Chapter Four Hundred Eighty-Five: Black Liquid
Smack!
Yang Haoran's spiritual power-infused palm directly sent the big man flying with a slap.
Before the big man could stabilize himself in mid-air, the Soul-Refining Cauldron spewed out another chain, binding him tightly and forcibly dragging him inside the Soul-Refining Cauldron.
The big man struggled violently, but his meager strength was utterly insufficient. Although he was stronger than the previous youth, it wasn't by much. Amidst the big man's roars, he was forcibly sucked into the Soul-Refining Cauldron, following in the youth's footsteps.
Previously, only the youth's cries had echoed from within the Soul-Refining Cauldron, but now, with the big man's absorption, the cauldron resonated with his furious curses.
These curses were, naturally, directed at Yang Haoran. Soon after, the big man's curses transformed into agonizing screams.
If one were to look down into the Soul-Refining Cauldron at this moment, they would see that the youth's spirit body was gradually dissolving. Wisps of black gas were forcibly drawn from within his spirit body, settling at the bottom of the Soul-Refining Cauldron. Each wisp of black gas extracted caused his spirit body to dissolve a little further.
This black gas was, in fact, Pure Yin Qi.
The Yin Qi within ghosts was too impure. To refine a Soul Pill, the Yin Qi had to be filtered, leaving only the purest form.
Once the Pure Yin Qi within a spirit body was completely filtered, that ghost would suffer Soul Transformation.
At this moment, the Pure Yin Qi in the youth's body was being extracted bit by bit, which was why his spirit body gradually began to dissolve, and his screams grew weaker and weaker.
In contrast, the big man, having just entered the Soul-Refining Cauldron, was also undergoing the torment of Yin Qi filtration, but his spirit body had not yet dissolved, so his screams were still quite loud.
But it wouldn't be long before he followed in the youth's footsteps.
Although Yang Haoran couldn't see the situation inside the Soul-Refining Cauldron, he could sense it. After all, the cauldron was being powered by his Spirit Power, so he naturally knew its internal conditions.
The big man's heart-wrenching screams and the youth's increasingly faint pleas for mercy entered his ears, but he paid them no mind, letting them go in one ear and out the other. He continued to extract spirits from the Soul-Gathering Bead.
This time, he released five spirits from the Soul-Gathering Bead at once.
The reason he had only taken out one spirit at a time previously was his lack of experience in refining Soul Pills for the first two attempts; out of caution, he decided to only extract a single spirit.
With two experiences under his belt, he naturally wouldn't continue to take them out one by one from the Soul-Gathering Bead. To improve efficiency, he extracted five spirits simultaneously.
The moment the five spirits were released from the Soul-Gathering Bead, the Soul-Refining Cauldron, under Yang Haoran's control, spewed out five chains. These chains, with lightning speed, bound the five spirits and forcibly dragged them into the cauldron's interior.
Originally, only the screams of the youth and the big man echoed within the Soul-Refining Cauldron. With the addition of five more, the cries emanating from the cauldron now included five new voices: male and female, old and young.
Yang Haoran remained unmoved, showing no sign of stopping. This time, he doubled the number of spirits released, increasing it from five to ten.
With his current strength, ten spirits still posed no challenge to him and were easily collected into the Soul-Refining Cauldron.
The addition of these ten spirits instantly made the inside of the Soul-Refining Cauldron a cacophony of sound: agonizing screams, piercing wails, desperate cries for help, and pitiful pleas for mercy continuously emanated from within, reverberating throughout the entire study.
At this moment, Yang Haoran's study was like a living hell.
Yang Haoran's expression remained unchanged. He increased the activation force on the Soul-Refining Cauldron, and immediately, the cauldron's speed in extracting Pure Yin Qi accelerated. The youth, who had been drawn into the cauldron first, was now too weak to make a sound. When the last wisp of Pure Yin Qi was drawn from his spirit body, his form completely vanished within the Soul-Refining Cauldron, leaving behind only a cluster of Pure Yin Qi at its bottom.
As for the chains that had bound the youth, they also vanished with the dissolution of his spirit body, as if they had never existed.
