The success of the Resounding Echoes of Celestial Refinement was only the beginning of Wei Wuyin's rampant tyranny unleashed upon the Dao of Alchemy. Earlier, he had entered a state of unprecedented aggressive clarity, putting his all forth with concentrated intensity while simultaneously devouring all that he learned. It was a wondrous state of enlightenment akin to yang.
This time, as he relaxed, deciding to ride the natural momentum of his successes, it was as if the mist surrounding him had developed an assistive consciousness as it aided him smoothly through the seven processes of alchemy. He was genuinely relaxed, blinking often, breathing steadily, and taking things slow—for him at least.
If his earlier state of enlightenment was like yang, then his current state could be likened to yin. It was a flow state; everything came naturally and easily, and problems that cropped about sporadically were pondered upon and almost immediately solved mid-concoction, bringing forth astonishing effects. Meanwhile, genius insights, complex ideas, out-of-the-box solutions, and eureka moments became a consistent occurrence.
This was a manifestation of his stellar alchemic talent, pure and true. Undoubtedly, he felt that his various achievements thus far, accumulated with effort, risk, and courage, were assisting him in many ways. Even the completed version of the Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity allowed him to grasp more with his sight, not polluting the process with his spiritual energies or sense as typical alchemists would.
After several months, he had condensed an entire pint of Utmost Purity Liquid, the grade five version of Utmost Purity Mist, with extreme effort.
"We should have enough," Wei Wuyin concluded as he played it extremely safe, gathering far more than needed. Now, he was left with a choice. No, they were left with a choice!
What product will he use to make this attempt at defying all expectations? He felt the Mystic Dao and Alchemic Dao's presence looming, observing intently. He felt as if he could feel their breath upon his face. It was a surreal feeling that was indescribably hard to place in words. However, it reinforced his belief that this attempt here might set an unprecedented feat yet again.
In his mind, this was how cultivation should be. The constant pursuit of perfection and evolution and greater success. Back then, Creation had instilled the universe with flaws, leaving behind limitless potential within its creations so as to allow those within this universe to create new things with ingenuity and courage to pursue fresh and innovative ideas. Wei Wuyin felt a tinge of pride in his soul.
A wave of sudden nostalgia surged in his heart, warming him with memories of his past. When he was young, just after being involved with the Bloodline of Sin, he was inventing things out of innovation almost by instinct. It was a part of his innate nature. The False God Avatar Art was a prime example of this, including a change in the Haven Heart Qi Method before even then!
When he pursued the Dao of Alchemy, his Neo-Dawn Eclipse Pill was inspired but unique across the universe as recognized by the Alchemic Dao! Perhaps he was always drawn to the laws of creation.
After an hour or so, he broke his reverie.
It was time; he knew which product would be used. He half-expected that his Astral Souls would protest or suggest something else. Surprisingly, they hadn't. Instead, they silently supported his decision, and his eyes released a soft glow of silvery light. With his family behind him, what else was there to worry about?
In the outside world, twenty-three days had come and gone since the Original Dawn Palace had taken its place above the palatial continent. There were only five days till the Knightly Dao Pavilion's trifecta of celebration. Those who were attending had long since left. As for those who lacked the qualifications or ability to attend, if they lived in the Swirling Growth Stellar Region, they were all near the Tiny Heart Starfield, instantly creating an unexpectedly crowded atmosphere.
The palatial continent of the Utmost Purity Hall had already been classified as a true holy ground for alchemists. Additionally, senior cultivators with the means to obtain a spot sent various juniors there with storage devices to accumulate grade two mist for the future.
There was essentially no loss. As for Mystic-Earth Concoction Methods? They were too numerous to count, so these organizations offered them up easily. With enough grade two mist, they could attempt to cultivate an Alchemic Spirit alchemist with some degree of confidence.
