Shameless Immortal: Emperor of Ten Thousand Beauties

"A wise choice, Little Alchemist. You’ll find that having me as a friend is far more valuable than any mountain of spiritual stones."

Bai Ruolan let out a soft, melodious giggle, the heavy burden of her academic frustration completely lifting from her shoulders.

"I certainly hope so, Senior Brother Mo! Though I must admit, you are by far the most unusual powerhouse I have ever encountered. Most old monsters at your level would be demanding sacred texts or blood oaths, not casual companionship."

"Those old fossils have no taste for the finer, more entertaining things in life," Shen Yu replied smoothly, walking alongside her as she began clearing a path through the scattered parchment on the floor.

"Besides, watching a proud genius like you pout and beg like a child is far more amusing."

"Hey! I was not begging!" Bai Ruolan huffed, a beautiful pink flush coloring her pale cheeks.

She turned away quickly to hide her embarrassment, her voluptuous figure swaying elegantly as she walked over to a heavy, concealed door at the back of the study.

"Come along, my eccentric friend. Let’s see if your actual teaching matches that arrogant attitude of yours."

She pushed open the heavy mahogany door, revealing a short, reinforced corridor that led directly into her private refining chamber.

The room was a marvel of high-tier alchemical engineering. The walls were lined with frost-tempered obsidian bricks to absorb stray heat, and at the dead center sat a magnificent, bronze-and-iron cauldron pulsing with a rich, crimson aura.

The air inside was dense, heavily saturated with the scent of countless rare herbs and residual spiritual fire.

"This is where the magic, and my recent disaster, happens," Ruolan said, stepping up to the stone dais holding the cauldron.

She turned back to look at him, her brilliant blue eyes shining with anticipation.

"So, Senior Brother Mo, show me. Where exactly did my condensation phase fail?"

Shen Yu walked up to the edge of the dais, his dark eyes casually scanning the residual ash inside the cauldron before looking back at her.

"Your condensation failed because you treated the internal spiritual energy like a wild beast that needed to be caged, rather than a river that needed to be guided."

"When the core structure begins to form, the sudden compression creates a violent thermal backlash. You tried to suppress it by slamming down your soul force, which only compressed the volatile energies until they detonated from the inside out."

Bai Ruolan’s jaw dropped slightly, her mind instantly replaying the exact micro-second the pill had collapsed. He was entirely right.

"But... if I don’t suppress the backlash, the energy will scatter, and the pill will dissolve into useless dross!"

"Not if you use a superior flame manipulation technique," Shen Yu smirked.

He stepped closer, his body heat radiating outward as he stood right behind her, his chest almost brushing against her back.

"Watch closely. I’ll teach you a method from... let’s just say, an ancient lineage."

Drawing upon the deep, profound combat and alchemical memories of his previous life, Shen Yu raised his right hand.

With a sudden flick of his fingers, a vibrant, multi-layered spiritual flame erupted over his palm.

Unlike a standard chaotic fire, this flame didn’t flicker wildly, it hummed with a rhythmic, pulsing frequency, twisting into a perfect, miniature vortex that resembled a blooming lotus.

"This is the Whirling Lotus Core Separation technique," Shen Yu explained, his voice low and commanding right beside her ear.

"Instead of using your flame as a blunt hammer to heat the cauldron, you must split your fire into a dozen microscopic, interlocking currents. When the pill enters the final condensation phase, you don’t compress it from the outside. You set these flame currents into a counter-rotational spin around the core."

To demonstrate, he directed the miniature fiery lotus into the empty cauldron.

The flame instantly fractured into twelve perfect, spinning threads of fire that circled a central point in a hypnotic, fluid dance.

The heat didn’t spike, instead, a strange, stabilizing pressure filled the chamber.

"By spinning the flame currents in opposing directions," Shen Yu continued, watching her rapt expression.

"You create a localized spiritual vacuum. The thermal backlash is naturally drawn outward and absorbed by the outer currents, while the core of the pill is allowed to condense in absolute, unbothered equilibrium."

He snapped his fingers, dissolving the fiery vortex into thin air

"Now, don’t just stand there staring. Try it. I’ll guide you through the splitting process."

Bai Ruolan was utterly mesmerized.

The sheer elegance of the technique was entirely beyond anything taught within the Golden Cauldron Merchant Union; it completely redefined how she viewed flame control.

"Twelve currents... counter-rotational spin..." she whispered to herself.

Taking her place before the cauldron, she took a deep breath that caused her massive boobs to rise and fall heavily against her robes, and began to channel her Golden Core Qi.

A bright, red flame erupted from her palms, roaring into life.

"Good. Now split the primary core into three first," Shen Yu commanded, stepping up right behind her to monitor her Qi flow.

Ruolan focused, her brow furrowing as she successfully divided the flame into three distinct streams.

But as Shen Yu ordered her to fracture those streams further into six, then nine, her control began to violently falter.

The strain of manipulating so many independent thermal bodies at once was immense.

Her blue eyes widened in panic as two of the flame currents locked horns, threatening to detonate the energy prematurely.

She was completely losing her focus, her mind unable to keep up with the overwhelming multi-tasking required by the technique.

For Shen Yu, watching her struggle was an odd experience.

To him, keeping track of twelve, twenty, or even fifty independent threads of energy felt as natural as breathing.

He didn’t entirely understand why, perhaps it was a lingering trait from his previous life or just an inherently monstrous level of soul concentration, but maintaining that absolute focus required zero effort on his part.

To see a certified alchemical genius sweating and trembling over just nine streams was almost amusing.

-x-

A/N:

Weekly PS: 14/110

Monthly GT: 17/30