Chapter 792 – The Gate of Wonder
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The direction reagent had already been prepared. Lin Ming then took out the wood spirit jade quintessence. This quail egg-sized jade quintessence was actually several times heavier than gold. At such a small size it was already one jin and three taels.
Lin Ming flicked his fingers and the wood spirit jade quintessence flew into the Cosmic Melting Furnace.
Wood spirit jade was extremely resistant to high temperatures. The older wood spirit jade was, the more difficult it was to refine. And wood spirit jade quintessence could even cause a Divine Sea powerhouse to exhaust themselves.
Lin Ming opened the Heretical God Force as well as the Eight Inner Hidden Gates.
Bang!
Within the Cosmic Melting Furnace, the Burning Star Flame suddenly erupted. With a heaven-step Flame Essence as the source, the wood spirit jade quintessence began to slowly heat up.
“Concept of Burning Heat, Law of Annihilation!”
True essence rapidly revolved within Lin Ming. The totem mark on the Heretical God Seed began to shine with the radiant light of the Laws.
The Eight Dragon Jade Dawn Array fiercely shook. Fire-attribute origin energy twisted into a vortex within the chamber, and the top quality fire-attribute true essence stones began to rapidly lose their shine before they cracked underneath the intense flow of energy and turned into ash.
In such a terrifying convection of heat, the wood spirit jade quintessence began to soften after a quarter hour. Quietly, it began to melt.
A drop of shimmering golden liquid wood spirit jade dropped into the directing reagents. Lin Ming’s entire forehead was beaded with sweat as his mental concentration reached the peak.
Another jin of 500,000 year wood spirit jade was tossed into the Cosmic Melting Furnace. This time, the wood spirit jade quickly melted, forming a thick viscous green wood spirit jade liquid that wrapped all the medicinal materials within.
Liquid wood spirit jade made for an ideal medium buffer for alchemy. The inherent rich and pure wood-attribute origin energy within could nourish the medicinal materials and it could also prevent the flames from overheating and burning the medicine. Thus, this would be able to greatly enhance the chances of success in concocting a pill.
The directing reagents had already taken form. And with the wood spirit jade liquid as a buffer, Lin Ming then tossed the Void Temper Root and the Five Color Fruit into the Cosmic Melting Furnace, prepared to let them melt within the temperature-consistent wood spirit jade liquid.
Chi!
With a light sound, the Void Temper Root and the Five Color Fruit fiercely shook. Lin Ming’s heart tightly gripped. Even though his soul force had vacillated just the tiniest bit, just that had caused the Five Color Fruit and the Void Temper Root to nearly be destroyed. Luckily, the excess energy was absorbed by the wood spirit jade quintessence fluid, otherwise Lin Ming would have failed here.
Using one jin and three taels of wood spirit jade quintessence to refine a Fivefade Void Pill was an extravagant waste, but it was truly worth it at this moment.
Three quarters of an hour passed. Lin Ming’s clothes were completely soaked in sweat.
When an alchemist was concocting pills, they required an extremely high degree of spiritual concentration, constantly sensing and controlling the raw materials in the furnace. In this situation, there would be an exorbitant consumption of soul force. If one didn’t have a powerful soul force then they could forget about ever becoming an alchemist.
Lin Ming’s soul force and willpower far exceeded all other martial artists’ at his level. But even so, refining such a high level pill was still difficult.
Two hours…
Four hours…
Six hours…
Blue veins on Lin Ming’s forehead bulged upwards like worms. Because he had overdrawn his soul force to a high degree, his entire face was stark white and his lips were beginning to turn blue.
Still, as long as he could persist, overdrawing his soul force like this would be greatly beneficial to the future growth of his soul force.
Every time he completely exhausted his soul force and had to dig out further potential from the depths of his body, this would allow his soul force to reach higher realms. This was also one of the reasons that Demonshine wanted Lin Ming to study alchemy.
