The very moment the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish reunited with the fragment of its soul, it felt the trap. However it was too late. The seal that Cao Yun had implanted within this fragment naturally fused with the entire soul now that they were brought back together. In that instant, a powerful surge of Fire energy submerged the enormous fish. A spasm of pure pain spread through its body and it fell back toward the underground lake.
For a few breaths, it distorted in agony, sending water all over the place. But now that Cao Yun was back in the physical world, he could easily use his Qi Manifestation to protect himself, and Yong Ke, from the poisoned water.
In the end, the fish was forced to calm itself. It had been subjugated by a poison forcing him to serve Gu Song. And now a new master was trying to dominate it. Since those two masters might clash with each other, the fish was starting to see the end of its life. If it displeased either of those masters, it would be killed. Then, its only choice would be to die through an insidious poison or by having its very soul eradicated. It had given up its pride to submit and survive. But now, even that sacrifice had been worthless. He had lost its pride and dignity and it would still lose its life.
In its remaining eye, Cao Yun could sense a complete resignation to its fate. Luckily for the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish, Cao Yun didn't want to kill it. In fact, he had great plans for that demonic beast. Of course it had killed humans, but under the orders of a demonic cultivator. Well, it had probably killed humans beforehand to form seven demonic cores. But Cao Yun had no hatred for this beast. In his eyes, it was just a wild animal. Maybe it was his intimacy with Hongyu, but he couldn't hate this demonic beast wholeheartedly.
Cao Yun quickly analyzed the situation. With a single glance, he was able to understand everything that had happened. Yong Ke had truly risked her life to protect him. Obviously, she had also done so because she knew his actions were important. Still, he felt grateful to her. Without her intervention, he might have sustained heavy injuries, even though he was certain he would have come to same result at the end.
Although his wounds inflicted by the ice shards were completely healed, Cao Yun could feel the poison within his flesh. He knew that the same poison was coursing through Yong Ke and the Soul Obsidian Nian Fish's bodies. First of all, he had to find out what poison this was and get rid of it. Then, he would purge Yong Ke and Soul Obsidian Nian Fish as well. For the young woman, this was a show of gratitude as they had fought side by side. But for the demonic beast it was to ensure it would stay alive and would be loyal to him. Instead of using only fear like demonic beast tamers, Cao Yun was convinced that both stick and carrot were useful together. To be honest, Cao Yun wasn't sure what he would do with this beast once Gu Song would be killed. After all, it was dangerous for humans.
But right now, seeing a completely defeated air in its eyes, he couldn't imagine killing it. Of course, he had needs of it. But even later, he wasn't sure he really wanted to kill that beast. Besides, it wasn't forced to devour human souls to survive or even cultivate. It was possible for Cao Yun to teach it other ways. Hongyu and most fenghuang didn't attack human cultivators to develop their demonic cores. Of course, it was different for each species. But for now, Cao Yun put these thoughts aside.
"Miss Yong, we've both been poisoner by this water. The Soul Obsidian Nian Fish won't attack us now, so there is no need to provoke it either. I'll identify the poison and then try to detoxify it. I'm sorry but time is of the essence, so I'll get right to it."
Before Yong Ke could even answer, he sat cross-legged and began to meditate. Since the poison was literally within his body, it wouldn't be too hard for him to get a sample. Thanks to his knowledge of alchemy, he was able to easily control the medicinal essence of pills. And now, he was controlling the toxins within the poison. In fact, his blood had already begun to attack the intruder. The poison was being contained in Cao Yun's blood. It was as though he had a small vial containing all of the poison that had been gathered there. Despite his blood cultivation though, the blood in contact with the poison had turned black. And slowly, it was trying to insinuate itself through this barrier of blood.
Now that he was fully aware of the physical world, it wasn't hard for Cao Yun to take control of this poison. He lead it toward a part of his shoulder, away from his vital organs, just in case. Then, using some Spear Intent, he focused his intent in his fingers and slashed toward the skin. A black ball of blood emerged from the wound just as it was healing itself. Slowly, the ball floated toward Cao Yun.
Now that it was outside of his body, there was way less risk for him to suffer anything. But it wasn't over yet. Indeed, Cao Yun could sense that this poison was literally attacking his Wei Qi. In fact, it might even attack his soul. Against such a demonic beast as a Soul-Sucking Catfish, it would be an ingenious poison.
Seeing how the poison was reacting, Cao Yun was trying to find out possible poisons it could be. If it had been found out by the demonic cultivators in the documents of Demon God Da Mo, only Dian Mo would be useful. Thankfully, Dian Mo had been more and more cooperative lately. In fact, at this very moment, he was observing the poison through Cao Yun's senses and was trying to figure out the exact same thing as the young man. However, nothing came to his mind and this frustrated him.
"You should separate it in several small drops of poison so we can run some tests on it. It would be interesting to see how it reacts to Death Energy or Ghost Energy. Maybe even try to feed it some of the blood of that beast to see how to differs in its reaction compared with human blood."
Dian Mo's advice wasn't absurd. But Cao Yun didn't need to do all that. Indeed, he had already found out only two possible poisons. Both of them came from the book of Tree of Death. And by considering the location they were in, Cao Yun was almost certain of the kind of poison this was. Indeed, one of the two was sensitive to Yin so it would have been useless in this place. Then, there was only one poison that fitted the one Cao Yun was examining. In addition, the description was absolutely spot-on. There were even some details Cao Yun had not yet figured out.
That poison was a 2-star Heaven poison. According to Tree of Death, its most common name was Heart Reversing Tormentor. The way it would act would be to insinuate itself within all the tissues of the physical body. Slowly it would make its way within all three Dantian. But where it was most effective was the Upper Dantian. There, it would cause great anguish and despair. That poison would lower one's will and was perfect to break one's enemies rather than kill them. However, it didn't mean it wasn't deadly.
