Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

It was damn near impossible to find even a single section of a Primordial’s corpse. And even when one came up, it usually vanished from the public eye, forever hidden by someone strong enough to acquire it or rich enough to buy it.

As such, even as the Artifact God, Shen Yaojia had yet to see more than a handful of them in her entire life.

And now, she got to witness the never-before-seen corpse of one of the strongest creatures in history, with nothing more than a single feather having been removed from its body.

The corpse was a massive thing, over 10 meters wide in every direction. Looking at it, Shen Yaojia had only now come to realize that Alex had taken out one of the smaller feathers from its massive body. She began walking around the beast, carefully looking over its yellow body.

There was the slightest hint of orange around the edges of its tail feathers, and a slightly darker orange on the tip of its beak. But beyond that, the bird was almost entirely yellow. And just as she had previously sensed from the single feather Alex had given her, the aura inside the beast’s corpse was made up of a single element.

Yang.

She looked over the beast for a while before turning toward Alex. ”What did you do with the beast core?” she asked. ”That is far more important than this corpse.”

”It wasn’t there when I found it,” Alex answered truthfully. ”Whatever happened to it in the past, the core was already gone.”

”Hmm...” She turned back toward the corpse. ”That’s partially annoying. But I suppose I understand. You said you found it in the beast realm?”

”Yes, senior.”

”Then some beast without much understanding may have stolen the core long ago,” she said before pausing. ”No, why am I discrediting them? Some beast must’ve understood the importance of the core and purposefully taken it with them.”

Alex chose to let her think whatever she wanted to think.

”May I ask what you will need to create that robe for me?” Alex asked.

The woman looked down at the corpse for a moment, thinking to herself for a long while. ”What are your thoughts on butchering the corpse? The thought itself feels blasphemous to me for some reason, but if we want to know what we can do with the corpse, we need to see the beast in individual parts rather than in its entirety.”

Alex did not immediately answer her. Instead, he had someone else’s thoughts to consider.

”Ray,” he called out to the beast that worked tirelessly on the shield.

”Yes, master?” the bird responded almost immediately.

Alex explained what the Artifact God had suggested and asked for his opinion on it. ”What do you think? Should we butcher your dead body or not?”

”You do not have to ask me, master,” the beast said. ”I am your humble servant. So long as you think it is acceptable, I will follow your lead.”

”No,” Alex said. ”I will stick to your opinion here. If you say that my opinion matters more than yours, then I command you to give me your honest opinion on this matter.”

Those words made Ray hesitate for a moment. He couldn’t immediately answer what he thought should be done. After a moment, he nodded.

”It makes sense to butcher my corpse entirely and separate it into parts, but I suggest you don’t do that right away,” he said. ”As far as I understand, you are working to be able to make artifacts yourself. There may come a time in the future when you wish to turn my entire body into a single artifact, and butchering it may make that impossible.”

Alex considered his words for a moment and nodded. ”But without butchering the corpse, I cannot tell much about the aura that is inside each part of your corpse. Your heart may contain a different Yang aura than your bones. Your muscles might hold different properties than your feathers. Together, the auras get jumbled up and become hard to determine.”

Ray took in those words before replying. ”Is that the only issue you have in regard to this?”

Alex paused for a moment. ”Pretty much. Why?”

”Then... I can just tell you what the properties are,” Ray said. ”I must admit it will take some time for me to go through it all, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

Alex blinked for a long few seconds. ”Wait, you can just tell me about the properties? I don’t need to butcher the corpse?”

”Yes. That way, you can keep the aura locked in as well, and you won’t have to damage my dead body,” Ray said.

Alex hadn’t even thought that such a simple method was in any way possible.

”Well then, I suppose that answers my question. Thank you.”

”It is my pleasure, master.”

Ray returned to removing the Reduction aura from the shield, and Alex returned his senses to where the Artifact God had been patiently waiting for his answer.

”I’ve decided not to butcher it, senior,” Alex answered. ”I’ll resort to it in the future if I need to, but for now, the decision is that the corpse will remain intact.”

The Artifact God frowned slightly, looking disappointed. She wanted more than anything to look into the full corpse of the Primordial beast, but she couldn’t argue against him since it belonged to him.

”Alright then, help me pluck the feathers,” she said.

”How many will be needed?” Alex asked.

She paused for a moment. ”Let’s say half for now. If it’s not enough, I’ll ask for more later.”

Alex accepted that offer. Together, the two of them extracted the feathers from the Three-Legged Crow’s corpse until half of it was plucked away, piling up a small mound next to them that was taller than they were.

The Artifact God looked at the pile and nodded to herself.

”Yeah, this will do.”