Qingxue was tightly hugging Tianlong as she buried her head in his chest. There were tear stains on her beautiful face.
One of Tianlong's hands was supporting her back and the other one was gently patting her.
"I too didn't very good when I first killed a man."
Qingxue lifted her head and looked at him.
"It was a prisoner who was going to be executed. Mom told me to do the job. I was barely fourteen that time."
Her body trembled. "How could she tell you to do that?"
"The man was a gambling addict, sold his wife and daughter to a brothel for paying off his debt. In the end, he tried to rob his landlord and was caught." He said nonchalantly.
"Trash!" she spat on the ground.
"Felt much better after knowing his history." He smiled a little.
"But what happened to the mother and daughter?"
"Honestly, I have no idea." He shrugged.
"It's so unfair that they have to suffer due to someone else's fault."
"Well, even if they have to sell their body, at least they are alive."
She sighed at the end and her mood became even worse.
Noticing her expression, he gently lifted her chin and kissed her lips.
Although she was surprised, she didn't stop his actions.
"It was me who killed her. Since she dared to hurt you, she had to die. Don't burden yourself with her death." He caressed her face and spoke in a soft voice
"Thank you." She buried her face in his chest with a flushed face.
The scene would have been much more romantic if the two weren't talking about murder.
"Are you still feeling weak?"
"No. I've replenished myself with the spirit water."
After killing Su Fei, they had found her interspatial ring. It contained quite a few spirit stones, some sealed bottles containing spirit water and a piece of shining jade.
From the residual aura alone, they could see that the things didn't belong to Su Fei but some Yin Yang Cleanser.
"The spiritual energy in the spirit water is very pure… unfortunately, it has a low density." She shook her head in pity.
"How much further can you increase your cultivation with it?" He asked.
After pondering for a moment, she replied "With the amount we have here, I can safely complete two or three more levels before it becomes useless to me."
Tianlong went silent. After a moment, he took the shining Jade piece in his hands and showed a thoughtful expression.
Qingxue's expression changed when she looked at the jade. Among all the things present here, it was the most valuable. After all, it was the demonic core of a rank 3 beast which are equivalent to Jade core cultivators!
In the Jade core realm, a Qi refiner needed to form a "core" in their dantian. It would act as a processing unit that is connected to all the meridians in the body.
It had a large amount of energy stored inside of it which could be used to empower spirit artefacts and had various other uses.
"Since you are practising a demonic art that uses blood and flesh of other beasts, you should refine this demonic core. I'm sure your cultivation would increase by leaps and bounds!" She said in an excited voice.
Even though the Jade Core was the most valuable thing she had seen in her life, she didn't have a hint of greed towards it.
He shook his head and smiled. "I have seen far too many Jade cores in my house. I have no interest in it. If anyone needs it, that would be you and senior Cangyue. I don't need to remind you about the Spirit Sense Refining pill do I?"
Qingxue wanted to say something but kept silent in the end.
It was already past evening and Tianlong was feeling hungry as usual. He retrieved the corpse of the unfortunate Snag Bison from his ring. It had already been gutted.
As usual, he circulated his Roc Transmogrification art and started to drain all the blood from the beast, putting it all in a cauldron.
Due to its relatively pure bloodline, the bison's blood was almost black. Almost five per cent of it had turned into innate blood.
"Qingxue, add two drops of spirit liquid in it!"
As he spoke, he retrieved another cauldron from his ring and put a little bit of the blood in it.
Qingxue followed his instructions without asking any questions.
He opened the bottle and added a drop of the spirit water in the blood. The blackish liquid shimmered with a white glow for a moment then calmed down.
He dipped his finger in it and closed his eyes.
"Too weak!"
He added another five drops of the spirit water consecutively. This time, the shimmering glow didn't go away.
Understanding dawned on Qingxue and she said, "Maybe you are trying to increase the demonic Qi in the blood by adding the spirit water. But as you can see, the blood and the spirit liquid are clearly separate from each other and there is no merging."
"Shh! I'm not done yet!"
Next up, he dropped the demonic core inside the cauldron and added a drop of Yang Blood medicine to it.
Previously, the blood would revolve around the drop of medicine and boil until it reached its maximum potential. However, under his refinement, even the drop of medicine was absorbed in the core and all the blood started to filter through it.
Both of them looked at the reaction excitedly.
Five minutes later, what was left in the cauldron was a black shimmering liquid and a demonic core covered with impurities.
Once he removed all the grime from the core, he found that it wasn't affected in the slightest.
Next, he took a drop of the liquid in his hand and scanned it with his spiritual sense.
"Did you succeed?" Qingxue looked at him with an expectant gaze.
"Not exactly, but it's still better than before." His mind through all the various energy transfers involved in the reaction.
The reagent "Yang blood medicine" would boil a significant portion of the essence blood and leave a paste that is thicker in blood qi than the original substance. However, a significant amount of energy would be consumed in creating the concentrate or escape in the surrounding. Thus, the amount of Blood qi left behind was lesser than the aggregate of energy from the demonic blood and the medicine.
Tianlong wanted to increase the demonic Qi in the blood by fusing it with the Luminescence spirit water with the help of the demonic core.
Demonic beasts don't have a cultivation system. They don't have the intelligence necessary to forge a path for themselves. Their cultivation is just them following their instincts and forming a core inside themselves.
