"Perhaps!"
After exchanging these words with Grand Elder Danyan, Han Li said no more. He flicked his sleeve lightly toward the air, and the two round beads in his hand shot forth. Immediately after, he formed two spell seals and struck them against the beads.
Gold and white light flickered, and the two beads hovered motionless in midair.
Han Li's eyes narrowed. He patted his storage pouch, and seven or eight bottles, several jade boxes, and a small silver cauldron flew out in succession, landing steadily on the ground before him. The small cauldron, for its part, came to rest directly in the air just in front of him.
His hands formed a seal, and he pointed a finger at the cauldron. The cauldron trembled, and its lid flew off on its own, circling once before floating in midair.
At the same time, one of the jade boxes on the ground opened its lid of its own accord, revealing a box filled with luminous green powder.
Han Li opened his mouth, and a puff of blue-tinted spiritual energy shot forth, striking the jade box.
With a flash of spiritual light, roughly half of the spiritual powder inside the jade box rose into the air, enveloped in the blue glow, circled once, and then plunged into the small cauldron.
With a low incantation, another wisp of azure flame emerged from his mouth. The flame was exceedingly slender, but the moment it struck the cauldron, it blazed fiercely, engulfing the entire lower half. The instant this flame was expelled, Han Li's complexion turned deathly pale, and his demeanor became listless and weary.
Han Li couldn't help but laugh bitterly to himself.
He hadn't expected that, with his spiritual power sealed, forcibly extracting a wisp of Nascent Flame from within his Nascent Soul would prove so difficult. Of course, this was also closely related to the severe damage his vitality had suffered — he hadn't fully recovered yet.
He raised a hand and made a grasping motion toward another slender jade bottle.
The bottle floated upward, drifting slowly to a position above the cauldron. Its stopper removed itself, and the bottle inverted.
A stream of emerald-green spiritual liquid, about as thick as a finger, poured down into the cauldron, mixing instantly with the green powder inside.
Then, as low incantations drifted forth, the azure flame atop the cauldron, urged on by additional spell seals, surged higher and engulfed the entire cauldron.
In just a short while, a faint medicinal fragrance wafted from within.
Han Li's brow twitched. With a single wave of his hand, another jade box flew into midair, and an entire stalk of fiery-red spirit herb was tipped directly into the cauldron.
And so it went — under Han Li's meticulous control, at regular intervals, more spirit herbs and spiritual liquids were added...
After a day and a night, the contents of the cauldron were finally complete.
With a sweep of his sleeve, the Nascent Flame atop the cauldron vanished without a trace. The small silver cauldron drifted gently down into Han Li's hand.
He held the cauldron in one palm and lowered his gaze to peer inside. Within, he could see a thick, viscous spiritual liquid several inches deep. It was crystalline emerald green and exuded a wondrous fragrance!
"This is the right spiritual liquid, isn't it?" After studying it for a while, Han Li felt that everything was in order — it was exactly as described in the jade slip — but he still asked cautiously.
"Precisely this spiritual liquid. I didn't expect your pill-refining skills to have reached such a profound level. I thought you'd ruin at least two cauldrons refining this! In terms of alchemy alone, your skill surpasses even what I possessed back in the day. Now, you simply need to soak that Heavenly Corpse Pill in this liquid for seven days and seven nights, and the corpse poison within will be completely removed. Then you can take it without worry." Grand Elder Danyan's voice was languid and unhurried.
Han Li smiled upon hearing this but didn't press further. Instead, he pointed a finger at the golden bead still suspended in midair by the levitation spell he had placed on it.
The bead instantly transformed into a streak of golden light and shot directly into the small cauldron. The lid followed close behind, sealing it shut once more.
Han Li then set the cauldron down in a corner of the secret chamber and paid it no further attention. He turned his focus instead to the
Refining this pearl would not be particularly troublesome.
He turned his palm over, murmured a few nearly inaudible incantations, and a small ball of purple flame materialized out of thin air above his hand. With a flick of his fingers, the purple fire shot forward and struck the Snow Crystal Pearl dead center.
Instantly, the surface of the crystal pearl flickered with white spiritual light and purple radiance, the two mingling as if the pearl were fusing together with the Purple Fiend Heavenfire.
A flash of delight crossed Han Li's face. Then a beam of azure mist-light surged from his mouth, enveloping the crystal pearl hovering in midair.
Within the azure light, the pearl rapidly shrank and transformed, shrinking in the blink of an eye to the size of a medicinal pill, then was swept back and swallowed directly into his stomach.
Han Li's expression turned solemn. He closed both eyes, formed a meditative seal with his hands, and sat perfectly still as he turned his spiritual sense inward to examine his body.
There, at his dantian, the Snow Crystal Pearl was cradled upon a lotus roughly an inch in size, formed from the purple flame, spinning ceaselessly. Below the pearl, his Nascent Soul sat in quiet meditation, its hands likewise forming a seal, the two complementing each other — the purple flame and the crystal pearl — presenting a scene of profound mystery.
Seeing this, Han Li felt a measure of relief.