Now that he was with his breakthrough, Cao Yun could focus on gathering Fire Qi in his Middle Dantian to prepare it for the Lesser Tribulation. After that, he would need to temper his meridians then his extraordinary vessels to prepare them for the impact of Water Qi and Fire Qi that would give birth to his Soul Embryo. Those two grades were quite similar to what he had already done with his Five Prodigious Gates. Once his Middle Dantian would be filled with Fire Qi, it would naturally overflow and circulate in his body.
Through the use of different Qi, Cao Yun would then temper his meridians as a blacksmith would temper a weapon. In fact, he had already done this with his Five Prodigious Gates. In theory, as a 3rd-grade Mortal Warrior, he shouldn't have had Fire Qi in great quantity. But thanks to his blood cultivation, he now had a lot of it in his blood.
Thanks to his experience, his Rune of Fire and his blood, those last three grades would become easier to practice. Accumulating Fire Qi in the Middle Dantian could require up to ten years even to talented cultivators. Through the consumption of pills, alchemists could speed the process but hurting the Middle Dantian was always a risk. Since this Dantian was literally centered around the heart, few tried to take any chances. Some were able to break through this grade in four to five years though.
Then, the two grades before the Lesser Tribulation could take around five years each. And they were more difficult to shorten through alchemy. Indeed, the pills that could temper and strengthen meridians were all very rare and difficult to refine. As such, even talented alchemists couldn't cut it in half like some other grades. Usually, those three grades would thus take somewhere between ten to twenty years for talented alchemists. For an average cultivator, it could require several decades. In fact, some never even reached the Lesser Tribulation. And some had too fragile a cultivation to attempt such a dangerous step.
Obviously, Cao Yun was not too worried. Right now, he had a very stable foundation to progress forward. His mind cultivation was almost on part with a 1st-grade Spirit Warrior thanks to the Flying Poison. His blood was brimming with Fire Qi. And he had already got the hang of tempering his acupoints with different Qi within his body. Even if he wouldn't be able to become a Spirit Warrior in the next ten years, he was confident in his ability to do so in less than twenty years. In other words, he would certainly beat his father's speed. Cao Guang had indeed become a Spirit Warrior at 45. And Cao Yun would become one before he even turned 40.
Ironically, Cao Yun's blood cultivation might be way faster than that. By the time of the Alchemy Conference, he would become a Golden Blood Child. From there, he would nourish his marrow and create the Golden Blood, a form of blood mixed with the marrow and extremely rich in Jing. After enhancing his entire body with that, he would reach the Accomplished Demon realm. As it happened to be, he had more or less already performed the first grade of the Accomplished Demon realm as he had subdued Axiu Qian's Flying Poison. Subduing his own now would become easier, especially with his mind cultivation.
Obviously, Cao Yun couldn't reveal his blood cultivation in public. But it might be faster to him to surpass Emperor Weide through this path rather than through his Qi cultivation. The Drop of Wrath and 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' would greatly increase his speed.
For now, Cao Yun decided to keep working on all three of those cultivation methods. In a sense, he was following a completely new path as his mind would complement his blood and his blood would complement his Qi. Maybe it was closer to what the Three Jade Saints had been cultivating in the distant past, before the humans even existed.
After subduing his Po of Jing, Cao Yun decided to follow the cultivation of the demons from the Accomplished Demon realm. He would work on his Po of Qi. This part of his Po was related to shame and disgrace and as a Turbid Demon, it was called the Unclean Evil. Those parts of his Po also had another name. The Po of Jing was referred to as the Soul of Earth and the Po of Qi as the Soul of Wood. Of course, those were the elements from the Five Elements Wheel of alchemy.
Cao Yun didn't have a lot of shame or dishonor. In fact, he really only had two memories of shame. The first one was when he had let his younger sister be captured. As much as he tried to tell himself that he was simply too young and too weak to do anything, it didn't take away his feelings about it. He had seen his sister taken from him while he survived. And the next he saw her, there were only a few pieces of her body that had been recovered by the Huang family.
His only other shame was very recent. It was the fact that he had left Zhong Ling to die. Of course, he hadn't known about her presence by Xue Rui's side. But it was certainly because he had pushed him too far that he had killed her. Besides, she wasn't just dead. Just like Qiang Zilang, her very soul had been consumed. Everything that she had been was now gone. There was no hope for any form of reincarnation.
Now that he had the hang of it, Cao Yun tried to focus on those shameful moments. He also tried to extend the scope to think about any single thing that could cause him shame in some sense. Ironically, because he had little experience with this feeling, it would probably be a bit more difficult. But thanks to his experience with the Flying Poison, it wouldn't be too hard either. In a year or two, he would have extracted every ounce of the Unclean Evil from his Po.
In fact, every single aspect of his Po would take him somewhere between one to two year. In other words, he would have accomplished the entirety of the third layer of 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' in the following decade.
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Now that he was ready to go, he asked Hall Master Qinghe Ming if he had some important news. Unfortunately, he had nothing more to reveal Cao Yun. The Hongchen Kingdom had been rather calm this past year, for change. But that was hiding two great threats. First of all, the Empyrean Asura Theocracy was getting ready for war and it would erupt in less than ten years. In fact, it could start at any time now. A single incident could be the ignition needed. For now, both sides were trying to get as prepared as possible. No one knew when things would really escalate.
Speaking of threats, the second one remained the demonic cultivators. Indeed, from what Cang Yin had said, they were simply biding their time until the Alchemy Conference. Striking down the most talented of the young alchemists would indeed be a terrible wound for the Hongchen Kingdom. But with what he knew, Cao Yun figured that the real target had to be Emperor Weide. The Alchemy Conference was probably a mere distraction.
