The sky was cast in darkness. Not a single star was in the sky and no moon graced the night. Heifeng Jiansui stared at the blackness from the opened windows.

He stripped off his clothes until his body was bare and pierced nine needles into his body. After this, he resumed staring at the darkness in the sky.

As expected, the first violet rays of dawn greeted him at sunrise. The moment the first ray of light struck him, the nine needles pierced into his body seeped into his body. The mighty, dominating aura of a Black Phoenix emitted and illusory flames seemed to burn his surroundings to ashes!

Three days had passed since he began practicing this technique. This was the 12th time, and the final step before breaking through to Small Success of the Phoenixblood Marrowforge!

The aura of the Black Phoenix converged into a shadowy image behind him, and the sound of a chirp was heard! This simple sound could freeze all descendents of the phoenix bloodline in place, dominating them with the might of a superior bloodline!

Along with this aura, a transformation occurred within Heifeng Jiansui. The energy pierced his bones, entering the marrow. The bone marrow within Heifeng Jiansui seemed to grow darker and darker, until it turned pure black! This caused a resultant transformation in the bones and blood as well! The pure aura of a Black Phoenix transformed Heifeng Jiansui’s body from inside to outside!

Marrow, bones, muscles, nerves, blood, skin… Not a single inch of his body was left untempered. Finally, even the bloodline seals on his body began to weaken!

Black Phoenix Nine Daos, One Dao Nine Seals! To unlock the power of his bloodline, he had to break his bloodline seals step by step. While Heifeng Jiansui knew that unsealing the First Dao as a mortal would erect the best foundation for future cultivation, it required a large amount of top-tier pills. After he became the official heir of the Emperor, the Crown Prince, he would have the authority to use them.

But unexpectedly, his bloodline seals began loosening now!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Three seals unraveled before the eruption ended. An unprecedented feeling of power enveloped his body. Twin streaks of fire and ice involuntarily burst from his palms, alternately burning and freezing.

After putting out the two energies, Heifeng Jiansui couldn’t help but marvel at his current power. The first Dao of the Dark Phoenix Nine Daos was the Dao of Ice-Fire. Having released 3 seals, he could control 30% of the power he would have after completely unsealing the Nine Seals of the Dao of Ice-Fire!

Heifeng Jiansui had only completed the Small Success Stage of the Phoenixblood Marrowforge. There were still the Large Success and Perfection. If the rate of unraveling three seals per stage continued… could he completely unseal the Dao of Ice-Fire by relying on this technique?

+++

After his breakthrough, Heifeng Jiansui returned to forging. He had taken up all the top-rank forging missions he could, for the dual benefits of the materials provided and merit points. Since he had a large stock of high-grade materials and a technique that could refine top-grade equipment with high grade materials, he could simply take the top-grade materials allotted for his personal use!

Since three seals of the Ice-Fire Dao had unraveled, his ability to control and create ice and fire improved by about 30%. This impacted his Ice-Fire Divine Forging Art positively, decreasing the time and skill required for forging.

Thus, the task of forging thousands of weapons and armor took only a week to complete. This was a completely ridiculous feat, only possible due to three seals having unraveled. Putting away the forged weapons into designated spatial rings, Heifeng Jiansui called out the messenger sword of the Ten Thousand Sword Paradise. After registering mission completion, the sword returned with his forged goods.

“Damn!” After checking his Sword Seal for his merit points, Heifeng Jiansui was greeted by two-digit numbers. It seemed that merit points would be credited only after a mission supervisor checked his forged weapons!

+++

“Elder Shenhai, the disciple you have taken interest in has perfectly completed all his applied forging missions in only ten days!” A fat man who was given the duty of supervising outer disciple missions dutifully reported to the Elder who was Ganwu Aina’s master.

“Hmm… didn’t he take several A Rank missions only ten days ago? These missions usually involve forging top-grade Mortal swords. How can he casually complete them in such a short amount of time?”

“Master, this boy took the opportunity to read through the entire collection of the Scripture Hall’s First Floor. He must have found a technique that especially suited him!”

On hearing the man’s words, Elder Shenhai sighed. This man had no comprehension of forging arts, so he ignorantly kept on prattling.

‘Heifeng Jiansui is a Black Phoenix clansman and has innate understanding of the laws of ice-fire fusion. Perhaps this comprehension allowed him to perform such a feat… With such talent, all other Elders would be trying their best to rope him into the sect. If I am too passive, he will not have a good opinion of me. I should send him a gift…’ As he thought this, he remembered that Heifeng Jiansui had decided to major in Bloodline and Battle Spirit Arts.

‘Finding a suitable bloodline or a battle spirit cultivation art must be difficult for him. Due to his talents in the sword, a sword cultivation art would be better suited for him. So, a bloodline or a battle spirit based sword art which has a appropriate foundation for mortals to practice… I suppose I will have to call in some favors.’ After finishing his thoughts, he tossed a pill at the manager before rushing to find a Elder who might possess such an art.

+++

After finishing them up, the A Rank missions they hadn’t been renewed again, and merit points from B Rank missions weren’t good enough to apply for them. Thus, Heifeng Jiansui decided to brainstorm ways to cultivate the Large Success Stage of the Phoenixblood Marrowforge.

“The only viable technique I have is the Black Phoenix Allbeast Ruler formation. Even though the manual doesn’t contain more ways of refining better pillars, their primary purpose was to create a formation and not to nurture bloodlines. If I can figure out a way to increase the power of the Black Phoenix aura…” Of course, there were no ways to do this other than trial and error experimentation.

Since the path forward was clear, Heifeng Jiansui decided to begin his experiments. Using the new top-grade Mortal materials, he immediately began forging pillars. And after this, he pierced them into his body and ignited his qi.

He began practicing techniques to use up the excess qi. Even though training the Phoenixblood Marrowforge was no longer possible since the energy was no longer enough to train the art, the surge of energy provided by the pillars was enough for Heifeng Jiansui to battle with the power of a peak Body Tempering cultivator for 2 hours.

Thus, he slowly began modifying the pillars, making them easier and less painful to ingest, increasing the amount of qi supplied, increasing the amount of time using the pillars, etc. Most importantly, increasing the power and density of the Black Phoenix aura!

After some time, Heifeng Jiansui realized that the reason the technique was so difficult to improve was due to ‘balance’. Basically, the Black Phoenix aura was formed by balancing the auras of the nine elements!

Thus, Heifeng Jiansui separated the refining method and forged nine pillars of the nine elements. While they were much better items than Black Phoenix pillars, they did not possess the Black Phoenix aura. After countless trial and error experiments, Heifeng Jiansui created a technique of fusing the nine pillars together and creating a mightier Black Phoenix pillar!

However, while the quality of the pillar was better than nine pillars brought together, the Black Phoenix aura it possessed was far lower than a ordinary set of pillars. This could be blamed on the inferior method of fusion.

“If I want a better technique of fusion, it seems that I will have to step into alchemy…” Alchemy involving extracting the essences of various materials and fusing them together, so practicing it would help fuse the pillars.

After realizing that the path forward was alchemy, Heifeng Jiansui didn’t hesitate. He immediately applied for several E-Rank alchemy missions.

From the bottom to the apex, he had to walk a step by step on his path if he wished to reach the peak!