Rise of the Midnight King - Rise of the Midnight King – Chapter 66

“Unfortunately, even you won’t be able to use the furnace yet.” Jiang Bo sighed.

“Why not?” Bao bi said, placing the furnace in his storage ring carefully.

“To light a furnace, you need a pill flame,” Jiang Bo explained patiently, having long become used to Bao bi’s various gaps in knowledge. “Your pill flame is located in your dantian. You may be in the mortal origin realm, but you have yet to open your spiritual sites, and thus you can’t make your dantian.”

“So, after I make my dantian, I can make a pill flame?”

“Ahem, not exactly. To ignite your pill flame, you’d need several of a certain pill. They’re hard to come by, it’s called a Fire Resonance Pill. It might take several tries to ignite your flames, so one pill wouldn’t be enough, and each pill costs 1000 spirit stones.”

Bao bi couldn’t help but shift when he heard the name of the pill, along with its price. “That much!”

“Well, from what I hear, the alchemic process only produces one pill at a time, and it must be taken immediately. Even if a proper spiritual vial or bottle is used, the Fire Resonance Pill has no shelf life. So, to use the pill, you’d have to find an alchemist who is willing to make it in front of you so that you can take it immediately, and if you fail, be willing to make it again.”

“What if you could make your own?” Bao bi asked curiously.

“It’s not so easy, the pill has to be taken right as you form your dantian, and that’s your only chance to do so. It requires too much energy for someone to make without a complete dantian, so you’d need someone else to make it for you. It also would force your dantian to take on a fire element, which means you’d be unable to cultivate anything related to water or ice, or it could potentially damage your cultivation. Besides, how could you make a pill without a pill flame?”

“I see…”

“I wouldn’t worry so much about making your pill flame. That’s only for people who plan to dedicate their lives to pill cultivation. Most cultivators end up using a borrowed flame, usually harvested from a flame-element spiritual beast, but these beasts are difficult to defeat, far beyond the likes either of us could face. You might be able to buy one with credits though, so if you’re interested in using that furnace, you should save up.”

“Did you give me a gift here?” Bao bi asked helplessly.

Jiang Bo blinked and then blushed slightly. “You could always just sell it, or say you found it here and exchange it for merit points.”

“Naw, it’s fine, I’ll keep it.” Bao bi tossed it into the storage ring.

Jiang Bo glanced at Bao bi’s ring. “Oh, that reminds me, you might want to visit the tower sooner rather than later. You don’t want to miss an opportunity to find a bag of holding.”

“What’s that?” Bao bi asked.

“I managed to ask around,” Jiang Bo said with a  grin, looking a bit satisfied. “And it’s one of the main benefits of coming to this world. You can find them in the tower. They are worth a good amount of merit points, but they’re one of the things the sect will allow you to keep if you find one too. It’s a bag that allows you to store a lot of stuff.”

Bao bi couldn’t help but lift his ring finger. “Isn’t that enough? Even our badges have a space.”

He shook his head. “Storage rings are exceptionally rare. I only have one because of my father. As for my sister, well, she had one, but she doesn’t anymore. I presume you must have gotten yours as a family heirloom?”

Bao bi coughed. “Something like that.”

He didn’t want to say that Liao An randomly handed him one as it might cause her some trouble.

“Well, most storage rings and the like have very limited space. The bag of holding is a bit different. It can hold anything you can fit through the opening. However, that weight is added to the bag, so your limitation is how much you can carry. It’s not as convenient, but it’s considerably less rare, and the bag is also much more durable. They don’t require profound energy to use so even mortals can use them, and they can be placed in storage rings which negates the weight problem to an extent. Plus, those badges can be destroyed pretty easily, and while storage rings are stronger, they can also be destroyed in a fight. Bags of holding are very difficult to destroy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind…” Bao bi nodded to himself, deciding he needed such a bag.

After all, he had already filled up all of his available space, so the only way he could collect more was to find more storage. Besides, Bao bi had suspected that those subspaces weren’t very safe. That’s why he had been hesitant to store things in it. He felt a bit vindicated by Jiang Bo’s admittance. Of course, if Jiang Bo knew what Bao bi was thinking, he’d surely cringe.

Jian Bo had seen Bao bi’s disinterest and wanted to convince him the bags were worth his time. He didn’t mean to imply that storage artifacts were in any way weak. Most people who wanted to kill someone would go out of their way to avoid damaging storage rings, otherwise, how would they rob them? In general, if there was a force powerful enough to threaten the integrity of the storage ring, it’d probably be threatening the person wearing it too. In other words, if your storage ring was destroyed, you were probably already dead.

“Oh, by the way, what faction are you choosing?” Bao bi asked when it suddenly struck him.

