as dearly as life itself were no different from glowing scraps of stone by the roadside. Unable to absorb spiritual energy, they were nothing but burdens.

The spirit stones gleamed in the dim treasury. In the black market, they would have been enough to make rogue cultivators kill until their eyes turned red. But in Lu Chen's eyes, these glowing stones were not even as practical as the second-tier boar leg meat from that vat.

Lu Chen turned away, too lazy to give them another glance.

Without the slightest attachment, he left all the wealth accumulated by the merchant guild where it was.

He found a clean animal hide.

He wrapped only the Blood Marrow Vine, which could temper blood vitality, along with the very few top-grade spiritual herbs he had selected from the other hidden compartments, layer upon layer. Finally, he pulled over a tough leather cord and tightly bound them to his lower back.

After tying them securely, Lu Chen extended his right hand.

Ultimate Dao blood vitality within him forcibly gathered at his fingertips. He squeezed out a drop of pure yang fingertip blood heated to the utmost extreme.

The scorching blood was smeared directly over the surface of the warm-jade box containing the Blood Marrow Vine, then wiped across the outer layer of animal hide as well.

The tyrannical heat of Ultimate Dao blood vitality cooled instantly, forming an indestructible crimson isolation membrane over the surface.

That membrane sealed all spiritual energy and unusual fragrance emitted by the immortal herbs tightly inside.

Not even the slightest trace leaked out.

Even if high-level cultivators swept this area with divine sense, they would only sense a lifeless object without any spiritual-energy fluctuations.

Lu Chen finished arranging everything.

All core supplies were firmly secured to his body. He could retreat at any time.

He turned and strode toward the treasury exit.

The bronze gate engraved with heavy isolation formation patterns was still tightly shut.

Lu Chen did not bother looking for the mechanism to activate the formation disk, nor did he care to search the corpse for a key.

He walked straight up, raised his thick arm, and pressed it directly against the center of the heavy bronze gate.

His waist and hips sank sharply, his feet nailed firmly to the bluestone tiles. One hundred thousand jin of pure brute force flowed through the tendons and bones of his arm, slammed into the metal door, and shoved forward with savage force.

"Clang—"

Amid a shrieking sound of violently twisting metal.

The bronze gate, capable of withstanding the full bombardment of a Foundation Establishment Early Stage cultivator, snapped at its hinges and crashed outward. The heavy metal door slammed onto the hall floor outside, kicking up dust that filled the air.