Golden Core!
A collective term for Golden Liquid and Returned Elixir.
External Cores were not difficult to refine either. At least, refining the rudimentary form of a Primordial Elixir was very simple.
The difficult part lay in the Nine Apertures Core Formation, gestating the Mysterious Womb, and the birth of the Mysterious Female. Every step was identical to Internal Elixir cultivation.
A single furnace of elixirs often took decades, even centuries, to refine, only to leave behind a wisp of tribulation ash in the end.
"Adamantine imitates the Returned Elixir; mercury transforms into Golden Liquid!"
Yin Ming poured liquid Starmithril Mercury into hollow Adamantine pellets, then sealed the openings with Adamantine. Once they solidified, no trace could be seen. Three Primordial Elixirs fell to the ground.
"The elixir is complete!"
The Great Dao was supremely simple. All profound, complex, and mysterious things were built from the most basic elements.
This was the fundamental principle of the Primordial Elixir: uncut by any blade, containing Golden Liquid within, a heaven and earth formed within itself apart from heaven and earth.
"Next comes sacrificial refinement. Spirit refinement, qi refinement, and blood refinement—none can be omitted."
Yin Ming did not expect to ascend through an External Core, so there was no need to wait until the elixir formed Nine Apertures before beginning its sacrificial refinement.
After the Primordial Elixirs cooled, he bent down and picked up the three dark-gold pills. After being optimized by the Scavenger Gourd, they were lined up before him.
"Spirit refinement!"
His spiritual power traced an energy circuit for the spell. As a thread of magical power entered it—
The phantom of a young man with black hair and black eyes appeared. It was precisely the appearance of Yin Ming's Primordial Spirit from his previous life.
The rune was one of the four runes provided by the Quasit Red Nose: the Soul Rune.
It was precisely because he possessed this rune that he qualified to cultivate the External Elixir Art.
"Divide! Merge!"
The humanoid phantom split into three.
It turned into three streaks of flowing light and merged into the three metallic Primordial Elixirs.
Yin Ming was not creating Soulstones. As the Primordial Elixirs underwent continual sacrificial refinement, the sliver of soul he had split off would be reclaimed.
Only a wisp of soul qi would remain as its spirit, establishing a connection with the metallic Primordial Elixirs. After qi refinement and blood refinement, they would become an existence equivalent to his own flesh and blood, his own limbs.
Only then could they meet the condition required by the bloodline totem Mystic Rune—that it had to be inscribed upon a living, active lifeform.
The External Cores were like incarnations whose connection to his divine soul and magical power had not yet been severed. They isolated the corrosion of extraordinary bloodlines, allowing Yin Ming to retain a human body.
Other bloodline warlocks could freely assume human form, but their true bodies had long since transformed into other extraordinary creatures. They merely wore human skins, the opposite of the Shapeshifting Method of Immortal Path demonkind.
"Refine them day and night! Once the Primordial Elixirs become part of my body and connect to my spiritual power and magical-power apertures, I can inscribe the totem Mystic Runes and condense them into the core of my Dharma Aspect. Crack, crack..."
Yin Ming walked out of the meditation room, rolling the three metallic Primordial Elixirs in his palm like a martial artist turning iron gallnuts.
His spiritual power and magical power sometimes tempered them like furnace flames, sometimes eroded them like dripping water wearing through stone, gradually branding them and assimilating metal and stone into his own body.
"..."
Sacrificially refining Primordial Elixirs was painstaking work, like grinding water through a millstone.
At best, it took a month. At worst, it could take one or two years.
Yin Ming was rarely this idle, so he went to report at Scholar Ember's building.
Though the books inside were not particularly proper, if he was lucky, he might be able to sit in on a scholar's lessons for disciples.
"Scholar Eno, what a rare guest!" Robert Kava was still studying stone slabs. He rose and pulled a set of materials from the bookshelf, its cover stamped with gilded words: The Vanished Tribe: 12.
"Your building actually has proper books?"
Yin Ming was astonished. He craned his neck for a glance and found that the text was normal, and the illustrations were normal too.
It was not, surprisingly, a story about one man creating an entire race. It truly described the excavation of an ancient ruin from the Tribal Era.
"What are you saying? On the first floor, the odd-numbered rows of shelves, on odd-numbered levels, and books with odd-numbered serials are all valuable non-extraordinary books. The second floor is even-numbered. The rest are all erotica." Robert Kava rolled his eyes at Yin Ming and explained evenly.