The complete dissipation of the youth's spirit body meant he had suffered Soul Transformation; from this moment on, he no longer existed in this world.
After the youth, the big man met the same fate, followed by the third spirit, then the fourth.
As more and more spirits' bodies completely dissolved, the Pure Yin Qi accumulating at the bottom of the Soul-Refining Cauldron grew increasingly abundant.
Yang Haoran, meanwhile, sometimes fully activated the Soul-Refining Cauldron to increase the speed of Pure Yin Qi extraction, and at other times, he propelled the cauldron to spew out chains, sending large numbers of spirits into its depths.
Time passed little by little. The spirits within the Soul-Gathering Bead grew fewer, while the Pure Yin Qi settling at the bottom of the Soul-Refining Cauldron became more and more.
The only things that remained unchanged were the horrific screams emanating from the many spirits and Yang Haoran's utterly impassive expression throughout the entire process.
After an unknown period, Yang Haoran ceased feeding spirits into the Soul-Refining Cauldron. By this point, he had, by and large, already fed a thousand spirits into it.
A thousand spirits was not the Soul-Refining Cauldron's limit. The reason he stopped feeding them in was to see how many Soul Pills these thousand spirits could yield.
He once again fully activated the Soul-Refining Cauldron, accelerating its speed in drawing out Pure Yin Qi. The screams emanating from the spirits within the cauldron, initially intense, grew weaker. After approximately half an hour, when the last faint cry faded, no more screams came from the Soul-Refining Cauldron.
At this point, no trace of the spirits could be seen inside the Soul-Refining Cauldron; all that remained was a layer of black liquid at its bottom.
This black liquid was Pure Yin Qi that had reached a certain level of concentration and, under the unique influence of the Soul-Refining Cauldron, had undergone liquefaction.
If Yang Haoran were to halt the refining process now, he could simply extract and absorb this layer of black liquid from the bottom of the Soul-Refining Cauldron. This would still enhance his Spirit Power, as the black liquid itself was Pure Yin Qi compressed by the Soul-Refining Cauldron, and absorbing it would have no negative impact on his body.
However, Yang Haoran did not do this, nor did he have any such intention. Because once this black liquid was refined into a Soul Pill through the Soul-Refining Cauldron, at the moment the Soul Pill formed, the Pure Yin Qi would surge dramatically due to its crystallization.
To put it plainly, absorbing the black liquid from inside the Soul-Refining Cauldron now would only yield the Pure Yin Qi contained within the liquid itself. But if these black liquids were refined into Soul Pills through the Soul-Refining Cauldron, under its special influence, this Pure Yin Qi would receive a significant boost beyond its original quantity, thereby granting an extra amount of Pure Yin Qi.
Of course, if something went wrong during the refining process, leading to complete failure, then nothing would be gained; even the original black liquid would vanish with the failed refinement.
There was a certain risk involved, but this risk would decrease with increased refining proficiency. While refining failure was indeed regrettable, the benefits gained from a successful refinement were far from insignificant.
Given Yang Haoran's character, he certainly wouldn't stop for such a small immediate gain. He was determined to use this black liquid to refine Soul Pills.
Although the success rate for his first refinement was likely very low, everything had a process. If he didn't take this step, didn't use failures to accumulate experience, then he would forever be limited to just absorbing the black liquid, and he would never be able to improve in this aspect.
Therefore, without a moment's hesitation, Yang Haoran immediately began the refining process, following the method for refining Soul Pills—no, to be precise, following the method for refining Soul Crystals.
The black liquid at the bottom of the Soul-Refining Cauldron had initially been motionless, but as Yang Haoran activated the cauldron according to the Soul Crystal refining method, the liquid began to stir, slowly revolving.
The liquid's rotation accelerated from slow to fast. In just a short while, the black liquid at the bottom of the Soul-Refining Cauldron, due to its excessive speed, formed a small vortex.
Dense Yin Qi enveloped the Soul-Refining Cauldron. A similarly thick cloud of Yin Qi also rose within the cauldron, its presence making it impossible to clearly see the situation inside.
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