Archfiend

“Master, according to what I know, the number of commissions accepted by Senior Jadewave numbers in the double-digits. Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment ones. But under the premise that Senior is interested, there is another scenario, and that is a commission only it can solve. Moreover, no matter the cultivator, Senior won’t covet the commission.”

Xu Yangyi took Li Zongyuan’s proffered Fasting Capsule. “This is the last?”

“Master… I’ll find another way.” 

Xu Yangyi nodded. “Wait one more month for me. In a month, I’ll personally go to the Four Great Joint Pools.” 

“Yes!”

He stood up and took a Cleansing Talismans to wash his body, stepping into the the cultivation room without a second glance.

Such an old monster… Xu Yangyi didn’t believe for a second that this Senior Jadewave’s strength was inadequate. It dared so fearlessly to accept decryption expense from all parties, abstaining from neither human nor demon. This wasn’t it being reckless, but rather it possessed such confidence! Even though Jadewave persevered for a millennia, content with its place, Xu Yangyi still had to make absolute preparations. 

Sitting before the pill furnace, he needed to wait for a month… because he was on the verge of breaking through!

Back then, he ought to have advanced, yet an unknown person mysteriously interrupted him. While a Qi Condensation cultivator wouldn’t suffer damage to their foundation, the one breaking through would lose a portion of their qi.

Without Heavens Law’s conditions, it took him more than half a year to cultivate his lost qi back again. Following the growing proficiency of Wind Brandishes Traces, he also felt a kind of full swelling in his dantian become increasingly apparent at the same time!

The Fire Manipulation Art was an elementary arcane effort of the Eternal Alchemy Canon. Once mastered, the other arts would no longer require as much time. In front of the veil of solving the Emperor Armament, gaining another hidden ace was a hidden ace in hand. He didn’t have to cultivate right away, but by peacefully sitting in this secret room, he could arrange his thoughts.

“Money is never saved but rather spent…” He seemed to soliloquize to himself. “By opening a water source but controlling the flow, the open source is always before the throttle. Instead of skimping out and live frugally, it’s better to roll with style when working with others.”

“No matter who it is. Whether they’re a demon, human, or cultivator. As long as the heart is firm, what does whatever the world has to say have to do with me?”

The people of the world laugh at my madness, I laugh at them because they cannot see. 

With the trace of a smile, he shut his eyes, and his spiritual sense erupted with a rumble! After the passage of half a year of bitter cultivation, his tide-like spiritual sense seemed to be a myriad tentacles, wildly extending within the room!

Compared to half a year ago when he had begun training, it had expanded by at least a tenth! If this figure was spoken of, it would surely cause other cultivators to go mad! This was equivalent to a gratuitous qi absorption rate of over a tenth! 

Inside the cultivation room, his meticulous spiritual sense could almost be considered to resemble fine hairs. He sensed the fruit of his half year of hard work, and the solitary and loneliness instantly scattered away like ash. All that remained was the gratification of his strength rising to a higher level.

There was no delay whatsoever. He manipulated all of his spiritual sense, and in a twinkling, pulled all the surrounding air into the suddenly ignited flame beneath the furnace. He carefully manipulated each sliver of spiritual sense. He was rather moved because of this ancient cultivation alchemy technique. 

Not only had the mere Wind Brandishes Traces tempered the solidification rate of his spiritual sense, this art had even furthered its attentiveness! He understood his own body very clearly. The progress of this half year was even faster than two or three years at Heavens Law! If not, because so much qi was used in a breakthrough, it would’ve been impossible of him to get it back in half a year. 

Xu Yangyi learned how to exercise spiritual force with extreme precision, not using a bit less and by no means using a bit more. Furthermore, it tempered his hard-earned meticulousness, multitasking ability, and his manipulation of spiritual sense to draw upon wind power. From the very beginning of the flame extinguishing in just a couple minutes to now... 

He was already capable of lasting for five hours and fifty-five minutes!

He was only five minutes short from being considered at minor completion in the Eternal Alchemy Canon and entering the next phase. Alchemy hammered his spiritual sense in refinement, and spiritual sense was capable of deepening one’s acuity towards worldly qi, directly increasing the absorption rate of qi. Thus, it repaid oneself. In the past few days, he had secretly calculated it, and his current cultivation speed should’ve been about three times greater than some cultivators outside!

Of course, that wasn’t to say he was totally capable. He was only at stage where he could “use” it, still far from being “able”. Merely, this ability to use it represented that he could cultivate the next step!

Already, he was impatient to break through this final obstacle! At the same time, that swelled sensation within his qi sea reminded him, as well. Perhaps that step of treading into the Eternal Alchemy Canon’s introduction was the instant he would assail the middle stage of Qi Condensation. 

Originally, he had already bought the materials, but the sole matter worthy of rejoice at the moment was that these materials weren’t required for the time being. They could be stored and used later as soon as he reached great completion in the way of alchemy. This also wasn’t considered a waste.

He just hadn’t anticipated the Fire Manipulation Art would be so difficult to train. Time passed day by day. More than twenty days had already went by.

“You feel anything?” On the twenty-first day, Zhang Gongchang, who was bored senseless scrolling a web page, suddenly furrowed his brows, raised his head, and asked Li Mu who was in the middle of playing with his cell phone.

Li Mu paused, set down his cell phone, and strained his senses. He said suspiciously, “The qi… has increased?”

“It’s become strong.” Wang Chunlai drank his boiled water and followed up, “It started yesterday.”

