第34章 丹成祭炼

Golden Core!

It was the collective term for Golden Liquid and Returned Elixir.

External elixirs were not difficult to refine either. At the very least, refining a rudimentary Primordial Elixir was simple.

The difficulty lay in the Nine Apertures Elixir Formation, nurturing the Mystic Fetus, and the birth of the Mysterious Female. Every step matched the cultivation of an internal elixir.

A single furnace of elixirs often took decades, even centuries, to refine, only to leave behind a wisp of tribulation ash in the end.

"Refined gold imitates the Returned Elixir, mercury transforms into Golden Liquid!"

Yin Ming poured liquid Starmithril Mercury into hollow refined-gold elixir pellets, then sealed the openings with refined gold. Once solidified, no trace of the seams could be seen. Three Primordial Elixirs fell to the ground.

"Elixir complete!"

The Great Dao was simplest at its core. Everything profound, complex, and mysterious was built from the most basic things.

This was the fundamental principle of the Primordial Elixir: no edge to damage it, Golden Liquid concealed within, forming a heaven and earth within itself, apart from heaven and earth.

"Next comes sacrificial refinement, spiritual refinement, qi refinement, and blood refinement. Not one can be omitted."

Yin Ming had no intention of relying on an external elixir to ascend, so he did not 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-golden pellets. Once optimized by the Scavenger Gourd, they lay lined up before him.

"Spiritual refinement!"

Mental power traced an energy circuit for the spell. As a thread of magical power flowed in—

The phantom of a black-haired, black-eyed young man 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 this rune that qualified him to cultivate the External Elixir Art.

"Divide! Merge!"

The humanoid phantom split into three.

It turned into three streaks of light and merged into the three metal Primordial Elixirs.

Yin Ming was not making Soulstones. As the Primordial Elixirs underwent continual sacrificial refinement, the sliver of soul he had divided off would also be reclaimed.

Only a thread of soul aura would remain as the spirit, establishing a connection with the metal Primordial Elixirs. After qi refinement and blood refinement, they would become an existence equivalent to his own flesh and limbs.

Only then could they meet the requirement that bloodline totem secret patterns had to be inscribed upon living beings.

An external elixir was like a duplicate body whose divine soul and magical-power connections had not yet been severed. It isolated the erosion 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 exact opposite of the immortal path's demon transformation methods.

"Refine them day and night! Once the Primordial Elixirs become part of my body and connect to the mental-power and magical-power apertures, I can inscribe the totem secret patterns and condense them into the core of my Dharma Form. Crack, crack..."

Yin Ming left the meditation room, rolling the three metal Primordial Elixirs in his palm like a martial artist turning iron walnuts.

His mental power and magical power alternated between furnace flames tempering metal and droplets of water wearing through stone, slowly branding their marks upon them and assimilating gold and stone into his own body.

"..."

Sacrificially refining Primordial Elixirs was a watermill's task.

At best, it took a month. At worst, a year or even two was possible.

With rare leisure on his hands, Yin Ming went to report at Scholar Ember's building.

Though the books inside were not particularly proper, if luck favored him, he might be able to sit in on a scholar teaching their disciples.

"Scholar Eno, what a rare guest!" Robert Kava was still studying a stone tablet. He rose and drew a document from the bookshelf, its cover stamped with gilded words: The Vanished Tribe: 12.

"Your building actually has proper books?"

Yin Ming craned his neck for a glance and found that the text was normal, as were the illustrations.

It was not, astonishingly, some tale about one man creating an entire race. It truly described the excavation of an ancient ruin from the tribal era.

"What are you talking about? On the first floor, all books on odd-numbered rows of shelves, on odd-numbered levels, with odd-numbered serials are valuable non-extraordinary books. The second floor uses even numbers. The rest are erotic novels." Robert Kava rolled his eyes at Yin Ming and explained blandly.

It truly was not all of them. They only accounted for seven-eighths.

There were over a thousand bookshelves on the first floor alone. How many dirty books would it take to fill them?

Only an organization with a long inheritance like the Flame-Burners Association could accomplish such a glorious feat.

"A little trick, mainly for screening children who are focused on knowledge." Robert Kava said with an awkward smile.

"Chairman Robert, I'd like to read a few ancient, long-standing historical books. Where can I find them?"

Yin Ming could not be bothered to gossip about which Ember chairman had possessed such peculiar tastes, so he asked directly.

"First floor, eleventh row, seventh bookshelf!" Robert Kava replied.

Following the pattern, Yin Ming pulled out a book. It was a history of the Landon Duchy, no longer an illustrated knight-sleeps-with-princess storybook.

Yin Ming: "..."

Wizards were stingy by nature when it came to "knowledge," though that applied only to extraordinary knowledge. As for mortal knowledge—

Yin Ming had no master and severely lacked common sense. Looking across the wizard world, he was practically illiterate.

He did not know the shape of the continent, nor how many nations existed.

He did not know how many years had passed since the turbulent era in which the Flameburners had lived.

He did not know which invading force had emerged victorious, or how it had all concluded in the end.

"Since no scholar is teaching today, I'll read a few history books and broaden my horizons."

Yin Ming took down several more books, found a corner, and read quietly.

Mortal histories also recorded the extraordinary world, though their perspective was rather novel.

Powerful extraordinary creatures were defined as gods, demons, monsters, strange fiends, and supernatural entities...

Eras when the extraordinary descended upon the world were defined as myths and legends.

By sorting through mortal histories, one could see that any event causing massive upheaval and affecting multiple nations was most likely influenced by extraordinary power. Through history books, one could glimpse a corner of the extraordinary world and understand its major events.

"..."

[The Landon Duchy's main people are the Bronze Pact Clan, descended from the Bronze Pact Tribe of over 9,800 years ago.]

[Legend says the tribe had seers who commanded mysterious powers, lifting boulders from thin air and wielding many extraordinary forces such as flame, frost, and lightning.]

[The Holy Cross Duchy's main people are the Yake Clan, who likewise ended their 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 worshiping beast gods, and they were also the origin of knightly cultivation methods.]

[The Simon Duchy, mainly...]

"..."

"Civilizations with clear inheritances all worshiped seers and totems."

"And all ended their tribal eras 9,800 years ago."

"It seemed that wizards and warlocks were the ultimate victors. Elemental resurgence happened nearly ten thousand years ago."

Excluding the lost ancient civilizations, this world could be traced back at most twelve thousand years.

The first two thousand years belonged to the chaotic tribal era.

Chaotic, yet not weak in the slightest. As the extraordinary descended, powerful tribes far surpassed the duchies of today. Weak tribes, however, had only just learned to use wooden clubs and stone tools.

The extinction of a tribe was commonplace. Because their thoughts differed and their civilizations differed, there was no possibility of coexistence between them. Humanity's numbers therefore plummeted, estimated at no more than one hundred million.

Afterward, the tribal era ended, and the long duchy era lasting ten thousand years began.

The civilizations of every nation rapidly leveled out. Whether through war or natural disaster, at most a nation would fall and be ruled by another duchy; there were no longer acts of exterminating an entire race. Humanity's population began rising steadily and was estimated to exceed ten billion today.

During the tribal era, there had been no process in which a unified great tribe rose to prominence. The extraordinary forces behind them must have decided victory and defeat.

During the duchy era, no calamity had caused humanity to perish in great numbers, which meant the victor had never changed. Since seers and totems highly overlapped with wizards and warlocks, it was not difficult to deduce the winner.

"Nothing! Nothing! Crack..."

Robert Kava crushed his teacup, ruffled his beard in irritation, and roared, "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."