Luo Ning hovered at the edge of the continent's atmospheric layer on a luxurious void vessel gifted to her by one of the neighboring organizations. It was a personal vessel, only capable of housing a few hundred cultivators comfortably while simultaneously being operable by a single individual. It was purple, gold, and white, adorned by gorgeous designs of cauldrons.
Beside her were the three Sages. Luo Ning had initiated the order to seal further entry. To which Hao Chengxue didn’t argue, immediately sealing off the continent so no one else could enter. The date of the Knightly Dao Pavilion was fast approaching, with only five days left, and she didn’t want to complicate the situation. Moreover, the belching of mist had ceased recently and the saber light formation enshrouding the Original Dawn Palace had intensified.
Wei Wuyin must be at a critical point. This was what she felt intuitively.
Imentet pouted as she ate some crystalline grapes. Her luscious lips were licked by her pink tongue. A simple action like that was enough to rile any hot-blooded male. Nepit gave her a side-eye before observing Nepri, whose focus was entirely on the Original Dawn Palace.
'Pretending to not notice! Hmph!' Nepit mentally complained. She never liked this vixen.
In actuality, Nepri was far too focused on the developments of the Original Dawn Palace. He was a Spiritual Cultivator, so his Spiritual Sense was far more sensitive, stronger, and pervasive than the others. There was a mounting anxiety building within his heart. Even his Mystic Soul trembled ever so slightly.
Whatever Wei Wuyin was doing here, it was bringing about an unprecedented feeling that he couldn’t begin to describe.
Could he actually be concocting a Mystic-Heaven grade product? He found it a little hard to believe. While everyone knew that Wei Wuyin was concocting in a temporally accelerated zone, one that he didn’t have to maintain himself or by others, the flow of accelerated time presented certain difficulties when concocting. To make a comparison, it was like walking underwater. While possible if one found the seafloor or solid footing, it wasn’t easy.
The added difficulty was why most alchemists didn’t concoct in accelerated fields unless they were making a grand bid to create some Utmost Purity Mist using seventh, eighth, and ninth-grade products, generally producing grade one mist. This tactic was common amongst alchemists, so Wei Wuyin’s actions of bestowing good fortune using accelerated time aligned with everyone’s conventional thinking.
But he knew...
...he knew that Wei Wuyin was anything but conventional! Anything but ordinary! He was a Mystic Star Phase expert, and after becoming his vessel and some overt probing, Luo Ning had all but confirmed that, excluding variation from existing in accelerated time, Wei Wuyin wasn’t even a hundred years old!
His attainments as a cultivator and as an alchemist were far too magnificent to be classified as just 'heaven-defying'! Moreover, his newly founded empire, the Neo-Dawn Empire, already had three galactic vassal states! This was already unbelievable!
"What do you think he's doing up there?" Imentet had obtained some clues to the abnormality of the situation, asking once again to Luo Ning and Nepri.
Nepri responded tensely, his breathing heavy, and his eyes locked in: "Something unparalleled!"
Luo Ning silently nodded.
"..." Imentet felt a mounting sense of anticipation in her soul. What were they going to witness?!
Unbeknownst to any of them, they were unaware of how right they were! Seven Incandescent Starfield, Incandescent Star Palace.
The three leading figures stood around a round table. Among them were none other than the Incandescent Star Palace's Palace Lord, a young-looking, white-haired, and solemn-faced man. The other two—a man and woman—heavily resembled each other, both extraordinarily attractive, and they were equally as solemn.
They all had the faint glow of soul light within their eyes, an indicator of Soul Perception. The young man's body felt as if it was in harmony with the heavens and held supremacy over the earth, while the two others exuded peak Mystic Auras. A Supreme Sage and two Enlightened Sages! The air, despite their cultivation, was unnaturally stifling and oppressive.
The male Enlightened Sage, who was the Left Vice-Palace Master of the Incandescent Star Palace, known as Zhou Yiyang, slowly spoke: "What shall we do, Palace Lord?" His voice was laced with grimness and uncertainty.
