txolops Chapter 37 Mysterious
Chapter 37 Mysterious
"The Celestial Venerable of the Mysterious Dao of the Spiritual Treasure Elixir"
This name was etched deep into Chen Bai's memory like a brand.
He had never heard of this Celestial Venerable's name, but the aura emanating from that figure made him feel an insignificance from the bottom of his heart, like a mayfly seeing the blue sky, even if it was just a fleeting image across countless millennia and the boundless distance.
I wonder in which eon or period this Celestial Venerable existed?
It should be noted that the Changxiao Realm was created from the chaos and nothingness, and has existed for more than 230,000 years.
One "kalpa" lasts for 120,000 years, and one "cycle" lasts for 10,000 years.
Before the "Primordial Calamity," the human race had not yet risen to power. One after another, primordial gods and demons stood in the void, running rampant without restraint, claiming to be indestructible through countless eons and comparable to true immortals and Buddhas.
After encountering this first great calamity, they were like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, all turning into ashes and perishing.
If this Celestial Venerable existed after the rise of humanity, his name would surely be passed down through the ages…
Along with learning Xiao Ding's true name, Chen Bai also learned the true usage of the Guiyuan Creation Cauldron.
Chen Bai sat on the bed, digesting this information one by one.
Firstly, "Returning to the Origin".
This is the fundamental mystery of the Guiyuan Creation Cauldron.
As the name suggests, anything controlled by Chen Bai can be "recycled" and put into the cauldron.
The small cauldron will automatically break down the input into two parts: "essence" and "dregs".
The essence will be refined and purified to extract valuable items; the dregs will be refined into an intangible "primordial substance" and stored in the cauldron for future use.
He was unaware of this subsequent step before.
The dregs extracted from the recovered corpses and magical artifacts did not disappear into thin air, but were refined into "primordial matter" and stored away.
Back then, Chen Bai retrieved more than a hundred cultivator corpses in the Louze Plain, but only managed to extract them successfully a dozen times.
The numerous “failures” were not true failures—in fact, all the corpses were transformed into “primordial matter.”
Secondly, "creation".
This is the second mystery of the small cauldron, which has only just been unlocked.
This mysterious relationship relates to the use of "primordial matter".
First, the extracted items can be "modified" to a certain extent, including repairing, tempering, and strengthening...
For example, the armor of that iron-backed pangolin was originally split in two by a single stroke. But the little cauldron used this profound "creation" to consume a small portion of its "primordial essence" to restore it to its original condition.
Secondly, one can choose to consume "Elemental Essence" to combine and recast multiple recycled "Essences" in the cauldron.
Spiritual materials, essences, spiritual fire, Taoist techniques... all can be fused together in the cauldron to create something completely different from the original.
He had accidentally created the Spirit Crow Xiaoqi by using this mysterious function.
The success or failure of this fusion depends on the compatibility of the items themselves, the amount of "elemental matter" invested, and many other factors that he does not yet fully understand.
Moreover, combinations are not always reliable; the more conflicting the elements are, the harder they are to integrate.
Now, he has finally mastered the basic function of this seal—he can actively choose which items to keep and which to discard after recycling.
In other words, he can now actively extract the full value from every piece of material, instead of passively waiting for the results as before.
Chen Bai opened his eyes and let out a long breath.
He glanced instinctively at the few clumps of ashes and debris on the ground.
Chen Bai suddenly felt like laughing.
He used to find gold in excrement, but now it's different; now he's refining dung into gold.
"If we were to refine all of these essences..."
Chen Bai looked at the three round, crimson blood essences in his hand, and a smile slowly appeared on his lips.
Without further hesitation, he immediately sat down cross-legged.
This time, the refining process was completely different from before. Chen Bai found it troublesome to swallow them one by one, and it also prevented him from concentrating the medicinal power, so he decided to try out the wonders of the small cauldron.
The second mystery is "Creation".
He placed three blood essences of different sizes into the cauldron, and with only a small amount of "essence," he combined the three into one.
"Buzz—"
A flash of white light followed.
Before him appeared a fist-sized, pure crimson elixir, as clear as a ruby.
Inside, three distinct phantom images of blood energy flickered, their abundant blood energy almost overflowing, filling the entire room with wisps of essence and blood smoke.
After pondering for a moment, Chen Bai did not rush to swallow it. Instead, he took out a few herbs from his pouch that he had bought in the market a few days ago to nourish his meridians. Using the small copper stove in the corner of the stone chamber, he simply boiled a bowl of herbal soup and drank it down.
As the warm, bitter medicinal soup entered my stomach, a warm and comforting sensation immediately rose in my lower abdomen.
Chen Bai then picked up the large crimson essence, his gaze narrowed slightly, and swallowed it in one gulp.
Fortunately, this essence did not have a physical form; otherwise, Chen Bai would have had to expend considerable effort to swallow it.
As the essence entered his throat, Chen Bai's whole body trembled violently.
When the three essences were combined and refined into one, the medicinal power became terrifyingly potent.
The incredibly large warm current seemed to tear his throat apart, rushing down his esophagus, rolling over his chest, crashing into his dantian, and then exploding violently.
"Well--"
Chen Bai grunted, and the veins on his forehead bulged.
From his perspective, his body was changing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
It felt like countless tiny snakes were wriggling wildly beneath my skin; those were the meridians that were swollen from being stretched by a massive amount of vital energy.
His arms, chest, abdomen, and even cheeks were swelling, and his originally well-fitting Taoist robe was stretched taut, with the fabric on his shoulders and back making a creaking sound as it could not bear the weight.
He seemed to have been inflated by air, his whole body expanding in size.
Immediately following, an even more intense wave of impact arrived.
The warm current that burst forth from the dantian did not surge in only one direction, but rather, like a flood bursting its banks, it simultaneously rushed to every meridian in the limbs and bones.
The eight extraordinary meridians, the twelve regular meridians, and even countless tiny collaterals as thin as hair were all forcibly filled by that tyrannical force in that instant.
pain.
excruciating pain.
Chen Bai gritted his teeth, his entire consciousness swallowed by the excruciating pain.
He had experienced the pain of physical tempering many times, but none of them could compare to this moment.
The sensation of that massive flow of vital energy through the meridians felt nothing like gentle nourishment; it was more like a red-hot iron brush repeatedly scraping the inner walls of the meridians.
Each surge of Qi and blood pushes the meridians to their limit, tearing countless fine cracks, which are then quickly healed by the repairing power of the essence itself.
Tearing, healing...
This process occurs simultaneously throughout the entire body.
The channels were widened inch by inch, and the original waterways that could only accommodate trickling streams were forcibly deepened and widened, turning them into large canals that could accommodate the rushing rivers.
On the inner wall of the meridians, those fine, spiderweb-like cracks are constantly forming and healing.
After each healing process, the meridians become more resilient than before.
Muscles are undergoing the same transformation.
As the blood and qi surged through him, Chen Bai's muscle fibers were torn apart one by one, and then regenerated at an extremely fast speed.
The newly formed muscles are denser and stronger than before, with each fiber like a finely forged iron wire, tightly twisted together.
From his appearance, his physique is undergoing subtle yet profound changes—
The shoulders and back, which were originally a bit thin, are becoming wider and thicker; the lines around the waist and abdomen are becoming firmer and more defined.