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28.18% A Desolate Life / Chapter 73: From Trance to Clarity

Chương 73: From Trance to Clarity

Following his unconventional victory, Yaan planned to seclude himself within the temporal chamber for a good period of time…sort of. He was still going to be fighting, but these challenges would be spaced a few days apart, now that he was entering the chamber for an extended period.

Yaan realised that his mind was in a strange state, whilst his emotions were unusually intense as he found himself unable to stop recalling the past. He most likely needed to spend some time meditating until this state remedied itself. It was unknown whether this was a side effect of the medicines he used, or if he had unknowingly stepped into a sort of illusion-based enlightenment. Regardless, this sort of mental state was not conducive to surviving life and death battles.

Unfortunately, Yaan had some errands to run outside of the tower before re-entering the tower to commence with a proper training session. The problem was that this would take him close to 6-8 hours…meaning he could miss up to 12 days of time within the chamber!

Instead, he decided to enlist Zue Yin to run his errands, forcefully suppressing his lingering solemn mood so that he could deal with her quickly.

At first she refused, not even accepting a generous offering of astral crystals as payment. Finally, Yaan relented with a sigh.

"This, this is…a phoenix bracelet!" She cried out, dropping her proud demeanour and greedily almost drooling over the treasure that Yaan held out in his palm.

"This bracelet simply has a phoenix hair foundation, there's a single strand of hair from a phoenix feather within the centre of the bracelet. As for the shell material, it needs to be strong enough to protect it, so it's inferno gold…"

Yaan was somewhat reluctant to give her this expensive thing, but he really didn't want to waste all the astral crystals he'd spent on renting the temporal acceleration chamber. He would be training alone for some time now, so he needed to purchase more suitable cultivation resources for himself, whilst he also needed to sell many of the things gained from his various recently defeated opponents. The best solution was to pay Zue Yin to act as his errand girl.

"Wait…pure inferno gold?" Zue Yin turned to him, now completely shocked.

"Yes. Complete this list of chores for me, and acquire me this list of things from your own funds, then I'll give it to you."

"What, that's-"

"Still an amazing deal for you. I'm only doing this because I want to stop wasting my time in the temporal chamber. It costs three 2-Star astral crystals every hour…"

"Seriously? Damn!" Zue Yin's eyes widened and she quickly nodded, scurrying off to carry out Yaan's various jobs.

Since this bracelet was stupidly valuable, he wouldn't give it away for the chores alone. So, Yaan made Zue Yin pay for all of her own travel expenses, as well as the purchasing of every consumable resource that he needed. There were a couple of other seriously valuable things that he couldn't make her buy with her own funds, since they were almost as valuable as the bracelet itself, but even so, it was a good deal for both of them.

Finally, Yaan was able to return to the temporal acceleration chamber to continue training.

Whilst he did intend to remedy his unusual state of mind before his next battle, right now, he actually had no desire to leave this unknown state, but instead wished to continue delving deeper into the blood essence illusions…

Yaan slowly sat down, once again opening the dark green case. He had already consumed all 50 of the pills in the case's lower drawer, and 2 more pills out of 12 from the second drawer. There were 5 layers in all, with 7 pills on the third, 3 pills in the fourth, and just a single pill in the fifth drawer. Even without opening that top fifth draw, Yaan could already feel the powerful aura of a high ranking, well refined pill…for now, he ignored this temptation and continued his endeavour into these blood essence pills, which by a stroke of luck seemed to allow him to delve into countless illusions of many different living beings.

Of course, he was still devouring the pills whilst doing this, gradually refining his blood, allowing him to slowly develop more blood essence. During this process, the remainder of the pill was 'wasted' and absorbed into his body in the form of vital energy.

For a seemingly simple case of pills, this was practically a treasure trove in Yaan's eyes.

He didn't immediately consume a pill, but read each description of the remaining ten pills in the second draw. After some thought, he decided to be patient, and ended up reading through a small manual. It was a text which described blood essence as a resource in general, including blood essence refinery into superior body tempering pills, with a strong focus on the specific pills contained within this very chest.

The book was finished in a couple of hours, leaving Yaan even more excited to continue on. He now knew that his previous conjectures were indeed spot on; by consuming the untainted, undamaged blood essence of any living being, it was faintly possible to catch a brief glimpse of their memories, or even their personality or will. Generally speaking, this glimpse was the final and most intense death throes of their life, a 2-3 second period that a cultivator might obtain one time out of one hundred if they were lucky.