"..." The Incandescent Star Palace's Palace Lord's facial expression was indecipherable. And with good reason. Just earlier, the Incandescent Star Palace had received a message from one of its branches, a message that originated from none other than Supreme Hellguide! One of the Supreme Seers!
The message was cryptic. It said: "Silence at the time of knights three—fortune, calamity, and fate's inevitable mystery awaits the Supreme and the Enlightened who dares speak, absent of fortune, acceptance of calamity, and indelible involvement of fate."
As a courtesy, this was what Supreme Hellguide sent!
They weren't fools nor lacked the intelligence to decipher this message. The Knightly Dao Pavilion's trifecta celebration and contest was the stage and their decision to involve themselves will bring about calamity. As a Supreme Sage, he was aware of how heavy every prophetic word was disseminated by the three Supreme Seers.
Moreover, this likely had to do with those three infants born all those years ago! It seems that prophecy back then was rearing its head once again.
Whatever, in light of this warning, Incandescent Star Palace's Palace Lord was decisive. "Zhou Yiyin, you won't be going to the event. We'll see an Original Magistrate envoy in your place, ensure that they don't have any direct connection to the palace, and simply are there to deliver our gift. Furthermore, we won't be delivering the planned gift. We'll deliver three free usages of the Star Bridge. That's it. Moreover, regardless of what happens in the Knightly Dao Pavilion's territory, we will not intervene."
"..." The two siblings, Zhou Yiyang and Zhou Yiyin, glanced each other's way before seeing the relief in their eyes. Despite wanting to meet the Neo-Dawn Alchemic Saint on neutral grounds, they knew what to do. Whatever could push a Supreme Seer into issuing a timely warning was not to be underestimated.
Across the Utmost Purity Mist, whether they were Enlightened Sages or Supreme Sages, they all received the same warning message. Unanimously, these top-tier powerhouses took a step back.
While the Knightly Dao Pavilion would normally not be worthy of earning their direct participation, the recent reveal that the Neo-Dawn Alchemic Saint who was on the verge of reaching the Heavenly Saint Alchemist level was enough for them to make an appearance. Therefore, the once shocking surprise of a myriad of experts to socialize with this foreign newcomer had silently vanished.
In a way, it was as if Wei Wuyin's unexpected existence leading to incredible changes and developments had been silently dispelled by a hand of heaven! Like the Heavenly Daos!
As for the intended ongoings of fate, had they not been reset? The aura of eternity exploded violently within Wei Wuyin's alchemical chamber! The aura of mysticism raged! The Original Dawn Palace trembled with unprecedented vibrations!
Wei Wuyin was floating two inches off the ground as mystically eternal light poured out of the Neo-Dawn Ascension Cauldron as his alchemist robes and sleeves flapped as if battered by a torrential onslaught of gale winds!
The Alchemic Stars within his eyes were each emitting a shockingly soulful radiance, each flickering with rapid intensity, and exuding all sorts of profound auras and mystical powers!
Wei Wuyin had externally cultivated alchemical energies by refining the grade five Utmost Purity Mist using a thoroughly refined conversion method devised by his Second Mind, and it was miraculously wondrous. Not initially, however. He had failed a few times.
It was only after tweaking the method by including Seven Source Soul Light and his Law of Origin that was he capable of resonating with the heavens, subtly and inexplicably emulating the Resonant Source Aura of a Resonant Soul Realm expert, allowing the proper elevation of quality and thereby the intermixing of the aura of eternity!
In a way, this was a discount or bootleg version of their source power. However, in the end, it worked!
IT WORKED! The aura of eternity had shown a different response than usual, and while the aura of eternity had eventually dissipated from his senses as expected given its high-level nature, he knew that it hadn't been refined away entirely!
He had reached the final stage of the concoction process! It wasn't difficult at all, not until he reached the last step. The fusion of all things!
