Everything Was Ready

Deep in the mountains and forests, a pill furnace was being roasted by crimson flames erupting from beneath the earth. The firelight cast Ling Yun, who stood beside it, in an orange-red glow.

His hair was soaked with sweat, but he dared not let his attention waver for an instant, for fear that a single careless mistake would cause the furnace to explode and destroy the pills.

All the while, he tossed precious spirit herbs into the furnace one after another, melting and refining them with a succession of ancient pill-refining techniques.

No one knew how much time passed before the earth fire gradually grew gentler under Ling Yun's control. The vents of the Simu Suppression Furnace began intermittently releasing impure Qi, until only the purest medicinal essence remained, slowly condensing into pills.

"Open the furnace!"

At that moment, divine light flashed like swords in Ling Yun's eyes. His abundant Spiritual Yuan struck the Simu Suppression Furnace, and an incomparably rich pill fragrance instantly spread through the air.

The lid of the Simu Suppression Furnace opened, and Ling Yun drew out the nine spirit pills within, enveloping them in Spiritual Yuan. They slowly rose and fell before him.

"Fifth-tier low-grade-Spirit Dissolution Pills!"

Ling Yun's face was filled with joy. This was his third time refining fifth-tier pills. Though these were merely ordinary fifth-tier spirit pills, still a long way from the fifth-tier supreme-grade Cold Essence Pill.

"The good thing is, every one of these fifth-tier low-grade spirit pills has reached divine pill quality!"

Divine pills were ninth-grade pills, bearing nine pill markings. Throughout the ages, aside from the sorcerer-gu pill doctors, the highest quality of spirit pill any pill refiner could achieve was a ninth-grade divine pill.

Ling Yun had managed to refine ninth-grade divine pills in such a short time, first because he possessed the Pill Emperor's inheritance, and second because his comprehension and control had grown stronger.

"Fortunately, I improved quickly enough during this past period."

Ling Yun put away the Simu Suppression Furnace and temporarily sealed the earth fire, bringing his ten days of pill refining to an end.

"Only if I can refine a true fifth-tier supreme-grade spirit pill will my skills qualify me to refine the Cold Essence Pill. Unfortunately, I don't have any more precious fifth-tier spirit materials to squander, so there's no way to improve my pill refining further."

Ling Yun felt some regret. But he also knew that dwelling on it now was useless, so he pinned his hopes for improvement on his cultivation.

"The stronger my cultivation, the more my control can improve. That will indirectly improve my pill refining too."

Thus, Ling Yun returned to his little house and sat down to meditate. He sank his mind into the Life Talisman Seal between his brows, connecting with the Life-bound Talisman within his body.

In an instant, deep within his chaotic sea of souls, the Life-bound Talisman shone like an open vertical pupil, casting crimson light over millions of feet.

Around the Life-bound Talisman, nine Life-bound Talisman Seals suddenly trembled. Splendid purple light flickered across the seals, and an incomparably abundant stream of "Talisman Yuan" flowed through his entire body by way of them.

Like Spiritual Yuan, Talisman Yuan was a form of cultivation power within Ling Yun's body. This time, however, Ling Yun was specifically cultivating his Life-bound Talisman. After all, his Life Talisman cultivation was only at the Early Core Formation Realm.

He circulated the cultivation method of the Life Talisman Heavenly Canon, and the power of his Talisman Yuan grew ever purer as it was continuously refined. As the Talisman Yuan flowed through his body, Ling Yun began the most distinctive cultivation method of the Life Talisman path-inscribing talismans upon the body!

The pure Talisman Yuan traced mysterious runes throughout his body. These were the very same runes Ling Yun normally inscribed on talisman paper when making talismans!

When the Heavenly Talisman Great Emperor cultivated his Life Talisman through the Life Talisman Heavenly Canon to the ninth realm, the Great Emperor Realm, he had already inscribed hundreds of millions of runes within his body. When certain combinations of these runes lit up, it was equivalent to forming a talisman, allowing him to instantly activate its effects!

For instance, the runes Ling Yun was now inscribing within his body belonged to the fifth-tier Heavenly Eye Spell. In the future, even without using the Heavenly Eye Spell, he could activate its effects all the same simply by activating its runes within his body. The only difference was that this kind of "internal talisman" consumed his own Talisman Yuan.

"None of that matters. In the future, I can inscribe countless Yuan Gathering Talismans inside my body and convert all the spiritual power into Talisman Yuan or Spiritual Yuan. Then I won't have to worry about my cultivation running dry..."

Over the next two days, Ling Yun continuously refined his Talisman Yuan. Finally, after his efforts to break through, a breakthrough sounded from the Life Talisman within his body on the morning of the third day.

In an instant, the purple light on the first Life-bound Talisman Seal Ling Yun had lit grew somewhat more intense. His Life Talisman cultivation successfully broke through to the Middle Core Formation Realm.

"Phew-"

Ling Yun let out a long breath and opened his eyes.

"Even with Middle Core Formation Realm Spiritual Yuan and Middle Core Formation Realm Talisman Yuan combined, my cultivation is still a little short of Core Formation Realm Perfection."

"Even so, I'm several tenths stronger than before, and my chances of refining the Cold Essence Pill have increased a little!"

Ling Yun took a moment to feel his cultivation, then stood up in satisfaction and went to wash and change. He once again donned a familiar black robe, and did not forget his mask.

Today was the deadline Ling Yun had given Madam Wang. All the materials needed to refine the Cold Essence Pill were to be gathered by today, and then he could begin refining it!

When Ling Yun arrived at the Wang residence, Madam Wang had already been waiting in the main hall for some time.

"Divine physician! All the main ingredients and auxiliary herbs have been gathered. They're the best-quality spirit herbs our Wang residence could find."

Madam Wang spoke eagerly, carefully taking out a storage ring.

Ling Yun wasted no words. A sweep of his spiritual sense told him that all the herbs had been gathered, and he could not help but think even more highly of Madam Wang.

As for Madam Wang, she had hardly rested lately in order to gather these things, and was exhausted in both body and mind.

Ling Yun had rather mixed feelings, but he did not say much. He merely nodded and said, "Next, I'll devote all my efforts to refining the Cold Essence Pill. We'll know the result in half a month."

Madam Wang hurriedly nodded. "Thank you for your efforts, divine physician."

Ling Yun did not linger, and his figure vanished. After quite a while, a youth in cloud-patterned robes entered through the side door and came to Madam Wang's side.

"Mother, are you sure he isn't a quack? To gather these materials, we bought them all at high prices. We've spent ten million spirit stones."

Ling Fei could not help asking. To his surprise, Madam Wang shot him a fierce glare and said, angry at his failure to live up to expectations, "No matter how much it costs, it's worth it. Stay out of it. And you'd better stay put in the Wang residence for the time being. These are unusual times, so don't cause me any trouble."

Ling Fei understood the gravity of the situation and did not argue. Instead, he asked, "Was the tower master of the Heavenly Treasure Tower really killed?"

Madam Wang nodded gravely. "The three kings and the great elder personally carried it out. It was also His Majesty's order."

Ling Fei immediately sucked in a breath. "Evil cultivators... are those figures from the history books really going to strike at the Ling Kingdom again...?"

He thought of the descriptions of the evil cultivators' brutality in his clan's histories, and chills rose in his heart.

Madam Wang said wearily, "These things have nothing to do with you for now. The kings, His Majesty, and the elders are holding them back. Settle down and focus on your cultivation, or when a great war breaks out, the evil cultivators will off you first."

Ling Fei's legs trembled.