Chapter 388 - Soul Pills
Gu Zuo nodded his head: “It’s precisely this soul pill.”
However, the fact that Gu Zuo and Gongyi Tianheng were aware of this didn’t mean that the battle slaves and Yu Cheng also knew about it. After they heard what was said, they revealed doubtful expressions.
Yu Cheng spoke hesitatingly: “To extract the soul of a living thing, wouldn’t that be…somewhat ruthless?”
When all was said and done, he was only sixteen years old. Although he knew that this was a world where the weak were prey to the strong, when even the soul was exploited after death with no way to rest in peace, it made him feel anxious.
Here, Gu Zuo didn’t mind clearing up their confusion: “You guys should know that the so-called soul is actually a person’s consciousness. Normally, it is intangible and invisible. Only once the body dies will it dissipate into the world.”
This was common sense, and everyone knew this.
Yu Cheng and the others nodded their heads.
Gu Zuo continued to speak: “When martial artists cultivate their physical bodies, this is the path of martial arts. When pharmacists cultivate their minds, this is the path of spirituality. However, this doesn’t mean that martial artists don’t possess mental strength. It also doesn’t mean that their mental strength won’t have the slightest impact. In the wake of one’s progression along the path of martial arts, one’s mental strength will improve, allowing the martial artist to possess sharper perceptions and greater willpower. During the martial artist’s life, their soul will be continuously nourished by their mental strength, becoming even more powerful. Once the martial artist dies, if they have an obsession, they can absorb the collapsing mental strength at the moment of death, and turn into another type of lifeform known as a dead soul.
“But with regards to pharmacists, when they are alive, they specifically cultivate the path of spirituality and make full use of their psychic powers. During the Qi Psyche Realm and Coalescing Psyche Realm, the soul is still only nourished by psychic power. Once the pharmacist reaches the Core Psyche Realm, the instant the psychic core forms in the Tianfu Acupoint, the soul will be taken into the core. After this, the pharmacist’s spiritual path will advance to the next realm. Upon reaching the Nurturing Psyche Realm, it is actually an integration of psychic power and soul, and the ‘spirit’ arises. When it has fully matured, it’s called the spiritual embodiment — Also known as the spirit body.
“Rather than saying that the spirit body is a transformation of psychic power, it’s better to say that the psychic power has absorbed the soul’s characteristics to reflect the pharmacist’s inner self. Thus, it can be said that the spirit body is a variation of the soul. It can also be said that the soul is stored within the spirit body. But whatever the case may be, if the spirit body is destroyed, the soul will also no longer exist.
“If one wants to kill a pharmacist, one must kill their spirit body. And if the pharmacist dies naturally, the spirit body will also disperse — Of course, if it doesn’t disperse, that spirit body can attach itself to certain objects or materials. It will still survive in the world until it eventually deteriorates to nothing. Merely, during this borrowed time of the spirit body, one can say that the pharmacist is still alive. Though, one can also say that what is alive is actually the obsession.”
The place where a person’s soul was stored was in the depths of the Tianfu Acupoint.
The relationships between the soul and one’s psychic power or mental strength were very complicated. Sometimes, it was impossible to tell one from the other. This was a type of mysterious and abstruse concept that martial artists and pharmacists both understood and failed to comprehend. However, they were able to spur these forces spontaneously.
Everyone seemed to have an understanding of souls and realms, but with respect to pharmacists, they didn’t know as many details as Gu Zuo.
After finishing his scattered and piecemeal explanation, Gu Zuo finally talked about the important point: “As for the requirements for soul pills, living souls and dead souls are both acceptable. The souls of wild beasts and origin beasts are mostly used, but not the souls of people.”
When this was mentioned, Yu Cheng and the others’ heartstrings loosened.
Hearing Tianheng’s brief description of the soul pill’s origins caused their hearts to tense. However, now that they heard Gu Zuo’s words, they felt that soul pills were perhaps unorthodox, but weren’t too shocking.
And since soul pills mostly used beast souls, a pharmacist who was an expert in soul pills wouldn’t necessarily be that fiendish or black-hearted.
Following this, Gu Zuo talked about the history of the soul pill’s main ingredient: “The majority of soul pills are Battle Soul Pills. Once a successfully-refined pill is brandished, it can exhibit the capabilities of the utilized soul when it was alive to protect the person who activates the soul pill. Thus, while soul pills are unorthodox, and the required techniques are exceedingly high, there are also some specialized soul pill pharmacists who focus on cultivating this path. It is also because of this that there are many ways to capture souls.”
