Blood Exchange Realm
Taking off the ceremonial outfit took a lot less time than putting it on, and with four hands helping out, Xue Bai was soon freed from its shackles.
Free, Xue Bai changed into a piece of casualwear that he fished from his closet. Now that everyone was gone, he could wear whatever he wished. There was no more a need to dress fancy.
After she finished helping Xue Bai with his breakout, Xiao'er turned and walked toward the door, planning to leave her Young Master alone, but before she could exit, Xue Bai spoke up.
"Don't leave yet, Xiao'er. I need you to write and deliver a letter for me." Xue Bai said.
"Who is it for?" Oooh, is it a love letter?" Xiao'er, the ball of curiosity she was, immediately fired off half a dozen questions in response to Xue Bai's simple response.
Giving the chatterbox a flick on the forehead, Xue Bai answered, "No, you fool. This letter is to a friend of mine. He got into an accident last week, and I want to send him a letter about it."
Holding her forehead in pain, Xiao'er pouted with tears glistening in her eyes. Though Xue Bai didn't put much force into the flick, he had infused some Spiritual Qi into his fingers to make it sting.
"Don't look at me like that, you romantic. Get a scroll and transcribe what I'm going to say." Xue Bai mercilessly said, ignoring the maid's crocodile tears.
Wiping away her tears, Xiao'er went to get a scroll and quill to transcribe Xue Bai's words.
"Brother Long, I heard about your accident, and I know you must be feeling a myriad of emotions currently. So rather than give you empty, caring words or condolences like everyone else, I'll give you a gift. Along with this letter, I will send a simple treasure pill perfect for your situation. This pill's effects are simple, making it only a middle Yellow-grade pill. But it's specially made for people in your situation, people who have recently had their dantian shattered." Xue Bai was going to continue speaking until he saw Xiao'er tearing up.
Stunned, Xue Bai went to comfort her, thinking he had flicked her too hard.
"Xiao'er, I'm sorry I shouldn't have flicked you too hard." Xue Bai said as he rubbed her forehead.
Though Xiao'er liked the feeling of being comforted, she moved away and shook her head.
"I'm not crying from that. Your letter reminded me of what happened to that Huo Long boy. His story was so tragic." Xiao'er said as she wiped her red eyes.
Xue Bai instantly felt like all of his care was wasted. Tempted to flick her again, Xue Bai decided not to and went back to speaking so Xiao'er could continue transcribing.
"What the pill does is take all of the residual Spiritual Qi in your body that was scattered from when your dantian was shattered, and strengthen your body, extending your lifespan. With the realm you had before, you could live up to 200 years with the residual Spiritual Qi in your body. But I liked having you as a brother, and I hope you did the same. And if you have the same amount of pride in your bones, I know I saw two years ago. Then you won't eat it. But instead, bring it back to me."
"You will hear of my Martial Vein rank soon enough, and in about 18 months, I will join the Soaring Sword Sect. And if you don't fix your situation soon, then we won't meet again. But if you have the potential I saw those years ago, we will meet again, but until then, I will move on forward towards the peak."
"Xiao'er, did you get all of that?" Xue Bai asked.
"Yes, Young Master, I got all of it." Xiao'er nodded. "But I have a question. In the letter, you seemed so indifferent to his situation. Aren't you going to try to help him out? Huo Long was crippled, and he even came from a poor background. How is he going to fix his situation by himself?"
Xiao'er didn't know much about Huo Long, but she knew enough. Huo Long came from nothing and relied on his talent to make an impact in the world.
However, what could he rely on now that his talent was gone?
Xiao'er felt like Xue Bai knew something she didn't and wanted to know what.
"Xiao'er, sometimes helping a man out of trouble will do more harm than good. And this is one of those situations." Xue Bai answered indirectly.
This was true in a sense, but Xue Bai was just trying to dodge her question. Huo Long was destined to fix his situation soon, so even if Xue Bai wanted to help the boy, it wouldn't do much. Rather, it might actually ruin his future.
Xue Bai knew of a treasure that could repair a set of Martial Veins, but it would only restore the previous grade, not improve upon them. So this meant that Huo Long would just regain his low Black-grade Martial Veins.
Under Feng Huang's care, Huo Long gained a set of martial Veins in the Heaven-grade. The two were from different worlds. Xue Bai was really only sending this letter to fake care.
Though Xiao'er didn't understand what Xue Bai meant, she still nodded and stamped the scroll with the Duke's symbol.
"Young Master, do you want me to deliver it personally or just send a commander?" Xiao'er asked.
