Meng Hao looked at his Master silently for a moment. Then, he quietly said, “At first, I came because I wanted to get rid of the poison. After I joined the Sect, I stayed because of the Dao of alchemy!”

Pill Demon gazed at Meng Hao for a long moment. Finally, a look of contentment appeared on his face, and he smiled.

Slowly, he said, “From your first day in the Sect, Master felt the aura of the Resurrection Lily. Later, when I saw you, I understood the situation. There are three ways that you can dispel the poison. One is for it to merge with you, after which, you will no longer be you. The second is for you to devour it, then it won’t be it!

“As for the third… it is to use your own Dao of alchemy to dispel the poison yourself. Karma exists within Heaven and Earth. The Resurrection Lily in your body is the cause of the Karma. Other than you, no one else can dispel it. The reason is because no one else is you. The fact that no one else can dispel the poison but you, is the result of the Karma.

“On this path, the first is the pa.s.sive, the second is the active, and the third is the most active method, that of using your Dao of alchemy. I presume you understand the meaning of my words.”

Meng Hao was silent. The poison had been within him since the State of Zhao, pestering him all the way until now. He had been unable to dispel it for that entire time. When he first joined the Violet Fate Sect, he’d had no understanding of the Dao of alchemy. However, thanks to his constant cultivation, he had gained more enlightenment regarding the poison, as well as some bit of hope. Hearing Master’s words now, though, caused him to sigh in his heart.

“This poison is nothing,” said Pill Demon. “With your skill in the Dao of alchemy, you’ll be able to dispel it sooner or later. Master can see that the Resurrection Lily has somehow been suppressed. Strange. Right now it’s as if it’s asleep. However, the power of suppression seems to be gradually weakening….”

Meng Hao’s eyes glittered. Calmly, he said, “Master, if I must dispel the poison myself, then, can I ask, in your experience, have you ever known someone else to successfully do so in the past?”

“One person,” replied Pill Demon. “He lived by the Milky Way Sea, and his name was Reverend Silverlamp. His Cultivation base was unfathomable. He came to me seven hundred years ago, looking for a method to dispel his poison. I said the same thing to him that I told you. Three hundred years later he returned to me to repay my kindness. He had successfully dispelled the poison.”

Meng Hao was thoughtful for a moment, then gave a slight smile. “If that person could dispel the poison, then I will definitely be able to use my Dao of alchemy to do the same.”

His voice low, expression somber, Pill Demon continued, “If Master forcefully a.s.sisted you in dispelling the poison, it would harm the cycle of Karma. That would not benefit you at all. However, under my tutelage, your Dao of alchemy will eventually reach the point where you can dispel it yourself! The poison of the Resurrection Lily gave you the power of nature talent. If in the future you dispel the poison, then you will be able to a.s.similate its full power. In that case, you can turn one of the most ultimate poisons under Heaven, into a rarely seen treasure!

“Such a treasure will enable you to open up your path to the Heavens. Having this poison within you might seem like a disaster, but one aspect of the disaster is unprecedented good fortune!” He suddenly changed the subject. “After the three kowtows, you became my Legacy Apprentice. Therefore, Master has three gifts for you.” He raised his arm and flicked his wide sleeve. Immediately, everything around them swirled into a riot of colors.

“The first gift is a batch of Outlander Pills. The name comes from the expression ‘a night of outlandish tales.’ A pill such as this has never before appeared in the Southern Domain. I created it during alchemic enlightenment three years ago.

“This batch contains three pills in total. Consuming one pill will cause the Resurrection Lily to slumber for one hundred years, will increase your longevity by one hundred years, and will allow you to make progress in your Cultivation base; if you face any sort of blockage, it can help you to break through. These three pills will help you, my apprentice, to reach the Nascent Soul stage with no problems!

“In total, it will also give you three hundred years of extra time to dispel your poison. If you have not succeeded after three hundred years, then I will concoct another batch of pills for you, and will continue to do so until the day you dispel the poison.”

The words entered Meng Hao’s ears and sank all the way to his heart. He looked at his Master, and could feel the sincerity in his words, as well as a kindness and love.

Three years ago, Grandmaster Pill Demon had concocted pills during alchemic enlightenment, just for him. Meng Hao clasped hands and bowed deeply.

“Many thanks, Master!”