He sorted out his thoughts, and said: “Under normal circ.u.mstances, if a martial artist wants a Battle Soul Pill, they’ll usually have to hunt a beast on their own. Merely, the majority of martial artists don’t know how to extract the beast’s soul. If they didn’t get a hold of a pharmacist’s token, they can only not slay it and deliver the nearly-dead beast to a pharmacist. Then, the pharmacist will extract a living soul and conduct the pill refining. Of course, beasts can also have dead souls, but the souls of beasts are very different from the souls of people. Wild beasts possess no sapience. Unless there are extraordinary circ.u.mstances, there’s no way for it to leave behind an obsession.
“As for origin beasts, although they have some sapience, if one leaves behind a soul, that obsession will most likely be unreconciled and vengeful. This kind of soul is incredibly dangerous. Prior to taking it, a martial artist may be killed by the dead soul first… Right, whether humans or beasts, both have mental strength. It’s just that, aside from an extremely small number of races that have the innate skills, almost no beasts can utilize their mental strength, much like martial artists.”
As Gu Zuo continued to talk, his eyes also faintly shone: “In addition, there’s also human soul pill refining.
“When it comes to dead souls… Some martial artists and pharmacists don’t feel rea.s.sured about the future. For the sake of protecting their families and later generations, when their lifespans are used up and they are powerless to break through, they’ll go looking for a trusted soul pill pharmacist. Then, at the very last moment, they’ll commit suicide. At this time, the pharmacist will use special hand seals to extract the soul, and use the individual’s barely existing obsession and defeated mental strength to nourish the soul. This can allow the soul to take shape and become the main ingredient for pill refinement — If it’s a pharmacist, they can directly use hand seals to preserve their spirit body, and turn it into medicine. The outcome would be the same.
“There are also some dead souls that come from the ruins of exterminated racial groups or sects. Before the disciples of those organizations meet their ends, they experience intense emotions. There is a possibility of forming countless dead souls that linger around the ruins. At this time, if a soul pill pharmacist detects these dead souls, the pharmacist can collect them as main ingredients. Of course, the human souls used in refining Battle Soul Pills are all dead souls. If a soul pill pharmacist dares to recklessly extract the living souls of people to conduct pill refining, then once they’re discovered by others, they’ll certainly be feared and hated. Many organizations won’t tolerate this kind of pharmacist to exist. Whenever such heretics are found, these organizations will wipe them out!”
In conclusion, soul pill pharmacists were strange. However, if they used beast souls, they were actually the same as those who used a beast’s blood, flesh, and bones. This was within the category of normalcy. As for the use of a person’s soul, it was divided into several situations. Basically, the existence of such soul pills was mostly to protect one’s future generations. Prudence was needed for any other circ.u.mstances.
This field of medicinal pills was special, and couldn’t be messed around with.
Once Gu Zuo finished talking, Yu Cheng and the others had their eyes opened.
Their moods were quite complicated, and there was still a feeling of worry in Yu Cheng’s heart. Since there were pharmacists who liked to use living souls and the souls of people, he could only hope that the Xiao Clan wasn’t composed of wicked folks.
Otherwise…
When all was said and done, Yu Cheng was a descendant of the Xiao Clan. Thus, he was worried that he would be treated differently because of this.
However, now that it was said, everyone understood what needed to be done to proceed.
Gu Zuo stood in front of the pill furnaces and medicinal cauldrons. Psychic power trembled in the s.p.a.ce between his brows, and charged straight at the nearest pair.
Those gloomy-blue halos instantly underwent changes.
They disappeared in a flash. Meanwhile, the soul pills embedded near the pill furnace and medicinal cauldron rapidly spun, and two ferocious beasts lunged out. In the time it would take to blink, they had already arrived!
Gu Zuo’s psychic power swiftly generated two thick wolf-tooth cudgels that swung across.
Although the beasts were fierce, after drawing support from the soul pills’ medicinal power, they actually lied between the material and immaterial. Whenever they attacked, they became tangible. And once they dodged, they would become intangible.
But regardless of their state of being, this was only a limitation for the physical strikes of martial artists. During a confrontation with a pharmacist who was already at the Nurturing Psyche Realm, their psychic power was ever-changing. So long as it could strike those ferocious beasts, it could freely transform into the same state to hit them.
Thus, under the punishing blows of the two wolf-tooth cudgels, the ferocious beasts seemed to let out invisible roars that caused surging qi streams. They were swiftly propelled backwards as they were smashed away.
Gu Zuo’s mind was focused.
