Floating silently within the void-blank space between the Treasured Light Starfield and United Source Starfield, a man and a beast sat upon a large earthen sphere that contained unimaginable wealth, sufficient to induce wars and blood rain upon the stellar region.
Wei Wuyin was unconcerned about this fact, his thoughts elsewhere as he regulated his internal circulation of energies. Just a few minutes prior, he had conjured a Void Portal to New Everlore, locking onto the signature of Wu Baozhai's spatial ring, sending Wu Yu through it.
The act was still quite exhausting. Within the void-blank space, there was a distinct lack of ambient essence that could be absorbed and refined, making recovery extremely difficult. This was especially so for a cultivator like him, their foundation consisted of four Astral Souls and deeply refined energies. With the recuperative products within his ring, he slowly regained his astral force consumed for such an arduous task.
"Kree!" Bai Lin softly cried out while her body was engulfed in golden-scarlet nirvanic flames. Her entire body was pulsing with heat, the light from her body was bright and hot. Since eating the Terra-Mystic Ore, Bai Lin's body was undergoing changes as she refined it.
Wei Wuyin was intently staring at her changes, his eyes fixated on every fluctuation, every emission, and every subtle change in aura or color of her flames. He noted her golden-scarlet flames were losing their scarlet colors, becoming predominantly golden.
'The Nirvanic Rebirth Realm that Bai Lin says she's in has nine stages. Will she undergo her next stage?' His thoughts reached this point, because beasts had different cultivation systems than humans, demons, and elves, he was unable to properly determine how her cultivation would develop. He furrowed his brows, 'Will she have to go through another nine years to transform?'
The thought of losing Bai Lin again after obtaining her left his heart aching. It was a horrible feeling. While he was aware that this meant that Bai Lin's strength would elevate, it didn't lessen the taut feeling he felt in his heart at the possibility.
"KREE!" Bai Lin flared, her entire body erupted in flames. Wei Wuyin paid rapt attention, undivided and utmost focused. When she unfurled her wings, her flames started to grow wildly. She flapped her wings harshly, producing a tremendous force that shook space.
Wei Wuyin instantly entered his draconic form after the pseudo-atmospheric environment formed by Wu Yu was destroyed. He resisted the Chill of the Dark Void with ease, his physical aura acting as a natural barrier.
"I'll be back!" Bai Lin howled mentally, causing Wei Wuyin's expression to grow dark, but dignified and serious. He kept his thoughts inside, sending back: "I'll be here."
Bai Lin released one last cry before spreading her wings once more and flapping. She shot into the Dark Void, becoming a flaming comet. She was beautiful. Utterly gorgeous.
As she grew further and further, the flames emitted from her body grew over a hundred times, forming the distinct shape of a large avian bird. With her at the center, it seemed a gigantic flaming shadow of herself had formed! It was ten times Bai Lin's size! With its one hundred and ten meters in height, its wingspan even wider, she became a flying beacon of light and rebirth.
Wei Wuyin watched as she burned. The fixed space was affected, creating distortions and ripples. Her flames were incinerating the surrounding fixed space with just the heat emissions. This was the one-half of the Nirvanic Flames strength, its incinerating flames!
Wei Wuyin remained silently observing throughout, his silver eyes never leaving her form. They were alone. Not a single life within a hundred thousand miles, and not a celestial body for even further.
After three minutes, her flaming form started to burn to the zenith, and her gigantic flaming shadow started to compress. It compressed until only the flaming Bai Lin remained, her figure hidden by a raging movement of flames and light.
"KREE!!!" An explosive cry resounded.
Wei Wuyin's hands were instantly placed before him, encapsulating himself and the earthen sphere. An astral ward formed, thin yet firm. After several moments, an explosive force smashed heavily against the ward.
BAM!
Wei Wuyin held steady, but the force had sent him and the earthen sphere backwards in a forced retreat. The power from that cry didn't just shake space, but exploded the ambient spatial energies and created powerful shockwaves. The shockwave could collapse planets.
Fortunately, Wei Wuyin's cultivation base was terrifying to say the least, sufficient enough to resist with some effort. But his expression was still dark because after the explosive cry, Bai Lin burned heavier and heavier until her form started to rapidly shrink, just like before. She soon started to burn away, and in a split second, she turned to ash that vanished within the Dark Void.
Her aura and exquisite figure...gone.
