The blood essence pills were more mentally taxing on Yaan’s psyche than he had expected. He wasn’t completely exhausted, but maybe 3 or 4 more pills would leave him basically comatosed for the next week. To avoid wasting his time in the temporal chamber, he walked a few feet away, directly towards a golden plated bowl that he placed down earlier. The bowl was white with golden dragon carvings all across it, it was something he purchased from the old man on the 1st level for quite the price. That old man was seriously way too rich, Yaan had no clue how he was able to endlessly buy and sell every sort of good at every level of value. Well, he was probably supported by the inheritance itself.

As Yaan sat down on the wooden floor, he carefully tilted the upper white lid up by a fraction. At the same time, he took hold of a pair of chopsticks which were loosely attached to the bowl, and likewise laden with gold and jewels.

A brief whiff of golden gas leaked out, before Yaan stabbed in with the chopsticks. He narrowed his eyes, pinched exactly 3 pills, then pulled them all out and closed the lid. In all, the lid had been open for around 7 tenths of a second.

It was necessary to store these three pills together, and they retained greater power when stored in bulk like this. The three pills were needed for what Yaan was about to do, and luckily, he hadn’t left the lid open for a full second. If that were to happen, the top layer of pills within would rapidly wilt, potentially even losing 50% of their medicinal effect!

“The best part about body cultivation, is the potential for making rapid improvements in a short period of time. Unfortunately, some of the most coveted, most essential body tempering pills, actually last for weeks, or months, and the worst can drag on painfully for years!” Yaan frowned, but then brightened up as he stared at the three pills. Two were even releasing a golden gas.

The pills would become corrupt by the air if exposed for longer than 1 second, but it took 3-4 minutes before the deterioration of their power actually began to take place. It was fine for Yaan to leave them to the side temporarily, as he grabbed another few pills from various boxes and satchels.

“I really have so much stuff…I should get on and use it all. And these three pills are the most perfect way of doing so!”

Yaan grinned, then swallowed the first and most splendid golden pill. He felt an eruption of golden energy within him, shooting up through his throat!

SLAM!

Were it not for the activation of his astral tattoos, he would have immediately lost one third of the pill’s strength and duration. But that wasn't all…for the following 20 seconds, Yaan focussed diligently on using his 18 astral tattoos to restrict and seal the chaotic golden gas.

This gas seemed able to phase through the flesh and body like nothing, making it beyond difficult to contain! Normally, someone with Yaan’s vital energy cultivation would be lucky to retain 3-5% of the pill’s true effect and duration. By utilising the astral power contained within his astral tattoos however, his efficiency was far superior!

After finally compressing all of the golden gas into a floating ball within his empty stomach, Yaan resolutely picked up another pill, a pill he’d been meaning to use for some time now…

Rank 3 organ hardening pill, the last of the Rank 3 body tempering pills that he needed to use! Well, that is with the exception of the unique form tempering pill at least. But, he had that pill too! Yaan glanced down at it whilst grinning manically, like lunatic about to do something seriously dangerous.

True, he did often embark upon dangerous endeavours in order to further his strength, but now things were different…he had so many resources that were useful to a 3-Star demon right under his nose! If he died whilst using these splendid resources, then he deserved his death for being so useless!

After Yaan swallowed the Rank 3 organ hardening pill, he controlled its descent down his throat, avoiding touching his body too much, until it landed within the thick golden cloud, suspended within his stomach.

Immediately, shockwaves began emanating outwards. Yaan grimaced, but waited. As time passed by, the shockwaves created by the organ hardening pill sitting within the golden cloud were beginning to rupture his organs, to tear apart his flesh, to fracture his bones, and to burst his blood vessels!

Yaan grit his teeth heavily. The pain increased, becoming worse and worse until finally, he stumbled, falling face down towards the ground. He injured his muscular skeletal system so badly that he could no longer move. He had inflicted so much damage to his organs that it was as if he was dying. He nearly entirely dried up his blood, not to mention the excruciating tearing of his tendons!

The absolute destruction of the body. Using his last strand of energy and his last functional muscle, Yaan painfully pushed another pill into his mouth. This pill was also golden in colour, but a much darker gold. In this pill, the golden mist that was emitted formed a vortex which was continually sucked back inwards.

Thud!

Yaan hit the floor and lay there for some time. It took around 20 minutes before his skeletal system recovered enough that he could just barely move, but any doctor would scream at him to stay still, probably as they rushed him away into their most intensive care unit on hand.

But as soon as Yaan felt a twitch in his wrist, he used all of his energy to continually twitch that muscle. It twitched, then jolted. Finally, his finger which was clasped around the last of the golden pills, reached his mouth. Yaan pushed out with his tongue, grasping and swallowing the final pill. Honestly, it looked like a metal ball bearing made entirely from gold! It emitted no energy, but…

Silence. Suddenly, everything stopped. All of the pain, exhaustion and injuries from before seemed to miraculously subside in an instant. Yaan stood up, stretched and yawned, before using his astral tattoos to examine his current internal condition.