As the wolf-tooth cudgels kept the ferocious beasts busy in midair, the s.p.a.ce between Gu Zuo’s brows shot a sharp needle. After this needle flew out, it split in two. With one on the left and another on the right, the needles rushed straight at the rapidly spinning soul pills at the pill furnace and medicinal cauldron.
Soon after, only two loud and clear popping sounds were heard. Those soul pills were shattered into fragments by the sharp needles — The foundations that supported the ferocious beasts were destroyed. The beasts had no way to maintain their forms, and were likewise defeated!
All that remained were only the undamaged pill furnace and medicinal cauldron.
The others watched this speedy and nimble battle, and their views of Gu Zuo’s strength were refreshed. This was Yu Cheng’s first time seeing a pharmacist fight like this, and admiration grew in his heart. At the same time, his vigilance towards pharmacists also rose a level.
…One couldn’t think that, just because pharmacists were good at refining medicine, they weren’t skilled at using their psychic powers to fight!
After Gu Zuo was finished, he turned his head and explained to the onlookers: “Everyone, if you encounter a soul pill pharmacist in the future, you must be careful. Don’t focus on how I shattered the soul pills during this fight to defeat the soul beasts. This is only because that pharmacist used a special technique to refine the soul pills, leaving behind this type of testing method countless years ago. In this way, the soul pills could be preserved for a long time. Moreover, so long as the medicinal power of the soul pills aren’t totally depleted, the soul beasts can always be utilized.
“But if you really encounter a soul pill pharmacist, when they fully utilize their methods, a soul pill can only be used once. Usually, they will directly crush the soul pill, allowing the soul beast to automatically absorb all of the medicinal power and run wild. At this time, unless the soul beast’s medicinal power is completely used up, it will obey the pharmacist’s orders and tirelessly fight.”
After Yu Cheng finished listening to these words, his heart trembled.
He almost took breaking the soul pill as the best way to slay a soul beast, but after having this brought to his attention, he realized that the matters here weren’t normal at all.
Thinking these things, Yu Cheng squeezed his fingers, and tentatively said: “Pharmacist Gu, I was wondering if I could…give it a try?”
Gu Zuo looked at him, having understood his meaning, and answered: “You can. It’s better to know a little bit more here than to suffer a loss in the future.”
After he finished speaking, he looked at Tianheng.
Tianheng smiled at Gu Zuo, and said to Yu Cheng: “There’s no need for you to test it yourself. I’ll have Ao Min do it since he can handle things faster.”
Yu Cheng naturally didn’t object.
Immediately following this, Gu Zuo stimulated the gloomy-blue halos, and two more ferocious beasts lunged out.
Ao Min’s speed was extremely fast. He flashed in front of Gu Zuo, and engaged in an intense battle with those ferocious beasts.
Under Tianheng’s command, Ao Min used his strongest moves to fight these peak Immortal Realm beasts in close-quarters combat. The might of every move was incredibly powerful. Between every gesture was boundless and inexhaustible strength.
The battle souls were no match for Ao Min as they tenaciously fought. A small amount of time pa.s.sed, and after the battle souls’ bodies were shattered for the third time, the Battle Soul Pills that were embedded at the pill furnace and medicinal cauldron stopped moving. Then, the battle soul’s figures promptly disappeared.
Gu Zuo stated: “It appears that the test is pa.s.sed once the battle souls are damaged three times.”
Once he said that, he considered the strength levels of everyone present. Without the slightest hesitation, he opened all of the light covers to release all of the battle souls.
Several battle slaves quickly took action. In an instant, every single battle soul was stopped in its tracks.
The s.p.a.ce between Gu Zuo’s brows produced a wolf-tooth cudgel, which floated in the vicinity of Yu Cheng. This was to protect him — Even if there were cunning battle souls that escaped the battle slaves’ encirclement, they wouldn’t be able to cause any harm to Yu Cheng.
Yu Cheng naturally realized that, from this point on, he wouldn’t have any way to help the other party in terms of martial strength. He suddenly felt a burst of indelible grat.i.tude that he wasn’t forgotten during this dangerous time.
The speed that the battle slaves used to resolve the problem wasn’t slow. Before long, the tests for all of the battle souls were concluded. However, they didn’t destroy those Battle Soul Pills. Rather, it was Gu Zuo who took action and put them away.
