My home internet went down, so I'm uploading from an internet café. The update is late.
Also, summer is approaching. If there's ever a day when Xiao Mo's update is late, it's probably because of a power outage or internet failure.
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He wanted to see if he could find Su Yan there!
With that thought in mind, Yang Kai withdrew his Divine Sense from his spiritual sea and channeled it into the star chart before him, engraving the warship's navigation route.
For the stretch of time ahead, he wouldn't need to worry any longer. The warship would follow the route he had drawn, sailing onward until it reached its destination—provided, of course, that nothing dangerous lay along the way.
Time flew like an arrow.
The warship sailed steadily and safely along the path Yang Kai had charted, encountering no setbacks.
The occasional bizarre star beast would dart out from a nearby dead star, but the Disciples manning the crystal cannons obliterated them all without issue.
Inside his cabin, Yang Kai sat cross-legged. Before him sat the Purple Void Cauldron he had obtained from the Emperor's Garden, and all around him were boxes and bottles of every description, a dazzling array of ingredients.
He deftly fed herb after herb into the Purple Void Cauldron, channling Divine Sense Fire into its interior to refine the essences of the medicinal materials, inscribing spirit formations and fusing the essences together to catalyze their wondrous transformation.
He controlled the temperature with precision and timed the addition of each herb with exacting care.
Yang Kai worked with meticulous focus, finding deep satisfaction in the craft.
Suddenly, his brows furrowed, and he hurriedly intensified the power of his Divine Sense Fire.
The next instant, a muffled explosion boomed from within the Purple Void Cauldron, followed by a foul, acrid smell of scorched char.
A look of surprise crossed Yang Kai's face, his brow creasing deeply.
Another failure!
His expression remained placid as he lifted the lid of the Purple Void Cauldron and tipped out a pitch-black mass, setting it aside.
Piled next to it were many such lumps—all the byproducts of Yang Kai's failed pill refinements!
He didn't continue. Instead, he sank into contemplation.
It had been two years since he left the Dark Star. Two years in which Yang Kai had not wasted a single moment. He had been diligently cultivating various divine abilities and studying all manner of secret arts. Beyond that, he had devoted himself to honing his pill-refining skills. His days had been extraordinarily fulfilling.
Ever since he first embarked on the path of alchemy, failure had been a rare occurrence. His success rate in refining pills far exceeded that of ordinary alchemists, and the quality of his output was remarkably high—he could extract the maximum possible potency from his medicinal ingredients.
Such achievements were owed to two things: his natural talent for alchemy, and the possession of Divine Sense Fire, a supreme treasure for pill refinement.
Yet aboard the warship over these two years, he had experienced failure after failure after failure.
Void-Grade superior-grade pills—he could now refine those without effort. What he wanted to produce now were Void King-grade spirit pills!
But even now, after consuming no small quantity of Void King-grade ingredients, not a single Void King-grade pill had emerged. Every last attempt had been wasted.
This result left him somewhat disheartened.
In any profession, reaching the pinnacle was extraordinarily difficult. In the Star Domain, the Void King grade was the absolute peak.
Void King Realm cultivators were few in number. Countless Return Void Third Stage martial artists remained stuck at the bottleneck their entire lives, never making another inch of progress, dying of old age without ever glimpsing the true essence of the martial path.
By the same token, Void King-grade alchemists and artifact refiners were rarer than phoenix feathers and unicorn horns—even fewer in number than Void King Realm cultivators.
Yang Kai's pill-refining skill was now stuck at precisely this bottleneck, unable to advance any further.
He had studied the Alchemy True Comprehension he brought back from the Emperor's Garden, yet it offered no answer to what he sought.
He felt that his technique and fire control were both handled well enough, but he simply could not produce a Void King-grade pill.
"A pill must possess spirit before it can be called a spirit pill!" That line from the Alchemy True Comprehension had lodged itself firmly in Yang Kai's mind.
But how to bestow spirit upon a pill—he was utterly stumped.
He had collected a fair number of Void King-grade ingredients over the years, but even his reserves could not withstand this kind of consumption. After some thought, Yang Kai put away the remaining ingredients. Until he grasped the meaning behind that line, he felt that no amount of effort would change anything.
He needed to think this through properly.
He took out the Solar Essence and the other five-element supreme treasures, and while cultivating the Indestructible Five Elements Sword, he continued to contemplate that single line from the Alchemy True Comprehension.
Half a year later, Yang Kai suddenly opened his eyes.
He could feel that the warship had come to a halt.
Hurried footsteps sounded from outside the door—something had clearly happened.
Yang Kai rose to his feet, extending a hand in a casual wave, and the cabin door swung open. The next moment, Qian Yue's figure appeared before him.
"We've arrived!" Qian Yue cried out, her expression alight with excitement.
"We have?" Yang Kai raised an eyebrow, his figure blurring as he materialized beside her in an instant.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, and his figure shifted again. The fluctuation of spatial power was unmistakable. Qian Yue felt the world before her eyes blur, and by the time she regained her bearings, she and Yang Kai were already outside the warship.
All around stretched the cold, vast expanse of the Star Domain. Dead stars of varying sizes filled her vision.
The scene before her felt achingly familiar.
She had replayed this place in her mind countless times, recalling again and again the moment she and Ice Lord Qing Ya and the others had parted ways. She could never mistake it.