The pills he had just used were called the trio of accelerated agony. If the first pill formed a gold cloud within the stomach, its use was a success. Next, he consumed the pill that he wished to accelerate the effect of, without causing any detriment or change to the pill’s usual effect. The pill needed to avoid dissolving in the mouth or throat, so Yaan guided it with the astral spirits directly into his stomach...into the golden cloud.

After that, he could let go of his focus on his internal state, something he very rarely did when using these sorts of medicines. However, the next stage was totally out of his control. A continual stream of shockwaves would explode outwards from the golden cloud surrounding the pill. The usual damaging effect of the pill was absorbed into the golden cloud, then triggered the golden cloud itself to release this build up of damage outwards. Each shockwave was sudden and rapid, releasing a portion of the Rank 3 organ harding pill’s effect. Every shockwave reduced the remaining time left to endure the pill by between 1-5%, depending on how perfectly the first golden pill was refined into a golden cloud.

The shock spread outwards through the body, that was why he had been wracked with agonising shockwaves which tore apart his body and left him half dead.

Only half dead. The great thing about this trio of pills, was that it was nearly 100% safe so long as they were used correctly. The second pill was used once the body reached its limit, negating the damaging impact and rapidly calming down the internal situation.

After consuming the final plain looking pill, all of the remaining medicinal energy within the stomach was absorbed into the solid golden pill. That pill then formed a golden orb in the stomach which just sat there, doing nothing at all, until some time later.

Originally, the Rank 3 organ hardening pill should have taken a painful and tedious 99 days to suffer through. Also, he couldn’t fall asleep in this time, or else Yaan risked having his four limbs suddenly explode, potentially fatally.

Before he was forced to consume the second pill, he managed to endure all the way through 19 shockwaves. The fact that this almost destroyed his body didn’t matter, because combining the final golden pill into the mix rapidly healed any and all injuries. Truthfully, the deeper and more severe the injuries, then greater the benefit he would obtain from the golden pills!

Yaan examined his internal condition carefully. In theory, he should have reduced the duration of the organ hardening pill by 90% already!

Whilst this still left Yaan with enough time to complete the refinement of the remaining pill before his next fight, Yaan naturally wouldn’t leave things so close, or with so much chance at play.

This process was not yet finished. Whilst he managed to endure through 19 complete shockwaves of sheer body shattering agony, how could those few minutes of torture compared to 99 days of seemingly endless pain and insomnia?

Naturally, this was far from over, it wasn’t so easy to reduce the duration of a 99 day medicine like this. It would be between 6-12 hours before the process continued, depending on metabolism. After that period was over, Yaan’s body would be racked with tortures, with an unbelievable pain the likes of which very few would ever willingly endure. Around 10% of medicinal effect remained from the Rank 3 organ hardening pill, but it was now contained within the solid golden orb within his stomach. Yaan could already feel that his absorption of the organ hardening pill had barely even touched his vital energy, because the full effect was successfully absorbed into his physical organs!

Truthfully, he felt some trepidation toward the continuation of the process, but Yaan wasn’t one to hide from a challenge. For whatever reason, he had a tendency to challenge his fear by taking increasingly crazed actions as the situation became increasingly dire. The deeper the fear, the greater the crisis, the more he felt inclined to take a dozen risks back to back without even thinking twice.

In a way, it was just a distraction…instead of dwelling on the coming pain and wallowing in fear, Yaan leaned into the madness. He had researched the so called trio of accelerated agony pills and knew that they were no joke. Honestly, the fact that he managed to form the golden cloud with 90% efficiency, was both impressive and terrifying. The pain would certainly be far more awful because of this ‘success’.

“What can I do to take advantage of this situation…with 90% reduced, there’s 10% of the pill left. The solidified golden pill takes any remaining medicinal efficacy, perfectly fusing it with the contained golden cloud, and forcefully pouring the energy into the target, meaning my organs. During the first 10 seconds, the rate will be standard. The next 10 seconds, it doubles. The next 10 seconds, it doubles…endlessly, until all is absorbed. And the fused golden mist, whilst making the absorption more rapid, increases the pain by so much that most body temperers won’t even consider this method…”

Yaan mused aloud, looking across various pills, picking up a few things that he thought might be needed to prevent him from failing…until he paused. He was now gazing at a little booklet, one he did not previously have the time to read since he’d been kept so busy. He had been so intrigued by this booklet, yet he actually totally forgot about it!

This small booklet was sold to him, pulled from the back of a dusty shelf and sold for 25 3-Star astral crystals. A lot of money, even for Yaan.

“The old woman, the seer, mentioned that this book would be a cultivation godsend, but only if I could somewhat comprehend that strange scroll which depicted the four paths of cultivation. Based on their reactions, I more than ‘somewhat’ comprehended it, haha.”

Yaan laughed, his eyes shining as he picked up the book. It was only 72 pages long and quite small, so he expected to skim through it, but it was so damned complicated! He had never read anything so complex before!

Still, he forced himself to read, if only to distract himself from the coming ordeal that would continue in a few hours time.

He tried to make sense of the diagrams. He completed a page every few minutes and felt stuck on some points for half and hour, or even longer. In the end, he somewhat hurried to finish it. Yaan placed the book down, nodding to himself as he started to feel the trio of accelerated agony process kicking in slowly once again.