Sitting inside his room, Tianlong was busy with his experiments.
Pieces of spirit stones and medicinal equipment lay in front of him.
Taking out a sharp knife, he made a large gash in his palm.
Just as the wound was about to bleed, his body's self-recovery ability kicked in and the wound closed within seconds. In front of the healing ability of Innate grade demonic blood, this kind of injury was nothing.
Next, he made a similar cut in old Zhan's palm which stimulated his healing ability. He carefully noted the flow of internal qi during the entire process and wrote it on a fresh piece of paper.
Each time, he would reduce the qi flow. The wound would thus take longer to heal.
He repeated the process a few times. Both on himself and old Zhan.
"My healing ability is supported by both blood qi and spiritual qi. Their combined effect results in faster and more effective healing…
Each of the observations was carefully written on parchment.
Likewise, he compared many other aspects of himself with the man. Some of them included the quantity and quality of qi, vitality, spiritual sense, regeneration factor and similar factors.
Tianlong looked at the results with knitted eyebrows.
"Although I have fared better than him in all of these aspects, this is the combined effect of body and qi refining bases. So, the comparisons don't mean much.
"If I want to draw a parallel between him and me, I'll have to level the playing field. For that, I'll need to exhaust my blood qi.
"But before that, I want to compare our natural qi recovery rate.
With that in mind, he circulated his blood qi and took a huge breath. Immediately, the wind in the room got restless. A small tornado formed around his body.
He channelled his blood qi according to the parting wind slash technique and started to condense wind blades. Unlike the translucent ones that he created during his fight with old Zhan, these blades were more opaque.
A thousand blades fused into a hundred, a hundred blades fused into ten. The more blood qi he infused into them, the more corporeal they became. His consumption got bigger.
Soon the blade in his hands became completely blood-red in colour. It looked as if it had just tasted the blood of tens of enemies.
Tianlong looked at it with a satisfied gaze, he turned it into a gas and inhaled it. He kept repeating the process with his other wind blades.
In the future, once he attained major completion of this art, he would be able to change the air around him into sword qi. The air others breathe will turn into his weapon.
"Judging by the consumption, I would exhaust my blood qi within three hours …but it's too long."
The more he practised refining these wind blades, the better he got in their use. His affinity with wind would also increase as time progresses.
Although he appreciated the fact, his current goal wasn't to increase his wind affinity. He wanted to get back to his research.
Unfortunately, he didn't know any other method to spend his blood in a fast and meaningful way. Just as he was thinking about it, his eyes fell on old Zhan.
He was lying on the table with his lifeless eyes. There were cuts and bruises all over his body.
Tianlong pulled him up and put him in a lotus position like himself.
As usual, he sent his spirit sense inside old Zhan's consciousness. Immediately, he could feel a mental link between the two.
Tianlong's spirit sense drilled into the consciousness of old Zhan which was getting weaker by the day. Once inside, he tried to connect himself with his six senses.
After his death, all the actions old Zhan had performed were directed by Tianlong externally. But this time, he wanted to possess him!
A cultivator's sea of consciousness was linked with their soul. It hosed their will and also determined their quality of spirit sense. If someone was able to wipe out the will from the sea of consciousness, they could easily possess the body and make it their owns!
However, something like possession was against the law of nature. If could be used without any restrictions, there would be chaos in the entire world. Someone with high soul cultivation would just possess someone else who had a better physique and talent. In such a case, cultivation would lose its meaning!
But just like every other thing in nature, it had its positive side too. Many people who lost their physical body and only exist in soul form could use it to start a new life. Hence, possession was of much interest for soul refiners and was one of the most widely researched topics.
Back in his room, Tianlong was busy fusing his will inside old Zhan's sea of consciousness. For someone whose soul was already wiped out, he was an easy target of possession. Adding to the fact that he wasn't trying to insert his soul into old Zhan's body, it was further simplified.
As minutes passed by, beads of sweat accumulated on top of Tianlong's forehead. Both of the bodies started to shake slightly.
Buzz!
Tianlong felt a sharp pain in his mind. Suddenly, he felt overwhelmed by the increased sensory inputs. After a few minutes of adjusting, he opened his eyes.
It was like looking at oneself in the mirror.
The two of them raised their hands and simultaneously touched each other's palm.
Success!
Their lips slowly curled up into a smile.
As of this moment, his soul was controlling two bodies at once and until he severed it.
Of course, this connection was only temporary. Sooner or later, his soul would be too tired to control two bodies at once. Also, if old Zhan's body got too far from his original body or received a severe shock, the connection would be severed.
Despite its limitations, it had one major benefit. Not only was he possessing two physical bodies, but he was also possessing two seas of consciousness at once!
This meant that his spirit sense was also doubled!
He did some physical stretches to get accustomed to this foreign body. Next, he circulated the qi inside the body and got a feel of it. Once he was somewhat familiar with this new body, he sat in front of Tianlong.
Waving his hand, he summoned the wind blades again and started to refine them. However, this time around, both of the bodies were participating.
His original body would supply the blood qi whereas the other body would keep the shape of it stable. With the doubling of spiritual sense, his refinement process got faster.
This kind of method was extremely taxing on his soul. He needed to constantly keep his attention divided between the two bodies. It was akin to rowing two boats at the same time. In the end, one couldn't keep track of even one properly.
It didn't take long for his performance to get affected. Old Zhan's almost non-existent wind affinity didn't help either.
Whenever the refinement process failed, he would turn it back into blood qi and restart it. Just within an hour, he was completely drained.
Immediately, he terminated the connection between the two bodies. His face was extremely pale.
The entire process was very taxing to his soul.
He popped a few refreshment pills in his mouth and sat down to cultivate.
Fifteen minutes later, he opened his eyes. Although he was still exhausted as before, a bright light shone within his eyes.
"The corpse devil's innate affinity is earth. It has the exact opposite nature to that of wind. No wonder it required so much spiritual sense to refine a wind blade." Tianlong inwardly smiled and shook his head.
Now that he was free of blood qi for a long time, he started to repeat the experiments as before.
In terms of qi quantity, he was inferior; the factor being cultivation base difference.
In terms of qi quality, he was superior; the factor being damaged meridians.
In terms of healing, he was inferior; the factor being corpse devil nature.
In terms of vitality, he was inferior; the reason unknown.
"So, it's sucking away my life force, huh?" his interest was piqued.
Generally speaking, even without the presence of blood qi in his body, his vitality should be comparable to old Zhan's. There wasn't that much of a big difference between the vitality of the different stages of Qi condensation.
Clearly, the flower was the culprit.
The flower sealed off all kinds of probing from the spiritual sense. He could only observe it externally. All his spirit sense that came in the vicinity would just pass through it. It was as if the thing didn't exist there in the first place.
Most in his position would freak out and feel a sense of despair. However, his mother had taught him to remain calm and collected no what situation. This thing was ingrained in his mind from early childhood.
A hidden enemy was the most difficult to deal with. One would never know how and when they might try to harm you. But once you know what you are dealing with, you can take appropriate measures. Knowing one's enemy was half the battle won.
What he was afraid of, was the flower not making any move. In that case, he could only sit helplessly and wait. He needed something …some kind of reaction from the flower that could be used against it.
Hence he was delighted to find that the flower was slowly sucking off his vitality.
Now that he knew how the thing was affecting him, he could take appropriate measures.