After a certain amount, the energy inside of them coagulates in the form of a crystal that acts as a processer and storage unit for spiritual energy.
Some people argue that the Jade core realm had been inspired by observing demonic beasts. Tianlong also believed in that theory.
That's why he added the core to the demonic blood before "igniting" it with Yang Blood medicine. He wanted to see if the core could filter the spirit liquid through it and enrich the blood qi.
The result didn't disappoint him. It really did fuse the two of them.
Just when Qingxue was getting flared up with the success of the experiment, a different train of thought was playing through Tianlong's mind.
If it was so easy to convert spiritual energy to demonic blood qi, why didn't others do it? He refused to believe that others hadn't thought about it.
For the Yun Clan to have such a cultivation method that involved absorbing demonic blood, they must have done substantial research on improving the technique. There's no way they would've missed this method. Most likely, the method had serious flaws that he couldn't detect.
He again scanned the liquid with his spirit sense to search for any type of anomaly but found none. Only after a minute of consideration did he understand the problem.
Wastage!
It was simply a huge wastage of spirit liquid. While the blood Qi had been strengthened, almost fifty per cent of the spirit liquid's energy has been wasted.
Previously, it was the blood energy that was being consumed while driving the forward reaction and now, it was the spirit liquid. Only, the wastage this time was far greater than before.
"No wonder they wouldn't use this method! Wasting so much spirit liquid for a Blood Surging cultivator is simply not worth it!" He clicked his tongue in understanding.
"So you won't use this method in the future?" Qingxue asked. She thought it was a pity.
"No, it means we will snatch the spirit springs for ourselves!"
"What?" She was shocked by his audacity.
"It takes us days for us to encounter a demonic beast while there's an entire pool of spirit liquid lying in the hand of a few Yin-Yang cleansers. Both of us need it for cultivation. Of course, we are going to seize it from them!" He said nonchalantly.
From a young age, he had been taught the evil doctrines of his mother. Killing, looting and seizing seemed normal to him.
Of course, he wouldn't be rash and directly challenge all of them. He has the power to do so.
After silently calculating the risk factor and the reward involved, he said, "If I send a message to my father, he can probably destroy their entire organization to the roots with a single slap. Though it may attract the attention of others, he won't care."
"So, does that mean…?" she asked excitedly.
"Un. I'll certainly notify them about this matter. But we should first check the situation ourselves. If the situation is manageable by us, I won't ask for help."
She nodded in agreement.
"Now it's time to try out the new essence blood elixir."
With that, he repeated the same process with the blood in the larger cauldron. And as usual, he undressed and jumped in the cauldron after the concoction was ready.
As he sat in the liquor, he could feel that the liquor wasn't as hot as the normally refined essence blood. Clearly, the yang blood medicine's excessive heat was cancelled by the yin nature of Luminesce spirit water.
He started to revolve his cultivation technique and all the pores of his body greedily sucked the blood energy of the liquid.
The essence blood entered through his pores and completed a cycle of revolution inside his body. After a few cycles, the blood would lose its power and would be ejected through the pores.
Among all the beasts he had hunted so far, the Snag Bison had the best quality of blood. With five per cent of Innate nature and rest as spirit, the blood had a thick wood qi inside of it.
With the blood circulating in his body, he could feel the wood qi being absorbed by his meridians.
'Am I finally going to enter Qi condensation?' A thin smile formed on his lips as he waited in anticipation.
_____________________
The mortal body was created by a combination of the five elements.
The Heart, pericardium, triple burner, and small intestine represented the element of fire.
The spleen and the stomach represented the element of earth.
The lungs and the large intestine represented the element of metal.
The kidneys and the urinary bladder represented the element of water.
Finally, the liver and the gall bladder represented the element of wood.
All of these internal organs were connected to the twelve meridian vessels that constituted the passage of spiritual energy for Qi refiners.
To enter the qi condensation stage, practitioners performed sets of breathing exercises that could entrap spiritual energy in the acupunctures located in the meridians.
However, unlike others, Tianlong didn't practice any breathing techniques for Qi refining. Likewise, he never practised any Body-refining techniques before entering the Blood gushing realm.
Instead, his parents subjected him to a harsh physical and mental training regime, all the while making him wear equipment that covered his body in thicker spiritual energy than the surroundings.
Although it made his cultivation slow, his affinity towards spiritual energy and strength of physical body were both trained to the maximum limit possible by a mortal.
It was almost similar to the cultivation of a demonic beast.
Currently, the essence blood elixir in the cauldron was being rapidly refined by his body.
As time passed by, he could feel a sharp pain in his liver meridian.
Gritting his teeth, he started to absorb the blood at an even faster rate.
Buzz!
An intense suction force was generated from his body. All the essence blood rapidly lost its color and became a clear liquid.
Boom!
A booming noise reverberated in the cave as terrifying energy filled Tianlong's whole body.
A small vortex was moving in the cyclic gate acupuncture point of the liver meridian.
Qingxue was looking at him with a disbelieving look in her eyes.
"Did-did you just enter Qi condensation realm?" Her eyes almost seemed to pop out of her sockets.
"You witnessed the entire process, so why ask again?" Smiling, he replied in a calm voice.