The mystically eternal light was emitted from this!
Wei Wuyin was a little pressed, however. Despite his efforts, he had exhausted every iota of grade five mist in creating that supreme level of alchemical energy. If this failed, he would have to try again! But he didn't think too deeply about this and was investing his all in this single moment!
Suddenly, as the light flooded the entirety of the chamber, Wei Wuyin felt the Mystic Dao Blessing within him stir alongside the eternal blessing! They were growing unusually active!
As for the Mortal Dao Blessing, it had always been active since his ascension as a Virtue of the Mortal Dao, so it hadn't reacted any differently.
BOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOM!!!
A continuous series of explosions with a magnitude enough to obliterate a stellar region erupted within the cauldron, distorting all colors and principles of time and space. Wei Wuyin held firm, his body exerting its strength to withstand the backlash, while Bai Xiu acted in tandem, protecting herself and Wei Wuyin.
Within a fraction of a picosecond, Wei Wuyin's robes were torn asunder, obliterated as his skin began to peel off from the intensity of the explosion. On the surface of the Neo-Dawn Ascension Cauldron, cracks formed. They were deep and horrific.
However, Bai Xiu didn't grunt or complain in the slightest. She was fully focused, not noticing her manifestation shrinking several times throughout.
Wei Wuyin knew that playing with high-level energies far beyond his cultivation base was risky, and while this might be nothing for a Supreme Sage, a mere explosion that could be handled like all the other backlash alchemists of the Worldly Saint Alchemist level might face, a single wave of the hand, for him, it was a potential calamity that was ripping his body apart!
Blood leaked from his pores as his eyebrows, fingernails, and hair vanished. Little by little, his skin and muscles were evaporated by the continuous explosions numbering more than twenty thousand already! His eyes, genitals, and heart were the only parts of him that remained untouched and eternal in the face of this destruction!
Before long, his bones began to be exposed! Fortunately! FORTUNATELY!!
The last explosion went off!
And then, as if blessed by fortune, the alchemical chamber was bestowed with pure silence. The walls were covered in millions upon millions of cracks, and the room had expanded several sizes, distorted into a spherical shape as if it was a balloon that had been filled with air.
"Haaa...Haaa..." Wei Wuyin's breathing was heavy to an extreme. With every breath, his body absorbed mana from god knows where and began to rapidly regenerate. Within twelve breaths, his body had returned to peak condition. While fully nude, there was nothing else to it.
He didn't have time to observe the damage to the chamber as he hurried to Bai Xiu. She sat at the edge of her cracked cauldron, her figure shrunk to a twentieth of a normal person, smaller than she was before, and her hazy figure carried the brightest smile he had ever witnessed from her.
The exhaustion and pain in her entire existence was apparent yet it did little to harm her aura of happiness!
"We did it!" Her hoarse voice resounded throughout the chamber.
Wei Wuyin's expression softened as warmth flowed through his eyes. She was a true Spirit of the Alchemic Dao, eager to pursue greater heights on a scale higher than himself, disregarding any cost. He nodded and held her in the palm of his right hand. "We did it."
Within the cauldron was a pill that was radiating soft and profound light. It was mystical in nature and eternal in essence. The pill was half the size of a normal pill. It was azure in color but enshrouded by a layer of silvery light that exuded an eternal aura.
The Mystic Runes within it were white and exceedingly complex, far exceeding the typical combinations of the Nine Ways of Mysticism on every level that Wei Wuyin had ever witnessed. Directly above it was a pencil-thin pillar of golden light that slowly rose for a third of an inch before vanishing. When Wei Wuyin inspected that pillar, he realized it had the makings of a bridge.
There was a legend... A great legend in the Myriad Yore Continent that said immortals built a bridge of immortality to the heavens to achieve it...
"It's still a little hard to believe...a transcendent Neo-Dawn World-Eclipsing Pill!"

Comments

Loading...