"Just send a commander. Who knows what chaos you'd cause if you left home unattended." Xue Bai answered after thinking for a moment.
Xiao'er did have plans to create mischief outside, but hearing Xue Bai say it aloud made her annoyed.
"I'm not a toddler. I can control myself on an important trip!" Xiao'er stomped her feet and humphed.
"You do know you're acting like one right now, right?" Xue Bai retorted.
Not bothering to respond, Xiao'er blew a raspberry at Xue Bai and left the bedroom.
"That fool." Xue Bai said while shaking his head.
Xiao'er was a vibrant part of his life, but sometimes she was just too childish. It made him worry about her future.
But since that was her own path, Xue Bai didn't bother to correct her.
Sighing to himself, Xue Bai went over to his bed and sat down on it in a lotus position.
Xue Bai had been at the peak of the 8th stage of the Blood Exchange realm for almost a week now and planned to break through today.
The Blood Exchange realm was a realm made to purify the mortal blood within the human body. Each stage purifies the blood more and more by removing the impurities within.
By the end of the realm, one would have pure enough blood that it would allow Spiritual Qi to flow freely within it, improving the body's health and many other features.
Starting his cultivation session, Xue Bai pulled out two different pills from his spatial ring.
These two pills were known as the Blood Ignition Pill and the Blood Replenishing Pill. Both of which were low Yellow-grade pills with simple functions.
The Blood Ignition Pill did as its name said. It ignited the blood of the person who swallowed it. By burning the blood within the body, a cultivator would mimic the effect one would get by burning their blood essence, albeit to a lesser degree.
You weren't burning your blood essence, but instead, just the blood. The latter was much less important to the body and easily replicable, so it was only right for the effect to be weaker.
Sadly, the pill wasn't omnipotent, and despite only burning the blood, it still gave the consumer a lengthy period of weakness. However, it was still much shorter and less destructive than burning blood essence, which made this pill extremely valuable and popular.
The other pill in Xue Bai's hands, the Blood Replenishing Pill, also followed its name and replenished the blood within the person who consumed it. It was a healing pill usually used for people who had been stabbed and lost an excessive amount of blood.
At first sight, it might seem that the two pills were extremely different. One had a healing effect, while the other was a short-duration strength boost. But they had a similarity—the blood.
So even though the pills were different and had different uses, when they were used together, they worked wonders for anyone in the Blood Exchange realm.
The Baishen Plane's way to advance through stages in the Blood Exchange realm was rather crude and slow.
Baishen Plane cultivators would slowly absorb Spiritual Qi and purify the blood within their bodies.
However, Xue Bai learned a cheat code to speed up this process while he was adventuring through the Central Continent during his playthrough of "Children of the Plane." Sadly, since cultivation was automatic during the game, he was never able to use it.
But now that he had an actual body that required cultivation, Xue Bai was finally able to use the cheat code.
By using the Blood Ignition Pill, you could ignite the blood within your body. But since it indiscriminately ignited all of your blood, you would also indirectly ignite the impure blood. And then, following it up with the Blood Replenishing Pill, you could recover all of the lost blood. And now, with Spiritual Qi in your bloodstream, no impure blood would be replenishing.
This meant that instead of slowly purifying your blood with Spiritual Qi, you could just indirectly cleanse your body using two low Yellow-grade pills.
With this cheat code, Xue Bai was able to continue his heaven-defying cultivation speed and hopefully reach his goal of advancing to the Bone Strengthening realm at 13 years old and before the plot began.
Today was no different. And like every other day, he swallowed the first Blood Ignition Pill.
He needed to swallow the Blood Ignition Pill first in order for this to work.
After the pill went into his mouth, it dissolved on his tongue, and the medicine's effects soon took place on his body.
A steamy gas soon appeared in his bloodstream. And because of its extremely high heat, its steamy properties spread to the rest of his body, igniting his bloodstream while also empowering his body.
It was a powerful yet painful feeling, but since Xue Bai had already experienced it almost a dozen times, it didn't bother him much.
Feeling the Blood Ignition Pill starting to work wonders in his body, Xue Bai swallowed the next pill, the Blood Replenishing Pill.
Like the first, the Blood Replenishing Pill dissolved on his tongue, and the medicinal effects started to work in his bloodstream.
Destruction and reconstruction took place in Xue Bai's body as his blood was ignited and burned away, while another pure and much more potent blood replaced it not even a second later.
This process would continue for another hour, but eventually, Xue Bai managed to successfully advance his cultivation base. Xue Bai finally broke through to the 9th stage of the Blood Exchange realm, but at a small cost.
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