“My faction?” Jiang Bo made a face. “I won’t get a chance to choose. Everyone related to the royalty of the Jiang province already has a faction. It’s called Spirit River.”

“Spirit River… hmmm.” Bao bi fell into thought.

Jiang Bo bid farewell and the two parted ways. He considered asking Bao bi to join Spirit River, but he knew Bao bi was a cultivator who paved his own path. He also didn’t want his friend to get wrapped in the politics of his nation. Jiang Bo was a strong believer in fate and destined opportunities. Traveling in groups might be safer, but you also miss out on things by playing it too safe. Even if he was burdened with expectations, he didn’t want to drag a friend into it.

Bao bi didn’t have any of these concerns. He was more interested in alchemy at the moment anyway, He was thinking about the Fire Resonance Pill. He had already seen the recipe in the book. He didn’t think Jiang Bo had all of his facts straight. After all, Bao bi had been concocting pills just fine and he didn’t have a pill flame. What he didn’t know was that this was because of Liao An. He used his fine control of spiritual power to create a spiritual furnace, and then the fire used was also an imitation using spiritual energy. These were techniques provided by her, and he had never thought much about them.

However, these were extremely high-level techniques, and the spiritual pill flame was even rarer than the spiritual furnace. In Bao bi’s world, there might be only a handful of alchemists who had ever even attempted an illusory spirit flame along with their spirit furnace, and fewer who were successful. If this alchemist saw him randomly playing with such techniques, they would be shocked, but Tigra wasn’t the apprentice with the most powerful being in the universe without knowing a thing or two.

There was a limitation to this flame. It could handle simpler pills easily enough, but as one got to the higher-level pills, it lacked the heat and flexibility necessary to handle more complicated pills. However, by the time Bao bi reached that level, she’d be able to make a pill he could stand, so she saw no reason to develop his pill flame at all. Had Tigra known that this trip would give him a furnace and put the idea of pill flames into his mind, she would have been deeply annoyed. Midnight looked down on pills in general. She saw them as a source of contamination, as impure, and at least some of her bias leaked onto her protégé.

Yet, Bao bi didn’t know anything about Midnight or her plans for him, and he happened to be a guy who enjoyed having hobbies. He had cooked in the past and found pill-making to be somewhat interesting, as well as lucrative. He already imagined himself settling down, becoming a city alchemist, and making pills that could heal people, after saving his mother, of course. Bao bi’s ambitions only went so far.

He returned to his spot, and after consulting the alchemy book again, he decided to try his hand at the Fire Resonance Pill. With Jiang Bo’s explanation, he understood things a tad better. Plus, he seemed to have enough ingredients to give it multiple tries. So, he began concocting once again. As he did so, familiar faces occasionally appeared.

He saw Chen Bao arrive, moving with a sense of purpose as if this place was deeply familiar to him. He was relieved to see Qi Xue, the last of the younger kids. However, he looked like he had a rough time and was grumbling under his breath. Bao bi decided it was wise not to bother him. Then, there was Hu Tian, who was as a muscled up bodybuilder. Bao bi knew a few of those guys at the gym. They were usually friendly people. Xie Mingyu came after that, an arrogant expression on his face as he strutted forward deliberately. None of them came in groups and none of them were being pursued.

Meanwhile, Bao bi was on his fifth attempt to make the pill. He had failed the first four, the ingredients going up in ash. He didn’t know how much that stuff cost, but he knew if he tried to make a cake and ended up having to throw it out, he’d be annoyed at all the wasted ingredients. However, he felt like he was getting closer and closer. Making pills was a lot more intensive, and it sort of felt like running a meth lab. He knew a guy who had one of those too, but that guy was slightly less friendly.

“Come on, do it,” he muttered under his breath, sweat dripping down his forehead.

Although he had been taking breaks, he had been using spiritual power the entire day. No one else in the second realm would have been able to accomplish what he did, but thanks to his unique disposition, it was like he had dantian already. Storing spiritual energy in each cell and combining them all, didn’t just give him a lot of spiritual energy, but spiritual energy that recovered nearly as quickly as someone with all of their spiritual points open and a fully formed dantian.

Of course, this wasn’t the only reason. This location had richer spiritual energy than back home. More available spiritual energy meant faster absorption and thus more cultivation. If he had tried to do this outside of a pocket dimension like this one, he likely would have had to stop after a single attempt. Despite that, even Bao bi had limits. He knew this was the final attempt he’d be able to make. If this failed, he wouldn’t be able to try again until tomorrow, and he didn’t have the time.

