Chapter 833, Strange Change
One day, as he was refining a Saint Pill, Yang Kai suddenly frowned.
He had inadvertently noticed that the Yang Liquid he had stored in his own dantian was almost exhausted. The last time he re-supplied himself with Yang Liquid, Yang Kai had thought it would be sufficient to last him for a least a decade or so, but now he discovered that his estimations were wrong.
Every time he tore space it required a few drops of Yang Liquid, Yang Kai had apparently used too much in order to become familiar with this method.
It was time to supplement it.
Fortunately, Yang Kai had some sixty or seventy Divine Tree fruits in his Black Book space, each of which contained an amazing amount of Yang Attribute Energy. If he consumed all of them, he could fill his dantian again.
The Divine Tree was now residing in his Black Book space as well, and although cultivating these fruits was a long and difficult process, simply storing them away and not eating them would be a waste, so Yang Kai didn’t hesitate.
Taking out a fruit, Yang Kai began taking big bites of it.
The sound of Yang Kai snacking woke Sun Yu from his meditation, causing him to glance over, his eyes lighting up in the next instant.
Sun Yu was now an Immortal Ascension cultivator so he could naturally see just how extraordinary the Divine Tree fruit was; the seemingly overflowing Yang Attribute Energy it contained was particularly appealing to him.
However, Sun Yu also didn’t dare reveal any kind of covetous attitude in front of Yang Kai.
While preparing to close his eyes and continue his meditate, Yang Kai suddenly smiled towards him and tossed him a small piece of the fruit, “It’s not that I’m trying to be stingy, but you can’t eat too much of this thing.”
Sun Yu’s face blushed as he bashfully accepted the small piece of fruit before popping it into his mouth.
A moment later though, Sun Yu’s True Qi violently rioted and his skin became bright red, all his pores opening wide as they sprayed out excess heat and energy, making it seem like he was on the verge of exploding.
Yang Kai paid the boy no mind and simply allowed him to handle this crisis on his own.
Sun Yu didn’t dare neglect and immediately began circulating his Secret Art as quickly as he could in order to absorb the massive amount of energy now rampaging through his body.
Only after a long while did the violent aura gradually calm down. At this moment, Sun Yu was bursting with life and his aura was also noticeably stronger, even his complexion looked more radiant.
“Want some more?” Yang Kai asked.
Sun Yu quickly shook his head.
The small piece of pulp he had just eaten had nearly caused his dantian and meridians to rupture. Seeing Yang Kai eat them one after another like ordinary snacks without so much as blinking made him realizes just how huge the gap between them was once again.
Although this fruit was definitely a good thing, Sun Yu had enough self-knowledge and naturally didn’t dare ask for more.
Yang Kai swallowed down all sixty or seventy fruits in short order, causing the number of drops of Yang Liquid in his dantian to increase by several hundreds.
Just as he was smiling with satisfaction, Yang Kai’s brow suddenly wrinkled and he quickly sent his consciousness into the Black Book space.
“What happened?” Manifesting his Soul Avatar in front of the huge Divine Tree, Yang Kai asked.
“There are some strange changes happening over there,” The Divine Tree sent him a message.
It had been a long time since Yang Kai had acquired the Divine Tree and its consciousness had greatly matured since then. Now, it had no difficulty communicating with Yang Kai and could clearly express its thoughts and meaning.
“Where?” Yang Kai asked curiously.
“Follow me,” A wisp of golden light suddenly emerged from the Divine Tree and flew off in a certain direction, leading Yang Kai.
Following after it, Yang Kai soon came to a certain spot in the Black Book space and looking around, his brow wrinkled and a look of surprise appeared on his face.
“Here!” The Divine Tree sent him another message as the golden wisp circled the area.
Even without it telling him though, Yang Kai noticed something was wrong.
There were many scattered pieces of gravel here and some precious ores he had been keeping were now gone.
In particular, the quantity of rare minerals he had brought back from the Starry Sky had noticeably decreased.
Yang Kai remembered that after the Starry Sky Storm, he had collected a large number of precious ores and stored them here. Later, he had also piled up the ores he had taken from Nine Heavens Holy Land’s Treasury here.
However, now there seemed to be something that was absorbing the essence from these ores and leaving behind only some useless impurities.
Yang Kai couldn’t help glancing over at the Divine Tree curiously.
Some time ago, Yang Kai had accidentally discovered a similar occurrence. At the time, he had thought it was the doing of the Divine Tree, so he hadn’t paid it much mind.
But now it was fairly clear this wasn’t the doing of the Divine Tree because it didn’t seem like it was lying to him.
“You’ve been staying here the whole time, did you notice anything?” Yang Kai asked after being unable to glean any clues from the pile of ores in front of him.
“Nothing,” Divine Tree hesitantly replied, “I only felt something strange was happening here.”
“Help me keep an eye on this, if you find something, tell me immediately,” Yang Kai said.
Something so strange happening inside his Black Book space had confused Yang Kai greatly.
The essence contained within these ores wouldn’t just disappear for no reason, there must be something consuming them. But since the Divine Tree didn’t do it, the question was who, or what did?
Yang Kai would feel like he had a fishbone stuck in his throat so long as he couldn’t solve this mystery.
Receiving a nod from the Divine Tree, Yang Kai left the Black Book space and continued practicing his Alchemy.
Several peaceful days passed by before Yang Kai once again felt the call of the Divine Tree.
Without hesitation, he sent his Soul Avatar into the Black Book space and asked, “Did you discover something?”
