In the end, Cao Yun had been really rewarded by the woman who had almost killed him. Just by extracting Evil Qi and Death Energy, he had strengthened the Drop of Wrath and his hold on it. Now, the Drop of Wrath had a fully manifested Po character in it. And Cao Yun could use it as easily and as fast as the one outside of it. Thus, Cao Yun was able to feel the Flying Poison in the Drop of Wrath.
Originally, the Drop of Wrath was a drop of blood from Axiu Qian. And it used to contain his entire soul. But after being burned to almost nothingness, only a tiny portion of his corporeal soul had survived and had turned into Flying Poison, one of the Seven Turbid Demons. It had no consciousness and was almost pure rage. Thankfully, it was extremely weak but it was still trying to instinctively rebuild itself. With this Po character in the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun had now a better grasp on it. This was the first step to gain absolute control over this drop of blood.
He had planned to use his mind cultivation to slowly rebuild each one of the seven parts of Po, but according to his own rules. In the end, the Drop of Wrath would really become his because his very soul would be infused with it. For now, it was still a wild stallion he had put a bridle on. But he was able to feel its emotions and had thus a way better control over it than before.
In fact, during the process, Cao Yun realized that he could use the Drop of Wrath to attract Evil Qi and Death Energy as much as or as little as he wanted. He had now a full control on this. It was helped by the fact that the Drop of Wrath seemed to not want such inferior quality energies for now. If Cao Yun was faced with purer forms of Death Energy, maybe the Drop of Wrath would try to wrestle back the control. Even then, Cao Yun was fairly confident in his ability to control it as long as he did not go completely against its actions and only tried to moderate them.
Besides that, he also got a better grasp of his mind cultivation and had slowly built up some energies for the next Five Echoes Pearl. He had a clear objective in mind, he would energize the Chamber of Heavenly Court as soon as possible. This chamber would increase his reaction speed and he hoped his ability to be more decisive. Cao Yun was starting to resent his lack of certainty before acting. Yes he had a firm resolution but he was always hesitant when it came to the way to put this resolution into actions. Of course, he knew that this probably wouldn't be miraculous. Most likely, it would only increase his thought speed. However, just by recognizing that problem, Cao Yun was still on a good way to solve it.
Finally, his blood had received a lot of Qi and was extraordinary. Even Huang Liyue who was an expert in blood cultivation would have been amazed by his current blood. And this Qi was also strong in his meridians and Lower Dantian. Thanks to his exchange with Huang Liyue, he had replenished almost all of his reserves. For her this was just a drop in an ocean and despite her relative lack of Qi, it didn't cause any problem. Even if she were to absorb all the Qi from Cao Yun, this would not help her in the least. The disparity between a Spirit Warrior and a Mortal was just too vast.
After all, a Spirit Warrior could fly in the air, use spiritual powers and even partially survive the death of their own physical body. They were halfway between mere mortals and Immortals, the sixth realm of Qi cultivation. And Huang Liyue was a powerful 6th-grade Spirit Warrior.
-
At last, Huang Liyue woke up. She still could feel some of the damage done by the energies that had intruded into her body and soul. Even now, she could not risk taking her Soul Embryo out. Healing such wounds always took a lot of time, just to be sure to not neglect anything. Huang Liyue had some pills but none could heal such a wound to her Soul Embryo. For now, she had to keep it inside of her Upper Dantian. Thus, she could not activate any spiritual senses. They were literally the expansion of her Soul Embryo and soul outside of her body. Now her soul was within her Soul Embryo since the 6th-grade Spirit Warrior stage consisted in merging the two. So she could not expand either of them for the time being.
