As Cao Yun was thinking about the method explained in 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace', he became more intrigued and less worried. As of now, he had never really practiced any blood cultivation. Yet, thanks to the intent of the Drop of Wrath, he had already learned how to manipulate his blood early on. And with his stronger mind cultivation he could literally control the flow of his blood. Even if his heart were to stop beating, he could still make his blood go through his usual circulation. In fact, this was more or less the idea behind 'Locking the Seven and Stopping the Waves'. Cao Yun could slow down his heart and even stop it altogether, as long as he controlled his blood and Qi to nourish his tissues.
After practicing it many times, he was able to make his blood behave naturally without thinking too much about it. As such, he was rather confident in his ability to send a huge part of his blood into his heart to get into contact with the Drop of Wrath, while keeping his tissues nourished. Moreover, as he was progressing toward a true Transparent Body - that is to say a body where every cell was transparent to the flow of Qi - he could also nourish his body with pure Qi for a while. Even without an active bloodstream, he was fairly confident in being able to maintain his physical body alive for several hours.
And now that he truly thought about it, Cao Yun realized how much he had changed. In fact, he was even a bit worried about having such an abnormal body. But again, this was normal for a cultivator. Spirit Warriors had even stranger bodies and souls. And this bit of worry was completely silenced by both pride and excitement.
The only thing he was not entirely sure about was whether his heart would be able to take the full pressure of all his blood in one place.
According to 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace', at first, it was necessary to control small quantities of blood. Slowly, the cultivator would learn to control his blood with more and more precision. And at the same time, his heart would adapt to the pressure. The muscles making the organ beat would get stronger over time. In a sense, this was a form of bodybuilding exercise, like those he had been doing with Chief Instructor Peng. That part of the training was called 'Expanding the Master'.
But the end goal was not to strengthen the heart, even though it was interesting in itself. The ultimate goal of 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace' was to completely condense the entirety of the blood within the cultivator's body into a single drop. This method was called 'Reducing the Five Sheng' because there was around five liters of blood in a human body. Bit by bit, the cultivator would be able to condense more and more of his blood in one go. And each new liter condensed was another landmark.
Once again, this was not the point of the training, but just a means to achieve the true blood cultivation. After that, this drop of blood was so condensed that one would be able to extract blood essence from it, that was to say blood with almost pure Jing within, instead of Qi. That way, even when the blood would be sent back to the body, most of the blood essence would still reside within the heart. Slowly, this blood essence would then be worked on through Fire Qi in the Middle Dantian to excite the Jing and create more of it to send through the rest of the blood. This was 'Stoking the Human Flames'.
Finally, condensing the blood again around this drop of blood essence and activating the Fire Qi would enable the cultivator to produce even more Jing and to send it directly into all of the blood. And before long, another drop of blood essence could be extracted. This stage was what 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace' was really about.
As he studied this method, Cao Yun realized that he had more or less already completed most of those stages. The Drop of Wrath was not a drop of pure blood essence. But it was still made of Jing, albeit corrupted and fragmented. Thus, he probably didn't need to condense a drop of blood essence to directly perform the last step of 'Storms in the Crimson Furnace'. First of all, he would focus on controlling his blood and activate the Fire Qi around his heart.
In a way, this was also similar to what he had done when he had been a 6th-grade Mortal. In that stage, he had to accumulate Water Qi in his Lower Dantian. And Cao Yun knew that at some point during the Mortal Warrior realm, he would have to gather Fire Qi in his Middle Dantian, around the heart. In fact, those two antagonistic Qi were the key to form the Soul Embryo in the final stages of the Mortal Warrior realm.
Of course, Qi always had the five elements in it. When someone talked about Fire Qi or Water Qi, they just meant to say that this particular element was more present in it. As such, Cao Yun could still try to activate this element within the Qi already in his Middle Dantian. While working on his blood cultivation, this would also help him prepare for the Mortal Warrior realm, which was very close for him.
After a moment of doubt when seeing how this technique worked, Cao Yun was now determined. For an instant he wondered whether this was due to his own change of attitude or to the recently energized Chamber of Heavenly Court. Maybe it had really changed his personality a little... He knew that he wasn't being reckless because he intended to proceed with extreme caution, but this thought still crossed his mind. Was he really the same Cao Yun he had been before his family got killed? But the question was ridiculous. After all, the event in itself had changed him. Furthermore, he was soon to be eighteen. Thus he would still change quite a lot in the years to come. Of course, he wasn't that Cao Yun anymore.
Listening to his cautious side, Cao Yun began by stopping his heart. At first, he controlled his bloodstream to be sure that everything was going fine. Then, he condensed a few drops of blood in his heart. With utmost caution, the young man proceeded at a steady pace. As he was putting more and more blood into his heart, Cao Yun could feel that it was getting a bit bloated. Thus, he increased his attention to the delicate organ. It was just like slowly putting more and more strain on a muscle. Cao Yun wanted to make sure that this particular muscle did not give way. When it reached its maximum capacity, the pressure within increased but Cao Yun was able to control the muscles around the heart to keep it intact.
Before one hour had passed, he had condensed a full liter of blood in his heart. The pressure was clearly important but his heart could still take it without too much problem. The influence of the Drop of Wrath had probably played a part in strengthening his heart.
For several days, Cao Yun mainly focused on pouring more and more blood into his heart during each session. For now, he had never exceeded two hours by session. But he felt that his progress was very fast.