“Master’s second gift for you is a legacy technique of the East Pill Division. The name is Spirit Summoning Incantation. It can be used to refine a pill up to six times, although, with sufficient latent talent and Cultivation base, the limit of six can be broken! Again, this is a legacy technique of the East Pill Division. To date, I have only ever pa.s.sed it on to two people. You, and your former Elder Brother Liu Rufeng.” With that, Pill Demon reached up and pushed down onto Meng Hao’s forehead.

Instantly, Meng Hao’s body trembled, and an icy coldness swept through him. A long pa.s.sage of text appeared in his mind; it seemed abstruse and profound, but after scanning over it, Meng Hao seemed to have gained complete enlightenment.

“This is a legacy technique which may not be pa.s.sed on to anyone other than a Legacy Apprentice. There is no complicated process to understand how to employ it; as long as you master the fundamentals, you can use it. Later, you must pa.s.s it on to another, and so it will go from generation to generation.” A profound look gleamed in Pill Demon’s eyes.

“The last of my three gifts is a precious treasured item of the East Pill Division. The East Pill Everburning Flame!” He flicked his right sleeve again, and the mountainside split open. A rumbling sound filled the air as a ma.s.sive fissure appeared.

Within was a flight of steps that seemed to descend down into the depths of the earth. Pill Demon and Meng Hao, Master and apprentice, walked downward. They walked for a very, very long time.

Eventually, they were deep down in the earth beneath the Violet Fate Sect. Meng Hao’s mind trembled as he looked ahead. In front of him was an enormous limestone cavern.

Within the cavern were three enormous, half-burned black joss sticks. Strands of black smoke emanated up from them to swirl and float about. In addition to the smoke floating around the cavern, greenish flames also burned everywhere.

Above the three joss sticks floated a black pill furnace, approximately three meters tall. It seemed as if it were being supported by the smoke and fueled by the flames.

Pill Demon looked at the pill furnace, and his eyes shone as if he were recalling some memory. It was a complicated expression which lasted for only a moment before he sighed lightly.

“This incense is not of this world. The smoke never disperses and the incense never ceases burning; this is the East Pill Division’s Everburning Flame! It has been burning for more than twenty thousand years…. It is a legacy which cannot be extinguished. Instill it into your heart, and it can become an alchemic flame!

“After you reach Core Formation, fuse this flame into your Violet Core, and it will ignite. Thereafter, whenever you concoct medicinal pills, you will not need to use Earthly fire. This is your personal alchemic fire, with which you can refine all objects in Heaven and Earth. In the entire East Pill Division, only you and I are qualified to use this legacy fire.

“The Everburning flame is always here, as am I.” This last line was uttered by Pill Demon in a murmur, making it difficult for Meng Hao to hear clearly. As he spoke, Pill Demon was staring at the joss sticks, the smoke and the flame, and it seemed as if he wasn’t even speaking to Meng Hao.

After a moment, he looked toward Meng Hao. “You will stay here in secluded meditation. When you have a.s.similated the will of the fire into your heart, then you may emerge.” With that, he turned and slowly strode up the stairs, eventually disappearing.

Meng Hao thought about everything for a long time, then sat down cross-legged. He looked down at the pill bottle in his hand. Inside were the Outlander Pills Master had concocted for him. Meng Hao could hardly imagine how precious the pills were.

He put the pill bottle into his bag of holding, and then closed his eyes. Within his mind floated the Spirit Summoning Incantation. Within were techniques to refine a pill three, four even six times. By using this technique on an ordinary pill, it was possible to transform it into a consummate pill.

The power of such a technique caused Meng Hao’s mind to shake. This was a divine ability of the Dao of alchemy, congruous in cultivation terms to the Sublime Spirit Scripture!

You could say that with this pill concocting technique, Meng Hao truly was a sort of Grandmaster in the field of pill concoction. Skill in this technique was not something that anyone could cultivate. Starting with the fourth refinement, any flame other than the East Pill Division’s Everburning Flame would not be sufficient to employ the technique.

In the entire East Pill Division, only Pill Demon and Meng Hao could use the Everburning Flame and employ the fourth refinement. Only they were qualified.

Meng Hao took a deep breath as he opened his eyes. Now he understood why Master had instructed him to stay here and gather the East Pill Everburning Flame into the depths of his heart.

