noffsinger Chapter 33 Demon Essence
Chapter 33 Demon Essence
"Fellow Daoist, take another look. Is there anything else you'd like?" Seeing his straightforwardness, the goatee-bearded rogue cultivator became even more enthusiastic.
"Are there any other demonic beast bodies? As long as they're from the early stages of the Nascent Soul realm, the price will be cheaper," Chen Bai continued to ask.
"I wonder if you'll use it for practicing magic? Forging weapons? Or for alchemy?"
The goat-bearded man tapped his pipe, stood up, and released two more demonic beast bodies from his waist pouch.
"This jade antelope is skilled in illusion, and its horn can be used to make incense."
This leech has a venom sac inside its body, which stores enough venom to corrode magical artifacts.
The goods all arrived this morning and are very fresh.
Jade Horned Antelope, a demonic beast in the early stage of fetal breathing.
It was a slender antelope, pure white, with a pair of translucent jade-colored horns on its head.
It had no obvious wounds, except for a very fine needle hole between its eyebrows, as black as ink, with slightly wrinkled fur at the edges.
The water leech is much uglier in appearance.
It was a soft-bodied monster over three zhang long, its entire body covered in a layer of dark mucus that slowly solidified in the air, forming a thin black shell.
The leech's head has densely packed tiny teeth arranged in a ring, each tooth gleaming with a faint, ethereal blue light.
"This is a rare find," Chen Bai said, intrigued.
"you do not say."
The goatee chuckled, "These leeches only emerge from beneath the Leaky Plains when it rains. This one was recently caught outside the city."
After pondering for a moment, Chen Bai bargained, "These two demonic beasts, a total of two hundred spirit stones, I'll take them both, how about it?"
The goatee-bearded rogue thought for a moment, then readily agreed: "Sure."
Chen Bai put all three monster corpses into his Sumeru storage bag. The low-level storage bag wasn't very spacious; it barely held them all, but one more would have burst the bag.
After paying the spirit stone and leaving North Street, it was already close to dusk.
Chen Bai weighed the heavy storage bag at his waist, already planning which corpse to retrieve first tonight.
"Let's go back and try out the small tripod first."
Taking advantage of the twilight's afterglow, Chen Bai hurried towards Xuanzhenfang.
……
……
Xuanzhen Workshop.
Moonlight spilled down, and the shadows of the trees swayed.
Chen Bai bolted the courtyard gate and went inside.
He untied the pouch at his waist, loosened the opening, and poured out everything inside.
【Ironback Pangolin】, 【Jade Horned Takin】, 【Water Leech】.
The corpses of these three demonic beasts took up almost half of the room.
In addition, there was a crimson demon core mixed in.
Chen Bai first picked up the demon core of the Crimson-Maned Boar. The core was rough, with fine cracks covering its surface. The fire inside was murky, and one could vaguely sense a violent and intense spiritual energy surging about, mixed with the fierce spirit of the beast that remained from its previous life.
Its condition is ordinary, even below average.
When independent cultivators hunt down demon cores of this quality, they usually just sell them cheaply at the market, fetching no more than ten spirit stones. Even experienced weapon refiners look down on this kind of stuff because it has too many impurities and too much fire energy; if they were to force it into weapon refining, nine out of ten batches would explode.
However, what Chen Bai wanted was precisely this kind of "inferior goods".
Buying it for ten spirit stones wasn't a loss for him, because even with materials full of impurities, the small cauldron could extract unexpected value from them.
He held the demon core in his palm, and with a slight thought, he activated the small cauldron in his sea of consciousness.
The cauldron trembled slightly, and an invisible suction force surged from the palm, enveloping the entire demon core.
A faint warmth emanated from Chen Bai's palm; it was the last bit of residual warmth from the spiritual energy being extracted from the demon core.
He opened his palm and watched as the surface of the crimson demon core dimmed at a visible speed.
