Chapter 436: Message

Chapter 436: Chapter 436: Message

The Hundred Skills of External Pill Record the hunchback had mentioned was indeed an old tome.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it an ancient and decaying artifact.

Following Bai Mo’s instructions, Ah Er had searched from the inner sect to the outer sect, taking over a month to finally locate it.

In the end, it spent sixteen Spirit Stones to buy it from a disciple of Beast Taming Peak.

There was a copy of this book in the Scripture Pavilion, but it had been checked out long ago and never returned.

When Ah Er returned, it was rather confused, not understanding why Bai Mo placed so much importance on this book.

"You got this for sixteen Spirit Stones?"

Bai Mo asked, a little surprised as he opened the book and scanned its contents.

Ah Er nodded and gestured, explaining to Bai Mo how it had acquired the book.

The sly Beast Taming Peak disciple had originally intended to charge it twenty, but after a round of haggling, Ah Er had bargained the price down to sixteen.

It was a good thing the disciple was from Beast Taming Peak and could understand its gestures. Communicating with anyone else would have been difficult.

Ah Er came forward and nudged the book in Bai Mo’s hands, causing a small booklet to fall out from between the pages.

This was a little bonus the disciple had thrown in to secure the sixteen-Spirit-Stone price.

Bai Mo picked up the palm-sized booklet. Seeing the messy handwriting inside, he realized it was a collection of notes and insights.

However, the contents didn’t match the Hundred Skills of External Pill Record; they were from other books.

The person who compiled the booklet had copied the words over, noting the time and source.

Bai Mo gave it a quick glance and put it away as well.

"You’ve worked hard."

As he spoke, he took out more than ten bottles of Feeding Pills from his sleeve and placed them one by one in front of Ah Er.

The latter’s eyes went wide, momentarily unsure of its master’s intentions.

Bai Mo pointed to the Pill bottles on the ground and said:

"These are your rations for the next year."

"I’m going into seclusion for a while."

Ah Er had a sudden realization.

Having followed Bai Mo for so long, it knew that Human Race Cultivators had a tradition of entering secluded cultivation. It just hadn’t expected its master’s turn to come so soon.

There were many miscellaneous tasks on Mi Mountain.

Bai Mo had to make arrangements, and the responsibility fell upon his Spirit Beast, which still couldn’t speak.

"You mustn’t slack off this year. By the time you finish all these Pills, your cultivation should rise to the next level."

"Hopefully, by then, you’ll have learned to speak..."

Bai Mo eagerly looked forward to this.

After Ah Er had stored its rations, Bai Mo took out several more Pill bottles and placed them before it.

The unusual fragrance lingering at the mouths of the bottles had not yet dissipated, a clear sign of their exceptional quality.

"These are the Pills that Senior Brother Zhen Yuan and those senior brothers from the Hundred-Forged Iron Lodge wanted."

"When they come to ask for them, you give these to them."

Ah Er, still a bit dazed, grabbed the Pill bottles and put them away, completely unaware of the treasures they held.

The Pill for Zhen Yuan was something special. Bai Mo had meticulously refined it using a single drop of Soul Marrow as the main ingredient, which he had extracted from nearly ten thousand remnant souls provided by the Foreign Affairs Hall.

Having lost their essence, it was unknown how many years it would take for those remnant souls to recover after returning to the ghost cavern.

Bai Mo continued to take out more Pills, all for transactions he had arranged with people outside.

Ah Er carefully noted each one in a booklet. The value in Spirit Stones was enormous, and it dared not make a single mistake.

Finally, Bai Mo tossed it out the stone house’s door, along with its bedding.

"During this time, I’ll be experimenting with Outer Pills. I might produce some... unpleasant things. No other living creature besides me can stay in this house."

"You’ll have to endure some hardship for a while longer."

SLAM!

Watching the stone door shut, Ah Er scratched its head.

It had once been a wild creature, so it didn’t find this particularly difficult. It dragged its cattail mat and quilt to a corner.