Yaan again realised that he was very usual in this regard. Was it all because of his understanding of illusions? Or was his ability to perceive the imagery within blood essence a different strange ability of his entirely?

With no way of knowing the answers to these questions right now, Yaan swallowed the next pill. Learning from last time, he decided to consume all of the Rank 3 versions before daring to touch those Rank 4 pills. Whilst they were not fatal to Yaan, they were…intense. He wanted to become accustomed to the experience, but also to build up his perception. Perhaps then, he could reap greater benefits from the Rank 4 pills!

As Yaan expected, the third pill he consumed from the 2nd draw, contained the refined blood essence of a human. This person was basically a mortal, but he was the great warrior of his tribe, revered for having great superhuman powers. In truth, he had just stumbled upon the path of Qi refining, stepping onto the 1st step without really understanding how he did so!

His life was grand and royal. He ruled for tens of years, a truly prestigious reign, a king well loved by his people.

As he got on in age, the battlefield was no longer an appropriate place for the king to step foot on. He often lamented the continual deterioration of his health and his strength, reminiscing about the past whenever he saw the new, powerful generals of the kingdom.

The king was happy with his life, he had bore multiple sons and daughters. His people had food, they were not at great risk from neighbouring nations and their warring ways…with satisfaction in his heart, he intended to enjoy his retirement, drinking fine wine whilst playing with his young grand children.

Yaan felt as if this illusion lasted for close to a life time…he almost forgot about himself, becoming engrossed in the old king's life. He felt regret when the old man regretted, he felt happiness when his grandchildren grew up strong and healthy. In fact, watching his descendants go from newborns to competent adults gave him an even greater joy than that which he had gained in his younger years on the battlefield.

Yet at the back of his mind, Yaan knew that this story could not possibly have a happy ending. This man's blood essence had been stolen and refined into a pill, so his fate was to…

To be stabbed in the back by the son he loved the most, doted on most heavily, nurtured with the utmost care, and loved more than life itself.

"All reigns are supposed to come to an end father, that is the nature of empires and war. A mortal king should not continue sitting on his thrown past 140 years of age…he should leave at least some time behind for his descendants!"

The king staggered backwards, but did not bother to pull out the dagger. Perhaps with treatment he may have lived, but…

Right now, not just his most favourite son, but each of his children, his brothers and his four wives, starred at him with resolute gazes. His eyes were wide, and he was unable to even let out a single sound. As tear dripped down from his face, and he finally fell back, dead.

The blade happened to pierce the core of his heart, drawing out the old man's single drop of blood essence and fusing it into the blade. As for how this ended up as a pill in this place, Yaan had no way of knowing for sure.

Yaan kept his eyes shut for a long period of time. For a period, he didn't want to open his eyes, he didn't want to see the true world that he belonged to. He felt as if the illusion had been his life, and this reality was just a cruel trick.

"No…" Yaan's eyes slowly opened, his gaze cold and ruthless. "Even such a joyous illusion still ended in sorrow and despair, in pain, suffering and meaningless death. Whether it is an illusion or reality, the core principals of the cruel nature of this world still pervade throughout…perhaps, even mortals cannot escape from the pain of pursuing something greater…"

Yaan muttered to himself before falling silent for a few minutes.

Unknowingly, his altered mental and emotional state returned to normal, not a trace of his previous solemn aura remained. It was unexpected that he would break out of this trance without even meaning to after experiencing just a single illusion, but reflecting upon the life of that old king caused Yaan's lonely feeling to be replaced by a cold ruthlessness. This cold feeling enveloped his heart, giving him the urge to continue training and to develop his strength quickly.

After snapping out of his daze, Yaan was vaguely aware of the vital energy building up within his body. He instinctively went to suppress it back down into his body, but to his surprise, 6 of his astral tattoos suddenly reappeared!

After he defeated the 18 astral spirits and managed to retain control over his own body and mind, the astral spirits had disappeared without a trace. Honestly, Yaan even wondered if they had somehow escaped whilst he was preoccupied!

He stared down at his arms and saw the deep black tattoos emanating the black aura called 'astral power'. Yaan suddenly felt the presence of these tattoos, but also of the others!

WHOOSH!