As for the pills inside the furnaces and the powders inside the cauldrons, there weren’t any differences in variety with the first batch. Gu Zuo didn’t want any of them, and allowed Yu Cheng to keep them. Additionally, Gu Zuo decided to use half of the remaining Battle Soul Pills for research, and gifted the other half to Yu Cheng. This was regarded as giving him some life-saving trump cards. In the future, since the Battle Soul Pills didn’t have to be activated spontaneously, Yu Cheng only needed to input his internal qi and crush a pill with his fingers before using it. Then, the battle soul would automatically protect the owner of this internal qi.
In this second checkpoint, it was still Yu Cheng’s harvest that was the largest.
However, this was expected. While the items in the preceding checkpoints weren’t bad, they were far from reaching the degree that would move Tianheng’s heart. From the start, his objective was in the depths of this historical ruin.
Shortly thereafter, the third checkpoint began.
It was from this checkpoint that they broke past the outer circle, and moved towards the inner circle.
As a result, what appeared in this checkpoint weren’t stone walls. Instead, it was an empty inner city.
Within this inner city, there were ancient buildings all over the place that gave off peculiar cadences. And unexpectedly, growing near those buildings were many trees — Even though the leaves were already withered, making it look like only bare tree trunks were left, it still showed that these trees possessed an incredibly powerful vitality.
All of a sudden, three perfectly round objects hurtled through the air from far away. In a split second, the objects fell to the ground with loud cracking noises. After these sounds echoed out, three wild tigers appeared where those objects landed. Each tiger possessed a strength that was infinitesimally close to a rank one origin beast. Their imposing auras were formidable and their ferocity was unparalleled.
The beasts didn’t distinguish who was in front of them. They opened their fang-filled jaws, and were already lunging out to bite everyone!
Yu Cheng was overwhelmed with shock.
The imposing auras of those wild tigers were like an oppressive hammer beating down on his mind. It caught his heart in a vice-grip of pain that nearly squeezed it right out of his chest.
His qi and blood were churning and his brain was throbbing — Under the claws of the wild tigers, he would never be able to get through a single round!
Gu Zuo noticed the terrible power of these wild tiger souls, but to him, this was nothing but a bit of low atmospheric pressure. It couldn’t cause much damage at all.
As a result, he quickly discovered that Yu Cheng wasn’t doing so well, and promptly discharged his psychic power. It formed a cover-like object, which encased Yu Cheng inside.
In this way, the suppressive might from the outside world could be isolated, and Yu Cheng could be protected from being killed by the shock.
Yu Cheng just recovered from his panicked state, and could only bitterly smile as he regulated his breathing.
Originally, he believed that his willpower was strong, and could resist some of the bad things to a certain extent, but he didn’t expect that he would almost fail after only one encounter.
These were three wild tiger souls. As one could well imagine, if he was going to explore on his own, it wasn’t known how long it would take and how many times he would fail before he approached the interior edge of the inner circle — To reach the central city of the historical ruin!
At this moment, Tianheng and Gu Zuo walked next to Yu Cheng, who didn’t dare to rush indiscriminately into action. Tianheng took out the Jade Heart Pendant.
Yu Cheng had already calmed down. He said to the pair: “After we get through this checkpoint, we can enter another area to receive rewards. After that, we will directly move into the city within this city. However, the routes are complicated, and there are many similar things. If you want to get anything, you’ll have to find it on your own. Prodigy Gongyi, carefully look at the lines of blood on the Jade Heart Pendant.”
Tianheng heard his words, and lowered his head to see.
Gu Zuo also looked over. Previously, Yu Cheng used some blood to open the historical ruin. At this moment, the scarlet lines of blood on the Jade Heart Pendant had interweaved into a distinct network. It had formed an incomparably detailed map.
Tianheng raised an eyebrow: “A map?”
Yu Cheng nodded his head and said: “Drawn on this map are the routes of the city within this city. The specks of blood are locations where tests have been set up. You can get benefits from these places.”
Sure enough, after Gu Zuo glimpsed at it, he discovered that, within that bloodstained network of roads, there were many nodes that formed drops of blood that were half the size of sesame seeds. Although it wasn’t densely packed, he counted around twenty to thirty locations.
Though, the area that contained the inheritance was certainly in one of these places. The other locations were probably for obscuring their line of sight.
Yu Cheng pointed at the largest blood speck, and said: “Here is the location of the inheritance.”
Tianheng nodded his head: “After going in, we’ll take the things at the other places first. We will proceed towards the inheritance last. This is to prevent the ruins from undergoing any sudden changes once the inheritance is claimed.”
Yu Cheng naturally didn’t have any complaints: “Everything will be according to this prodigy’s words.”
