Chapter Eighty-Six: Body Refinement

Manman reached out her little finger, dipped up a bit of the vein marrow, touched it to her tongue to taste it, then frowned and spat a few times in distaste.

“It’s not nearly as useful as you said, Old Flame!” Her interest in the vein marrow vanished at once, and she bounced away toward a gemstone hill some dozens of feet high in the distance—a little mountain piled from tens of thousands of gems of every size and color, glittering so brilliantly it could nearly blind a person.

“Of course it’s of no use to the young mistress, but to everyone else it’s a treasure!” Yingyan hastily drew a jade bottle the size of a fist from his sleeve and casually tossed it into the pool formed by the gathered vein marrow.

With a whoosh, the jade bottle swelled to the size of a human head. A rushing vortex surged from its mouth, and a thumb-thick stream of vein marrow slowly rose, little by little pouring into the bottle. Yingyan, controlling the bottle, suddenly changed expression; the fair skin of his face flushed red from the strain.

A constant droning filled the air as the vein marrow continued to flow into the bottle, which trembled violently.

The liquid level in the pool slowly fell, by inches, by feet...

Gradually, when the surface had dropped by more than a dozen feet, several hundred yellow crystals, each the size of a human head, were exposed within the vein marrow. These crystals were translucent, clear as glass, and threads of visible earth force, thumb-thick, moved in and out of them like spirit serpents. Now and then a flash of light burst within a crystal, and broad, ancient runes flickered in response.

With a gesture of wild delight, Yingyan halted the bottle’s absorption of the vein marrow and instead released dozens of vortices, beginning to draw in these crystals.

The head-sized crystals were clearly heavy beyond measure. Yingyan pointed both hands at the bottle, firelight spraying from his fingertips, and with all the strength he could muster, the crystals only slowly lifted at last, then drifted with a deep rumble toward the bottle’s narrow mouth.

“Ji Hao, you and the others have served the young mistress well. Take and absorb this vein marrow quickly. Condensed from the essence of the earth, it can slightly increase your strength, greatly enhance the toughness and defense of your bodies, and temper your meridians and shaman apertures. It will be of immense benefit to you in the future.”

While he busied himself gathering the crystals, Yingyan pointed at the remaining vein marrow in the pool, which covered roughly a circle some dozen feet across and a little over a foot deep, and said calmly, “When you absorb it, be careful, very careful. Never take in more vein marrow than your body can bear, or your body will turn to stone, and then you’ll have real trouble.”

Ji Hao and more than a dozen guards exchanged glances and hurriedly jumped into the pool.

The guards were a little cautious, not daring to be rude in front of Manman and Yingyan. They merely sat within the vein marrow and carefully absorbed it by secret methods. But Ji Hao could not be bothered with such restraint. He simply stripped off his clothes, leaving only a pair of beast-skin shorts, then lay down without hesitation and submerged his entire body in the vein marrow.

With the Imperfection-Mending and Leakless Art activated, every pore in Ji Hao’s body opened at once, and countless tiny vortices began to swallow and breathe out the vein marrow.

Vein marrow is the distilled essence of the earth, refined by the power of heaven and earth. After endless ages of sedimentation, and then at least ten thousand years of brewing in a hidden grotto where wind gathers and qi collects, it slowly takes shape.

The power of earth is heavy yet nurturing, truly the mother of all things. Vein marrow is the very essence of that power, possessing wondrous effects in consolidating the foundation and strengthening the source, and even enhancing innate endowment. If a warrior of the southern wastes were to have the chance to temper himself with vein marrow, his strength would ordinarily far surpass those of the same rank; with one man’s power, he could stand against three or five other warriors otherwise equal in all respects.

One drop of vein marrow entered his body and was instantly transformed into threads of yellow energy, swallowed by the five-colored flame in his lower abdomen. Then great surges of five-colored light, far heavier than usual, poured out and swiftly merged into Ji Hao’s entire body.

Ji Hao had a strange sensation: it seemed his body had once contained many hollow spaces, but now some weighty substance was filling them in. His body itself did not become “heavier,” yet its texture grew far more “solid” and “sturdy.”

With every breath, a large amount of vein marrow merged into his body.

Since vein marrow is condensed from the essence of the earth, each drop is immensely heavy. Even with Yingyan’s strength, gathering this pool of vein marrow was a task of such difficulty and awkwardness.

Ordinary people, even if they absorbed only one drop of vein marrow, would need to spend vast quantities of blood essence continuously grinding and dissolving it before they could refine its beneficial essence and spread it through the body, thereby changing bodily functions and raising innate endowment.

But Ji Hao possessed the heaven-defying divine art of Imperfection-Mending and Leakless. The wondrous five-colored flame merely swept through once, and the negative power in the vein marrow that would have gradually turned the human body to stone or crystal was utterly erased. What remained was only the purest, most beneficial essence.

The muscles on Ji Hao’s body undulated in even, measured waves, like a tranquil sea. His breathing gradually grew heavier and deeper; from skin to flesh, from meridians to internal organs, from bones to marrow, and even the brain and nerves, the most difficult parts of all to temper, were rapidly strengthened and elevated by the thick, viscous five-colored radiance.

As for Manman’s other guards, even those few great shamans would cautiously absorb only a few drops of vein marrow at a time, then continually use their own blood essence to grind and temper it, refining it before distributing it evenly throughout the body.

The guards at the lesser shaman level needed a full six hours, half a day, merely to barely refine a single drop of vein marrow.

The great shamans, whose blood essence surged like dragons and was vast as the sea, still needed the span of a breath to refine one drop.

But Ji Hao, running the Imperfection-Mending and Leakless Art, refined at least a hundred drops of vein marrow in each breath. His refining speed was actually more than a hundred times that of those great shamans!

Most of the refined vein marrow became nourishment for the five-colored flame itself. The once dim flame grew ever brighter, its size expanding by a full circle. As vein marrow continued to pour in, the flame’s refining power also kept rising.

Vein marrow could not rapidly increase raw strength. What it did was thicken and deepen Ji Hao’s innate foundation.

With his divine sense covering his entire body, Ji Hao clearly perceived that each time he refined a drop of vein marrow, his raw strength rose by only a negligible ten-odd stone, yet his bodily toughness and defensive power increased by a great margin.

For Ji Hao, still in the lesser shaman realm, the effect of this heavenly treasure was simply overwhelming.

In particular, the strength of his meridians and shaman apertures surged upward with astonishing speed. The meridians became more flexible and spacious, the shaman apertures more profound and expansive. The amount of shaman power Ji Hao’s meridians could hold instantly increased again and again, doubling, tripling.

Every drop of vein marrow he merged with was equivalent to the benefits gained from devouring a ferocious beast of the upper lesser-shaman rank.

Though Yingyan had taken away the great majority of the vein marrow, the amount remaining in the pool was still no less than a million drops.

Not to mention one Ji Hao—even ten or a hundred Ji Haos would have more than enough to use.

Ji Hao rested his head on a yellow crystal while the Imperfection-Mending and Leakless Art circulated without pause. The abundant power of thick earth within the crystal also slowly seeped into his body.

His body grew continuously stronger. Ji Hao’s height increased by about two inches, and his frame became a little more sturdy and powerful.

—

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