Shen Yi summoned the faintly cracked golden bead. He had Qinghua keep guard nearby, ready to become the golden dharma form at any moment. Then he opened the panel and mobilized demon lifespan to pour into the Heaven-Devouring Core-Consuming Art.
Perhaps there existed some technique to refining a spiritual root. For instance, a master who’d personally observed a disciple’s spiritual root and path infant, then created a refinement method tailored to it. But Shen Yi knew full well he certainly didn’t have that privilege. Wutong Mountain plainly had no intention of taking in more disciples; Xuanguang Cave had held some possibility before, but after he’d personally slain a Spirit-Transformation cultivator of theirs plus two upper-tier Mixed Origin Grandmasters, that road too counted as thoroughly severed.
Grind at it slowly, then.
【Year 1 — you sink into inner contemplation, earnestly studying the Heaven-Devouring demon infant. This heaven-and-earth creature born from within your inner core has had its body wholly occupied by your consciousness, heart and blood linked as one; you might say you know it inside and out.】
【The killing-force-polluted True-Yang Kirin Stone originally had nothing to do with the demon infant, but once it was polluted by killing-force, the two can, of all things, barely manage to get along in harmony.】
【You’ve not grown careless, but carefully feel out the shifts in the aura upon the True-Yang Kirin Stone, guarding against any accident.】
Shen Yi watched the demon lifespan drain away, unhurried and unruffled in his heart. In matters touching on his life, however much demon lifespan it cost was necessary. Formidable and young though his mortal body was now, no one could guarantee that once something went wrong with the path infant, it wouldn’t affect the mortal body too.
A Mixed Origin Grandmaster’s cultivation was measured in units of a hundred years. Merely observing a stone had already cost Shen Yi several hundred years of demon lifespan.
【Year 630 — you interact with the Kirin Stone using your own aura. In your perception, it has gradually turned from a dead object into a childlike existence rather fond of you.】
The next moment, Shen Yi suddenly found the purple stone burning in his palm no longer scalding; that purple-gold flame seemed to recognize him, wrapping about his palm yet leaving a little distance. Then the stone slowly sank into his skin, coming to his sea of qi.
Shen Yi shook the residual flame from his hand, his expression unconsciously growing somewhat tense. Was this it deciding they’d communicated enough, preparing to begin refinement?
No longer did he need the panel’s prompt. He saw the aura on the Heaven-Devouring demon infant abruptly thrust out, turning into crimson tendrils meaning to wrap the True-Yang Kirin Stone entirely. In the very instant those crimson tendrils touched the stone, thick white mist hissed and steamed off.
“Hss!”
Shen Yi’s expression changed abruptly, his palm clenching into a fist, mighty force as though to crush his own fingertips — hoping to divert his attention thereby. But that heart-piercing agony from the spirit-soul still left him instantly drenched in sweat.
Scalding! Searing! As though his very soul were about to be melted away.
Setting aside the killing-force that had polluted the stone, the Kirin Stone’s essence was a thing of utmost yang and utmost heat. Shen Yi’s aura could merge with killing-force, but stood at swords’ points with its golden yang.
【Year 1,900 — you feel as though set within a molten hell, the path infant already showing signs of melting. You can only ceaselessly exchange aura with the killing-intent upon the stone, hoping the other might restrain its heat a little. It seems to understand your words, or perhaps you’ve simply ground together through the long years, and at last you feel it no longer so agonizing.】
Within the sea of qi, the crimson tendrils spreading from the path infant had already bound the True-Yang Kirin Stone tight, then dragged it bit by bit inward.
Red mist rose in Shen Yi’s eyes, radiance welling from his body’s surface too. This was the unconscious summoning of the path infant. And within that red light, the purple-gold flame danced gently.
In an instant, Shen Yi seemed to gain a new perception of the aura so utterly familiar between heaven and earth. The originally clear, pure qi of heaven and earth turned in his sight to something tangled and impure. He’d once taken it into his body, turned it to jade liquid, condensed his inner core — but only now did he seem to truly know it.
By the spiritual root, one connects with heaven and earth.
No delight surfaced on Shen Yi’s face, because in merely a breath’s time, he was dragged back to reality by the violent searing pain. As though that instant of sudden enlightenment just now had been only illusion.
【Year 2,300 — you’ve successfully taken the True-Yang Kirin Stone into the path infant, but you understand: this refinement has only just begun.】
Shen Yi’s whole body of muscles spasmed, the force in his flesh and blood that could split mountains and rivers now finding not the slightest use. All he could do was endure and wait.
Compared to advancing the golden body, the Mixed Origin path was simply both difficult and tormenting. But Shen Yi had long seen through to the essence. So-called cultivators were those who borrowed force to act. The golden body borrowed the power of Great Qian’s Nine Provinces’ common folk; the path infant borrowed the power of heaven and earth.
Plainly, set against heaven and earth, Great Qian was too frail a backing, at risk of annihilation at any moment. Great Qian falls, and the golden body falls. Shen Yi had no wish for the cultivation he’d stored up all along the way to suddenly vanish one day. Investing in the path infant was the most reliable choice.
The process of refining a spiritual root was in truth deeply tedious. Like picking up a stone, stuffing it into one’s skin, and slowly grinding it with one’s muscles, until it grew into a part of the body.
At this moment, the True-Yang Kirin Stone had gradually been assimilated by the path infant.
【Year 4,600 — the Heaven-Devouring demon infant and that purple stone gradually merge into one. You begin to move its position anew. Man is born with five viscera; the heart is fire, and with this Kirin Stone, you shape the path infant’s heart.】
In an instant, that brief experience from before returned once more. Shen Yi’s whole body was already soaked with sweat, his two legs trembling slightly as he stood, opening his crimson eyes to look anew at this tangled, impure heaven and earth.
The Kirin Stone at his heart seemed to become a passage, linking himself to heaven and earth.
【Year 5,300 — the path infant takes the stone for its heart, condenses an upper-grade spiritual root; mid-tier Mixed Origin is achieved.】
【Remaining demon lifespan: twenty-two thousand seven hundred years.】
As the panel’s prompt swept past, the aura leaking from Shen Yi’s body abruptly surged violently, turning into purple-gold flame that wrapped his whole frame. Gold was the True-Yang Kirin Stone’s original form; the purple was the killing-force made manifest. He slowly clenched his palm, attempting to master the other. He saw the purple-gold flame swiftly withdraw into his body, and along the Kirin Stone at his heart, turn back into crimson demonic power.
With the spiritual root as medium, it could be transformed at will.
“The efficiency and speed of transformation — are they tied to the spiritual root’s quality?”
Shen Yi felt that smooth, unimpeded sensation, scarcely feeling any obstruction at all.
By the experience he’d gained observing others’ path infants, having a spiritual root was mid-tier Mixed Origin, while upper-tier Mixed Origin had the five viscera complete. And whether Perfected Master Changqing or Zheng Zisheng, both men’s spiritual-root five-viscera were of a single attribute. The five added together should produce a better effect.
But in his own case — the spiritual root had to carry killing-force, and to find five heaven-and-earth spiritual roots all of the same attribute, all of them polluted by killing-force besides, was difficult in the extreme.
To avoid the situation of being a jack of all trades but master of none, each spiritual root had to guarantee sufficient quality — enough, even, that one might match another’s five.
Then the answer was obvious.
A peerless-grade spiritual root.
(End of Chapter 278)