Instantly, under a single command that he issued with one strand of thought, all 18 astral tattoos materialised upon his body. It appeared that some had been hidden on his skin the entire time, only now made visible due to Yaan's order. Others were clearly rising up from deep within his body, escaping from his organs and bones, until they too formed near identical tattoos across his entire body!

Yaan slightly gawked at himself, eventually pulling out a mirror and examining himself all over. With a few minutes of experimentation, he mastered the control over these tattoos, gaining the ability to materialise and hide away the marks filled with astral power at will!

"Astral spirits…astral power…a very sketchy 'path', if it can even be called that. But for now, power is power, and these spirits are the best way to rapidly accumulate strength!"

Yaan urged the astral tattoos to pour their astral power inwards, into his body. The power was dense and dry, enough such that it would drive weaker cultivators completely insane!

Yaan kept a calm expression, curiously observing how this dark power could be used to manipulate, seal and withhold his vital energy. His eyes instantly burst open and his jaw dropped, unable to believe just how simple and effective this method actually turned out to be!

Usually, when Yaan controlled his vital energy, he needed to focus, placing his utmost attention into creating the smallest of movements. Perhaps a brief halting or a slight reversal of the flow, or a single surge of his vital energy towards its target, was about all that he could muster. It was said that after forming the Vital Core, it became hundreds of times easier to manipulate one's vital energy, to the extent that the body could be covered with vital energy, allowing the body temperer to soar through the skies!

For now, Yaan was nowhere near such a far off dream. But this astral power…

By only casually manipulating his astral power, he obtained relatively fine control to a high degree of precision. More incredibly, this astral power could gather and surge out like a tsunami, suppressing any and all energies within the body!

Yaan had no need to seal his own vital energy, why would anyone want that? What excited him, was the fact that this astral power could actually be used to control the usage of medicinal pills to an extent that Yaan had never previously imagined possible!

He would be able to consume any pill, then control the rate of its effect, or even seal the effect entirely! He could direct the medicinal energy in whatever direction he pleased, via whatever route he so desired, towards any destination of his choice!

One of the biggest annoyances he had always encountered in body tempering, was that many body tempering pills were basically impossible to use with a reasonable degree of efficiency.

In fact, half of these pills were just used for an entirely different purpose than they were originally intended! Since obtaining the principal effect was impossible, people just wasted the pills, digesting them as rapidly as possible, then inefficiently refining the medicinal effect into vital energy before all the pill's power escaped!

As Yaan stared at his palms, which were flashing on and off with black life, he looked around and licked his lips. He no longer had the heart to sit around and read, nor to ponder illusions or dao…

He wanted to experience just how this astral power could be used to help further his cultivation!


Chương 74: Trio of Accelerated Agony Pills

The blood essence pills were more mentally taxing on Yaan's psyche than he had expected. He wasn't completely exhausted, but maybe 3 or 4 more pills would leave him basically comatosed for the next week. To avoid wasting his time in the temporal chamber, he walked a few feet away, directly towards a golden plated bowl that he placed down earlier. The bowl was white with golden dragon carvings all across it, it was something he purchased from the old man on the 1st level for quite the price. That old man was seriously way too rich, Yaan had no clue how he was able to endlessly buy and sell every sort of good at every level of value. Well, he was probably supported by the inheritance itself.

As Yaan sat down on the wooden floor, he carefully tilted the upper white lid up by a fraction. At the same time, he took hold of a pair of chopsticks which were loosely attached to the bowl, and likewise laden with gold and jewels.

A brief whiff of golden gas leaked out, before Yaan stabbed in with the chopsticks. He narrowed his eyes, pinched exactly 3 pills, then pulled them all out and closed the lid. In all, the lid had been open for around 7 tenths of a second.

It was necessary to store these three pills together, and they retained greater power when stored in bulk like this. The three pills were needed for what Yaan was about to do, and luckily, he hadn't left the lid open for a full second. If that were to happen, the top layer of pills within would rapidly wilt, potentially even losing 50% of their medicinal effect!

"The best part about body cultivation, is the potential for making rapid improvements in a short period of time. Unfortunately, some of the most coveted, most essential body tempering pills, actually last for weeks, or months, and the worst can drag on painfully for years!" Yaan frowned, but then brightened up as he stared at the three pills. Two were even releasing a golden gas.