As the security would be strengthened around the alchemists, the Emperor would be less protected. Although Yong Ke had told him that he had mostly recovered, the Demon King was also a 9th-grade Spirit Warrior. Even if Cao Yun was certain that the Emperor wouldn't be killed that easily, he hoped for him to get heavily injured once more. In that case, the people would turn toward Matriarch Huang and Sect Leader Xuan.
Since Matriarch Huang had great ambitions, Cao Yun might even be able to use her to take down the Emperor. Of course, this wouldn't be that easy. But Cao Yun didn't want to destroy the Hongchen Kingdom. Even if he had to postpone his vengeance, he couldn't risk sacrificing the fate of mankind to meet out justice for his family. Hopefully, his parents would understand him.
Unfortunately, Cang Yin's fate was still unknown. The Imperial City would decide on it. And with Governor Jiahe's indecisive nature, he wouldn't do anything without a direct order. In fact, by the time they would extract any useful information out of her, the threat would have already become reality. It would have been way better for Cao Yun to try and extract her soul himself. After all, in theory, he had now the ability to do so with his Flying Poison. But of course, he couldn't have done so in front of the two Spirit Warriors...
Politics was quite a shame. If they had let Cang Yin cross into the Sunmen Province, they could have legitimately delivered her to the Silver Wolf General. Considering his reputation, he would have dealt with the situation already. But Cao Yun had been almost certain that Patriarch Xue would have objected to that. After all, he needed someone still alive to blame as all the others were dead.
For now, Cao Yun had no time to get back to the Wubei Sect before the Alchemy Conference. As such, he quickly bid farewell to the Yun family. Since he was their official representative to the Alchemy Conference, he added their emblem to his alchemist robe. He now had the emblem of the Wubei Sect, the 5-star Human alchemist emblem and the crest of the Yun family along with the emblem of the Subei Province as a whole. His robe was starting to look a bit crowded.
Unfortunately, the Major Hall had not found the last ingredient Cao Yun needed for his pill, the Universe Spanning Frost. To be fair, this was a 5-star Heaven ingredient. It was even one the ingredients of the Life Boiling Cradle pill, the 1-star Spirit pill refined by Spirit Masters Xiao and Hua.
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Riding on Hongyu, Cao Yun flew toward the Imperial City. Once again, he could have reached his destination faster, but space itself was difficult to navigate because of past scars due to the Great War against the demons. There were also array formations blocking him here and there. And he also had to justify his identity at several outposts. Of course, the closer he was getting to the Imperial City, the stricter the controls were. In fact, just like in Qingyun City, he could fly near the Imperial City itself.
The flight took around three months, but he would arrive before the first day of the Alchemy Conference.
Using this time, Cao Yun tried to alter Hongyu's evil core. Now that he had improved a little his understanding of 'Death Verses' and of seals, he tried to manipulate the evil core to form of stronger seal in it. Quickly he realized that this was way easier than before.
In fact, his seal would keep Hongyu safe for quite some time. Besides, the Drop of Wrath was now under his full control so his blood had improved again. And Cao Yun's intent was literally the intent of the Drop of Wrath. As such, he was able to replenish the intent within Hongyu's blood. Maybe he might even be able to improve her blood overall through his own cultivation. As long as her body could resist the Evil Qi she had within, there wouldn't be any problem anymore for her.
As he was doing so, he also decided to work on his new Black Heart Flame. Thanks to the Rune of Fire, he was able to control it with great ease. And he went back to trying to decipher 'Death Verses'. The more he worked with Death Energy, the more he would understand the Insight Writings within.
Slowly, he was able to discern more and more of 'Living Death'. Since Death Energy was a corrupted form of Po, it was possible to use one's Po in order to create Death Energy. But it was also possible to momentarily turn one's Po into Death Energy. In fact, the opposite was also true. It was possible to turn Death Energy into pure Po in order to replenish one's soul or even improve one's soul cultivation. Live could become death and death could become life.
Obviously, both of those transformations were difficult and dangerous. If one used all of their Po, their body would die. And if one lost control of Death Energy while supplementing their Po, it could corrupt it entirely.
With that in mind, Cao Yun decided to not work right away on this. However, he had Death Energy at his disposal, so he could still try to turn it into Po and back. This Black Heart Flame could help him develop even more spiritual senses. Indeed, if he could turn a significant part of it into a soul, he could then send it outward and use it as spiritual senses, just like Flying Poison. In fact, he might be able to improve Flying Poison even more.
Instead of risking his own Po, he would start with the Black Heart Flame. Then, he could still train with Flying Poison. And only after he had mastered all those steps would he risk, or not, working with his very soul.
Besides, he also trained on his 'Death Splintering Palm'. This was the only attack he had derived from 'Death Verses'. With a physical attack, he could strike the Po of someone else. Of course, with the Black Heart Flame and the Flying Poison, he could improve this technique. In fact, he could send a part of the entire Flying Poison within someone's body through his palm attack.
After the first three verses, 'Death Verses' still had seven more for him to master.
Finally, he also tried to understand the next stage of 'Weeping Demon'. 'Bleeding Eyes' was a technique that could assault one's mind without the use of spiritual senses. However, there were other moves that would require the use of spiritual senses. The easiest of those moves was 'Sea of Blood'. Through this technique, one could turn the sea of consciousness of someone else into a bloody battlefield.
Now that he had could send a soul outside of his body, Cao Yun could work on this move. Besides, it was working very well with his Drop of Wrath. If he sent the fury of Flying Poison into someone's sea of consciousness, that could do a lot of damage without him even acting.
As he worked intensely during the entire travel, Cao Yun didn't even realize that he had finally crossed the borders of the Wang Province, where the Imperial City was.