By the time Nie Tian returned to his own room, it was already dark.
Silence enveloped Shatter City, and all the outlaws who dwelt therein were cultivating.
Nie Tian was no exception.
He took the ring of holding he had looted from Yang Ling out from his inner coat pocket and sent a wisp of his psychic awareness into it.
In the Void Illusion Mountain Range, Pei Qiqi had skinned the Golden Stone Rhino and taken its horn. When she had learned that Nie Tian wanted its flesh and blood, she had bled it out and carved it into pieces, before storing them in the ring of holding.
Therefore, there were a dozen barrels of blood and numerous chunks of beast meat in the ring of holding.
However, they only took up one tenth of the storage room of the ring of holding.
According to Pei Qiqi, no living creature should be stored in any sort of spatial storage tool, only dead and soulless beings.
Since there wasn’t any air circulation, meat could be stored in them for a very long time.
Normally speaking, rings of holding were of a higher level, so the owners would usually set up a restrictive spell to prevent others from peeking into and taking items from within them.
However, Pei Qiqi had only cracked the restrictive spell that Yang Ling had previously set up, but hadn’t placed a new one for Nie Tian.
Her explanation was that once the ring of holding was snatched by others, it most likely meant that Nie Tian had been killed, and at that time, who took it and whether they could take items from within it would no longer matter to him.
“A fourth grade Golden Stone Rhino…” Nie Tian muttered to himself as he sent a wisp of his psychic power to take out one barrel of blood from the ring of holding.
An intense, bloody smell instantly filled every corner of the stone room. If someone accidentally walked in on Nie Tian, they would assume Nie Tian had just cut down a crowd of people.
Looking at the barrel of blood, Nie Tian seemed a bit hesitant as he pondered whether or not he should use the Blood Refining Incantation to refine it.
According to Pei Qiqi and Li Ye, all the spirit beasts that had survived the harsh environment in the Realm of Split Void practiced cultivation by extracting energy from the polluted spiritual Qi.
Therefore, their blood and flesh contained impurities, making them inedible for human Qi warriors.
That was also why Pei Qiqi hadn’t shown the slightest interest in the Golden Stone Rhino’s body.
Nie Tian was hesitant, because he wasn’t sure if he would allow the impurities into his own body by refining and absorbing essence from the Golden Stone Rhino’s blood, and thus achieve results opposite to what he had intended.
On the other hand, he could already see the bottom of his spirit beast meat stockpile.
He was aware that normal food wouldn’t provide him with any help regarding the refinement of his physical body.
Only food that contained copious power, like the Golden Stone Rhino’s meat, would benefit his body and make him stronger and tougher.
Even in the entire Realm of Flame Heaven, a fourth grade spirit beast was extremely hard to find.
Even though his master, Wu Ji, had learned the uniqueness of his body and wanted to provide him with the best, all he had gotten Nie Tian was second grade spirit beast meat.
“What the hell. I’ll never know if I don’t try!” After pondering for a long while, Nie Tian gritted his teeth as he slowly extended a finger and dipped it into the barrel of blood.
He closed his eyes and cast the Blood Refining Incantation.
In the next moment, the tip of his finger began to shine with a bright light, which seemed to be attracting and refining the Golden Stone Rhino’s blood.
The thick blood was gradually refined, and one wisp of pure blood essence after another converged onto Nie Tian’s finger and entered his body.
The way the Blood Refining Incantation worked was by refining a spirit beast’s blood or Blood Pills and channelling the essence into the caster’s spiritual sea.
However, since Nie Tian was different from ordinary cultivators, after practicing the incantation for a long time, he still hadn’t been able to channel the blood essence into his spiritual sea, and thus form a vortex of blood power.
That was why he had thought he wasn’t built for this incantation. However, Hua Mu had approached him later and told him that his uniqueness actually made him perfect for this incantation.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
The blood within the barrel began to swirl, and it wasn’t long before a small vortex took shape.
It seemed that the rotation that had been caused by his finger was somehow purging the blood.
Nie Tian attempted to channel the wisps of pure blood essence that had entered his finger toward his spiritual sea in his dantian, and they did follow his meridians toward his lower abdomen.
However, all of them dispersed into his blood, internal organs, and bones before they could reach his spiritual sea.
Soon, he had a feeling that a warm current was being born inside of him.
He was intoxicated by the comfortable feeling as the surge of warmth ran through his body. It felt as if he was resting in a hot spring.
He could sense that the wisps of blood essence that he had allowed into his body carried incomparably rich power.
Furthermore, he didn’t have any uncomfortable sensations during the process.
Without him knowing it, the whole barrel of blood rapidly ran dry.
Nie Tian stopped and, sitting in his original place, carefully examined his body. After a thorough examination, he didn’t find anything wrong within him.
Only at that moment was he finally convinced that even though the Golden Stone Rhino’s blood carried impurities, it wouldn’t affect him.
Out of curiosity, he rose to his feet and looked in the mouth of the barrel. He couldn’t help but gasp.
The wooden barrel wasn’t completely dry; there was still something in it.
Nie Tian observed with rapt attention and saw that there was a thin layer of thick, dark-gray liquid stuck to the bottom of the barrel. Instead of a bloody smell, it reeked of a foul, disgusting smell.
“What’s this?” In the next moment, Nie Tian’s expression flickered as he had en epiphany: the sticky liquid was none other than the impurities within the Golden Stone Rhino’s blood!
By operating the Blood Refining Incantation, he had actually separated the impurities from the essence!
This meant that what he had allowed into his body was nothing but pure blood essence.
“Blood Refining Incantation!” At that moment, it suddenly occurred to him that the Bone Blood Demon had been able to use the Blood Refining Incantation to refine the outsiders’ blood and thus strengthen itself.
Those outsiders cultivated with demon Qi, so their blood was also different from that of the spirit beasts in the Domain of the Falling Stars.
Since the Blood Refining Incantation could be used to refine outsiders’ blood, there was no reason it couldn’t be used to refine the blood of spirit beasts in the Realm of Split Void.
After thinking it through, Nie Tian was overjoyed, and inwardly thanked Hua Mu for his accurate judgment and kind advice.
WHOOSH!
Nie Tian stored the empty barrel in his ring of holding and took out another barrel of blood.
Afterwards, he spent the night refining the Golden Stone Rhino’s blood. He was untiring and devoted the whole time.
Before he realized it, he had already refined three barrels of blood.
By the time he refined a fourth barrel of blood, the originally comfortable feeling was gradually replaced by a burning sensation in his meridians.
When the new wisps of blood essence entered his body, not only was the speed at which his blood, internal organs, and bones absorbed them significantly slower, but he also felt an increasingly heavy burden weighing on his body.
Furthermore, his heart began to race.
That was when he realized that the blood of this fourth grade Golden Stone Rhino was very different from the blood of the second grade spirit beasts he had had before.
It seemed that, considering the condition of his physical body, he couldn’t go on tempering himself with more blood from the Golden Stone Rhino.
He realized that he had been pushing himself too hard.
Therefore, after the fourth barrel, he came to a stop and closed his eyes to examine his internal organs and bones with his psychic awareness.
Every time he had used his psychic awareness to examine his spiritual sea, he had always been able to get a clear view of every trivial thing within it.
However, under the gaze of his psychic awareness, his insides were somehow blurry and not detailed.
After pondering for a moment, the thought of using the power of the seven fragmentary stars in his soul entered his mind.