A wisp of turbid fire energy was stripped away, and the crimson of the core gradually faded to grayish-red, and then to grayish-white. The cracks multiplied and became denser, until finally, with a crisp "crack," the entire demon core split into three or four pieces, turning into a clump of grayish-white fragments in his palm.
He clapped his hands, and crumbs fell onto the table.
Within his sea of consciousness, the small cauldron trembled slightly.
It seemed to digest "small dishes" like the Fetal Breath Demon Core very quickly; in just three or four breaths, a soft white light shone from the mouth of the cauldron.
"Buzz—"
A bright red, crystal-clear pill flew out from the white light and hovered in the sea of consciousness. Immediately afterward, a pale red phantom floated out from the mouth of the cauldron. It was about the size of a fist and could be vaguely seen as the outline of a boar—short, thick limbs and protruding fangs, but its face was blurry, like a clay doll that had been soaked in water.
Extract: "Demon Essence"*1, "Crimson-maned Boar Remnant Soul"*1
The "demon essence" extracted from the small cauldron was about one-third smaller than the original demon core, but it had completely changed its appearance.
Its entire body was as clear as a ruby, and its spiritual energy was extremely abundant, with a spiritual energy reserve equivalent to a hundred spirit stones. More importantly, there was no trace of the ferocious intent left by the demon beast in its previous life, only the purest spiritual essence.
"This essence of demonic energy seems to be able to be directly used to replenish one's embryonic breathing and magical power..."
Chen Bai's expression shifted, and he felt a warm current immediately separate from the pigeon-egg-sized pill in his hand, seeping into his body along the meridians in his palm, and reaching his dantian along the three yang meridians of his hand. That warm current was extremely pure, and it merged directly into the ball of spiritual energy in his dantian with almost no refining required.
A mixed early-stage embryonic core can be bought for only ten or so spirit stones in the market.
But this essence of demonic energy, after being refined by the small cauldron, had achieved such a level of refinement—it was truly a miraculous transformation. According to legend, among the disciples of the Three Sects and Six Schools, these kinds of spiritual objects are used to restore their vital energy and magical power after battles. For example, a bushel of [Huai River Essence Pearls] produced in the Dragon Palace can not only restore magical power but also nourish the physical body...
"Little Cauldron certainly won't disappoint me! With this treasure, I only need to buy some demon cores from the market to purify them, and I'll have pure spiritual energy to use, saving me the money I would have to rent a cultivation cave." Chen Bai was overjoyed.
He then directed his thoughts toward the pale red "Crimson-maned Boar's Remnant Soul".
Remnant soul. Essence. Fragmented spirit.
Soul and spirit, a difference of only one word, yet worlds apart.
The Daoist scriptures state: "The soul contains the root of life and nature, while the spirit is the essence of the physical body."
This remnant soul of the Crimson-Maned Boar is merely a remnant of its physical instincts, containing no intelligence whatsoever. Naturally, it cannot be manipulated in the same way as the previously extracted "Black Crow Essence Remnant Soul." Even if it were made into a beast spirit, its effect would be at most like that of a puppet.
Chen Bai wasn't disappointed.
Accidents like Xiao Liu's are not easily replicated.
He put the essence of the demonic energy into his storage bag, while leaving the remnant of the demonic beast's soul in the small cauldron for the time being.
His gaze then fell on the iron-backed pangolin on the ground.
This armored beast was about half a person's height, its entire body covered in dark scales, the plates layered neatly, one on top of another, like a natural iron armor. It had four thick, short legs with flat toes and blunt, thick claws at the tips, marks left from years of digging in hard soil.
The most striking feature was the knife mark on his back—a split that ran from the back of his neck to his waist, almost cleaving him in two. The muscles at the edge of the cut were slightly rolled up, revealing the stark white bone beneath.
Chen Bai placed his palm on the scales.
It feels cool and rough to the touch.
He calmed his mind and activated the small cauldron.