Within Cao Yun's kidneys, there was now a small golden pellet. It wasn't even the size of a small finger, but it was clearly there. In other words, he had begun to cultivate his prenatal Jing. By definition it was the essence received even before birth by both parents. As such, it was almost impossible to increase its quantity. There were a few techniques and a handful of extremely wonderful pills that could help it replicate itself. But any other form of essence that would be absorbed would be postnatal Jing.
Anyway, Cao Yun was clearly altering its quality, not its quantity. And that was good as well. The better its quality, the less prenatal Jing would be wasted in the body. This wasn't yet what demons called Golden Blood, but it was getting closer to it. Despite the name, Golden Blood wasn't literally a blood that was gold in color. This was a blood that was full of vitality and especially of marrow, thus of postnatal Jing as well. However, there would be a few golden drops of blood within the demon's body, this was their essence blood.
Before Cao Yun could reach the stage of Golden Blood, he would have to reach the 4th-grade Golden Blood Child. In the previous grades, he would first have to produce more postnatal Jing and more marrow. After that, he would need to activate what was called Kidney Fire. Thanks to this special kind of fire, he would increase the production of his kidneys. Indeed, the kidneys were using the prenatal Jing to transform postnatal Jing into Qi. By activating this Kidney Fire, the process would be more efficient and thus less wasteful. Finally, he would need to use this Kidney Fire to merge his blood, his Jing and his marrow into one amalgamation known as Golden Blood. Only after that could he circulate and use it.
It would take him a few years to achieve such a result. However, his Rune of Fire and his knowledge of alchemy would obviously help him when it would come to activating and using Kidney Fire. In fact, he might even be able to achieve a breakthrough in those early grades in a year each.
As he had been cultivating next to Feng Yingyue, she had felt his breakthrough in blood cultivation. Blood cultivation wasn't too common in the Hongchen Kingdom. Indeed, only the humans who had a peculiar bloodline practiced it, like the Huang family. However it wasn't too rare either. Thus Feng Yingyue was not surprised by Cao Yun's cultivation. That being said, she could feel that his blood was incredible. After all, he had the Drop of Wrath within.
Of course, his blood wasn't to the level of Axiu Qian. But even the strongest Accomplished Demon would have been surprised.
Apart from Feng Yingyue, Hongyu also felt this change. As a demonic beast, she was very sensitive to blood. Moreover, she was also very familiar with Cao Yun's blood. As such, this breakthrough had a huge impact on her. Her own blood was moved by this. And her fifth core that was still in the process of forming itself began to vibrate as her blood circulated in her veins. With Cao Yun's proximity, the intent of the Drop of Wrath was stronger in her veins, nourishing this core.
Even without the Frozen Fire pill, she was on her way to control the Evil Qi within her evil core. At the very least, she was not in any immediate danger. But she could still suffer from injuries if she tried to use her evil core without being careful.
Sadly, they had almost no time right now as they had to go back to the Alchemy Conference. Cao Yun had barely enough time to begin his exploration of his new cultivation as a 1st-grade Golden Blood Child. That grade was called 'Nourish the Gold'. With his richer blood, he had to nourish the Jing in his kidneys to make it into a solid piece of gold. Along the way, it would help his body produce more postnatal Jing while using less and less prenatal Jing. At the same time, it would increase the production of marrow to replace the old one. Marrow was responsible for the production of blood, thus it would change the nature of one's blood, creating the Golden Blood.
Dian Mo himself was quite impressed with Cao Yun's blood. If he kept on cultivating like that, he might even form the Golden Blood before three or four years. For a demon, this was incredible. But then again, Axiu Qian had reached the seventh or even eighth realm of asura cultivation. These were equivalent to a God or a God-Monarch. Obviously, even the remnants of his blood would help someone speed up their blood cultivation.
Even with this Drop of Blood, Cao Yun was very talented. Not just anyone could use it like he had. In fact, his mind cultivation had truly helped him gain full control over it. If he hadn't, the Drop of Wrath might have taken over his body by this time. Indeed, its intent was now all over Cao Yun's body. Dian Mo realized that he was truly curious to see just how far and how fast Cao Yun would progress. Slowly, the idea of taking over his body and even stealing the Drop of Wrath were dying down. After all, to get that drop of blood, he would need to kill Cao Yun now.
Unfortunately, Dian Mo had no time to talk about his blood cultivation with Cao Yun. The young alchemists mounted Hongyu once again and flew toward the Imperial City.
-
Before long, they had come back to their residence.
Xiao Xuefeng was waiting for them.
"You were almost late... But don't worry, after today's trial, you should have a bit more time to yourselves. And this will be the perfect moment to refine the Frozen Fire pill."
"You're ready?! Already?!"
Song Guixiang answered before Hua Fenfei or Xiao Xuefeng could say anything.
"Who do you think our masters are?! Of course they're ready! Refining a 5-star Heaven pill is nothing to my mistress. And when she works together with Spirit Master Xiao, this is a piece of cake. Although they can't be sure to produce a True Essence pill, they can promise you to make a Pure pill."
"Disciple Song! Do not make promises on behalf of others!"
"Am I wrong though, Mistress?"
After being yelled at by Hua Fenfei, the fat man made teary eyes like a puppy who had been wronged.
"No, you're right. We'll refine you at least a Pure pill. As payment, we'll only ask for three pills for our students. With the ingredients you have, we could probably refine a dozen pills. So just tell us how many you want and we'll get started."
"Thank you, Spirit Master Hua. Five pills would be enough for me. Two of them will be gifts for my brothers. One will be used by Hongyu and I'll keep two to myself. I'll have a third of the ingredients left."