The pills would become corrupt by the air if exposed for longer than 1 second, but it took 3-4 minutes before the deterioration of their power actually began to take place. It was fine for Yaan to leave them to the side temporarily, as he grabbed another few pills from various boxes and satchels.

"I really have so much stuff…I should get on and use it all. And these three pills are the most perfect way of doing so!"

Yaan grinned, then swallowed the first and most splendid golden pill. He felt an eruption of golden energy within him, shooting up through his throat!

SLAM!

Were it not for the activation of his astral tattoos, he would have immediately lost one third of the pill's strength and duration. But that wasn't all…for the following 20 seconds, Yaan focussed diligently on using his 18 astral tattoos to restrict and seal the chaotic golden gas.

This gas seemed able to phase through the flesh and body like nothing, making it beyond difficult to contain! Normally, someone with Yaan's vital energy cultivation would be lucky to retain 3-5% of the pill's true effect and duration. By utilising the astral power contained within his astral tattoos however, his efficiency was far superior!

After finally compressing all of the golden gas into a floating ball within his empty stomach, Yaan resolutely picked up another pill, a pill he'd been meaning to use for some time now…

Rank 3 organ hardening pill, the last of the Rank 3 body tempering pills that he needed to use! Well, that is with the exception of the unique form tempering pill at least. But, he had that pill too! Yaan glanced down at it whilst grinning manically, like a lunatic about to do something seriously dangerous.

True, he did often embark upon dangerous endeavours in order to further his strength, but now things were different…he had so many resources that were useful to a 3-Star demon right under his nose! If he died whilst using these splendid resources, then he deserved his death for being so useless!

After Yaan swallowed the Rank 3 organ hardening pill, he controlled its descent down his throat, avoiding touching his body too much, until it landed within the thick golden cloud, suspended within his stomach.

Immediately, shockwaves began emanating outwards. Yaan grimaced, but waited. As time passed by, the shockwaves created by the organ hardening pill sitting within the golden cloud were beginning to rupture his organs, to tear apart his flesh, to fracture his bones, and to burst his blood vessels!

Yaan grit his teeth heavily. The pain increased, becoming worse and worse until finally, he stumbled, falling face down towards the ground. He injured his muscular skeletal system so badly that he could no longer move. He had inflicted so much damage to his organs that it was as if he was dying. He nearly entirely dried up his blood, not to mention the excruciating tearing of his tendons!

The absolute destruction of the body. Using his last strand of energy and his last functional muscle, Yaan painfully pushed another pill into his mouth. This pill was also golden in colour, but a much darker gold. In this pill, the golden mist that was emitted formed a vortex which was continually sucked back inwards.

Thud!

Yaan hit the floor and lay there for some time. It took around 20 minutes before his skeletal system recovered enough that he could just barely move, but any doctor would scream at him to stay still, probably as they rushed him away into their most intensive care unit on hand.

But as soon as Yaan felt a twitch in his wrist, he used all of his energy to continually twitch that muscle. It twitched, then jolted. Finally, his finger which was clasped around the last of the golden pills, reached his mouth. Yaan pushed out with his tongue, grasping and swallowing the final pill. Honestly, it looked like a metal ball bearing made entirely from gold! It emitted no energy, but…

Silence. Suddenly, everything stopped. All of the pain, exhaustion and injuries from before seemed to miraculously subside in an instant. Yaan stood up, stretched and yawned, before using his astral tattoos to examine his current internal condition.

The pills he had just used were called the trio of accelerated agony. If the first pill formed a gold cloud within the stomach, its use was a success. Next, he consumed the pill that he wished to accelerate the effect of, without causing any detriment or change to the pill's usual effect. The pill needed to avoid dissolving in the mouth or throat, so Yaan guided it with the astral spirits directly into his stomach...into the golden cloud.

After that, he could let go of his focus on his internal state, something he very rarely did when using these sorts of medicines. However, the next stage was totally out of his control. A continual stream of shockwaves would explode outwards from the golden cloud surrounding the pill. The usual damaging effect of the pill was absorbed into the golden cloud, then triggered the golden cloud itself to release this build up of damage outwards. Each shockwave was sudden and rapid, releasing a portion of the Rank 3 organ harding pill's effect. Every shockwave reduced the remaining time left to endure the pill by between 1-5%, depending on how perfectly the first golden pill was refined into a golden cloud.