“What’s going on?” Zhang Gongchang placed his computer mouse down. “A location’s qi density is constant. It gets weaker the bigger the city, and higher the closer to nature. This place is already considered decent, so how can it actually be THIS dense?”

“Not necessarily.” Li Mu stopped playing on his cell phone and murmured. “If some heavenly treasure ripened in the vicinity, the qi density would also rise significantly. But this would last for no more than a few days.”

The three of them were just chatting in their down time. They were unaware that within the cultivation room, there was a flame burning continuously for five hours and fifty-nine minutes!

Xu Yangyi didn’t relax by a hair. A traveled distanced of ninety li was merely half of a hundred li journey. For the past ten straight days, he had fallen at this final minute. It seemed that even the surrounding air knew that this minute possessed a difference in quality in comparison to those several hundred other minutes.

Regardless, the fire would die… He closed eyes slightly trembled, and he wordlessly pursed his lips. This was the reason he had failed countless of times in the last minute. As if the six hours were a cycle, once six hours passed, all the follow-up techniques afterwards weren’t the same.

“Ordinary methods can’t be used to accomplish the final minute…” Xu Yangyi didn’t have the slightest thought to skimp out on this minute. The Eternal Alchemy Canon had written it rather clearly; three two-hour periods were three two-hour periods. It was said skill training could never be done halfheartedly. 

However, the ten days of defeat weren’t only just failure. In any defeat, there would be a kind of by-product.

Experience.

“I’ve already experimented with over a dozen techniques, but none of them were able to keep the fire burning.” He glanced over at the clock ahead. There was still five seconds. If there was no accident, the alchemy flame would die out this time as well.

Five seconds later, the flame before him weakly flashed; this was tell-tale sign of its extinguishment! He muttered for a brief moment. At this time… even in this second, there was no error. This time, he was planning to fight things out without fear.

“I can’t believe that even after I’ve gone through all these techniques that this flame still won’t burn!” His spiritual force completely withdrew, and the flame suddenly destabilized. Followingly, a milky-white qi wall tightly enclosed the entire pill furnace like a barrier.

Since the wind wasn’t enough, then he would just try without it.

He was already banking on another failed plan, yet at this instant, he unexpectedly discovered to his surprise that after the flame flickered twice, it actually stabilized again! Furthermore, there wasn’t any indication of it dying out! 

In his mind, a divine light seemed to flash through, and he abruptly opened his eyes, coming to a sudden realization of what he was lacking concerning this minute!

Sizzle… With a ripple of his mind, a single unsteadiness, the flame faded away in an instant. However, this time, Xu Yangyi’s face didn’t hold a shred of a disappointment. Instead, his gaze burned.

“So that’s how it was…” He looked at the pill furnace in front of him complicatedly. “This is the starting move—the cycling force—the restraining process.”

The revelation of a single thought connected to a hundred ideas. His thoughts immediately diverged. If his guess was correct, there wasn’t an issue with what he was doing before, merely, at that final step, a misconception had arisen. He once also suspected that while all arcane efforts could be easily grasped, they were difficult to master. All excessively complicated arcane efforts had completely vanished in history’s long river, without a whisper. This was because they were ill-adept at fitting into history’s tide of development. They were unfavorable to spread extensively and research.

He was puzzled; how could the difficulty of this arcane effort by so high? His talents weren’t weak at all, yet unexpectedly in his study of more than a year, this first step was unable to be taken?

Like in the historical development of living organisms, any creature incompatible to the world’s structure disappeared. For instance, dinosaurs. Creatures that survived were the ones that conformed even further with the world’s structure, such as humanity.

This was natural selection. If an arcane effort caused all to fall back, especially in the situation of an alchemy technique filled with ancient cultivation, then it simply failed to be in accord with the law of the world’s development. Moreover, it was unsuited to be a scripture!

“After the ignition of the flame, the medicine placement follows. As for this process, spiritual sense can’t do both tasks. I once read that ancient pill formulas have at least five to six kinds of heavenly treasures or at most over a hundred. In comparison to only relying on pure spiritual sense right now to control the furnace flame, the mutual pairings, the harmonization level, and the scope of the undertaking is like a firefly’s light to a shining moon.”

“Maybe ancient cultivators had special medicine placement and firestarter boys. But a good arcane effort isn’t only focused on extraordinary appearances. Only one enjoyed by both the common man and the intellectual can be called a scripture. The Harmony of the Trium was capable of becoming Daoism’s scripture; this point absolutely cannot be underestimated…”

He sucked in deeply. “So, after five hours, or maybe five and a half, once five hours and fifty minutes pass, the furnace flame should stabilize, and the phase of placing heavenly materials is prepared. This phase is like restraining force. Stabilization is vital, rather than the continuous draw of wind power. I have to keep putting on pressure.” 

“Before five-plus hours, it has be tested like when a new car leaves the factory. Its stability has to be tried.” His gaze flashed. “That’s it. Just now, when I stopped the wind power, the flame wasn’t extinguished. That must be the truth behind this minute!”

Deeply breathing in a couple times, he closed his eyes again.

There was no joy, rather his heart welcomed reverence. In this cultivation of over half a year, the Eternal Alchemy Canon’s effect on the advancement of spiritual sense was as clear as day. Furthermore, spiritual sense could be used to support oneself, accelerating the absorption of qi. In the modern era, arcane efforts that could advance spiritual sense had scattered like ash to the four corners. The value of this arcane effort was far more precious than whatever enlistment of the Bountiful Treasures Pavilion and the Featherwood Guard by ten thousand fold!

“The first step… will succeed in a few days!”