Cao Yun wanted to buy some ingredients but reducing his points just before the end of the month would hurt his alloted resources. So he waited for a few days.
Now that the conflict was over, he let Zhi Yin handle the negotiations. Wen Zhu even lowered their commission to 25% to compensate the harm done. Zhi Yin seemed pretty plain as she never showed any emotion. It was very hard to know what she was thinking. Even Ling Hui who idolized her could not figure it out. But she had a lot of ambitions. And thanks to Cao Yun, she now had gained a lot.
After his interview with her, Wen Zhu was devastated. He would need some time to repair the damage. The reputation of the Dragon's Fire Faction was pretty low right now, and they had lost the most promising alchemist in the kingdom. On the other hand, they had gained a stable relationship with her and Cao Yun through this contract. Wen Zhu completely discarded the idea of recruiting Cao Yun. As long as they worked together, it wasn't so bad. Cao Yun had no desire to make alchemy his main occupation so he was no threat to their business as he even used them to sell his pills.
On the other hand, the two main factions who mostly focused on fighting did not like the new situation.
Chan Weifeng from the Red Cliff Faction was slowly worried. He was the faction leader of the greatest faction and yet he was worried by a first-year. He remembered how his faction had offended him over and over again because of some arrogant idiots. Deep down, he still hoped to gain Cao Yun to his faction, but it seemed to become more and more difficult. Now that his faction had strong ties with the Dragon's Fire Faction, he would be stupid to leave like that. Right now, he was certainly the most important member of the Heavenly Swallow Faction so he would get a better treatment there than with them.
Chan Weifeng did not want trouble with Cao Yun as he felt it was really unwise, either inside or later outside the sect. But on the other hand, if his sect grew too big too fast, he would also have a problem. What a conundrum!
-
Cao Yun was using his last day before the final training with Chief Instructor Peng to advance the cultivation he could not before.
He began by his Qi cultivation. His mind had worked so hard the last few days that controlling the flow of Qi was now as easy as breathing. In a matter of twenty minutes, he opened his sixth meridian, the Spleen Meridian. After this first month, he was halfway through in his 5th-grade Mortal stage. If he could keep up with this speed, in two more months, he would break through into the 6th-grade Mortal stage.
He was wondering whether or not he should use pills. They could speed up the process but he was already pretty fast and the toxins worried him a little. If he could better grasp the toxins minimization principle, that would be better. For now, he would wait. If his cultivation began to slow down, it could be a solution.
Finally he could use the pill he had gone to such lengths to get, the Praying Demon Pill. It was a 1-star Human rank pill, very beneficial to the mind with a Fire element to it. This should prove really beneficial for his mind cultivation which was getting a bit too slow. Cao Yun had seen how useful it could be, so he wanted it to advance as soon as possible.
And even if the threat of the Drop of Wrath had not appeared in a long time, he still saw it every time he got into his sea of consciousness. Every day, he was reminded that this time bomb was in him.
Cao Yun was ready for a very strong effect. This pill was 1-star Human rank, it was a totally different thing compared to the Frozen Heart pill. As soon as he took it in hand, he felt his mind getting heated. Even the Drop of Wrath seemed to react a little. Preparing his mind, he circulated his Yi, Zhi and Shen at their utmost and gulped down the pill.
He felt a fire rising in his stomach. It flowed down toward his belly and went all the way down to his coccyx. Afterwards, this fiery energy went back up through his spine. Even the skin of his back was hot. If he had taken off his clothes, his skin would have been red. Finally, the energy shot up in his head.
Waves erupted in his sea of consciousness as his mind was getting excited. This pill could boost one's mind but it was very potent and with a lack control, it could even prove harmful. Of course, Cao Yun had a great control over his mind. He easily calmed down and condensed the medicinal essence into a fiery ball. It almost looked like there was a sun in his sea of consciousness.
The Drop of Wrath was reacting to the medicinal essence and tried to move closer to this fake sun. Fortunately, Cao Yun used his three characters of 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' to trap it. After a first unsuccessful attempt, the Drop of Wrath calmed back down.
Focusing his mind, Cao Yun began to draw the Shen character with the medicinal effect of the pill infused in it. The character that appeared in his mind was not only red, but it was literally written in flames. In only one night, he broke through his bottleneck. He went all the way toward True Success, 64 repetitions. Along the next month, the medicinal energy would get thinner and thinner but he should be able to go all the way to Perfection.
When he stopped cultivating, the Shen character in his sea of consciousness seemed to be surrounded by an extreme heat. The Drop of Wrath tried to put some distance between itself and the character. On the other hand, Yi and Zhi seemed to be even more attracted to it. These three characters were like planets orbiting around the Drop of Wrath, prisoner between them.
-
The next day was the group training with Chief Instructor Peng.
The day after, Cao Yun went back to the alchemy pavilion to thank his instructor.
"Chen Guo, you did not tell me that getting ingredients was difficult for you!"
"Instructor, I did not want to cause you any trouble. You already give me all the pills we make, that's already very generous of you."
"What are you talking about?! You're my only student, and I don't even use my quota of ingredients since I sleep all... I mean, my work does not require any more ingredient, so I never use my quota of ingredients. Take these." He pointed toward a table on which there were many ingredients for the Cold Blood Clotting Pill and the Low-Level Qi Gathering Pill.
"But I have a question for you. Do you have spiritual senses?"
"No, Instructor. I'm only a Mortal!" Cao Yun got surprised by the question.
"But you see what's going on in your cauldron, right?"
He finally understood. "No, Instructor. But I can picture it in my head. Thanks to your lesson, I learned how to use my other senses to deduct what was happening and imagine it."
Meng Jia opened his eyes an instant. "That's impressive! But to do so, you must be able to enter your sea of consciousness, right?"