While the three of them talked, the battle slaves had already smoothly dispatched the wild tiger souls.
But matters weren’t finished yet. Once the three wild tiger souls completely disappeared, several other places launched many round objects. As they smashed into the ground, streams of wind swirled up, and even more wild beast souls took shape.
There were crocodiles, wolves, lions, tigers, pythons, and elephants — There were all manner of fierce and violent beasts.
The only thing worth rejoicing over was that the strength of these wild beast souls didn’t surpa.s.s the Immortal Realm. This was probably because the Xiao Clan had been worried about excessively harming their descendants.
The number of wild beast souls that came this time suddenly rose to fifteen.
Fortunately, this didn’t pose a problem to the battle slaves. After taking action a few times, they swiftly depleted the energy powering the beast souls. This caused the medicinal power, and the beast souls themselves, to disappear even faster.
However, the very next moment, soul pills began falling down like raindrops.
In the blink of an eye, everyone was surrounded by a dense crowd of wild beasts!
This time around, the wild beast souls that appeared were no less than one hundred!
Yu Cheng sucked in a cold breath.
Gu Zuo didn’t dare to neglect anything, and immediately stood next to Yu Cheng. He used his psychic power to form a total of four giant shields to unswervingly block all sides. This was to prevent any beast souls from charging inside.
Yu Cheng knew that he was a burden. He clenched his teeth, restrained himself, and made absolutely sure not to act blindly without thinking.
It was also at this moment that Tianheng glanced at Gu Zuo. After finding that his little pharmacist was safe and secure, his own figure flashed out to join the scene of battle and fight those wild beast souls.
This was the first time Yu Cheng got to see Tianheng take action.
One would only see Tianheng’s wrist shake. In his palm, he grasped a reddish-gold long spear. Yu Cheng saw it clearly. This wasn’t a true weapon. Rather, it seemed to have been condensed from some type of martial skill. The spear bore an incredibly frightening power.
Soon after, Yu Cheng witnessed extremely sophisticated spearmanship.
At this time, he discovered that the honorable prodigy he invited out also used a spear, but it wasn’t known how many times stronger the other party’s spear techniques were when compared to his own! He originally believed that his spear techniques were already very succinct. Now that he saw Tianheng in battle, he realized that this prodigy’s spear techniques were truly without the slightest redundancy. Every move and every form was used at the most appropriate moment and at the most perfect angle!
All of a sudden, Yu Cheng forgot that he was still being protected by a pharmacist. Both of them were caught up in a dangerous siege, but his thoughts were all on the spearmanship that Tianheng utilized. He didn’t even notice that, every time Tianheng pierced a wild beast soul with that long spear, that beast soul would burst into flames with its entire body enveloped in rays of light. It would look up to the sky, and let out silent, agonizing howls.
Meanwhile, Gu Zuo was also watching this scene.
Right. This reddish-gold energy was the power of the sun… His big brother used this energy to battle with the beast souls. Truly, it was very effective.
Everything considered, it wasn’t unreasonable. The power of the sun was firmly yang in nature. As for the beast souls — Even if the attributes they possessed in life were also yang-aligned, the beast souls were still beast souls. After being refined into medicinal pills, they were partial towards yin.
Since it was like this, if one utilized a scorching-hot substance to burn the beast souls, the medicinal power wouldn’t necessarily be completely consumed. But this kind of scorching-hot substance wasn’t that easy to find.
The pressure brought about by the siege of nearly a hundred wild beast souls was like a tidal surge that progressed with one wave after another.
Indeed, the realms of the couple of battle slaves were higher, but the wild beast souls knew no weariness or exhaustion. Sometimes, the battle slaves even failed to hit them! This kind of enemy was much more difficult to deal with than being besieged by one or two hundred martial artists.
As a result, apart from Tianheng, whose energy consumption was small and who wasn’t having that hard of a time, the other battle slaves needed to put in a bit more effort once they discovered the difficulty level of this matter.
And right then and there, Gu Zuo suddenly thought of something.
Ah, how could he have forgotten his own top-notch attack methods?
The next moment, Gu Zuo became tranquil and even-tempered. The manifestation inside his qi ocean became active.
At the same time, a wisp of orange flames was hovering at his fingertip.
The temperature of this flame was astounding.
Immediately following which, Gu Zuo flicked his finger. This flame transformed into a line of fire that shot out.
Its speed was extraordinarily fast, and it instantaneously fell onto the body of the nearest wild beast soul. Within a split second, that wild beast was engulfed in an inferno!
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