Chapter 780: Drawing the Marrow of Heaven
Longevity Valley, inside the artifact refinement chamber.
Xu Bai watched over Fang Zaiji as he reinforced the Medicine King True Cauldron.
“Sect Master, we’ve already added more than enough rare materials. I doubt even the original forging of the Medicine King True Cauldron involved so many precious ingredients,” Fang Zaiji lamented, his heart aching at the extravagance.
“It’s truly a bit of a waste.”
“Are you planning to use this to withstand an attack from a Longevity Celestial Venerable?” he asked.
But under Xu Bai’s firm, unwavering gaze, he sighed and tossed a small lump of Eternal Calamity Gold into the earthfire before him.
He strained to control the flames, and only after more than ten days of continuous forging did the Eternal Calamity Gold begin to soften and deform.
Then, with meticulous care, he guided it with his will, embedding and fusing it into the surface of the Medicine King True Cauldron.
Seeing this, Xu Bai nodded in satisfaction.
Fang Zaiji, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, jumped in fright when he saw the substance in Xu Bai’s hand.
“This... my divine sense can’t perceive this material at all!”
Xu Bai offered a faint smile. “That’s precisely the point. I’ll trouble you, Mister Fang, to coat the surface of the Medicine King True Cauldron with this. If it’s not enough, I have more.”
“Something that can shield against divine sense... this can’t be cheap,” Fang Zaiji muttered under his breath, but still did as he was asked.
The earthfire danced and leaped, its flickering light casting shifting shadows across Xu Bai’s inscrutable expression.
Meanwhile, in the Beast Seed Realm, ten kilometers underground.
Li Fan, having returned in secret, had carved out a hidden chamber, sealed it tight, and concealed it with an array of formations.
He then took out a metal furnace and placed it on the ground before him.
“The Myriad Phenomena Furnace.”
“While it might not be able to truly forge an ‘Emperor One Beast,’ the appearance of such a powerful demonic beast in the Xuanhuang Realm will certainly draw the Grand Wish Dharma Body of Senior Brother Zhang.”
“Besides, I no longer need to worry about how to control the ‘Myriad Phenomena Ancestral Beast’ after it’s forged.”
“In fact, the more frenzied it is, the better. That saves me a great deal of trouble,” Li Fan mused to himself.
The Myriad Phenomena Furnace naturally required a vast assortment of strange beasts to function.
Fortunately, Li Fan had just what it needed.
They were not from his recent trade with the Empire, but from his very first transaction with Xiao Qing in this lifetime.
The Sealing Life Treasure Box.
Li Fan produced a square, red wooden box.
It was no bigger than his palm, yet its interior was divided into tens of thousands of individual spaces.
Within each space, a strange beast lay perfectly preserved in ice.
“I’ll start with the weaker ones.”
Following the method Xiao Qing had taught him, Li Fan willed it, and dozens of palm-sized beasts were released from the box.
The very instant they left their frozen confines, their consciousness began to stir.
With a faint pulse of his spiritual power, Li Fan killed them all before they could even react.
Their flesh was instantly broken down into the finest particles, yet their forms remained intact as Li Fan tossed them into the metal furnace.
As if recognizing the input of beast flesh, the intricate patterns of creatures etched around the furnace slowly began to glow.
“I heard that when the Empire forged this artifact, they referenced information on the Imperial Beast Sect’s supreme treasure, the Ten Thousand Reincarnation Beast Wheel...”
“The Imperial Beast Sect is hidden away in the Lingxu Realm. I wonder when the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance will finally discover it.”
As his thoughts wandered, Li Fan continued to feed the strange beasts from the Sealing Life Treasure Box into the Myriad Phenomena Furnace.
As the number of beasts he added grew, he could feel a mysterious power begin to coalesce within the furnace.
His expression turned serious.
Ten days later.
Both Li Fan and his clone, Xu Bai, abruptly stopped their actions.
An inexplicable expression surfaced on both of their faces simultaneously.
“Has he successfully formed his Nascent Soul...?”
“But how could it be such an insignificant grotto-heaven?”
Just moments ago, the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai, who had been roaming the provinces of the Xuanhuang Realm, had finally felt a calling.
He had found the grotto-heaven most suited for him.
What surprised Li Fan, however, was that this grotto-heaven could not even be compared to his own Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven.
It was far inferior even to an ordinary, single-attribute grotto-heaven.
The reason was that this realm was minuscule, no larger than the palm of one's hand, surrounded by a dark, chaotic void.
Only a patch of barren yellow earth stood in the emptiness, offering a place to stand.
Sharing a single consciousness, Li Fan could perceive with perfect clarity that this grotto-heaven was utterly devoid of any special qualities.
The sole reason the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai, had chosen it was because it had only just been born.
“Interesting. This is a perfect opportunity to see how Mr. Bai uses the new method to achieve Soul Transformation.”
“Faced with a World Birthing Change, what path will you choose?”
Even as he prepared for his own desperate gamble, Li Fan split off a thread of his awareness to carefully observe the “natural” course of action taken by the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai.
A phantom projection of the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai, manifested, standing on the yellow earth of the nascent grotto-heaven.
He showed no disdain, but rather a hint of faint joy on his face.
He personally conjured water, irrigating the barren soil.
Then, specks of green light floated from his body.
Before long, small green shoots broke through the earth.
The first flicker of life had appeared within the grotto-heaven.
Next, a murmuring stream formed, winding its way around the new plants.
Brimming with vitality, the grotto-heaven began to expand into the surrounding void.
Li Fan watched every transformation, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
“To nurture a new grotto-heaven from nothing.”
“It can be tailored perfectly to one’s own will. That is indeed a step above searching for one by chance.”
“But grotto-heavens are not like mortals. Their growth periods are measured in thousands, even tens of thousands of years—and that’s under the most ideal conditions.”
“It’s been so long since I reached the Nascent Soul stage in this life, yet my Five Elements Grotto-Heaven is still just a prototype. It shows just how difficult it is for a grotto-heaven to grow.”
“Could it be that you intend to wait for it to grow slowly?”
“If so, that would be excellent news for me.”
That was Li Fan’s initial thought.
But the methods of the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai, were far beyond his imagination.
They caught him completely off guard, filling him with a renewed sense of urgency.
After reaching the Nascent Soul stage, the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai, began to wander through the Xuanhuang Realm, strolling as if in a garden.
Upon stopping in a certain province, he gently reached his hand toward the sky.
In that instant, a mysterious and profound change seemed to sweep through heaven and earth.
It was as if something had been plucked from thin air by the Sacred Embryo and casually placed within his own grotto-heaven.
“RUMBLE!”
An incessant roar echoed from within the grotto-heaven.
In the blink of an eye, a mountain range rose from the ground.
The grotto-heaven itself began to undergo a cataclysmic transformation, evolving at a speed millions of times faster than normal.
“This is...”
“Drawing the marrow of heaven?”
“So effortless... with no concern for the world’s backlash. And what’s more...”
Witnessing this, Li Fan’s eyes narrowed sharply.
What truly struck him with a sense of dread was that the Sacred Embryo then walked to the next province and observed for a moment.
And then, he acted again.
Another World Birthing Change was quietly extracted.
It was done so subtly that it failed to attract the attention of any other cultivators.
Within the grotto-heaven of the Sacred Embryo, Xu Bai, another mutation began.
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