Sweat Poured Like Lead, and the Dao Beckoned

Fang Shu had spent only a short while using his Dao Register to commit the supplementary cultivation method entirely to memory after obtaining it.

Yet he had not returned the manual at once. He delayed until the final day before personally coming to return the book.

Time passed.

As expected, the cultivation method from Scorched-Tail Hall was of the same ilk as the Solitary Gu Hall's Insect Method—indeed, even more difficult to fathom.

Even with the enhanced Dao Register aiding him, Fang Shu had spent more than a month fully analyzing and mastering it.

Though he had mastered the method, tempering it into his body still required immense, painstaking effort.

Moreover, compared to the Insect Method, the Lead-Mercury Blood-Treasure Artifact-Seeding Secret Method involved even more complicated cultivation steps.

At the start of his cultivation, Fang Shu's improvement remained limited. Fortunately, once he grew familiar with it, the two methods converged—one swift, one slow, each bringing out the best in the other—and his cultivation speed immediately rose!

Besides, he still possessed a precious medicine such as Purple Lead Mica Milk.

The chief reason Fang Shu had selected this method in the first place was precisely the precious medicine in his possession.

He reasoned silently that Purple Lead Mica Milk could nourish the body and strengthen the bones, while the Lead-Mercury Blood-Treasure Artifact-Seeding Secret Method happened to require lead and mercury to stimulate the body until it tempered a bodyful of black lead blood.

The two might well promote one another.

Even if they did not, the Lead-Mercury Blood-Treasure Artifact-Seeding Secret Method would certainly increase his absorption efficiency for Purple Lead Mica Milk.

The result did not disappoint his expectations. Purple Lead Mica Milk was one of the supplementary medicinal ingredients recorded in the Lead Method that was exceptionally suited for cultivating black lead blood.

Using Purple Lead Mica Milk to nourish and temper the body could greatly reduce the toxic damage inflicted upon the human body when black lead entered it.

Without precious medicines such as Purple Lead Mica Milk, one had to spend vast amounts of additional time consuming things like cow's milk and egg whites while cultivating the Lead Method, in order to lessen the toxicity of lead and mercury.

Yet even after consuming cow's milk and such, if one cultivated for too long each day and ingested too much lead and mercury, it would still damage the body, slowing the cultivator's thoughts and even causing consequences such as the loss of fertility.

To resolve this problem entirely, one either had to consume precious medicines or pills like Purple Lead Mica Milk, or prolong the cultivation process so that the toxins could be diminished.

Of course, if a cultivator's physique was innately immune to lead and mercury toxicity, or if they had previously cultivated a corresponding detoxification secret art that could assist the Lead Method, there would be no need for such troublesome measures.

Although Fang Shu had not cultivated any corresponding detoxification secret art, the Insect Method he cultivated could likewise strengthen his resistance to poison.

The vigorous vitality of his fleshly body made him more suited to the Lead Method than ordinary people.

Combined with the precious medicine, the two layered atop one another produced remarkable results in his cultivation of the Lead Method.

With the two methods converging, he became even more immersed in cultivation than before.

And so he cultivated for one month, two months, three months...

At last, this day arrived.

For once, Fang Shu did not hurry to the cultivation hall to squeeze in with the other disciples as they practiced.

He spent talisman money to purchase a great deal of insect blood and Ant Spirit Paste from the masters of the Daoist hall, then rented a quiet room and entered it, beginning a period of secluded cultivation.

Such secluded cultivation was nothing unusual among the disciples.

Those disciples with ample wealth, wishing to avoid disturbance from others, would even rent a quiet room every day to temper their cultivation methods and spells in private.

Fang Shu did the same this time.

Within the bluestone quiet room, merely ten feet across, he simply arranged a ritual altar. Then, following the rites recorded in the Lead Method, he repeatedly paced and practiced within the room.

Once everything had been set in order, Fang Shu sat cross-legged in the center of the room and lit eight tallow candles around himself. Each candle burned with a flame as large as a fist, less like a candle than a torch.

Slowly, the temperature within the quiet room climbed, raising fine beads of sweat across Fang Shu's chest and back.

Yet he remained seated and motionless. Only the sinews and flesh across his body slowly wriggled and quivered like snakes and insects.

The Insect-Face Secret Script upon his body surfaced one by one as well, causing his entire person to exude a fierce, sinister air.

Crack!

When the tallow candles had burned halfway down, the temperature in the quiet room reached its peak, and a scorching medicinal fragrance filled the entire chamber.

Only then did Fang Shu open his eyes, his gaze blazing brightly.

He abruptly rose to his feet. First, he assumed the stance of the Insect Method to activate his qi and blood, then he assumed the stance of the Lead Method.

This stance was strange. Every bone in his body seemed to have been pulled apart, while he balanced on one foot in the quiet room in a twisted, rope-like posture.

He maintained the stance for only a brief moment before the flesh over his whole body heated and reddened, like a boiled shrimp.

The sweat on his body evaporated, forming mist above his head.

Even his expression became savage and terrifying.