“This is a complete legacy,” he thought, looking at the joss sticks, the smoke, and the greenish inextinguishable flames. “The flame and the technique complement each other. Without one or the other, it would be impossible to reach the pinnacle….”

Time pa.s.sed by. In the blink of an eye, three months had pa.s.sed. During those three months, Meng Hao never left the limestone cavern. However, the promotion of three Violet Furnace Lords had caused a shocking commotion throughout the Southern Domain.

Many people were saying that, of the past ten Violet Furnace Lord promotions, this was the most incredible by far!

Thanks to word being spread by other Sects, Chu Yuyan’s Dao of alchemy, as well as her skill in pill concocting, became the talk of the Southern Domain. It was said that she fully deserved to become a Violet Furnace Lord.

Her name spread throughout the great Sects, as did the expression ‘Violet Furnace Lord Chu Yuyan.’

Above her, and causing even more of a stir, was of course Ye Feimu. He was stunning to the extreme, as was the potency and invincibility of his Dao of alchemy. He concocted one pill to create ten thousand stairs up the mountain. The stories spread until everyone in the Southern Domain had heard of him.

Considering he had already garnered impressive fame in the past, now that he had become a Violet Furnace Lord, his name was thoroughly prominent. In fact, he could be considered a pillar of the Violet Fate Sect.

Most shocking of all, was none other than Fang Mu!

He was Grandmaster Pill Cauldron, Legacy Apprentice of Grandmaster Pill Demon. He had risen to prominence in the western region of the Southern Domain, where he had slain a Black Lands Core Formation Cultivator. All of this caused Fang Mu to instantly become the most talked about person in all of the Southern Domain.

More and more people viewed him as the fourth Grandmaster of the Southern Domain.

Word spread of how, atop the peak of Eastern Emergence Mountain he had formed the enormous pill cauldron of a thousand medicinal pills. When people heard the story, their blood boiled, causing even more people to talk about how he was the fourth Grandmaster.

In the Violet Fate Sect’s East Pill Division, the honorable Fang Mu was second only to Grandmaster Pill Demon. All of the Cultivators in the East Pill Division recognized this.

Many people took Meng Hao to be the Dao Child of the East Pill Division, equal even to the Dao Child of the Sect itself, or perhaps even a bit higher in reputation.

It was at this time that a great change occurred to the corpse which had fallen from the sky to land in the Southern Domain all those years ago. Magical symbols appeared on its skin, then floated out into the air, creating refracted reflections of themselves. There were some who recognized what this text was. It was one of the three cla.s.sic scriptures… the Dao Divinity Scripture!

The Sublime Spirit Scripture, the Dao Divinity Scripture and the Heaven Severing Scripture. Three cla.s.sic scriptures, each one capable of arousing terrifying waves of peril. Even people from the Western Desert and the Eastern Lands employed various shocking methods and powers to teleport to the Southern Domain because of it.

Furthermore, upon the appearance of the scripture, the force preventing people from nearing the corpse suddenly vanished. The corpse, which was as large as a mountain, was now approachable.

The Solitary Sword Sect paid quite a price to acquire a hair from the corpse’s head. According to the rumors, they refined the hair into a precious treasure which could shock Heaven and Earth!

Grandmaster Eternal Mountain from the Golden Frost Sect employed all the power of the Sect to acquire a blood sample from the corpse. Supposedly, the pill he concocted with it was almost a Celestial Pill!

As word spread of the various events, the Southern Domain was thrown into a thorough commotion. More and more Sects and Clans dispatched forces to the Immortal’s Corpse.

At the same time, an increasing volume of shrill calls could be heard from within the Rebirth Cave. Soon, they turned into sustained roars. Furthermore, a black wind emerged from within the cave to sweep around the area surrounding the corpse.

Throughout the years, countless Cultivators who were nearing death had entered the Rebirth Cave, hoping to be reborn. As to whether those people were alive or dead, no one was sure. But based on the resulting legends and stories, the Rebirth Cave had slowly come to be just like the Ancient Temple of Doom; one of the three Danger Zones!

After more than ten years had pa.s.sed during which the corpse was under investigation, the bizarre life force within the cave was finally on the move, and revealing its avaricious will.

Figurative storm clouds roiled over the Southern Domain.

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This chapter was sponsored by Allan Tam