Moreover, her meridians were in a terrible state. But now that all traces of Evil Qi seemed to have been eliminated, she had some pills that could help her. Without hesitation, a pill flew out of her spatial ring. It was a round and large deep red pill. As soon as it appeared, Cao Yun smelled a powerful scent of medicinal essence. Just smelling the fragrance sent a soothing sensation in Cao Yun's meridians, vessels and Dantian. Immediately, he was able to recognize the pill, a Mercury Cinnabar Alloy pill. This 5-star Heaven pill was extremely rare and difficult to make. Even though Cao Yun could not clearly discern the grade of that pill, he could guess that it was close to a Perfect pill but not quite there yet.
Still, this was an incredible pill that could repair and strengthen all the meridians and the three Dantian.
Huang Liyue was about to take the pill when she thought back to the young man who had helped her. From her ring, another pill appeared and flew toward Cao Yun. It was a lesser pill he was familiar with, an Autumn and Springs Reviving pill. Compared with the Mercury Cinnabar Alloy pill though, it had reached the Pure grade. Of course, it was only a 2-star Human pill so it was easier to forge, but reaching such a grade was still not a feat any alchemist could perform. This pill had been forged by at least a 5-star Human alchemist. Thus, its value was immense. Yet, Huang Liyue gifted it to Cao Yun without any hesitation.
"Young man, you saved my life and I repaid you with violence. I am truly ashamed. Please, accept this lowly token of sincerity for now. I swear I will properly repay the kindness you showed me later."
Even such a gift was lowly for Huang Liyue... But again, Cao Yun had saved her life. Obviously, her life would have more value than a Human rank pill.
Moved, Cao Yun accepted the pill and consumed it immediately.
"Senior, no need to apologize for earlier. I know that you did not attack me on purpose. You were still confused and I understand."
"Thank you for your consideration. But I will take responsibility for that. Besides, you truly saved my life. And even though you seem to be fine, this was probably a difficult and painful process."
Huang Liyue was still harboring some doubts as to how a Mortal had been able to extract Evil Qi and Death Energy from her body. She was not sure if even Xiao Xuefeng in person could have done so as thoroughly as he had done. There was really no more trace of either in both her body and Soul Embryo. But she was not going to interrogate the junior who had just save her life. She had no suspicion that he was a demonic cultivator at all. Even the Huang family had some secrets they did not want to share.
This boy had probably also some secrets and he had risked exposing them to save her life. She could not repay him by being too suspicious.
Under the effect of the pill, Cao Yun's mind regained all of its mental strength and almost all fatigue disappeared. The remaining medicinal essence even helped him condense the Five Echoes Pearl faster than usual.
While he was absorbing the medicinal essence in a cross-legged meditation, Huang Liyue looked at herself. The cave was very dark but she could still make out that her clothes were drenched in sweat and very revealing. As an 800-year-old woman, she was not too embarrassed. After all, she knew that Cao Yun was merely a Mortal, without touching her he could not have treated her injury. Even a great physician, if he could not control his Qi, would be forced to physically touch his patient. Besides, she had clearly felt that the young man had had no indecent thought and had stayed focused on helping her. Still, she did not feel comfortable with such revealing clothes even in the darkness of the cave. Thus, she took advantage of the fact that Cao Yun was meditating to change her clothes for identical ones from her spatial ring.
Then, she consumed the Mercury Cinnabar Alloy pill. Immediately, she felt the medicinal essence dissolve into her body and go straight for her meridians. Most of the pain subsided thanks to the soothing effect of the pill. And the repair to her meridians became quite apparent very soon. The largest cracks in her meridians slowly closed themselves. After going through the Mortal Warrior realm, her meridians, unlike those of Cao Yun, were fully material. They were not just pathways of energy, but crystallized and as material as flesh and bone.
With the help of the pill, it would take her some weeks but she could repair most of the damage and get a strength equivalent to a middle Mortal Warrior, or even very close to a 1st-grade Spirit Warrior. But she had also lost a lot of Qi. Since she could not replenish herself in this world devoid of pure Qi, she could only use pills. However, she had not that many pills to recover her Qi. After all, she had not planned to get stuck in such a place. And she had thought her initial mission would have taken less than two months. Now it had almost been four months. And three of those months had been spent trapped in this dead world.
