Vessel of Worlds

In her jade slip, the Fairy Yun stated that two years hence she would need Andy's assistance—though what the matter actually was, she declined to specify. She noted only that it would bring Andy no trouble, and that it lay well within his abilities.

Had that been all, Andy would never have agreed out of simple kindness.

He was not about to become some devoted servant, ordered about at will, merely because the woman had the face of a celestial!

But the Fairy Yun had promised something profoundly tempting in that slip: the moment Andy lent his hand, she would gift him a high-grade formation set—and afterward, whatever the outcome, a Heart-Cleansing Pill besides.

The Heart-Cleansing Pill was a spirit medicine of enormous value in the attempt at Core Formation. Though it could be taken only once in a lifetime, its effects endured for life. It was said to greatly improve the constitution of a Foundation Establishment cultivator's dantian, rendering it more amenable to the solidifying of true essence—and during the assault on the Core Formation bottleneck, it lent tremendous aid in resisting the invasion of inner demons. Rumor held that this pill alone could raise the odds of Core Formation by more than ten percent.

Even in the resource-rich days of antiquity, the Heart-Cleansing Pill had been a rarity. Among all the auxiliary pills and materials confirmed to aid Core Formation, its effects were universally acknowledged the finest.

The pill was not refined from beast cores, and its method had been lost long ago. Where the Fairy Yun had obtained one, Andy couldn't begin to guess.

With the Heart-Cleansing Pill on the table, Andy—whose whole heart was fixed on achieving the great Dao—could hardly fail to be moved.

Limited as their acquaintance was, he did not judge her the treacherous, oath-breaking sort.

She knew his Foundation Establishment cultivation perfectly well, yet still claimed the task lay within his abilities—so it could be nothing too dire. And with his true strength far exceeding a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator's, even if the task went wrong, self-preservation would be no problem.

If she had meant to lay a trap, there was no need to wait two years—she could simply have set an ambush at his dwelling. Besides, he had never wronged the woman—had in fact saved her once—and had revealed no treasure to tempt her. Why would she spend years scheming against him?

So, doubts notwithstanding, Andy—determined to have that Heart-Cleansing Pill—considered the matter through and agreed.

The next two years he would devote to thorough preparation. He didn't truly believe the woman meant him harm—but keeping a guarded heart, and readying several contingencies against the unexpected, was the wisest course of all.

Back in his dwelling, he first refined the rank-two flood dragon cores into a furnace of Dragon Transformation Pills. Cores of any grade—rank two, rank three, or higher—could produce the pills used to nurture spirit beasts, but their potency differed enormously, so the pills were classed by the grade of core used: those from rank-two cores were called rank-two Dragon Transformation Pills.

Andy enhanced them with the small bowl, then fed one to the Ice-Wind Snake at regular intervals.

Next he began large-scale refining, turning his rank-four cores into a startling quantity of Essence-Congealing Powder. Though the medicine suited his current mid-stage realm perfectly, after enhancing each batch with the bowl he did not sit down to take them. Instead, with utmost gravity, he began practicing a secret art called the Residual Shadow Flash.

The art came from the jade slips in the Blood Intent Gate young master's pouch—a life-saving technique recorded within his primary method, the Blood Shadow True Demon Art. Andy had seen the young master use it once, to marvelous effect: at the critical moment, by burning a measure of vital blood, one could shift instantly several zhang away, leaving only a blood-colored afterimage hanging where one had stood.

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If he mastered this art, Andy would hold one more unexpected card for saving his life—and against unforeseeable dangers, his odds of survival would climb considerably.

For one who did not practice the Blood Shadow True Demon Art as a primary method, the technique could still be used—but only with the aid of an external substance.

The Blood Soul Pill was that prerequisite.

Now Andy sat in the earth-fire chamber, eyes shut, expression grave beyond the ordinary, while a furnace of vivid scarlet hovered above the flames, turning in slow rotation.

Suddenly his eyes opened. A light tap of his finger, and the furnace lid rose a chi into the air of its own accord and hung there.

His right hand turned over, and a small silver sword lay in his palm. Then, face set, he guided the blade in a light stroke across his own left wrist.

The sword parted his wrist with ease, opening a cut a cun long, and blood came pouring out.

Murmuring an incantation, Andy struck seal after seal with his right hand, gathering every drop of the flowing blood into the air, where it formed a perfectly round crimson sphere a cun across.

As the blood streamed from his wrist, the sphere swelled steadily—and Andy's face drained pale by the same measure.

Presently the wound clotted and the flow ceased.

Without a flicker of hesitation, Andy drew the little sword across his wrist again. Blood gushed anew.

Only when the sphere had grown to the size of a fist did Andy slap a Life-Restoring Talisman onto himself, sealing the still-bleeding wound at once.

He then guided the blood sphere into the furnace, fingers dancing as he cast in a dozen-plus ingredients, each in its proper order and moment, then closed the glowing furnace and set it turning above the flames.

Half an hour later, a whiff of scorching reached him. He hastily withdrew the earth-lung fire and eased the lid open. Burnt char and a thick stench of blood rolled out together—inside lay a lump of dark red dross. The Blood Soul Pill attempt had failed.

Beyond the cultivator's own vital blood as its primary ingredient, the Blood Soul Pill required a dozen-odd auxiliary materials, several of them rather rare and far from cheap. Andy had not dared buy in quantity; by his reckoning, his stock would support only five or six attempts.

And since each attempt consumed so much vital blood, continuous refining was impossible. After every batch, even with medicinal help, he needed half a month of recuperation to fully restore what he had lost before beginning again.

That was with a cultivator's constitution—far surpassing any mortal's—and a store of blood-replenishing medicines besides; otherwise the recovery time would have doubled and doubled again.

At last, before his materials ran out, he succeeded in producing two Blood Soul Pills. Each was the size of a soybean, translucent scarlet—and carried no trace of blood-stench at all, but rather a faint, sweet fragrance.

Andy swallowed both pills and began slowly tempering them within his dantian over a thread of Innate True Fire.

Tempered thus for a time, the pills' aura would fuse with his own. When the moment came to cast the Residual Shadow Flash, he need only recite the incantation and burn one Blood Soul Pill from his dantian—his form would dissolve into a hanging blood-shadow while his true body shifted instantly several zhang away.

A cultivator whose primary method was the Blood Shadow True Demon Art needed no such pills, burning vital blood directly from his own body to work the technique.

The Blood Soul Pill carried one further limitation: not many could be tempered at once. As a rule—bounded by a Foundation Establishment cultivator's dantian, cultivation, and physical state—three pills was the maximum that could be held in tempering at one time; more would harm the body. Which meant, at most, three consecutive castings of the Residual Shadow Flash.

Andy had two pills—two castings. For a final-resort escape art never to be revealed before the last extremity, that was enough.

He then spent long hours drilling the Residual Shadow Flash with total seriousness. The more practiced the art, the greater the chance it would save his life.

The Blood Intent Gate's young master had been worthy of his exalted station: beyond the Blood Shadow True Demon Art, his slips recorded in detail a wealth of methods and secret arts practicable by Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Some could be hunted down in markets or through other channels—not so very rare individually. But assembled in such completeness, the collection was extraordinary.

And some of the secret arts were things no ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator would ever so much as encounter—many, Andy had never even heard named.

A good portion of these methods were within Andy's present ability to learn. He selected the several most useful and most tractable, and set about studying them one by one.