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Looking at the two red pills before him, each with a metallic sheen and as big as a fist, the two squirming flesh-like pills, and the two decaying, eye-stingingly odorous black pills.
Li Huowang nodded in satisfaction, he had put in everything he could think of, so much so that these would definitely be lethal, leaving no chance of survival whatsoever.
A stick of incense was inserted beside him, representing the remaining time of the year. According to the cultivation technique he had fabricated, one must practice at the very moment of the New Year to absorb the innate spiritual energy bestowed by the Heavenly Dao.
Li Huowang sat cross-legged, first picking up one of the fist-sized red pills, ready for what was to come. He was about to die, and he found himself unexpectedly calm.
Indeed, he had not prepared any backup plan.
Li Huowang knew that he was definitely going to take these elixirs, for if he didn't, Master Danyang would certainly not take them either.
Despite having just enjoyed the New Year's Eve dinner, feigning a kind demeanor, what he had talked about ascending to immortality together was nothing but using him as a guinea pig for trials.
But what Master Danyang had not calculated was that Li Huowang simply did not care about his own life.
Li Huowang had long become indifferent to life and death; he did not belong here to begin with.
The only purpose of his current existence was to watch a disgusting piece of trash like Master Danyang be led into a grave of his own making.
At this moment, Master Danyang sat opposite him, similarly picking up a red elixir first.
Under the gaze of both men, the flame of the incense stick gradually diminished.
Just as the incense was about to burn out, Li Huowang took a deep breath, stuffed the elixir in his hand into his mouth, and swallowed it whole.
At this moment, Master Danyang, who was about to consume the elixir, stopped his movement, focusing intently on Li Huowang's actions.
The excited Li Huowang seemed oblivious to this and continued to swallow the remaining two pills, then closed his eyes, forming seals with his hands on his knees.
Sweat flowed down his face; the meditating Li Huowang's body began to tremble, yet his face gradually revealed an uncontrollable ecstasy.
"So much innate spiritual energy! This... this is... I see, I`ve realized it, I've realized it!! I am about to become an immortal~!"
Upon hearing these words, a hint of urgency flashed in Master Danyang's eyes, yet he still did not immediately consume his elixirs until he saw wisps of white smoke beginning to rise from Li Huowang's head, only then did he wolf down the three pills.
As the cross-legged Master Danyang closed his eyes and began to cultivate the Grand Circulation, Li Huowang slowly opened his, his smile growing even grander than before as he observed his master.
When Master Danyang's head, like Li Huowang's, started smoking and something black started crawling through his veins all over his body, Li Huowang's crossed legs unfurled. He clutched his excruciatingly painful stomach and burst into crazed laughter.
"Hahaha, baldy! Baldy!! You won't ascend to be an immortal! You'll only become a ghost, let's keep each other company on the Naihe Bridge, hahaha!!"
Master Danyang seemed to have heard him, but he showed no response, eyes tightly shut, teeth clenched, sitting there frantically running the Grand Circulation cultivation technique.
"You're still practicing? It's all made up by me! All copied from a fantasy novel I read, hahaha, oh, my stomach hurts so much, hahaha."
Li Huowang crawled on the ground, slowly moving next to Master Danyang, maniacally watching his pale face; he trembled as he raised his right hand, slapping his face. "Hey, are you deaf? Your lord is talking to you."
With the back of his hand, he delivered another slap, yet Master Danyang remained motionless.
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Li Huowang, trembling, fished out an Elixir and stuffed it into his mouth; his veins bulging, he felt himself overflowing with strength.
"I told you to stop cultivating! Did you not hear me?" Li Huowang punched Master Danyang in the face, caving in his protruding mouth and nose with his fist.
Spitting out blood, Master Danyang suddenly opened his eyes and glared fiercely at Li Huowang, flinging his Taoist Robe and sending Li Huowang flying through the air.
"Get lost! You Heart Demons shall not hinder this Taoist Master's ascension to immortality!! I am about to become an Immortal! The ancestral master is about to come for me!"
Li Huowang, who had been flung to the ground, lay there without attempting to get up again, muttering to himself as he looked on: "He's gone mad, completely driven insane by his obsession with becoming an Immortal. Ouch, my stomach really hurts."
So it went, with one sitting cross-legged and the other lying down, time slowly trickled by. And the pain in Li Huowang's abdomen grew increasingly severe, instinctively causing his body to curl up into a shrimp shape.
"Hiss, why does it hurt so much, how long must I endure this agony, I really regret not bringing a knife to slit my throat," Li Huowang, curled up like a shrimp, writhed in pain.
In the midst of his severe pain, Li Huowang's consciousness began to blur and in his confusion, he saw Yang Na's face again. "Yang Na, have you come for me?"
Yang Na's face quickly melted and reassembled into the face of his chief physician. "Patient 14 is delirious, preliminary diagnosis of food poisoning! Quick! Bring over the electric suction device to perform gastric lavage!"
Li Huowang slowly closed his eyes, a faint voice slipping from his lips.
"Wash your grandpa's stomach... don't forget, that's a psychiatric hospital... there's no... gastric lavage machine... Can't you hallucinations... be logically consistent..."
After uttering these last words, Li Huowang's consciousness lost all sensation of his surroundings.
He felt comfortable now, because his stomach no longer hurt.
Li Huowang felt his body continuously falling downwards, yet never reaching the bottom.
"Huowang, hold on, you promised me!" a hazy, urgent female voice exploded in his ears.
Time passed, he didn't know how long, and suddenly Li Huowang's eyes snapped open, and he started to vomit violently, propped up on his arms.
A mass of distorted flesh mixed with black water, containing a few strands of hair, dumpling bits, and pieces of internal organs, were violently expelled by Li Huowang.
The lump of flesh in the black water barely moved before it stilled.
This sudden turn of events left Li Huowang stunned. Was he still alive? How could this be? And if he was still alive, did that mean Master Danyang—!
At that thought, Li Huowang immediately broke out in a cold sweat and instinctively turned to look. Then his mouth involuntarily opened as wide as it could. "What the hell, he has become an Immortal... what?"
He saw his cheaply acquired master's body completely deformed, with an ugly head split open; from which three fleshy mouths, each nested with several smaller ones full of disgusting yellow teeth, entangled and gaped towards the ceiling.
Besides his head, his body also underwent a drastic change; feathers as sharp as spikes, stuck together with pitch, were forcibly piercing through the flesh.
"What is this? The Triple Blossom Crown, Feathered Ascension to Immortality?"
As this thought burst through Li Huowang's mind, the three mouths opened to their widest, and voices from Master Danyang's youth, middle years, and old age resonated at once. "So that's it, this Taoist Master has realized, I've realized!! Hahaha!!"
"Boom!!" Accompanied by an explosion, Master Danyang's entire deformed body burst instantly, splattering flesh and blood across the entire Alchemy Room.