After a full eight hours passed, every alchemy material was tossed into the pill furnace, thoroughly fusing together. But at this time, Lin Ming’s eyes were bloodshot; he had overdrafted his soul force to the limit.
This was the last step of forming the pill and also the easiest phase to fail at. Although Lin Ming had the wood spirit jade quintessence to form a buffer as well as the Cosmic Melting Furnace, Burning Star Flame, Eight Dragon Jade Dawn Array, and other such favorable conditions to help him, Lin Ming’s time spent practicing alchemy was still far too short. Also, his alchemy practice had been focused on specifically training for refining the Fivefade Void Pill so his alchemy foundation was far too weak. It was actually uncertain whether or not he would be successful.
If he failed here then he wouldn’t have the materials for a second attempt.
After another hour passed, the Cosmic Melting Furnace began to slowly spin around as it emitted clarion cries from its center. A fragrant medicine smell began to fill the air.
Lin Ming’s spiritual concentration had reached unprecedented heights. He continuously formed seals with his hand, using the Heretical God Seed to steady the Burning Star Flame’s temperature as much as possible. With his perception he was able to see that the medicinal liquid within the pill furnace had begun to contract in on itself and the wood spirit jade essence was completely gathering together in forming the Fivefade Void Pill.
Lin Ming suppressed the aching headaches that followed overdrawing his soul force. He used a hand and withdrew a light green jade box from his spatial ring. This jade box was only three or four inches wide and it was actually carved from wood spirit jade.
This jade box had an extremely rich wood-attribute origin energy. It could ensure that a pill’s medicinal efficacy wouldn’t fade for a very long time; even retaining its perfect form for several years wasn’t a problem. This was the best storage vessel for a pill. Of course, it was always extremely expensive so it was specifically used for high level pills.
Peng!
The Cosmic Melting Furnace’s lid popped up without a sign. With a faint humming sound, a fist-sized ball of light shout out from within. At the center of this light was a thumb-sized pill that shined with five different splendorous colors. It glowed like a radiant sun with and emitted intense waves of energy.
After the pill appeared it didn’t stop rising. It quickly flew up as if it wanted to break out of the stone walls and escape.
Lin Ming had already expected this and had arranged an array formation around the Cosmic Array Formation. A high level pill had its own spiritual sense. After the furnace was opened, it would attempt to flee. If he really allowed this pill that he had used all of his effort to refine to suddenly escape then that would be the greatest joke of all.
Bang!
The Fivefade Void Pill smashed into the array formation’s walls, causing it to shake. However, it didn’t manage to break through the array.
After the first attempt failed, the Fivefade Void Pill shined even brighter as if it were readying itself to make a second impact. But how could Lin Ming allow it to do as it wished? He quickly stepped on Golden Roc Shattering the Void and grabbed the Fivefade Void Pill in his hand. Then, he formed several dozen seals with his other hand and sealed the pill into the wood spirit jade box.
After finishing this, Lin Ming fell straight down from the air as if he had lost all of his strength.
With shivering fingers, Lin Ming took out a soul recovery pill from his spatial ring. He only felt as if his eyelids had been replaced by lead and his surroundings seemed to go blurry. Then, he fell asleep as everything turned to darkness.
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After an unknown period of time, Lin Ming’s fingers began to move slightly. He opened both of his eyes and saw only the pitch black of the cave. There were some left over wood-attribute true essence stones scattered on the floor, emitting a glowing green light. In the dark, it seemed exceptionally beautiful.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Seven days!” Demonshine’s voice sounded out in Lin Ming’s mind.
Seven days…
Lin Ming sat up, his head throbbing. As he examined his spiritual sea, he saw that his soul force really had grown a bit. And the azure spear-shaped battle spirit that floated in the skies above his spiritual sea seemed to glow even brighter, as if it had become more formidable.