Even if by now he didn't know what else to do with those ingredients, they were very rare. So he wouldn't waste them to make unnecessary pills. In fact, a single one might be enough for him, but with two of them he would be a bit more reassured. Besides, if they were Pure pills, they would be way more efficient than a normal Frozen Fire pill. A single pill wouldn't push him all the way to the 5th-grade Mortal Warrior stage, but it would help him tremendously. On the other hand, it could complete the formation of Hongyu's fifth core.
For now though, they had to go to the Alchemy Conference again. So they did.
-
As each trial was taking place, the arbiter was monitoring everything. Since the first trial, he had not changed.
"Esteemed guests, this has been a wonderful competition during which many juniors had been able to astonish us all. I am glad that our future looks so bright. Our Hongchen Kingdom went through a lot and we are still faced with many hardships even today. But never forget that our kind has been through much worse and we always triumphed in the end. Our children are the hope for the future of our kind."
No one really paid attention to the arbiter to be honest. They were waiting for the last test. However, he still decided to give a small speech. In truth, he had been waiting for all the participants to enter the stage. Once they did, he finally announced the contents of this day.
"And now, the trial you have all been waiting for. This one will be a bit special as we will ask our competitors to perform an unusual technique, 'Writing Life With Fire'. This is an odd alchemical technique. It has been invented by an obscure alchemist more than seventeen centuries ago. Almost no one has tried to master it and only a few have even used it. Master Jiangle created it by accident. He wrote it down and gave it a name without knowing how it could really be useful. But it turned out to be a good thing he had written it down. Indeed, another alchemist was inspired by it and created the famous 'Taming the Breathing Heat'. Almost every alchemist has read this book at least once. Nowadays, it is one of the standards to train one's control over fire."
Indeed, Cao Yun had read this book too. And it had been quite insightful. However, he had no recollection of a technique named 'Writing Life With Fire' despite every book he had read. For a moment, he even wondered whether the arbiter was lying or not. But at the very least, he believed what he was saying. Maybe the book was so obscure that almost no one had made any copies. Anyway, it wasn't very important. But Cao Yun was intrigued by an unknown technique that seemed useless to its own creator but that could have inspired such a great book.
When he looked around, Cao Yun realized that all the alchemists were just as confused as he was while trying to appear stoic. With his mind cultivation and his knowledge of the corporeal soul, Cao Yun could more easily identify feelings. Of course, he wasn't always right, but it wasn't too difficult to see that no one, not even Feng Yingyue, seemed to know of this technique.
On the stage, the last trial was ready to take place. There were only twenty tables now. And on the tables, there were a few white pellets. They were absolutely blank. Cao Yun tried to inspect them and they had no smell, no color and even no form of energy within them, either Qi or medicinal essence.
On the side of the tables, there were various ingredients as well. By looking at them Cao Yun realized that they were not very compatible. In fact, he couldn't determine any pill that would use them all. He could make several pills with some of those ingredients, but all together, it would be almost impossible to refine anything. Maybe this technique was about mixing incompatible ingredients together. But it didn't make sense. Certainly this technique had something to do with fire since 'Taming the Breathing Heat' was about Flame Control...
And it made sense for a competition. The manipulation of fire was always greatly appreciated by any audience. Someone who was a connoisseur of alchemy could see many subtleties within while a neophyte could still enjoy the fireworks. A Human alchemist could manipulate several tongues of fires. Each one could have a specific temperature and specific properties adding a specific color to it. Obviously, they could create beautiful shows.
On each table, the arbiter sent a manual for the competitors to read. The alchemists took the manual in front of them and began to read. This was clearly a copy of the original manual as it was almost new. Quickly, they all understood the concept behind the technique.
It was a way to extract medicinal essence to directly put it inside a pill. Indeed, Cao Yun could understand why such a technique had been deemed worthless. Within a cauldron, there was a subtle harmony between the different medicinal essences of all the ingredients. The medicinal essences were even transformed by the process itself. Only through this refinement would the pill gain any property. This method on the other hand was just about extracting the pure medicinal essence from one ingredient to put it into a pellet.
Apparently, Master Jiangle had discovered this method while studying how to prepare ingredients. Although it was rather useless for alchemists, he had thought it interesting nonetheless and was wondering whether someone might have any use for it. Besides the alchemists, he was also intrigued whether physicians or apothecaries would maybe find some use for this technique. In the end, he had inspired several new techniques in all those fields but his own achievement was forgotten, just a stepping stone used by others.
Unfortunately this was the fate of many scholars. Finding something new wasn't enough. It was also necessary to find its proper use. Sometimes, the greatest innovation was not a new technique or a new good, but it was finding another use for something that already existed. Sadly, Master Jiangle had invented his technique but had been unable to alter it enough for it to be of interest. Others had then drawn inspiration from it to create their own techniques.
As he was reading the manual, Cao Yun realized that this technique, 'Writing Life With Fire', heavily relied on one's control over his flames. In fact, Master Jiangle even suggested that this might be a good way to train new alchemists. Once again, there had been better ways to do so since then and his contribution was mostly forgotten.
The technique in itself was extremely difficult to use and that explained in great part why no one had found it useful. First of all, only a Mortal Warrior could hope to achieve it and even then, it would be very complicated. However, Cao Yun was even more interested in this. Since he had the Rune of Fire, learning new ways to sue the flames was intriguing. Even if he could not access the Dao of Fire just yet, he could get closer and closer, preparing for the day he could finally look at the Dao directly as he was certain he would become a Sage some day.