From the dark prison, clear sounds of mockery and ridicule emerged, intentionally trying to agitate it.

Ah Er paid them no mind, simply tucking itself into its quilt and falling into a deep sleep.

After today, it would have to watch the house on its own.

Li Wuji would still visit from time to time, but he wouldn’t stay long.

...

Inside the stone house, Bai Mo held a Pill in his mouth to clear his mind and calm his spirit.

He flipped through the Hundred Skills of External Pill Record rapidly. Before long, all one hundred thirty-seven refinement methods were committed to memory.

From a modern perspective, the hundred-plus associated methods seemed more than a little crude.

But in the era they belonged to, they were likely all the rage.

The key to this book was its ability to quickly provide Bai Mo with an introduction, allowing him to learn the secrets of deciphering Cultivation Techniques and methods.

As for the small booklet tucked inside, Bai Mo was also quite interested in it.

The booklet’s paper wasn’t of good quality. It had been flipped through so many times that its edges were worn soft and thin.

The reason for this was likely that it was a collection of curiosities.

It was a compilation of notes and insights left behind in various Outer Pill texts by Cultivators throughout history who had dabbled in the Outer Pill Dao.

The personal journeys of some of these individuals were astonishing.

Most were complaints and laments about the difficulty of this path.

There were also those who, after long years of practice, had a sudden awakening, realizing they had wasted half their lives with little to show for it.

Comments about courageous and diligent progress were like rainbows in the rain or thunder in the night—refreshing and precious.

The journey of one particular person caught Bai Mo’s attention.

"To have obtained this opportunity today must be a blessing from the heavens. I will surely succeed in the Great Dao in this life..."

This was a message from a certain powerful Cultivator, recorded in some unknown tome and later copied into this collection.

This person’s messages were intermittent and spanned a vast period. According to the idler who made the booklet, they continued for over five hundred years.

This truly was a mighty figure of their generation.

"...Today I met the descendants of the Pill Method’s original master. They have fallen on hard times, their sect is unremarkable..."

"The Outer Pill methods in the scripture are exquisite, a path to immortality. Why have things come to this? It is a mystery!"

Over the years, this mighty figure’s handwriting changed, growing increasingly wild and unrestrained.

"Today my great vengeance is achieved. The rest of my life shall be dedicated to the path, seeking only to become an immortal..."

Bai Mo followed the entries, skipping over the twists and turns of the great cultivator’s journey to arrive at the final line.

"This is not my failing. The path is already broken. I can only test the peril with my own body, in search of a sliver of a chance..."

After that, his written journey came to an end.

Looking at this last sentence, Bai Mo felt a profound sense of foreboding.

’I wonder what the person who included this booklet with the Hundred Skills of External Pill Record was thinking.’

Many Cultivators interested in trying the Outer Pill methods would probably be dissuaded by this booklet.

Bai Mo tossed it aside, paying it no mind.

He took out the Fire Essence. With a casual gesture, a flame WHOOSHED to life beneath the Pill Furnace.

Stepping before the Pill Furnace, Bai Mo took out some herbs, thought for a moment, and then tossed them inside.

Soon, the Pill Liquid took form, shimmering with a pale, variegated green and white hue that was quite beautiful to behold.

Bai Mo then broke open a stone pillar and poured the stalactite milk from within it into the furnace.

He stirred wisps of Divine Thought into the mixture, coalescing the Pill Liquid and guiding the stalactite milk to leave traces within it.

It was a long and meticulous process, one where countless details could not go wrong.

In a corner of the stone house lay a copy of Array Dao Introduction.

Bai Mo had already read its contents.

The Outer Pill, it turned out, shared common principles with the Array Dao. Combining the two made things even more obscure.

Such a relatively unfamiliar school of the Alchemy Dao was indeed worth Bai Mo’s time to learn from scratch.

One year.

That was the deadline Bai Mo set for himself.