Wei Wuyin realized that beasts cultivation can be slow and fast. He couldn't fathom how much mystic material she had eaten. However, he was a little confused about the specifics of her principles of cultivation. Was the Nirvanic Rebirths the process to refine the built up energies she had stored or the result of her refining energies that elevated her bloodline quality, drawing it closer to her origin?
If it was the latter, then her refinement speed was even greater than his own. She had taken only a few hours to refine all the mystic-graded material inside her, and if it was the former, then he wondered if nine years was a static requirement or a limit.
He hoped it was the former.
If it was a matter of refinement, then her built up energies could invoke a cultivation leap, but she might take far shorter if her energy requirement was fulfilled sooner.
"Regardless if you take one minute or nine years, I'll still wait." Wei Wuyin told himself this, soothing his heart on things he couldn't affect.
After settling his thoughts, he spent three hours refining the recuperative products he'd consumed earlier. It was extremely difficult to restore his innate energies, converting them to astral force even with his externalized Astral Souls help refining the products swiftly. It was just too high-level. Despite using several low-tier ninth-grade products, he had only recovered twenty-percent of his full reserves.
This might become an issue in the future. A consequence of a stable, outrageously maximized cultivation foundation.
He didn't need to recover more innate energies or astral force, so he settled on this for now and decided to spend more time later recovering the rest. But the issues of a lack of alchemical products and materials to concoct more was growing.
At the very last moment, he told Wu Yu to use some of that earned income to purchase materials for his concoctions, including a few concoction methods of certain types of ninth-grade products. Now he'd just have to wait for it to arrive.
If anyone knew that Wei Wuyin was using a quasi Demi-Mortal Lord as a gofer, they might faint at the ludicrousness of it all. However, he didn't really have anyone else that could quickly fulfil his tasks available. Most of everyone else in the Aeternal Sky Starfield was at the Astral Core Realm, focusing on their own cultivation or their own assignments.
With a heavy breath, he sent out his astral force to repel the Chill of the Dark Void. Bringing out his Nine Element Eclipse Cauldron, the space was filled with multicolored mist for sixty-three meters in diameter! It was Utmost Purity Mist, the byproduct of successful concoctions of seventh-grade or higher products, and it formed a perfectly spherical domain with this mist.
Wei Wuyin observed this cauldron that had accompanied him during his Myriad Monarch Sect days. He gently caressed its surface. Since he had last shown it to the world, the Utmost Purity Mist had expanded fifty-three meters.
That being said, it was no longer nine-colored on its surface, but pure, pristinely white. At times, it would flicker with a shift of a myriad colors, as if an ever-changing aurora borealis was sealed within its surface, painted across its surface with an animated life imbued throughout. It was gorgeously exquisite, phenomenal to see.
After reaching Element Heart Intent fusing nine Apex-level Intents, the qualities of the cauldron had drastically changed due to his continuous contact and infusion of Intent. Furthermore, its natural state had changed as an alchemical domain had naturally formed, constructed entirely from Utmost Purity Mist.
In the All-Alchemic Clash against Qingye Ying, the Princess of Everlore, it was a high-rank astral-graded tool, but now, after its naturally occurring evolution in composition and emissions of Utmost Purity Mist, it could be classified as the peak-rank. But if Wei Wuyin had a say, he felt it was definitely at the pinnacle-rank, the utmost limits of astral-graded tools.
However, it was extremely, extremely unlikely for a cauldron at the astral-grade to have such high-level characteristics, both its alchemical aura and Utmost Purity Mist. Especially the latter, which was outrageous.
Perhaps only ancient cauldrons used by a long lineage of successful Mortal Sovereign Alchemists or Alchemic Saints could produce such incredible Utmost Purity Mist.
Wei Wuyin started to think. 'The devil's in the details or lack thereof. I've eliminated numerous reasons for why I can't concoct transcendent-quality products, and I believe it's two-fold. If so, I might have both pieces here.'
Wei Wuyin reached into his robes, bringing out the vial of Mystic Origin Liquid, a full six drops, that was given to him by Wu Yu. He pressed against the ground and lifted upwards, and pieces of earth were lifted and brought out a strange material between them. It was strangely ordinary, off-white in color, bland and without any distinctions.
It seemed like this piece of mystic-graded material, the Terra-Mystic Ore was just normal ore. No, even less than normal ore. But Wei Wuyin knew better.
His two eyes manifested seven stars each, bringing out the Alchemic Stars of Mortal Spirituality, an ocular-type of Intent from the Alchemic Dao. The faint traces of the Alchemic Dao's will surged through his pupils, revealing to him things unseen by even the Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity!
In his perception, the bland ore changed drastically!