Light flickered around the spiritual furnace. He could feel a surge of profound energy. This was usually the point where his spiritual furnace collapsed. He gave the furnace all of his attention, attempting to remove any distracting thoughts as he combined all of the spiritual energy from the ingredients he had started with. He pushed the last bit of his spiritual energy into the pill flame. At that point, he felt vertigo and dizziness. He persisted though, holding the furnace even as the power emanating from the forming pill seemed to want to rip out of his hands.

Just as he felt he was about to collapse, the energy collapsed in on itself. It seemed to erupt like a small-scale supernova, and the pill furnace finally shattered. Bao bi was thrown back, and he ended up coughing up a mouthful of blood.

“That can’t be good,” he groaned as he lay there, feeling like he had just been punched and kicked on every part of his body. “I failed.”

He let out a sigh, closing his eyes, but a moment later, his eyelids saw a flicker of light. He opened his eyes and lifted his head painfully, and there lying on the ground was a pill glowing with red energy. It looked like it had a flame coming off it one moment, but that flame was just as illusory as his own. Forcing himself to his feet, he walked over and grabbed it. It was hot to the touch, but it didn’t burn him. Looking down at the pill, he was almost certain it was made correctly. As for the purity, he didn’t have enough experience to tell, but it turned out to be a 70% pure pill. Given the purifying nature of flames, the Fire Resonance Pills tended to have greater purity ratio than normal.

“It’s too bad I’m not at the stage of making my dantian.” Bao bi sighed, looking up at the pill with regret. “Ah, well, it’d be a waste not to try, right?”

He popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed. His actions were extremely stupid, and if Liao An had seen him do it, she would have stopped and berated him immediately. These pills weren’t like pain relievers. That had serious ramifications for the body, and if devoured at the wrong time, could cause significant damage to someone’s cultivation. Almost immediately, a heat burst out in Bao bi’s stomach.

A searing pain erupted from his core as if his very blood had ignited. He grimaced as beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and his body trembled uncontrollably. The flames surged wildly within him, threatening to consume him from the inside out. His dantian, not fully formed, struggled to contain the inferno, and for a moment, it seemed as though his attempt would end in catastrophic failure. Bao bi realized his mistake. He was playing with fire, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

He felt like he was about to explode. He had to get rid of the fire burning inside him before his dantian was destroyed. Letting out a roar, he summoned his spiritual energy to pull the fire out of his dantian. This set his veins on fire. The fire seemed to create pressure inside him like he was a powder keg. At that moment, one of his spiritual points burst open because of the excess energy. This caused an unimaginable pain to rip through his body.

Although he was in the 2^nd realm, he was in the very beginning of the second realm. Technically, he hadn’t reached the first tier yet and wouldn’t until he cleared his first spiritual point. This was done by consuming spiritual power and then battering it against a spiritual point until it opened up. However, the Fire Resonance Pill caused his spiritual energy to surge out of control and end up ripping through his first one. He was officially in the 1^st tier of the 2^nd realm now, but if he didn’t get a handle on the inferno, he would be ash and all of his progress would be meaningless.

“Must… move it… away…”

He could feel his veins scorching. The spiritual veins connected the spiritual point to the dantian. They were the route that all cultivators used to move spiritual energy through their bodies. If this was destroyed, then it was the same as destroying someone’s cultivation. If Liao An hadn’t already forced Bao bi to work on body cultivation techniques that strengthened his body, he might have already spontaneously combusted into nothing but an ash pile.

Bao bi knew he had only one chance to survive. With sheer willpower, he forced the unruly flames to move. He guided them along the path of his spiritual energy. He channeled the fire through every meridian, guiding it with meticulous precision despite the agony. His only choice was to break it up into something more manageable. As he dispersed the flames, they seeped into every cell of his body, dividing and multiplying until his entire being was suffused with tiny, flickering embers. The process was excruciating, but Bao bi didn’t allow himself to be destroyed.

After what felt like an eternity, the flames began to stabilize. Each fragment of flame settled into a harmonious rhythm with his spiritual energy. His pill flame, now divided a trillion times, burned steadily within him. The sweat on his body evaporated into steam as he heated up. After a few deep breaths, the pain subsided into a warm, buzzing glow that permeated his entire body.

He didn’t understand the ramifications of what he had done, but he had managed to create a pill flame that was embedded into his tissues. He had taken the pill at exactly the right time, as none of his cells had finished their transition into dantian. Now, every cell of his body was like a flame dantian, with a pill flame right in the center. With practice, he’d be able to call that flame. Given its location, it offered numerous benefits like he couldn’t even imagine. The pill flame was continuously refining his body, molding it to be more resistant to fire, cold, and poison. Furthermore, despite having a pill flame, his dantian had yet to form nor take on an element. However, what he ultimately chose to do with his dantian had yet to be decided.