Having reverted to human form and put on a new set of clothes, Ye Han lamented the inconvenience of his transformations, noting the need to prepare extra clothing for after each change. The dual transformations within a day had significantly drained his spiritual energy, causing intermittent bouts of dizziness.
"Now, my soul is not strong enough to sustain prolonged transformations, and my actual strength is only at the peak of the fourth level. After transforming, I can barely reach the level of a fifth-tier. I am still very weak."
After setting up a simple concealment array, Ye Han sat within it to cultivate. This time, however, he wasn't absorbing energy but continuously purifying the Yin energy within him.
Repeated cycles of refinement emitted some energy from his body, which were mixtures of Yin energy and other energies. The robust energy within him, after purification, was reduced to less than four-fifths of its original amount, but Ye Han was not dismayed.
Understanding the importance of a solid foundation in cultivation for future advancement and mastery over his energies, Ye Han was determined to strengthen his base.
Once he could refine no further, the energy that had originally been at the peak of the fourth tier had now dwindled to the level of a late fourth-tier. It was an amount of energy that would take others more than two years to accumulate, yet Ye Han readily released it.
As dusk fell and a silver light shone from the horizon, Ye Han's energy purification came to an end. After a day of cultivation, his spiritual strength had fully recovered.
With his bloodline awakened, Ye Han no longer needed to consume food but could sustain himself simply by absorbing blood. Thus, he felt no hunger.
"I must quickly increase my strength." Recalling the formidable families behind his enemies and his own lack of power to contend with them, especially after witnessing the power of the Black Dragon and Autrus, Ye Han's desire for strength reached an unprecedented level.
Ye Han decided to refine the essence blood of the Black Dragon that night. Essence blood, unlike ordinary blood, is produced in very small amounts over a creature's lifetime. A dragon race member, even after living for thousands of years, only produces a few hundred drops. Loss of essence blood signifies the end of life.
Essence blood contains the essence, energy, and spirit of a being. It's second only to the soul in importance but is dispersed throughout the body and difficult to detect, leading to little research on it. Zombies, however, who deal with blood all their lives, have a deeper understanding of essence blood and have methods to extract it from other beings. For zombies, essence blood is a delicacy, packed with energy and a small amount of soul force.
Since a zombie's soul is trapped in a dead body, unable to comprehend the heavenly path, their soul does not grow, except by absorbing the soul force in the essence blood of other beings.
Ye Han slowly gathered the dispersed essence blood of the Black Dragon in front of his Corpse Pill, rotating the Fan Shi Jue to refine the essence blood. Pure blood energy separated from the essence blood, flowing through the vessels around the Corpse Pill. The golden blood of the Black Dragon, now only a cloud-like substance surrounding the Corpse Pill, contained the dragon's essence, energy, and a trace of soul force.
Suddenly, Ye Han's soul exerted a suction force, absorbing the cloud.
In the soul space within Ye Han, his will materialized as a figure. "How did I get here?"
Suddenly, a dragon tens of zhang in size appeared in front of the figure, and an intense sense of crisis arose from deep within the soul. The figure trembled slightly, stepping back, trying to withstand the dragon's oppression.
"Lowly human, you dare to try to devour my soul," the dragon seemed to see through the figure's thoughts, its wings sweeping towards Ye Han fiercely.
The immense pressure made it impossible for Ye Han to move. "Am I going to die here?"
As the dragon's wing swept closer, Ye Han shuddered, "You are my slave; how can you defy me?" he shouted, his frail body suddenly expanding countless times. A huge hand reached out and smashed towards the dragon, which with a reluctant roar, disintegrated into light and merged into the soul space.
Then the scene shifted.
"Mother," seeing his mother from his previous life, her face weathered, she looked at him lovingly.
"Mother," Ye Han knelt on the ground, walking towards his mother step by step. Just as he was about to grasp her hand, his father from this life, Helian Jing Lei, appeared beside her. With a flick of his hand, "Get away, this is the 'good son' you raised, he has lost the face of our Helian family." His mother, like the mother from this life, flew out and hit a stone pillar. The same scene replayed.
"You waste."
"You disgrace to our
clan."
Humiliating scenes unfolded one after another.
"No, I'm not a waste, I'm not," Ye Han roared loudly, trying to defend himself.
But what he received were only scoffs and abusive words.
Seeing the laughing faces of the crowd, even his dying mother with a disdainful smile, rage surged within him.
"You all look down on me, laugh at me. Then die," Ye Han's soul vibrated, and all the images, all the people, began to distort.
"No one can make me submit, no one," Ye Han roared.
The strong will and soul force shattered all the images.
Ye Han slowly opened his eyes to see that the array he had set up was completely destroyed, and all the plants within three zhang had been annihilated.
"Phew, that was too dangerous just now. If I couldn't break through, I would have died," Ye Han frowned. Such an experience only occurs when breaking through zombie levels, absorbing the resentment of others' souls, which surge and interfere with one's soul during the breakthrough. If one cannot overcome it, the result is the dispersal of the soul.
"Could it be that..." Ye Han immediately closed his eyes to sense the situation within his body, and after checking, he was overjoyed.
Fan Shi Jue had unknowingly reached the fourth level, running several times faster than before and absorbing energy more quickly. What shocked Ye Han most was that the originally egg-sized grey Corpse Pill had grown.
"Ha ha, mid-stage level four zombie. I didn't expect that the essence blood of the Black Dragon would raise my level by one tier." When Ye Han formed his Corpse Pill, the vast energy from the red Corpse Pill of Yan Yu had brought him to the early stage of a level four zombie. Unexpectedly, after absorbing the Black Dragon's essence blood, he broke through another barrier.
"The essence blood of the saintly tier contains much more energy and soul force than ordinary people, and since I'm at a low level, naturally I can break through. But absorbing the soul within the essence blood of the saintly tier..." Remembering that, Ye Han shuddered. If the Black Dragon hadn't been marked with the Blood Mark and a soul brand, Ye Han would not have been able to absorb it smoothly.
"It seems I can only absorb essence blood from those with equal strength to mine. That is, from people with the power of the fifth tier." After the breakthrough, Ye Han's power directly reached the level of a fifth-tier swordsman in this world, leaping three minor levels.
"Meteor Pursues the Moon"
Among the mountains, a figure flashed quickly, calling out. The iron sword in the hand of the moving figure flew out, splitting into three. Three sword shadows shot towards the mountainside at a speed indiscernible to the naked eye.
"Boom"
Stones shattered, dust billowed, and a purple light shot out rapidly. The figure in the air spun and caught the long sword, landing steadily on the ground.
Looking at the large hole in the mountain, two zhang deep and several zhang wide, a young and handsome youth smiled slightly.
"The sword techniques of the immortals are indeed extraordinary," Ye Han, with the experience of Yan Yu and the Sovereign for tens of thousands of years, naturally picked up the sword quickly.
After Ye Han broke through to the mid-level four zombie, he spent a few days consolidating before realizing that his methods of attack were monotonous. Thus, he decided to practice swordsmanship, choosing to train with the sword based on a childhood dream of being a swordsman. He found a sword technique from the memories of the Sovereign used by sword immortals in the cultivation world to practice - Yi Jian Technique.