Depending on the dosage, this poison could corrode the heart and kill someone very easily. In fact, at high doses, the poison would annihilate one's Upper Dantian. The book described how that poison could be used to make someone submit. Tree of Death explained that he had personally used it to torture some prisoners in order to get information. But he also explained some of the diverging effects on demonic beasts. Like many products, this poison had been tested on them before humans.
Unlike humans, demonic beasts didn't have Upper Dantian. However, they still had souls. There was a lot of discussion over where their souls were stored precisely. But just as Prenatal Jing was stored within the kidneys, many believed that the varying souls of the demonic beasts were stored in their organs. Some even thought that each organ had one specific aspect of their souls. That also meant that every single species of demonic beast had their souls in different parts and maybe even separated in different ways.
As such, the poison could more easily affect their souls. And indeed, the soul of the Soul-Sucking Catfish had been heavily injured by that Heart Reversing Tormentor. To be fair, even at full strength, the demonic beast could have never rivaled with Cao Yun's mind. But it had probably made the process faster that its soul had been injured. This also meant something else. The Heart Reversing Tormentor had an antidote that could be given to alleviate the suffering. Most of the pain was not from the flesh but from the very soul. As such, it was harder to resist and almost impossible to get used to it. Clearly, this was the way Gu Song was controlling the beast. He had fed it the poison and as long as it was docile, he was providing the antidote once in a while.
Since Tree of Death had mentioned the antidote, he also explained how to refine it. As the poison was a 2-star Heaven one, the antidote wasn't easy to refine at all. In fact, it was a 1-star Heaven medicine. In theory, only a 1-star Heaven alchemist could refine it. However, this wasn't necessarily the case for Cao Yun. Indeed, the main difference between a Human alchemist and a Heaven alchemist was the ability to see what was going on in the cauldron through spiritual senses. Luckily, Cao Yun could mostly guess what was going on.
Evidently, it wasn't as good as true spiritual senses. But maybe it would be enough for Cao Yun to create the antidote. After all, he didn't need to make a very potent version of the antidote. The poison itself wasn't so well refined. According to the book of Tree of Death, it had barely reached the prerequisite to be called a success. Besides, the antidote was very well described in the book. Tree of Death had a way writing that was getting straight to the point while explaining the most obscure details as well.
Without saying anything, Cao Yun took out his 'Aureate Grove'. Both Yong Ke and the demonic beast had observed him analyze the poison in his black blood. As Yong Ke was calm, the catfish wasn't at all. There was hope in its eye. Maybe the poison that had plagued him for several years could truly be purged. But then, it would still suffer from the seal. However, the seal was only painful when the beast was thinking about attacking Cao Yun. This new master might be an improvement...
Some techniques were still far too complicated for Cao Yun or required abilities he had not yet. However, he was convinced that with his mind cultivation he refine a 1-star Heaven antidote before becoming a Spirit Warrior. Indeed, he had been working on his 'Shen Visualization'. Recently, he had discovered by reading that this method had a real name, the 'Spiritual Sea Refinement'. And it had been very well refined by many generations of alchemists. Most alchemists could only practice it after becoming a Spirit Warrior, but the only real requirement was to be able to enter one's sea of consciousness. As it turned out, Cao Yun had discovered that Mei Hua was also practicing this technique and learned a few tricks from her. Hence, his 'Spiritual Sea Refinement' was very good now.
While he was preparing the ingredients he had in his spatial rings, he had almost a complete image of every fluctuation of medicinal essence within. And as he was preparing them, he could even plan how a refinement would proceed with each processed part. That way, he could adapt his preparation to the upcoming refinement process. This was the true nature of Ingredients Preservation. Not only was Cao Yun thinking about preserving the ingredients during the preparation but also during the subsequent refinement. In fact, he even began to apply the Five Elements Wheel to his very preparation. Just during this phase, Cao Yun's alchemy was gradually improving.
Then, he started the fire by sending a surge of Qi into the 'Aureate Grove Blaze'. This was the occasion to work on his Flame Control. As soon as the fire took, Cao Yun realized that he had become much more sensitive to its properties. In fact, he was able to feel every minute fluctuation within. The fire was truly alive in his eyes. Most likely, this was due to the Rune of Fire that was heating up within the Drop of Wrath. Below it, Dian Mo was very impressed. Although Cao Yun had not understood the Dao of Fire yet, just obtaining this meager rune was impressive for a Mortal Warrior.
In fact, Dian Mo was unable to take his eyes off of Cao Yun's imaginary refinement. In his sea of consciousness, there were now hundreds of cauldrons and furnaces. In each one, there was a different refinement of the same ingredients. Right now, since Cao Yun was not sure how to refine the antidote, he had to try out what would happen. Although he couldn't imagine every single scenario, he was playing around with as many possibilities as he could. In less than an hour, it was as though he had practiced the refinement thousands of times under different conditions.
Cao Yun was aware of Dian Mo's interest. But it didn't disturb him at all. To the contrary, he knew that Dian Mo still had many things to teach him about demons and asura. Although he couldn't trust him completely yet, Cao Yun wanted to establish ties with him. Considering the agreement he had made with him, he had to be subtle to get what he wanted from him. And maybe, there was a way for him to resolve the situation without any conflict. Cao Yun had enough enemies as it was. Even if Dian Mo could not become a friend, he might be able to stop him from being an enemy. Dian Mo seemed to admire Demon God Da Mo. But in the end, Da Mo was the one who had caused him to be trapped in the Demon Palace all his life. And Dian Mo was not a demon. He had no reason to be loyal to them.