The shock spread outwards through the body, that was why he had been wracked with agonising shockwaves which tore apart his body and left him half dead.

Only half dead. The great thing about this trio of pills, was that it was nearly 100% safe so long as they were used correctly. The second pill was used once the body reached its limit, negating the damaging impact and rapidly calming down the internal situation.

After consuming the final plain looking pill, all of the remaining medicinal energy within the stomach was absorbed into the solid golden pill. That pill then formed a golden orb in the stomach which just sat there, doing nothing at all, until some time later.

Originally, the Rank 3 organ hardening pill should have taken a painful and tedious 99 days to suffer through. Also, he couldn't fall asleep in this time, or else Yaan risked having his four limbs suddenly explode, potentially fatally.

Before he was forced to consume the second pill, he managed to endure all the way through 19 shockwaves. The fact that this almost destroyed his body didn't matter, because combining the final golden pill into the mix rapidly healed any and all injuries. Truthfully, the deeper and more severe the injuries, the greater the benefit he would obtain from the golden pills!

Yaan examined his internal condition carefully. In theory, he should have reduced the duration of the organ hardening pill by 90% already!

Whilst this still left Yaan with enough time to complete the refinement of the remaining pill before his next fight, Yaan naturally wouldn't leave things so close, or with so much chance at play.

This process was not yet finished. Whilst he managed to endure through 19 complete shockwaves of sheer body shattering agony, how could those few minutes of torture compared to 99 days of seemingly endless pain and insomnia?

Naturally, this was far from over, it wasn't so easy to reduce the duration of a 99 day medicine like this. It would be between 6-12 hours before the process continued, depending on metabolism. After that period was over, Yaan's body would be racked with tortures, with an unbelievable pain the likes of which very few would ever willingly endure. Around 10% of medicinal effect remained from the Rank 3 organ hardening pill, but it was now contained within the solid golden orb within his stomach. Yaan could already feel that his absorption of the organ hardening pill had barely even touched his vital energy, because the full effect was successfully absorbed into his physical organs!

Truthfully, he felt some trepidation toward the continuation of the process, but Yaan wasn't one to hide from a challenge. For whatever reason, he had a tendency to challenge his fear by taking increasingly crazed actions as the situation became increasingly dire. The deeper the fear, the greater the crisis, the more he felt inclined to take a dozen risks back to back without even thinking twice.

In a way, it was just a distraction…instead of dwelling on the coming pain and wallowing in fear, Yaan leaned into the madness. He had researched the so called trio of accelerated agony pills and knew that they were no joke. Honestly, the fact that he managed to form the golden cloud with 90% efficiency, was both impressive and terrifying. The pain would certainly be far more awful because of this 'success'.

"What can I do to take advantage of this situation…with 90% reduced, there's 10% of the pill left. The solidified golden pill takes any remaining medicinal efficacy, perfectly fusing it with the contained golden cloud, and forcefully pouring the energy into the target, meaning my organs. During the first 10 seconds, the rate will be standard. The next 10 seconds, it doubles. The next 10 seconds, it doubles…endlessly, until all is absorbed. And the fused golden mist, whilst making the absorption more rapid, increases the pain by so much that most body temperers won't even consider this method…"

Yaan mused aloud, looking across various pills, picking up a few things that he thought might be needed to prevent him from failing…until he paused. He was now gazing at a little booklet, one he did not previously have the time to read since he'd been kept so busy. He had been so intrigued by this booklet, yet he actually totally forgot about it!

This small booklet was sold to him, pulled from the back of a dusty shelf and sold for 25 3-Star astral crystals. A lot of money, even for Yaan.

"The old woman, the seer, mentioned that this book would be a cultivation godsend, but only if I could somewhat comprehend that strange scroll which depicted the four paths of cultivation. Based on their reactions, I more than 'somewhat' comprehended it, haha."

Yaan laughed, his eyes shining as he picked up the book. It was only 72 pages long and quite small, so he expected to skim through it, but it was so damned complicated! He had never read anything so complex before!

Still, he forced himself to read, if only to distract himself from the coming ordeal that would continue in a few hours time.

He tried to make sense of the diagrams. He completed a page every few minutes and felt stuck on some points for half an hour, or even longer. In the end, he somewhat hurried to finish it. Yaan placed the book down, nodding to himself as he started to feel the trio of accelerated agony process kicking in slowly once again.


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