Chapter 33 - Flesh Nourishing Pill

It was soon after Yaan’s completion of the first stage of the Agile Sword Arts that he finally saved up enough funds to purchase a certain pill, a pill that he had been wanting to use for some time now. With Ghu Nadda’s assistance, Yaan was able to buy the uncommon Rank 2 flesh nourishing pill for a price of 90 Rank 2 recovery pills.

He only spent half of his accumulated funds on the pill itself, since he needed some supplementary pills to accompany its use, in order to draw out the maximum effect safely. Yaan also wanted to save some money for his usual training, which he would continue with after using this body tempering pill.

Similar to the bone strengthening pill that he used back in the Heavenly Path Sect, the flesh nourishing pill was an uncommon body tempering pill that was sometimes used by rich Qi masters to quickly train up their tamed spirit beasts. When a beast consumed this medicine, the beast’s physical flesh was rapidly strengthened in a short period of time. These pills actually belonged to a group of medicines called the ‘unique body tempering pills’.

Yaan stared at the skin coloured pill with a bright gaze for some time, before resolutely throwing it into his mouth and swallowing. He didn’t so much as hesitate for a single moment in his actions. He had worked too hard and for too long in order to acquire this medicine, there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to use this pill here and now!

Seconds later, his body trembled and blood began to leak out from the pores all across his skin. If you looked closely, you would notice that each and every one of Yaan’s muscles was currently convulsing at an impossible frequency. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of oscillations with every passing second.

Blood continued to squeeze out from his pores, as well as his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, making Yaan look like a person entirely soaked in crimson paint. It was quite the grizzly spectacle, but Yaan was currently secluded within his temple, there was nobody around to bear witness to his shocking appearance.

His body continued to tremble, but Yaan simply grit his teeth and endured through the torturous pain. It was almost too much to bear, but when he thought about the fact that his flesh was undergoing a substantial improvement right now, he found the will to continue on.

Not that he had any other choice anyway. Once the pill was consumed, the effect would continue for around half an hour, the pain continuously ramping up until it was over. The pain really was unbelievably intense. In fact, it was rumoured that some body cultivators who were too mentally weak to endure, actually killed themselves to end their suffering! Of course, such cultivators were simply too weak to cultivate the body tempering path in the first place.

Blood accumulated all around Yaan, until the lower floor of his temple turned into a blood lake with only him at the centre. It was an extremely jarring sight, but he continued to grit his teeth and persevere.

For someone his age, at his cultivation realm, Yaan’s willpower was beyond normal. Not many Qi masters would have endured as many painful experiences as he, at such a young age. Yaan’s continual suffering ever since that unforgettable day when he was dragged to the Heavenly Path Sect, was comparable to that which the Ghu Clansmen were forced to endure during their younger years. Though, Yaan’s mental anguish and sorrow was probably something the cold hearted Ghu Clansmen could never understand.

This sort of hardship often felt senseless at the time, but it was a fact that these difficult experiences would be of use later in life. Right now, Yaan was experiencing the true benefit of possessing a firm willpower.

After half an hour agonisingly passed by, he could feel that the violent energy from the pill was rapidly losing its momentum. His flesh had been strengthened and his vital energy had increased further. Usually, this would be the end of the pill’s effect…however, Yaan had no intention of leaving things here!

Vital energy was the energy that body temperers cultivated within their body. By building up this energy within their flesh and blood, the body would experience a subsequent empowerment. Until forming the vital core, it was impossible to manipulate this energy outside of the body, but Yaan had a tiny degree of control over his internal vital energy within his blood stream. This control didn’t allow him to redirect his vital energy, but he could at least accelerate or slow down its movement within his body.

Whoosh!

SPPPPPSSSSSHHHH!

As he controlled his vital energy to force the pill’s remaining medicinal effect to remain within his blood stream, he instantly suffered an agonising backlash and half a pint of blood unexpectedly erupted out from his eyes! Yaan fell forwards as his vision turned red and he couldn’t see a single thing, it was shockingly painful and even Yaan couldn’t help but let out a faint groan.

He pulled himself back up and showed a ferocious expression, not willing to give up just yet. He urged his vital energy to push the pill’s medicinal energy back into his bloodstream. He did his best to ignore his ongoing blood loss and didn’t stop pushing until the medicinal energy finally stopped trying to escape from his body.

Now, he could attempt a second cycle of the medicinal energy!

The previously retreating energy erupted once again. The effect was basically the same as before, but the pain and damage was three times more severe! Yaan started to turn pale from the blood loss. Even with his recovery rate, this was very difficult to endure.

He held out for another half hour, during which time, he finally surpassed the boundary for the late stage! His vital energy was now beyond 75% of it’s maximum capacity for the 2-Star realm, meaning he was officially a Late 2-Star realm demonic body cultivator!

With this small boundary overcome, despite the arbitrary nature of the boundaries, Yaan still felt that his strength had already increased by leaps and bounds.

He allowed the pill’s effect to dwindle, taking the chance to catch his breath and recover his stamina. Once the medicinal energy reached a low enough level, he urged his vital energy to prevent it from dropping any further.

Gulp!

He immediately swallowed multiple Rank 2 vital recovery pills and felt a powerful energy heal over his wounds and restore some of his blood. Since his blood loss was so extreme though, to the extent that Yaan was on the verge of passing out, he proceeded to swallow another pill: Rank 2 blood restoration pill!