Just like Cao Yun, she had fought against those bone creatures and suffered from the effects of the black rain.
-
After a few more hours of serenity, Cao Yun finally left his meditative state. Seeing that Huang Liyue was meditating to control the medicinal essence repairing her meridians, he got hesitant to speak to her. But before he could ask her anything, she answered what he wanted to say.
"You must be famished. Besides, considering the water on the ground, you probably used a lot of your supply just to clean me. Thank you for your care. Here, eat and drink as much as you need."
As she spoke, a blue light lit up the cave. It was way brighter than for the two pills. On the ground, many supplies appeared. There were a few gourds, some filled with water and others with wine. And above all else, there was food. Immediately, Cao Yun did not stand on ceremony and went at it. It had been way too long since he had eaten anything. Furthermore, the food in front of him was exceptional. There were some fruits rich in both Qi and Jing. However, what Cao Yun really cared about at that moment was the divine taste they had.
In fact, he went a bit overboard and ended up eating too much. But that wasn't a problem at all. In front of him, there was clearly enough food to last a mortal for a month. Most likely, Huang Liyue had even more in her spatial ring. But for Cao Yun, if he was careful, this amount of food would be enough for almost a year. As such, he could enjoy it to the fullest. After all the time he had spent in this world, this was really a fantastic meal.
Once he was done eating and drinking, Cao Yun realized that Huang Liyue was still meditating. Absorbing the medicinal essence from a 5-star Heaven pill would indeed take some time, especially for someone who had suffered so many injuries. Hence, the young man decided to sit back cross-legged and cultivate. Besides, the violent winds were still echoing through the cave. So Cao Yun had nothing to do but to stay inside and try to advance his Qi cultivation.
Right now, he really did not need to work on his mind cultivation at all. In fact, he should even slow down a little to let all the changes settle down. On the other hand, he could open some more acupoints. In total, he had around a third of his acupoints to open. But among them, only a few dozens were difficult. Indeed, he had followed Chief Instructor Peng's advice and had focused on the hard acupoints first. Thus, those he had left were easier and more than half of them were so easy to open, Cao Yun could probably open several of them at once.
For the time being, he decided to focus on the most difficult acupoints. Those were usually in places where there was little blood circulation, a lot of bones and rigid tissues such as tendons. Of course, those were the acupoints which were the hardest to even feel.
But what Cao Yun noticed was that his new blood had also permeated many of his tissues by now. All his body was way richer in Qi. As such, he was able to feel his acupoints with more intensity than ever. In fact, he even tried to open one somewhat easy acupoint with only his own intent, without even using the Yi character. It wasn't immediate but in less than a minute, he had opened the acupoint thoroughly. And he could now open and close it as much as he wanted.
Before going any further, Cao Yun decided to focus back on every acupoint to get a better sensation. Right now his cultivation consisted in getting more control over each one of his acupoints to open and close them at will. The more attuned he would be to them, the greater his progress would be later on. So, of course, that was what he decided to do.
He still worked on opening other acupoints. But he was not that hurried to break through for once. Of course, he could still try and reinforce his sensations after his breakthrough, but this was the ideal moment to do so. And Cao Yun took advantage of it. He even used several exercises of visualization using his own sea of consciousness to get a greater sensation with every acupoint.
Several more days passed in the cave as the winds were calming down outside.
Finally, both Cao Yun and Huang Liyue left their meditative states. The woman had healed most of her meridians and Dantian. As of now, she had restored a strength equivalent to a 7th-grade Mortal Warrior, with way more experience than one, but with way less Qi. And Cao Yun had gotten extremely close to a breakthrough.
Since the cave was too dark, Huang Liyue took a torch out of her spatial ring and lit it up. For the first time, she saw Cao Yun's face and recognized it immediately.