What Fang Shu was doing now was the Bone-and-Tendon Transformation method recorded in the Lead Method.

This method could refine a great quantity of lead and mercury into the body in one go, then consume vast amounts of qi and blood to burn the tendons and bones, thereby altering one's innate skeletal foundation.

This step was immensely important for a Lead Method cultivator. It could even be said that every prior stage of Lead Method cultivation had been preparation for this very step.

According to the Lead Method, only after enduring this stage could a cultivator truly achieve "lead and mercury born together." The human body would no longer regard metallic substances such as lead and mercury as poison, but as food.

Only by enduring this stage could one truly attempt to cultivate black lead blood.

Otherwise, if a cultivator's skeletal foundation had not undergone the corresponding transformation, even if they forcibly refined black lead blood, it would only shorten their life and cost them their fate—a rash pursuit of quick success and immediate gain.

Yet the pain of this bone transformation was merely secondary. More importantly, one needed perfect mastery of the Lead Method's secret script, the ability to control one's fleshly body, and preferably the aid of a spiritual object. Only then could one refine lead and mercury into the tendons and bones and achieve equilibrium with the body.

Fang Shu possessed all three conditions!

After bitterly enduring for the time it took to drink several cups of tea, Fang Shu suddenly felt as though a great drum were pounding within his chest. Thump, thump, thump!

Upon closer examination, it was his heart beating like a drum. The veins over his body bulged in its wake, like earthworms and spiderwebs, while a blood-red sweat seeped from his skin!

Enduring the violent impact of his surging qi and blood, Fang Shu suddenly threw back his head and fiercely spat upward.

Pfft! A date pit shot from his mouth and pierced a pig bladder fixed to the ceiling of the quiet room.

A heavy silver-gray slurry then descended from the pig bladder like malt syrup, slowly covering Fang Shu from head to toe.

Even more wondrously, as Fang Shu moved yet did not move, the sinews and flesh over his entire body trembled, spreading the slurry evenly over him. Every pore and patch of skin was covered, with not even his armpits, soles, eyelids, and other places left out.

This slurry was the lead-mercury medicinal solution he had paid people in the marketplace to prepare. It contained nearly seventy percent densely refined lime, twenty-seven percent lead powder, and three percent mercury fluid.

To ordinary people, this slurry was poison rather than medicine. A single touch could burn the flesh raw, while one breath could injure the body.

But upon Fang Shu's body, it seemed merely somewhat stimulating, scorching him until his whole body blazed with heat.

This was not merely because Fang Shu had long tempered himself with the Lead Method and the Insect Method. It was also because he had added sufficient Purple Lead Mica Milk and as many harmonizing precious medicines as possible.

For this Bone-and-Tendon Transformation rite, he had made every preparation and embarked upon it with absolute determination!

After his entire body was wrapped in the medicinal solution, Fang Shu gradually ceased moving.

The silver-gray hue over his body grew ever clearer, and the medicinal solution congealed into a shell, turning him into a lead-gray clay figurine.

In that instant, even his breathing grew deep and faint, seemingly present yet seemingly absent.

The quiet room was still. Only the eight tallow candles continued to burn fiercely.

And this silence lasted for an unknown length of time.

Until another wave of drum-like sounds rang out within Fang Shu's body and passed through it, making the eight flames around him flicker in response.

Thump, thump, thump!

At that moment, Fang Shu's chest and abdomen trembled. As if awakening from a great dream, he chanted the Lead Method incantation, half muttering and half growling:

"At midnight, the Kan position opens the mystic furnace; flames rise from all eight directions, steaming mercury pearls.

Bones shake and tendons quiver, birthing Kan's salvation; sweat pours like lead, refining this mortal frame."

Crack, crack, crack!

As he chanted, the congealed medicinal solution upon his skin split with repeated cracks and peeled away piece by piece. Once they fell to the ground, all spiritual and medicinal properties vanished, leaving them like ordinary pale-gray shards of pottery.

Fang Shu's body, meanwhile, was like a peeled egg—smooth and fair beneath the candlelight of the quiet room.

Bang!

Fang Shu completely broke free from the cocoon shell's restraints. He stepped through the astral paces and Big Dipper patterns within the quiet room, while purple-gray sweat surged from his skin. He moved faster and faster as he practiced, a startling sight to behold.

After running through the Lead Method stances, he finally stood upon one foot, then quietly sat cross-legged in the room.

His expression was tranquil, neither quite joyful nor not; his eyes lowered beneath half-closed lids. With one gentle breath, he extinguished all eight tallow candles around him at once, not one omitted.

At this very moment, Fang Shu's Bone-and-Tendon Transformation had reached fruition, ripe as a melon falling from the vine, and his physique had greatly increased.

His qi and blood stirred; sweat poured like lead; his bones were like iron and his fascia tough. He lacked only that final kick at the gate to enter the Dao and refine essence, igniting the essence-smoke of qi and blood!

Words also shifted and surfaced in his mind:

[Realm: Can Enter the Dao (Ninety-Nine Percent!)]