When finally he felt that he had not enough blood in the rest of his body, he simply used his Qi and realized that the cells, deprived of blood, were even more hungry for Qi. As a by-product of his blood cultivation, he would probably increase his tempering of the cells. Not only were the cells he had already tempered more welcoming to the Qi, even the ones he had not fully tempered yet were more transparent to the flow of Qi. In a sense, it was like giving food to a starving man. If he was really starving, he wouldn't mind a different food than what he was used to.
After making sure that there was no problem with nourishing his cells in the absence of his blood, Cao Yun kept on going. In less than a week, he had already condensed all five liters of his blood within his heart. And the bloated sensation was mostly gone. Now he only had to activate as much Fire Qi as possible to try and activate his Drop of Wrath so that its properties would flow through his blood.
That would take a lot more time, but thanks to his control over his own Qi, this was not such a problem. Cao Yun activated his Po to increase his control over Qi. But extracting just the Fire Qi was a bit tricky, especially around the heart. The Fire Qi could easily excite the heart a bit too much, so it was necessary to keep it in check. An excited heart that was full of pressurized blood was not a good idea. But now that Cao Yun knew for a fact that he could practice this blood cultivation without any major incident, he was not in a rush.
Now that he was on his way to mastering the blood cultivation, he thought back on 'Ashen Feather Seal'. Because his blood was not the bloodline of the True Fiery Fenghuang, he could not really practice the last chapter in the same way. But he could still think of ways to use the intent of the Drop of Wrath to help him. The general idea was to use the mystical properties of the True Fiery Fenghuang bloodline to strengthen the Qi manifested ashes. Only then was it possible to literally erase one's presence completely. The properties of the Drop of Wrath were probably way different, at least Cao Yun thought so because he didn't know much about the bloodline of the Huang family. This wasn't something they were too keen on sharing with outsiders.
But Cao Yun was certain that the Drop of Wrath was in no way inferior to the blood of the True Fiery Fenghuang. Moreover, he had a full drop while the members of the Huang family only had traces of this bloodline in their own blood. By mastering this last chapter of 'Ashen Feather Seal' with his Drop of Wrath, he might even develop a better stealth. Besides, as he was getting closer to the Mortal Warrior stage, Cao Yun was also getting more and more familiar with the sensation of Qi Manifestation within his own body.
Right now, he could form at least a hundred particles of ashes to hide his Qi. Complemented with 'Locking the Seven and Stopping the Waves', he was fairly confident that only a Mortal Warrior on the verge of going through the Lesser Tribulation could sense him. And when he would finally break through himself, only a Spirit Warrior could detect his presence. Even then, thanks to his mind cultivation, he might find ways to prevent it. The 'Ashen Feather Seal' could achieve that by sending ashes into the Upper Dantian. Even without being a Spirit Warrior, it was possible to work on one's Upper Dantian. After all, Cao Yun had already done so thanks to his mind cultivation. Indeed, he was energizing the very chambers of his Upper Dantian.
Cao Yun did not want to get too excited, fearing that the results would not be as incredible as he imagined. At any moment he could hit a bottleneck. But now he had realized something that seemed obvious. He found himself naive to have never thought about this in fact. As his Qi cultivation was advancing, it would necessarily become slower. In that case, he just had to complement his Qi cultivation with other types of cultivation. Physique, blood, mind, soul, almost everything in the human body could be cultivated. If he worked on all of these aspects, the risk of hitting a bottleneck in all of them at the same moment was minimal. And each aspect of his cultivation would improve the others as well.
Besides, he was now actively trying to gain full control of the Drop of Wrath. Blood cultivation seemed like a great way to achieve this end result.
Thus, Cao Yun decided to work on his blood cultivation just like he was working on his mind cultivation. Every day he would condense his blood to get more and more of the properties of the Drop of Wrath in his bloodstream. And each time, he could feel that he was able to mobilize a tiny bit more of Fire Qi around his heart.
-
After a month had passed by, Cao Yun was finally notified that Spirit Master Xiao was reaching Baziyun City. As such, he reunited with Sun Liao. Yun Ping was also at their sides. He had decided not to sew his robe so his left sleeve was empty and fluttering with the wind. While waiting in an open field, they saw the form of a majestic crane flying in the sky. At first, it almost looked like a giant cloud being blown by the wind. But soon they saw the head of the crane that was covered in red feathers and a black beak. Even after they had seen this, they were still barely able to differentiate the white feathers of the crane with the other clouds around it.
This was a Cloud-Drifting Crane, an 8-core demonic beast. Seeing it, this clearly wasn't the kind of beast that could fight off against a stampede, it seemed a bit too serene. But this was wrong. Although this demonic beast loved peace and tranquility, it was as deadly as any other 8-core demonic beasts. Just like Xiao Xuefeng, it could produce music with its shrieks. In fact, in one book, Cao Yun had read that a Cloud-Drifting Crane could literally make the organs of lesser beasts and cultivators explode in their body just by singing. All its enemies would just drop dead without any visible violence. And it was also able to create illusions.
Having such a demonic beast with them had probably helped the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute go through the stampede. After all, they had no 9th-grade Spirit Warriors and yet had been attacked by two 9-core demonic beasts. Thanks to their defenses and their knowledge of alchemy, they had been able to survive, but they had still suffered some casualties.
When the Cloud-Drifting Crane was close enough, Cao Yun heard Xiao Xuefeng's voice in his head.
"Cao Yun, do not worry. Feng Yingyue is safe and sound. In fact, she even gained some insights during the fight. And your sister Mei Hua has also been lucky that way. She's with me right now. Also, she heard about Ren Chao and she insisted that I brought some pills to help him."