It was not entirely so, really.
It only accounted for seven-eighths of the collection.
There were thousands of bookshelves on the first floor alone. How much pornography would it take to fill them all?
Only an organization with a long heritage like the Flame-Burners Association could accomplish such a glorious feat.
"A little trick, mainly to screen out children who focus on knowledge." Robert Kava gave an embarrassed laugh.
"Chairman Robert, I'd like to read some ancient historical books. Where can I find them?"
Yin Ming could not be bothered to gossip about which Chairman Ember had indulged in such a peculiar hobby, so he asked directly.
"First floor, eleventh row, seventh bookshelf!" Robert Kava said.
Following the pattern, Yin Ming pulled out a book. It was a history of the Landon Duchy, no longer an illustrated storybook about a knight sleeping with a princess.
Yin Ming: "..."
Wizards were stingy with "knowledge" by nature, but that applied only to extraordinary knowledge. As for mortal knowledge—
Yin Ming had no master or lineage and was sorely lacking in common sense. Looking across the Wizard World, he was practically half-illiterate.
He did not know what shape the continent was or how many nations existed.
He did not know how many years had passed since the turbulent era in which the Flameburners had existed.
He did not know which invading force had emerged victorious, nor how it had all ended.
"Since no scholar is teaching today, I'll read a few history books and broaden my knowledge."
Yin Ming took down several more books, found a corner, and read quietly.
Mortal history books also recorded the extraordinary world, though their perspective was rather novel.
Powerful extraordinary creatures were defined as gods, demons, monsters, strange apparitions, and supernatural entities...
Eras in which the extraordinary descended upon the world were defined as myths and legends.
Sorting through mortal histories, any event that caused great upheaval and affected multiple nations was likely influenced by extraordinary power. Through history books, one could glimpse a corner of the extraordinary world and learn of its major events.
"..."
[The Landon Duchy is primarily inhabited by the Bronze Pact Clan, descended from the Bronze Pact Tribe of more than 9,800 years ago.]
[Legend says the tribe possessed prophets who commanded mysterious powers, lifting boulders into the air and wielding flames, frost, lightning, and many other extraordinary forces.]
[The Holy Cross Duchy is primarily inhabited by the Yake Clan. It likewise ended its Tribal Era 9,800 years ago.]
[The tribes worshiped twisted cross totems, practiced blood sacrifice, and had a tradition of tattooing themselves with beast blood. They were enemies of tribes that worshiped the Beast God, and were also the origin of knight cultivation methods.]
[The Simon Duchy, primarily...]
"..."
"Races with clear inheritances all came from civilizations that worshiped prophets and totems."
"And all ended their Tribal Eras 9,800 years ago."
"It seems wizards and warlocks were the final victors. Nearly ten thousand years have passed since the resurgence of elements."
Setting aside lost ancient civilizations, the earliest traceable history of this world dated back twelve thousand years.
The first two thousand years belonged to the chaotic Tribal Era.
Chaotic, yet not weak in the slightest. The extraordinary descended upon the world, and powerful tribes far surpassed the duchies of today. Yet weak tribes had only just learned to use wooden clubs and stone tools.
A tribe being exterminated was commonplace. Because their thoughts differed and their civilizations differed, coexistence was impossible. The human population consequently plummeted, estimated at no more than one hundred million.
After that, the Tribal Era ended, ushering in the Duchy Era that lasted ten thousand years.
The civilizations of every nation rapidly leveled out. Whether through warfare or natural disasters, at worst a nation would fall and be ruled by another duchy; there were no longer acts of wiping out entire races. The human population began to rise steadily, estimated at more than ten billion today.
During the Tribal Era, no great unified tribe had risen to power. The extraordinary forces behind them must have decided the victor.
During the Duchy Era, no disaster had ever caused mass human extinction, which meant the victors had never changed. Prophets and totems overlapped heavily with wizards and warlocks, making the identity of the victors easy to infer.
"No! No! Crack..."
Robert Kava crushed his teacup, raked his beard into disarray, and roared irritably, "The inscription was carved no more than twenty thousand years ago. I've searched even the vanished mortal tribal scripts! How can I not find the slightest clue? It's like... it's like that damned Immortal Seal Script."
Before you continue