An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

At first, neither Heavenjade nor Sang Jinghe understood what Luo Chen wanted to do with so many dragonworms. It was only as they watched him kill the worms one after another and pour their murky blood into the crystalline pool that they gradually realized his intention.

Even though the hundreds of thousands of dragonworms simply lay there without resisting, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of dragonworms was an exhausting task. It took a few days to finish the task even with the three of them working together. By the end, the crystalline bottom of the pool was nowhere to be seen; it was now covered by a thick, murky fluid. Its dark red surface rippled slowly, and the stench of fresh blood hung so heavily in the air that it seemed impossible to disperse.

Sang Jinghe looked at it and sighed regretfully. ”What a waste. If these dragonworms were used properly, they could support the rise of an entire sect.”

He had never expected Luo Chen’s solution to the dragonworm problem to be so direct. Instead of setting up a formation to keep them away, Luo Chen had simply removed the source of the trouble.

Heavenjade was far less concerned. ”This island is huge. There are tens of millions of low-tier dragonworms hidden beneath it. A few hundred thousand mean nothing.”

Luo Chen did not join their conversation. He simply tossed various herbs into the pool, then lowered Black King’s slumbering body into it under his underlings’ watchful eyes. The murky surface bubbled loudly and swallowed Black King little by little until not even a trace of him remained above the pool.

Heavenjade’s eyes lingered on the pool. ”Master, can Black King really recover just by soaking in there?”

”No, it can at most keep him alive.” He turned to her. ”Catch more second-tier dragonworms when you can and add their blood to the pool. Once you’ve recovered, search the surrounding area as well. If you find any Demon Kings, kill them and bring the bodies here.”

Heavenjade did not refuse, though a trace of worry lingered in her eyes. She was only at the middle stage of the Golden Core Realm. Certainly, with her top-grade enchanted treasure, she could hold her own against a late-stage Demon King, but killing one and bringing its corpse back was another matter entirely.

Luo Chen seemed to have anticipated that concern. ”Take this flame with you.”

With a flick of his finger, three azure sparks separated from the fiery tree and slowly sank into Heavenjade’s forehead.

”If you run into something you can’t handle, pour some energy into the flame. It should be enough to protect you. You can go now.”

After dismissing the two of them, Luo Chen sat cross-legged before the Blood Pool. His expression gradually hardened with resolve, and he lightly bit the tip of his tongue, forcing out a single drop of blood essence.

The crimson droplet fell into the Blood Pool, and the still surface erupted as if water had splashed into hot oil. A series of sharp crackles echoed out, and Black King’s body flickered in and out of view amid the violent reaction. It took a while for the rejection to calm down, and only then did the appearance of the pool begin to change. The murky blood, clouded by the mixture of countless dragonworms’ blood, slowly cleared and deepened into a vivid scarlet.

A voice sounded beside Luo Chen. ”For a mere spirit pet, you are truly willing to spend your vital energy. I have to say, I’m surprised.”

At some point, a figure had silently appeared beside Luo Chen. His complexion was unnaturally pale, as though he existed somewhere between life and death, but his features were almost identical to Han Zhan’s.

Luo Chen looked over. ”What brings you here?”

Han Zhan chuckled. ”You made a huge commotion earlier. How could I not come take a look?”

Luo Chen slowly rose to his feet and studied him for a moment. ”How well have you adapted to the new body?”

Han Zhan stretched his limbs and clicked his tongue. ”To be honest, not terribly well. Flying Cloud’s cultivation realm was different from mine, and even our spirit roots don’t match. His meridians and the opened acupoints are all different from what I’m used to, so it isn’t all that easy to control. Right now, my Nascent Soul has only settled into his Purple Mansion. It’s still far from a true possession. At this rate, it will take at least ten years before I fully adapt and recover my peak strength.”

He waved a hand dismissively. ”Enough about me. You went to all this trouble to build a Four-Spirit Blood Pool. Can it really save Black King?”

Luo Chen replied quietly, ”It’ll take time. I’ll heal his physical injuries first and deal with the remaining problems later on. As for his soul... I may have to trouble you when the time comes, Senior.”

”Okay, that’s not a problem.” Han Zhan instinctively reached up to stroke a beard that never existed. His hand froze for a moment before dropping behind his back. ”But you should be thinking about yourself, too. You still need to break through to the ninth stage of the Golden Core Realm before you can attempt Nascent Soul formation.”

