The humming inside the bronze divine cauldron rose to its peak.
The dense purple-black poisonous mist was thoroughly compressed and refined, finally gathering at the center of the cauldron's bottom.
A fingernail-sized drop of liquid floated silently.
It bore an eerie dark-gold sheen and was exceedingly viscous, with what seemed like countless tiny runes churning and flickering within.
The absolute essence of the fusion between the ten-thousand-year-old ancient venomous python's remains and Broken Remnant Cliff's poisonous miasma.
This was a lethal poison potent enough to kill someone at the peak of the Heavenly Origin Realm, yet also a heaven-defying treasure containing immense vitality and power.
Chu Yunfei stared fixedly at the drop of dark-gold liquid, his Adam's apple bobbing.
Without destruction, there could be no creation.
Without the slightest hesitation, he reached his right hand into the cauldron, scooped up the drop with his fingertip, and tipped his head back, putting it straight into his mouth.
The liquid slid down his throat.
Boom!
Incomparably violent power exploded inside him in an instant.
Chu Yunfei let out an intensely stifled grunt, his entire body arching sharply as veins bulged on his forehead.
It hurt too much.
His already-riddled meridians were forcibly stretched by that brutal force. He could even hear the faint sounds of their walls tearing.
His internal organs were repeatedly scorched by the searing power.
Blood vessels bulged beneath his skin, and what flowed through them was no longer blood, but boiling dark-gold venom.
The agonizing pressure brought him close to passing out.
Just as his consciousness teetered on the edge of darkness, the Boundless Creation Scripture began circulating on its own.
The spiritual power hidden in his dantian was fully activated.
Rather than rejecting this foreign power of utmost Yin and toxicity, it spread a great net and pounced straight upon it.
Devouring madly.
Assimilating brutally.
Suppressed by his own spiritual power, the rampaging venom essence began shedding its toxicity bit by bit, transforming into incomparably pure spiritual power.
The pain began to ease.
In its place came an unprecedented sense of fullness.
The cultivation barrier of his realm, which had already fallen to the ninth level of Qi Condensation, failed to last even half a breath under the impact of that immense spiritual power, shattering instantly.
First level of the Spirit Martial Realm!
Second level of the Spirit Martial Realm!
Not only had his regressed cultivation fully recovered, it even surged onward like a blade splitting bamboo, breaking straight through his former limit.
Third level of the Spirit Martial Realm!
Inside his dantian, the shrunken vortex of spiritual power condensed anew, several times larger than when he had used the forbidden technique. Dark-gold spiritual power surged and roared within it, supplying his entire body without end.
Beyond the explosive increase in his cultivation, the venom essence was carrying out an even deeper transformation.
Reforging his flesh.
Black, filthy blood continually seeped from his pores, forming a thick crust.
As Chu Yunfei stood, the crust flaked away, revealing the new skin beneath.
Its surface bore a faint dark-gold sheen, and his broken bones had already rejoined on their own under the nourishment of that immense vitality.
He clenched his fists, his knuckles crackling like popping beans.
His physical toughness alone had already reached the level of a mystic-grade spiritual weapon.
Such hardness was enough to withstand a full-force blow from a Spirit Martial Realm cultivator without suffering serious injury.
More crucially, a special resistance flowed through his blood.
A nascent Myriad Poison Tyrant Body.
The thin remnants of poisonous miasma beneath Broken Remnant Cliff could no longer corrode his skin when they touched it. Instead, his body automatically absorbed them, turning them into meager nourishment.
Chu Yunfei exhaled a long breath of stale air, feeling the surging strength within him.
It wasn't over yet.
Under the transformation of the Boundless Creation Scripture, a gentle, pure stream of soul power separated from the violent medicinal potency.
This soul power rushed upward, pouring into his sea of consciousness.
His soul, once riddled with cracks and on the verge of shattering, greedily absorbed this nourishment.
The cracks healed and smoothed over at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Not only did his soul return to its prime, its size and solidity doubled outright, faintly touching the threshold of a Heavenly Origin Realm cultivator's soul.
Chu Yunfei did not keep all this soul power for himself.
With a thought, he guided the final wisp of the purest soul power into the faint pale-blue glow in a corner of the divine cauldron.
That was Xiaoxiao Dragon's sleeping remnant soul.
The instant the soul power entered it, the pale-blue glow erupted with a burst of brilliant light.
After absorbing this soul power, the figure, which had grown so indistinct it had nearly dispersed, rapidly regained a clear outline.
A trace of the pressure belonging to an ancient true dragon rippled through his sea of consciousness.
Xiaoxiao Dragon had recovered.
The moment she recovered, her spirit form swooped up and down through his sea of consciousness.
"You brat, isn't your luck a little too heaven-defying?!"
"The third level of the Spirit Martial Realm? Your meridians... were reforged? And this body..."
"It's actually a nascent Myriad Poison Tyrant Body?"
Undisguised shock mingled with her cool voice.
Anyone else, even someone at the peak of the Heavenly Origin Realm, would have exploded and died after swallowing that drop of essence.
Yet this brat had that bizarre cultivation technique protecting him, forcibly turning a deadly poison into an all-nourishing tonic pill.
He had even awakened a nascent Myriad Poison Tyrant Body because of it.
The Myriad Poison Tyrant Body was a special constitution that poison cultivators of ancient times had spent their entire lives pursuing!
But this brat had simply fallen off a cliff and swallowed a pill...
No, it could not even count as a pill. He had awakened it just by swallowing a drop of poisonous liquid?
