After attempting more than a dozen times, Yang Kai finally managed to glimpse a sliver of useful information.
It was a spirit formation — one specifically designed to assist in pill refinement. The formation could be inscribed inside a pill furnace to elevate the grade and tier of the finished pill, though its effect wasn't particularly impressive, nor was it very stable.
He'd expended a tremendous amount of Divine Sense and consumed over a dozen doses of Ten Thousand Medicine Spirit Milk just to extract this much. Yang Kai couldn't help but furrow his brow.
The effort far outweighed the reward — it felt like a net loss.
This Pill Refinement True Art was far too profound and mystical. With his current feeble Divine Sense, there was clearly no way he could probe its full depths.
Yang Kai felt a twinge of regret and slowly let go of his intent to study the Pill Refinement True Art for now. He would wait until his Divine Sense grew stronger before attempting it again.
He probed his own Divine Sense and found that after such prolonged tempering, it had grown slightly — a small, unexpected bonus.
But still… why was this Pill Refinement True Art here in the first place? And why had it flooded into his mind through such a method?
If the creator of the Black Book wanted him to master the Pill Refinement True Art, they could have simply sealed it into one of the blank pages of the Wordless Black Book, to be unlocked once his strength reached a certain level.
With his current strength, he couldn't possibly have absorbed such a vast and complex stream of information. If not for the Warm Spiritual Lotus's assistance this time, his soul would have been damaged the moment it rushed in.
Though he hadn't fully figured this part out, Yang Kai had grasped the mystery of the Pill Saint's Relic Statue.
People always said one could comprehend the Dao of Pill Refinement within the Pill Saint's Relic Statue. Even Meng Wuya believed the statue held something significant inside — and now it seemed that wasn't unfounded.
The secret of the Pill Saint's Relic Statue was this Pill Refinement True Art.
Other alchemists had used the statue to gain comprehension, but they'd obtained very little. Yang Kai, this time, had swept it clean.
He couldn't be sure whether the Relic Statue would still allow anyone to gain comprehension in the future. A flicker of unease passed through his mind.
Everything in this place had been taken. Only a dry well remained.
It was time to leave.
Yang Kai sat quietly for several hours, adjusting himself to peak condition, before searching for a way out.
He'd assumed there had to be a hidden passage in this sealed space. But after searching for a long while, he found nothing.
This left him somewhat perplexed. Without a hidden passage, how was he supposed to get out? Retrace his way back up through the entrance? Outside, two Shenyou Realm experts and a large group of Zhenyuan Realm cultivators were standing guard.
The moment he leaped out of the Ten Thousand Medicine Pond, he'd be captured immediately.
Yang Kai believed heaven never seals off all paths.
He searched the sealed chamber again, meticulously and several times over, and still discovered nothing.
Yang Kai's brow creased. The situation was starting to feel wrong. The Black Book had guided him here to collect the Ten Thousand Medicine Spirit Liquid — there was no reason it wouldn't have left him an escape route.
But why couldn't he find one? Had he overlooked some area?
Yang Kai was certain he'd searched every inch of this place inside and out more than a dozen times, leaving not a single spot unchecked.
Half a day passed.
His patience had reached its limit.
Yang Kai confirmed there was no hidden passage. If he wanted out, the only option was to jump back up through the Ten Thousand Medicine Pond.
Wasn't that just delivering himself on a silver platter? The Ten Thousand Medicine Pond was the Forbidden Ground of the Medicine King Valley. Even if he could half-claim to be a disciple of Cloud Hidden Peak now, appearing at the bottom of the pond would surely not end well.
Gritting his teeth, Yang Kai decided to break out through the top. Though there were plenty of guards outside, if he was fast enough, there might still be a sliver of a chance.
Once his mind was made up, he shot up to the ceiling, felt around with his hand, and without a moment's hesitation, threw a punch upward.
The punch was only meant as a test.
The Ten Thousand Medicine Pond had existed in the Medicine King Valley for so many years. Surely plenty of powerful cultivators had descended before to investigate, attacking the bottom in search of hidden secrets.
Those experts hadn't been able to break through the barrier at the base because of the formation's protection.
Yang Kai didn't expect his single punch to blast through the pond floor either!
But fate had a strange sense of humor. The punch landed with a muffled boom, and the entire ceiling overhead suddenly shattered. With a thunderous crash, the water of the Ten Thousand Medicine Pond came pouring down on top of him.
Yang Kai's expression shifted slightly, but he didn't hesitate. He charged upward through the cascading water, his Zhenyuan surging violently, coiled and ready to strike.
He'd already braced himself for a siege the moment he broke the surface, prepared to counterattack immediately.
But to his surprise, by the time he burst into midair, not a single attack had come. In the chaos he twisted his head to look around, and his pupils contracted sharply.
The banks of the Ten Thousand Medicine Pond were strewn with corpses. Blood flowed like rivers.
The Pill Saint's Relic Statue — once towering twenty or thirty zhang high by the pond's edge — was now shattered into pieces, broken into several sections, with rubble scattered across the ground.
A thick stench of blood drifted on the wind, and from every direction came the sounds of fighting and killing.
Yang Kai's face darkened instantly. He twisted in midair and dropped back down.
Scanning his surroundings, he saw only that several hundred zhang away, signs of battle were everywhere. The twelve great peaks of Medicine King Valley were shrouded in smoke and fire. Looking down from above into the valley town, the entire city was in utter chaos — people and horses thrown into confusion.