When Lin Ming had first become an inscription master and completed his first medicinal inscription symbol, he had rested for several days after. The reason had also been that he had overdrawn his soul force. Once the inscription had been completed, his mind had relaxed and he directly fell into a deep slumber.
Now, even though his soul force had risen, he had encountered the same situation because the rank of pills he concocted was even higher. Lin Ming couldn’t help but sigh with emotion.
He had obtained the Magic Cube when he was just 15 years old. Now nearly seven years had passed. In these seven years, his strength had gone through heaven-shaking upheavals. As he recalled the trials and tribulations he encountered on his road of martial artists, he couldn’t help but reminisce.
Lin Ming stashed away the Cosmic Melting Furnace and sat on the roughly carved stone bed. Then, he entered the ethereal martial intent state and began to meditate.
As he cycled the true essence in his body, he found that the Revolving Core crystal nucleus in his dantian had grown even more. He was getting that much closer to the peak of the late Revolving Core.
After breaking through to the late Revolving Core, Lin Ming’s cultivation hadn’t rapidly risen at all. In half a year he still hadn’t managed to break through to the peak of the late Revolving Core. This was because after having had his cultivation shoot up with astronomical speed, he now required time to solidify his foundation, accumulating strength so he could prepare to pass through Life Destruction.
Although the Life Destruction realm was within the Revolving Core realm, it was still considered an entire large boundary over. Breaking through this bottleneck wouldn’t be easy at all.
He used two hours to restore his mental state and physical condition to their peak.
Then, Lin Ming pulled out the recently refined Fivefade Void Pill.
“Lin Ming, do you plan on opening the third of the Eight Inner Hidden Gates now?”
“Yes. I must increase my strength as soon as possible. The earlier I absorb this pill, the more beneficial it will be to my cultivation and ability to resist my enemies.”
He opened the wood spirit jade box and unraveled the seals. The thumb-sized five colored pill tumbled into his hands. This pill looked small but it was actually extremely heavy; it weighed nearly two jin. This was because it had partially formed from the melted essence of the wood spirit jade quintessence.
Lin Ming opened his mouth and swallowed the pill. He immediately felt a burst of coolness from his throat and reaching down to his stomach, gradually becoming a faint burning sensation.
Compared to the blue Nameless Divine Pill that he had taken in the past, the Fivefade Void Pill’s side effects were much more mild and temperate. But, the time it would take to process it was also much longer. Lin Ming put away the jade box and closed his eyes, entering into the ethereal martial intent as he began to revolve the ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’.
For the past seven years, because of his diligent training, Lin Ming’s understanding of the ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’ had steadily increased. Now he had full confidence that he could record at least half of the ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’s’ heart mantra into a jade slip so that others could train with it.
Within the Realm of the Gods, there weren’t many types of body transformation law formulas. This was because there were far fewer people that trained in the body transformation system as opposed to the essence gathering system.
The ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’ was a superior top level body transformation law formula, and one of its greatest advantages was that it wasn’t difficult to practice at all.
At this time, Lin Ming could already clearly see faint traces of multi-hued energy flowing and mixing into his meridians and penetrating into his limbs and bones, fusing into his body. This was his final preparation for breaking through to the third of the Eight Inner Hidden Gates.
The third gate was called the Gate of Wonder.
After one reached the second stage of body transformation, every time one of the Eight Inner Hidden Gates was opened, one would obtain a greater strength. At the same time, every gate corresponded to obtaining a special ability.
For instance, the first gate, the Gate of Healing, was located at the point between the clavicles. After opening this gate, besides a martial artist’s overall strength rising, it would also greatly enhance their endurance and recovery ability.
For the second gate, the Gate of Limit, that was located at the spine: the area called the dragon bone. Opening this gate would increase one’s balance and explosive force.
As for the third gate, the Gate of Wonder, that was located at the two knees. Opening this gate would increase a martial artist’s strength, and the special ability it granted was to greatly increase a martial artist’s speed.