”Yeah, I know.”

”Then aren’t you worried about damaging your foundation? Earlier, you forced out your heart blood. Now you’ve burned your vital energy to force out another drop of blood essence from the tip of your tongue.”

Luo Chen smiled faintly. ”Don’t worry about me. Since I dared to do it, I’m confident it won’t affect my cultivation.”

His confidence was not empty bravado. Blood essence was formed from the fusion of mana, blood, and dense life force, so ordinary cultivators would never use it recklessly. Luo Chen, however, was different. After devouring the main body of the Flesh Ganoderma, he had obtained an amount of life force that could only be classified as frightening. Even after using it to complete his Nirvana of Flesh, he had still not fully refined what remained within him. Losing a few drops of blood essence would at most consume a portion of his mana, and it would not truly injure his foundation.

More importantly, the Four-Spirit Blood Pool required powerful blood as its core, and among all the resources Luo Chen possessed, only the blood essence produced by his ancient-beast-like body was apt for that purpose.

”Alright. As long as you know what you’re doing.” Han Zhan shrugged somewhat stiffly, then turned and walked away.

Luo Chen watched his departing back with a slight frown. The awkward pause when Han Zhan tried to stroke his beard had not escaped his notice, nor had the stiffness in that casual shrug. Clearly, he still had not fully adjusted to this body. Still, Luo Chen could not help but wonder if possessing a physical body was really that difficult. After all, he had crushed Flying Cloud’s Nascent Soul, leaving behind nothing more than an empty shell. With Han Zhan’s skills, shouldn’t a few months have been enough for him to move naturally within it?

After letting the thought linger for a moment, he eventually pushed it aside and turned his attention back to the matters at hand. He activated the formation to conceal the Blood Pool from view, then made his way alone to the thatched hut within the abyss.

The moment he stepped inside and sensed the pure spirit energy refined by the formation, a satisfied smile gradually appeared on his face. This place lay directly above the main vein of a fourth-tier spirit vein, and the concentration of spirit energy was incomparably great. Indeed, it fully met the standard of a low-grade fourth-tier spirit vein.

Such an environment, however, was not something most Adepts could endure. For them, cultivating in such a dense environment would be no different from sinking into the depths of the sea. A shallow pond might satisfy thirst, and a deep pool might allow one to swim, but once they dived in too far, the pressure alone would make movement impossible. Fourth-tier spirit energy exerted that same crushing pressure on ordinary Adepts. They would not dare to absorb it recklessly, much less cultivate on top of the main vein.

But those limits did not apply to Luo Chen. He possessed a body comparable to a fourth-tier archaic beast, and after undergoing the Nirvana of Flesh, he had also gained a Fire Spirit Dao Body that allowed him to freely absorb fire-attribute spirit energy. Combined with his Grandmaster proficiency of the Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Scripture, these advantages gave him the confidence to cultivate on a fourth-tier spirit vein despite still being only an Adept.

Under such conditions, the results exceeded even his own expectations. His cultivation speed had increased to at least three times what it had been before he left Surging Lake. To others, such a drastic change would have seemed almost unbelievable, but to Luo Chen, it followed naturally from the circumstances. Each of his cultivation assets was rare enough to shake the cultivation world on its own. When combined with access to a fourth-tier spirit vein, a resource few Adepts could ever hope to enjoy, they pushed his cultivation environment to an extraordinary level.

From Han Zhan’s perspective, Luo Chen should seize this opportunity, devote himself fully to cultivation, and prepare for his eventual breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm. But Luo Chen did not see it that way. After soaking in that Spirit-Shaping Sacred Spring, my cultivation shot up from the sixth stage straight to the eighth. My foundation seems stable on the surface, and honestly, I don’t feel anything wrong right now. But deep down... It feels strangely empty.

By now, Luo Chen had already learned the name of that wondrous spring from the alchemical texts left behind by the Monarch. Its miraculous effects had amazed even him, and if the Monarch had left behind the formula for refining it, he might have tried to recreate it one day.

That, however, was not the real issue. The problem lay in the sudden surge of his cultivation. It was not that his mana was unstable, but that his state of mind had yet to catch up with the sheer power of its flow. Because of this, even in such an excellent cultivation environment, Luo Chen chose to restrain his urge to advance too quickly.

”Let’s temper it a little longer!” he murmured.

With that, he closed his eyes and gradually sank into deep cultivation.