Destiny in Cinders

"I didn't think we would get so much of it," Yvelbane said excitedly. "Nobody, not even those from major sects, would use jadeslice steel to establish the foundations for Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal. It's just diminishing returns, and ingredients that are too premium might even end up harming disciples. But with your Seven Ruins Arc and the amazing price we got it for, it'd be a shame to not try it out."

After An Jing closed his eyes, Yvelbane's tone turned stern. "Keep your eyes closed as I pass you the qi extraction technique. The path of immortal qi cultivation starts from cultivating your own body before branching out to heaven and earth. Qi essence is something that gathers and scatters. It gathers during life and scatters during death. The human lifetime is one of gathering qi essence. Cultivating your body starts with cultivating that essence."

Spirit Awakening cultivators who just nurtured a thread of qi essence needed a proper way to nurture it, growing it in capacity until it could fill the whole body to the brim. Only then would one be considered a proper initiate in cultivation, giving rise to all sorts of interesting physical properties called "wonders". Examples included becoming impervious to cold, having smoke-like vigor, super strength and amazing fasting capabilities. Following from that, one would be able to harvest energy from the outside environment for the next phase of qi cultivation.

There was a reason qi cultivation could only properly begin after one reached the Tide Essence Stage. Before that stage, the body was too weak to contain spirit qi from the environment. The earlier stages thus focused on strengthening one's constitution. Inducing spirit qi into one's body before adequate preparation was no different from filling oneself up with boiling water. Lethal qi was far worse and taking it in haplessly was suicide.

Only when qi essence permeated every part of the body and led to the manifestation of wonders could one begin to take in spirit qi. If even a slightest part of the body didn't undergo reinforcement from qi essence, spirit qi would force itself out of that part and cause the body to pop like a balloon. Such were the dangers of cultivation. It was analogous to the transition from the Aura Realm to the Fortification Realm of the martial path.

At the start of the Qi Refinement Realm, the focus was on using one's own qi essence to refine natural spirit qi into spirit energy that could be controlled. It was a mystical energy that was used in different techniques and applications and those that had access to it could no longer be considered just layfolk.

The end of the Qi Refinement Realm was reached when the unique spirit energy that one had refined using qi essence permeated the entire body. At that point, advanced techniques would be used to build a stable dao foundation, also called an immortal foundation. Most qi refinement techniques followed this blueprint.

Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal, however, was a body refinement technique. It took a different approach, forming arcane seals around the body's pressure points and refining the body as if it were a spirit item. The seals relinquished the need for full qi-essence permeation and allowed the direct extraction of qi from mystic metals.

As long as one made up for the absent qi essence support later on, one could always become a proper qi cultivator. But that was only possible in theory and not practice. Lethal qi could still melt the bones upon contact if a cultivator hadn't achieved full qi-essence permeation, even if they changed their body's constitution, with the only exception being people who had seniors around to help stabilize their body.

So, the question was why An Jing wouldn't just cultivate qi normally with all the resources at his disposal. Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal was meant for those with much grander ambitions thanks to its impressive effects. The intensity of the technique was not a big deal as it was meant to be used by sword immortals to make up for the imperfections of their bodies. Most of the people who would use it were cultivators beyond the Purple Mansion or Goldcore Realms. By that point, they weren't worried about lethal qi in the least.

Normal disciples would choose much stabler and safer techniques to start with, but An Jing was different. He sat cross legged above the glass platform, jadeslice steel in hand. The metal lethal qi could easily slice through flesh, yet it didn't harm him in the slightest.

"It's all too reasonable for you to cultivate using this technique," Yvelbane said with glee. It instructed An Jing to hold a piece of jadeslice steel in front of his dantian while guiding him to breathe in a specific rhythm. "Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal has 108 seals of Heavenly Rectifiers and Earthly Lethalizers. Eighteen seals for the Spirit Awakening Realm, eighteen more for the Purple Mansion Realm, and thirty-six for the Goldcore Realm. That adds up to the total number of Earthly Lethalizers.

"The next thirty-six Heavenly Rectifier grand seals are even more difficult. But once you attain full mastery and unify the 108 Heavenly Rectifiers and Earthly Lethalizers, you will attain the Evenstar Imperishability ability.

"With six-and-a-half liang of jadeslice steel, you have enough to form nine of the Spirit Awakening seals with some left over to trade for other materials. But you must take care to not absorb it too quickly. It's enough for you to form one seal before your return to Void Embrace."

"I feel a scorching sensation..." He meditated using Sword of Tranquility, achieving the ideal mental state. He soon began to sense spirit qi pouring out of the glass platform he was sitting on. The spirit qi came from the terrestrial veins of the black market's underground spring. They permeated his body and flowed along his spine, reaching his pressure points and forming a cyclic flow, spreading throughout the body.

The jadeslice steel in his hand began to resonate and heat up intensely as the pure lethal qi of the mystic metal flowed into his body along the same channels that the spirit qi had flowed through.

It went on smoothly, which Yvelbane approved. Taking in metal lethal qi could easily leave the palm of most cultivators full of cuts. Even a thin layer of mystic-metal lethal qi applied to a blade would allow it to cut treasured swords neatly into two. Yet, all An Jing felt as it entered his body was a scorching heat, no doubt due to his Seven Ruins Arc.

The threads of energy flowed slowly into his palm like water droplets from a leaky tap at first. But when An Jing started circulating Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal, a powerful suction came from the seal seed in his dantian, making it tens of times quicker. It was as if the tap had been turned open fully, causing water to surge into his body.

A potent heat began to flow through his veins, yet he was unable to sweat to cool down. His body shuddered; even its unique qualities couldn't quite handle the absorption of such dense, potent spirit qi. His innards and bones were somewhat wounded when the flow of qi passed through, but they began to regenerate by absorbing the mystic-metal lethal qi.

Gradually, their absorption of the lethal qi increased. It was as if his body was a piece of dry sponge, absorbing all the liquid around it ravenously. The lethal qi he absorbed was used as raw material to reinforce his body.