【Year seven hundred and ninety-three — the caiman has demonstrated the metamorphosis for you a sixth time. It finally draws out your talent and intelligence. A path beyond imagining opens suddenly in your mind.】

【Year eight hundred and thirty — the ape demon was right. Without experiencing real life and death, how can you truly comprehend the Life-Death Zen? But it doesn’t have to be your own death. Use life-essence to tame demonic force. Capture and confine a demon within yourself. Then use death-essence to subdue it. Draw on the Hundred-Tempered Caiman Body. Repeat nine times. This is — the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations.】

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 2,548 years】

【Condensate Realm · Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations (Rare): Untrained】

Shen Yi stared at the panel with some surprise, his attention fixed on the designation he’d never seen before.

If Rare meant what he thought it meant — then why hadn’t he seen it before?

The Four Harmonies True Astral Force was one of the General’s own five signature techniques, already upper-grade — and then it had been transformed by the blood-corruption energy into the Heavenly Astral Blood-Corruption, supposedly stronger still. Didn’t that qualify?

He exhaled and steadied himself.

His first complete Condensate Realm martial technique, and he was more curious about it than he’d expected.

He fed the remaining demon lifespan in.

Then, before even starting, a problem.

【Year one — you read through this body-refinement method you derived yourself, but find yourself entirely without the necessary materials…】

Shen Yi came to himself, reached into the bell, and took out the rough flood dragon core and the Jade Liquid tiger beast core.

Confine a demon within yourself — naturally, there had to be a demon to confine first.

He fully activated the Solar-Fusion Furnace, locking the external pill down firmly so it couldn’t absorb the incoming demonic force.

Then he swallowed the beast core and the rough core in sequence.

【Year two — following the technique’s instructions, you begin using the tiger demon’s demonic force to nourish the flesh. The volatile tiger force tears through your body from inside outward. Fortunately, white light rises, soothing the force and repairing the damage simultaneously.】

【Year eight — the tiger force is spent and fully absorbed. You consume the remaining rough flood dragon core. The two forces don’t blend naturally, and efficiency drops.】

Shen Yi wasn’t worried.

Even with only a fifth of the rough core’s original qi remaining, it was still far beyond a single Jade Liquid Perfection beast core.

When the caiman’s beast core had been absorbed by the Heavenly Demon external pill, the additional demonic force had been like a drop into an ocean.

Sure enough, the next notification confirmed it.

【Year twelve — beyond refining the demonic force, your habitual thrift leads you to digest even the impurities in the rough core. The Flood Dragon’s Power talent is slightly enhanced.】

Still slow.

The demonic force the Heavenly Demon external pill could consume instantly — refining that same force into the physical body was incomparably more time-consuming.

Shen Yi wasn’t impatient. The same force deposited into a treasured implement couldn’t compare to having it in the flesh.

【Year three hundred and twenty — you fully subdue the flood dragon’s demonic force, bind it within yourself, and complete the first transformation.】

You are a flood dragon immortal. Lord of wide rivers and long waters. The hundred-zhang waves that terrify others are your throne. The treacherous undercurrents are your bed. You walk the rivers on the crest of waves, and you can plunge to the abyss and turn the world beneath.

【Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations: Novice.】

In an instant — an incomparable force poured into every limb.

Boom.

Shen Yi’s forehead veins stood out. He was thrown backward into the cliff face. The tiger demon’s remains were ground into a red mist. The entire hillside shook twice.

The equivalent of Flood Dragon’s Power, Hundred-Tempered Caiman Body, and Life-Death Zen Body — all combined — pouring into his flesh simultaneously.

And this was only Novice.

This was a body-refinement method that could genuinely stand against a Condensate Realm practitioner—

“Hgh—“

Shen Yi was breathing hard, pressed against the cliff, every muscle in spasm.

He caught something and yanked back his sleeve.

Gold flood dragon scale patterns were climbing toward his shoulder.

As time passed, as he finally brought the force under real control, the patterns sank back into the flesh and faded.

He tipped his head back and looked at the sky.

Rain pouring down in sheets. Soaking the entire hillside.

He hadn’t activated his cultivation at all.

He was simply watching — and then, without quite understanding how, the rain was bending around him at a strange angle.

“Weather manipulation?”

Nowhere near that scale yet. But Shen Yi was certain he had accessed something that didn’t belong to ordinary humans.

He pressed his lips together and reached for the two remaining tiger cores. Everything he’d saved for the Heavenly Demon external pill’s replenishment.

Only the first transformation — and it was already comparable to a rough-core practitioner. No — not comparable. Perhaps slightly past that.

If Minor Mastery involved three complete transformations — what would that mean?

By then, he might not need to rely on the external pill at all.

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 2,228 years】

【Year one — you prepare to attempt the second transformation. But first — you must use death-essence to erase the residual consciousness within the flood dragon force.】

Shen Yi pulled back his sleeve and touched the faint, invisible flood dragon mark.

Only by cutting away the lingering remnant spirit could this force truly be his.

【Year seventy-two — under the torment of the death-essence, you hear one unwilling dragon’s cry, fading into the air. You don’t dwell on it. You swallow the tiger core. After the first transformation, your body has become something between immortal and demon, and you find you can coexist with volatile demonic force more smoothly. Efficiency improves.】

Based on the previous experience, the tiger core’s cultivation was roughly five times what remained in the rough flood dragon core.

Time required: approximately fifteen hundred years?

For any human practitioner — an unimaginable number.

But the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations clearly wasn’t something designed for practitioners in the first place. Imprisoning demons within yourself, stealing their innate divine abilities — what kind of martial technique was this, exactly.

Shen Yi spent a moment hoping the so-called efficiency improvement was genuinely meaningful.

【Year six hundred and thirty-one — you fully refine the tiger core. Second transformation complete.】

You are the mountain lord. You survey the hundred beasts. The tiger’s soul in your body shakes the mountains. Ten thousand malevolent things will not approach. Evil and ghosts clear the path. Your blazing eyes discern gods from demons. You command wandering souls and drive haunting spirits across the four wastelands.

Both flood dragon immortal and mountain lord now.

Each completed transformation brought new innate divine abilities.

This time Shen Yi was ready in advance. He closed his fist.

The surging force pouring in was considerably stronger than last time. But the impact on his composure was much smaller.

“Not enough—”

His eyes moved as he quietly compared his current state to the full external pill release from earlier.

Still a gap. Not large. But there.

A Condensate demon held absolute dominance over a rough-core practitioner — and right now, on physical strength alone, he still hadn’t reached the level of dropping the older tiger demon in one palm strike.

Without the external pill:

Roughly half a step below the flood dragon lord at Qingfeng Mountain.

“The third transformation is Minor Mastery?”

He looked down at the single tiger core remaining in his palm and exhaled.

That probably wasn’t going to be enough.

(End of Chapter)