"Indeed. I had a terrible experience one day and I found myself in my sea of consciousness. Since that day, I know how to get in."
"I see. You probably shouldn't tell it publicly. This is a fantastic advantage, but some demonic cultivators could get the idea of capturing you to decipher how you did it. Be very careful!"
Cao Yun already knew that, that's why he hid his 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' manual. But he had to explain himself to his instructor or that would hinder their relationship.
Finally, Cao Yun worked on the Cold Blood Clotting Pill all morning, trying to reduce the toxins while keeping the medicinal essence. It was really harder than he thought. But with his new mind cultivation, his 'Shen Visualization' was even stronger. He could almost see all the particles of medicinal essence and toxins. These were just his deductions but as he kept testing them, they became sharper and sharper.
Eventually, he would be able to have a perfect image of what was happening in the cauldron.
Back home, he continued to cultivate his Qi, his mind, and he gave a little time to his martial arts. Finally, he refined a new batch of Low-Level Qi Gathering Pills. All the batch was True Essence except two pills that were Pure. With two or three more refinements, he was sure that he would only ever get True Essence pills. Sadly, people could get suspicious of him. A streak of luck was something but if he kept selling pills that only a Spirit Warrior could make consistently, he would be very suspicious.
He then decided to make some Pure pills. Then he could sell some True Essence from time to time and only sell Pure pills the rest of the time. Moreover, he decided to keep some True Essence pills to gift them to his friends. He didn't know if they would want to use them or not, but having the option was always a good thing.
He also trained a little on toxins minimization both on the Low-Level Qi Gathering Pill and on the Cold Blood Clotting Pill.
Tomorrow was the last day of the first month. He would get his resources the day after. But before that, he would go to the Howling Crane Gorges one last time as his points now allowed two visits a month. And he was excited to be able to test again his martial arts. For these past few days, he had been too focused on alchemy.
-
Cao Yun was really itching to test his martial arts again. These past few ways had been focused on alchemy. As interesting as it was, he loved martial arts more. The last time he was in the Howling Crane Gorges, he did not even go all the way to the second li. The gorges were meandering in the mountains along a winding path of 8 li. Each time you crossed a li, you came into a new stage of the formation and the gale doubled in intensity. This time, he wanted to train in the second li.
For that purpose, he rushed through the first li in less than ten minutes. During this time, he used various moves of 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' to warm up. When he got just before the second level of the formation, he stopped for at least twenty minutes and trained his 'The Pillar Piercing the Sky' and his new technique, 'Dragon's Twin Horns'. Since the last time he was here, he had not used this technique once.
Instead, he had used his mind to test it over and over again. And he was gladly surprised to see that his 'Shen Visualization' also seemed to work on his martial arts. By just training in his mind, he had improved quite a lot. He still needed to train his real muscles of course, but he got a better grasp of the technique's concept. Before half the hour had passed, he was able to perform five strikes in a row, including the final one with the spear.
This technique was very taxing on the body and mind. Not only did you need to control your muscles and harmonize them with your spear and your Qi, but you also needed to stop a rapid movement just an instant before starting again as fast as possible.
When he got satisfied, Cao Yun finally entered the second stage. He immediately got surprised by the intensity of the gale. Although he knew it would be double compared to the first stage, it was still a shock. If he hadn't been well rooted in the ground, he probably would have been sent backwards. He took at least five minutes just to be able to move his upper body.
This time, he wanted to train the second star. According to the manual, this star was related to stances. Working in an environment where his stability was constantly challenged seemed like a good idea to train it. He focused on performing his stances. Every little unbalance was immediately punished by the intensity of the wind. Gradually, his stances which he imagined very stable revealed many weaknesses. Thankfully, he could use this wind to help him detect these weaknesses and adjust his stances.
When the time was up, Cao Yun was able to perfectly move his legs even in the second stage of the Howling Crane Gorges.
-
The final night of the first month had come. Cao Yun did not change his routine at all, but just put his focus on different things. Instead of doing a lot of alchemy, he cultivated his Qi, his mind and then used his time for his martial arts.
This evening had taught him that 'Shen Visualization' was as efficient on martial arts as it was on pill refinement.
He tried to picture himself and his 'Nine Chi Black Dragon Spear'. It was pretty strange because he could see himself in his sea of consciousness, as if he had gotten in with his body. And his body moved around as though a puppet whose strings were pulled by his mind. Using this method, he trained his martial arts in the void. From his point of view, he was able to discover many faults in all his moves.
This method was a little bit dangerous as he could easily be mislead if he did not try his understandings in actual battles. So Cao Yun only focused on refining the moves he had already tested out. The improvement was small but it was still there.
As he performed his moves, the Horn Star was reacting. While this image of himself was performing 'Dragon's Twin Horns', the Horn Star shone more brightly and revolved faster. The moves had first been invented by a master observing the stars forming the body of a dragon. Then, Cao Yun had learned them again by observing the star formed in his sea of consciousness. The more his moves were aligned with the original star, the more the Horn Star reacted. This way he was able to sharpen his understanding a bit more.
At the same time, he circulated the Qi in his body according to the technique. He could train to increase the time it took him to send the Qi through the right pathways. Also, the more Qi he could mobilize, the stronger his technique. To perform the 'Dragon's Twin Horns' he needed to be able to stop the flow of his Qi quickly and then restart it as fast as possible.
As he trained his stances later, he had the feeling the other star would soon appear. He could vaguely see its shape in the sky but it was still very vague with no light at all. His stances were even more easily trained as he could perform them simultaneously in his mind and in real life without much fear of going the wrong way.
With enough training, he could form this second star this month, he was sure of this.
Finally, tonight, the first month in the Wubei Sect was officially over. Tomorrow, the second month would begin.