Although it was only a nascent Myriad Poison Tyrant Body and remained incomplete, it was enough to shock her. His luck even left her feeling a little sour.
She had never seen such heaven-defying luck even when she was alive.
Chu Yunfei raised a hand and rubbed his nose, his expression utterly calm.
"This time, it was all thanks to you protecting my soul with everything you had. Otherwise, I would have been crippled before I even fell."
He looked up toward the cliff above.
"I'll settle this debt properly in the future. As for you..."
Chu Yunfei looked into Xiaoxiao Dragon's illusory eyes.
"Don't worry. As long as I have the chance in the future, I'll definitely gather all the heavenly materials and earthly treasures needed to help you reforge your body."
His words were soft.
There were no unnecessary embellishments, nor any gestures of swearing an oath.
Yet every word reached Xiaoxiao Dragon's ears with perfect clarity.
Xiaoxiao Dragon froze for half a second.
She turned her face away and gave a light snort.
"Spare me your honeyed words. I am an ancient true dragon. The materials needed to reforge my body would scare a penniless wretch like you to death."
Her tone remained as haughty and tsundere as ever.
But Chu Yunfei distinctly felt the true dragon's pressure in his sea of consciousness soften considerably.
"All right, stop wasting time here."
Xiaoxiao Dragon circled inside the cauldron and pointed deeper into Broken Remnant Cliff.
"The poisonous miasma here originated from that ancient venomous python. Although that stupid snake has been dead for ten thousand years, some good things will definitely have grown deep within its remains."
She urged him on, a measure of excitement in her voice.
"Your divine cauldron has drained ninety percent of the poisonous miasma here. Now is the perfect time to raid its lair. Hurry up. If we're late, something might change."
Chu Yunfei nodded.
He withdrew the Divine Cauldron of Heavenly Mandate into his body, bent down to pick up the dimly glowing Giant Que Sword, and put it into his storage ring.
Then he tightened his grip on the Abyss-Devouring Sword.
After awakening the Myriad Poison Tyrant Body, the environment at the bottom of the cliff no longer posed any obstacle to him.
Ignoring his tattered robes, he strode over the scattered stones toward the depths where the purple-black mist was thickest.
His surroundings were very quiet.
A pungent, foul stench permeated the air.
The deeper he went, the flatter the terrain became. The scattered stones gradually gave way to smooth furrows left by some enormous creature crushing its way over them.
He walked for roughly an hour.
An enormous outline faintly appeared in the mist ahead.
Chu Yunfei slowed his steps and focused his gaze.
It was a horrifying skeleton.
Its bones were so thick that several people would have been needed to encircle them, and it wound and coiled across the open ground at the cliff's base, stretching more than a hundred zhang.
The bones' surfaces were a dull purple-black, stained by ten thousand years of poison.
The remains of the ancient venomous python.
Even after ten thousand years of death, with nothing left but dry bones, it still radiated an oppressive presence that made the heart tremble.
Chu Yunfei walked up to the enormous snake skull.
Its two empty eye sockets were as large as millstones, facing straight toward him.
"So big."
Chu Yunfei muttered under his breath, tightening his grip on the Abyss-Devouring Sword.
Inside his sea of consciousness, Xiaoxiao Dragon's voice sounded again, this time carrying a measure of wariness.
"Stop staring. What good will looking at bones do? Go to its seven-inch vital point. If its companion spirit treasure is still here, that's definitely where it'll be."
Without wasting words, Chu Yunfei walked straight back along the enormous skeleton.
A snake had its seven-inch vital point. It was a fatal weakness, but also where its essence gathered.
Unidentified black crystals lay scattered on the ground around the skeleton, crunching crisply beneath his feet.
He reached the seven-inch vital point.
The bones here were noticeably thicker than elsewhere.
At the junction of two enormous ribs sat a sunken stone platform.
A strange plant grew upon it.
The entire plant was only palm-sized, translucent throughout and a mesmerizing deep purple.
At its tip grew a small flower poised to bloom.
A ring of fine purple lightning flickered around its petals.
"Purple Nether Lightning Poison Lotus!"
Xiaoxiao Dragon shrieked inside his sea of consciousness, even the pitch of her voice changing.
"We're rich, we're rich! You brat, this is a pillow arriving just as you're getting sleepy! This is a sixth-grade spiritual herb that can advance your nascent Myriad Poison Tyrant Body! Not only does it contain the ultimate poison attribute, it has even nurtured a wisp of heavenly lightning power!"
As Chu Yunfei looked at the lotus, even his breathing grew heavier.
A sixth-grade spiritual herb.
Across the entire Eastern Continent, it could make those first-rate factions fight until their heads split.
Even among those super-first-rate factions, it was an absolute strategic resource.
He stepped forward, preparing to climb onto the stone platform.
Just as his left foot touched the platform's edge.
Hiss-
An extremely faint yet unusually piercing hiss abruptly rang out in the silent depths beneath the cliff.
Deep within the skeleton, a mass of purple-black mist churned without warning.
A little snake no thicker than a finger, covered in purple-gold scales, slithered out of the mist.
It coiled beside the Purple Nether Lightning Poison Lotus, its triangular head raised high, its two scarlet vertical pupils fixed firmly on Chu Yunfei.
"A companion spirit beast..."
Chu Yunfei stopped, his right hand tightening around the Abyss-Devouring Sword as his spiritual power at the third level of the Spirit Martial Realm erupted around him.
It seemed that successfully harvesting the Purple Nether Lightning Poison Lotus would require a fierce battle after all.