“En,” The Divine Tree once again sent out a golden wisp and the two of them flew over to where the pile of ores lay before it pointed, “It’s them, I felt them slowly absorbing the essence of those stones, I’m certain of it.”
Following the direction it indicated, Yang Kai gawked for a moment at what he saw.
Although Yang Kai had just haphazardly piled the ore he had collected over the years here, he still recognized the two stones on the other end of his gaze and even clearly remember when and where he had obtained them.
Because these two stones were quite special compared to the others scattered around.
It was the two pitch-black round stones.
The first of these two stones had been found inside the secluded ancient cave which was home to the Soul Devouring Insects. At that time, Yang Kai was on his way to Soaring Heaven Sect for the first time and had taken a detour to explore this ancient cave mansion with Cang Yan and Fei Yu. His Martial Uncle and Martial Aunt had brought back a few treasure from the depths of the cave, one of which was this pitch-black round stone which had finally been collected by Yang Kai.
Yang Kai obtained the second pitch-black round stone back in Floating Clouds City. While waiting for the Thousand Year Demon Flower to bloom, he had been forced to participate in an Alchemy contest by Du Wan and Mi Na, ultimately winning first prize as well as the right to pick two treasures from Du Wan’s Saint Grade Alchemist colleagues’ Universe Bags.
Because the two pitch-black round stones were very similar, almost identical, they had caught Yang Kai’s attention and he had spent some time carefully examining them, unfortunately he had never learned anything useful about them despite his efforts.
Never had Yang Kai imagined that the culprit for this strange occurrence in the Black Book space was actually them.
What kind of strange stone absorbed the essence of other rare ores? Yang Kai thought about it for a long time but still ended up drawing a blank.
After carefully probing the two stones with his Divine Sense again for a while, Yang Kai’s brow furrowed slightly.
He discovered that some beautiful patterns, like the meridians of a human body, had appeared on the surface of the two pitch-black round stones. Unfortunately, these patterns only appeared intermittently, as if they had been damaged or worn out somehow.
This discovery greatly surprised Yang Kai.
When he first obtained these two pitch-black round stones, he had performed a detailed examination of them, but at the time, no such patterns had appeared at all.
The delicate and somewhat unclear patterns that had now shown up were obviously related to the two pitch-black round stones absorbing the essence of the ores around them.
On top of that, it was only now that Yang Kai could detected that there was some unusual energy flowing through these patterns, akin to the True Qi in a cultivator’s meridians.
These two stones really hid some kind of mystery!
After thinking about it for a while, Yang Kai decided to set the matter aside for now. After knowing what was happening inside the Black Book space, he was no longer overly worried and simply asked the Divine Tree to continue monitoring the two stones before he took back his consciousness.
Yang Kai faintly felt that the two strange stones weren’t simple, and if he continued to allow them to absorb mineral essences some unexpected changes would eventually occur.
The two stones absorbing the essence of other minerals would no doubt make them stronger, which meant Yang Kai would be able to use them to refine an even stronger artifact in the future.
Opening his eyes, Yang Kai glanced around and saw the Golden Dragon was still consuming the surrounding golden energy and that it would not be done for a while yet. He also noticed Sun Yu still hard at work cultivating nearby.
And so, Yang Kai went back to practicing Alchemy.
Inside the Holy Tomb, Yang Kai had refined a drop of Demon God Golden Blood and acquired the Soul Fission Divine Ability Soul that once belonged to the Great Demon God. Since then, Yang Kai had been cultivating this Divine Ability and had made good progress thanks to his Six Coloured Soul Warming Lotus constantly nourishing his Soul and Soul Clone.
At this moment, Yang Kai also clearly realized the benefits of cultivating Soul Fission.
When one cultivated this Divine Ability to the grand accomplishment stage, it would be as if they had two Souls and could thus cultivate Spiritual Energy twice as fast as others.
Yang Kai had never heard of any Secret Art that even remotely compared to such a boost in Spiritual Energy cultivation speed.
Although Yang Kai had not yet reached such a height, he could clearly feel that thanks to the existence of his Soul Clone, his Spiritual Energy was growing significantly faster than before.
As such, he had spared no effort to cultivate his Soul Clone in the hopes that one day it would be able to play its complete role.
Once he cultivated Soul Fission to its extreme, as long as he could find the right body for it, he could separate his Soul Clone from his Knowledge Sea and implant it into this second form, allowing him to essentially be in two places at once or explore some dangerous region without risking his life.
Yang Kai also began refining the Silver Leaf Saint Grade Top-Rank artifact which he had obtained from the previous Holy Master inside the Holy Tomb. This Silver Leaf was filled with a mysterious power and was extremely difficult to refine. Fortunately though, Yang Kai had plenty of time and was not in a hurry.
After confirming the source of the disturbance in the Black Book space, Yang Kai would check in on the two pitch-black round stones every few days to see what changes they were undergoing.
As time passed, the fine patterns on their surface became clearer and more coherent, the price paid though was that most of the minerals Yang Kai had collected had been reduced to dregs. Of the pile of ores he had harvested from the Starry Sky and Nine Heavens Holy Land, only about half remained.
If this kept up, within a year or so, the two stones would consume every last ore in the Black Book space.
Inside the golden energy ocean, whether it was Yang Kai or Sun Yu, both of them had lost track of the passage of time as they busied themselves with their own affairs. Occasionally, the two would stop what they were doing, relax, and chat, but after having rested themselves for a time, they would continue their work, neither one bothering the other.
The days that passed by were by no means wasted though, instead they were quite productive and meaningful. Both Yang Kai and Sun Yu obtained enormous growth and benefit from this unexpected accident.