This pill was worth 5-10 Rank 2 recovery pills and should be sufficient to recover around almost half of the blood in a True Yuan Qi realm Qi master’s body. For Yaan with his powerful body, the recovery rate brought on by the pill was even more rapid, but it only restored slightly less than 10% of his blood.

He had of course already anticipated this. He swallowed another 2 of these pills, along with even more Rank 2 vital recovery pills. If a Qi master were to see the ridiculous number of pills that Yaan was consuming, just to balance out the damage caused by other pills, they would definitely faint from shock.

SWOOSH!

His rate of recovery instantly skyrocketed, just as the Rank 2 flesh nourishing pill’s medicinal effect was dwindling once again. As his blood restored and his flesh recovered, Yaan’s eyes became bloodshot as he again urged all of his vital energy to force the pill’s retreating medicinal effect back into his blood stream. From there, the medicinal energy once again filled his flesh, beginning the third cycle of enhancement!

The second cycle already improved his vital energy from 75% up to 79%, but every improvement after this would become increasingly difficult. The damage inflicted upon his body was also not to be underestimated. The damage and pain tripled once again, despite the effect not improving at all compared to the previous two cycles.

Were it not for the various recovery pills continuing to assist his healing and blood restoration, Yaan would be unable to endure this third cycle. He still ended up swallowing another handful of vital recovery pills and 1 more blood restoration pill though. The number of recovery pills he had consumed would result in his body exploding in normal times, but this was simply necessary if he wanted to keep up with the third cycle!

His rate of blood loss was slowed down by as much as 70%, thanks to the worrying number of pills continuing to supplement his regeneration. Yaan just about held on for another torturous half hour, before the Rank 2 flesh nourishing pill’s effect was finally used up entirely. At this point, there was no possible way to drag out anymore medicinal effect from the pill.

This was the only method to make full use of the flesh nourishing pill. This pill could be used just a single time in one’s lifetime, so gaining the full effect was extremely desirable. Very few people would force themselves to undergo the dreaded second cycle after experiencing the first though, and enduring the third cycle was simply insanity.

Yaan was too exhausted after this ordeal. He passed out on the blood soaked floor, a content smile plastered across his face.

When Yaan awoke hours later, he was surprised to find that the lake of blood had vanished from his floor. No hint of red could be seen anywhere, bewildering him for a moment and making Yaan seriously consider the possibility that he might have even dreamt that entire ordeal.

After sensing the power contained within his body though, he dispelled such a thought. His vital energy had increased to 83%, but that was only considering the final cycle. From start to finish, his vital energy improved from 66% to 83%, a 17% increase that allowed him to ascend past the late stage boundary!

Improving one’s vital energy became increasingly difficult as it built up to greater heights. Particularly above 75%, each incremental improvement was a joyous event. This spectacular result was only possible because Yaan somehow managed to endure the full three cycles, whilst also using up many other vital recovery pills and the more expensive blood restoration pills.

In total, this cost him 150 Rank 2 recovery pills, leaving him with 75 to continue training with. Luckily his current job paid very well, but he didn’t worry too much about his lavish spending anyway. Money was there to be spent after all, Yaan only cared about money because it could buy him the resources he needed to continue training.

And besides, there was another benefit that Yaan discovered. This was the main use of the pill after all. In fact, the increase in vital energy actually came about only because his small body couldn’t contain such a powerful flesh enhancing effect.

Yaan had never forgotten a single word of Rui’s final advice to him. She mentioned that he should find methods to increase the strength of his physical body, not just his vital energy. Right now, consuming the unique body tempering pills was the only method Yaan knew of to achieve this.

His flesh, namely his muscles, were now far more dense and toned compared to before! Although he didn’t develop some unique constitution like the time he used the bone strengthening pill, he didn’t expect to get so lucky anyway. The progressive bones constitution was already an unexpected stroke of good fortune.

A body cultivator’s strength came from their physical body that was filled with flowing vital energy. However, the bone strengthening pill and flesh nourishing pill were not designed to increase vital energy, but to nourish the physical body directly. Yaan’s muscular strength alone, ignoring the presence of vital energy, had doubled, just like that! His defence was also a level higher now; his muscles wouldn’t become damaged so easily after receiving certain attacks.

Stronger flesh also meant that he would waste less vital energy when fighting, but also that he could strike with more power than before! His muscles were not huge by any margin, but his appearance was extremely toned, giving him a slightly athletic look that might be found on a mortal who often ran long distances.

Yaan stood up and looked around, pondering for some time. No matter how he thought about it, he was unable to determine where the blood had gone. Before he passed out, this bottom floor of his temple was definitely soaked with blood, yet now, not a single drop could be found! He looked around and checked, but Yaan was sure that nobody had entered and cleaned up whilst he was unconscious. Such a thing didn’t make much sense anyway.

The only explanation he could think of was really a bit bizarre though…did he reabsorb the blood back into his body? Thinking about it, it was true that he felt perfectly fine right now, not injured or lacking blood in the least. In fact, he felt like he was in top form, a peak beyond any he had experienced before!

The current Yaan was definitely more powerful than the him from the inter-sect competition! Despite having a crippled dantian and no Yuan Qi, his physical body alone would allow him to battle Late True Yuan Qi realm Qi masters without losing out. Combined with his exquisite sword arts, Yaan was confident that most late stage True Yuan Qi realm Qi masters wouldn’t be his match. Perhaps, if he went all out, he could even hold his own against some weaker Qi masters at the peak stage!