This time, Cao Yun completely lost himself in his cultivation. He sincerely couldn't tell if minutes, hours, days, or weeks were passing. With his current cultivation, he barely needed to eat, drink, or sleep. In fact, he didn't even need to breathe often. Unknown to him, he spent four years without eating anything at all at some point. He only ate because he took a rest during his long cultivation session.
Unfortunately, despite all the time spent, his Dao of Fire and his Dao of Death were progressing at a slow pace. Compared with that of any other Sage in history, it was more than reasonable, above average, for sure. However, Cao Yun compared himself to Cleansed Asura. Although he knew that this wasn't a reasonable expectation, he couldn't stop himself. Thus, he simply stopped comparing himself altogether. This wouldn't help him and would only hinder his progress.
Each time he was blocked, he simply changed his focus. Of course, he could go from one Dao to another, but he also worked on his cultivation. Since he had so many things to cultivate at the same time, he always had something he could work on. As a matter of fact, this was precisely the reason why he could remain in seclusion for so long without being bored.
His Tyrannical Flame reached such a level that he could actually burn his own flesh if he wanted to. Obviously, he didn't try it on himself. But he could tell from the heat alone that this would hurt a lot, and clearly injure him. The flame alone, without any form of Qi or anything else in it, could injure the body of a powerful Sage or Exalted Demon. Most likely, his fire could annihilate the body of most Spirit Warriors and Accomplished Demons, but not all of them, not yet. However, it was obviously harder and harder to progress. Still, Cao Yun could sense that space itself seemed to slightly bend because of his flame. This was extremely faint, but there was definitely something.
When it came to control, Cao Yun finally mastered the Fire Silk. In fact, he even went further and produced a Fire Silk that exceeded a hundred li by at least twenty li. Now, Cao Yun had very fine control over fire. Certainly, his alchemy had greatly improved. With such an achievement, Cao Yun decided to fully combine Fire Silk and Tyrannical Flame, trying to keep control while raising the heat as much as he could. This wasn't easy, but this was a very entertaining exercise.
The next training method from Red Calm was Heatless Flame. The point was almost the opposite of Tyrannical Flame. Like Fire Silk, it was about control. The goal was to be able to decrease the heat of a flame anywhere within the fire. If someone was able to fully master it, they could spread fire everywhere and perfectly control the heat within, only burning what they wanted and nothing else. On a battlefield, this would be very useful, but it was also incredible for an alchemist. Cao Yun could literally bathe an entire cauldron in flames while controlling the heat everywhere. In fact, he might be able to refine pills without the use of a cauldron or a furnace. Right now, Cao Yun didn't want to train his alchemy, but he kept this idea in mind. In fact, he looked for books about it in his memory.
As a matter of fact, several books mentioned such a method. It was used for lower-grade pills, of course. But this was also presented as a very good exercise for any alchemist and any cultivator studying the Dao of Fire. At the same time, it was perfect to help students. Indeed, an alchemist could literally show them what was going on inside the cauldron without any use of spiritual senses. Even mortals could see it.
When it came to the Dao of Death, this was much more difficult. To be fair, the Dao of Fire was more common. Most cultivators had a small understanding of the Dao of Fire, especially demons. This wasn't a very difficult Dao to approach. That being said, it was still hard to master it completely. On the other hand, the Dao of Death was much more esoteric and was heavily related to souls. Even with his soul cultivation, this was a difficult Dao to comprehend. Without his Bone Child, Cao Yun would have had an even worse time. Slowly, he was able to turn the Bone Child into a Bone Warrior, but this would take several decades.
This time around, Cao Yun had taken with him bones from small birds. Using his own Death Energy, he circulated his 'Macabre Dance'. The very first time, his Death Energy simply pulverized the bones. They instantly turned into powder. But when he injected too little Death Energy, the bone wouldn't move, and it became harder to inject more of it. Apparently, Death Energy was building up some kind of internal pressure. By working on it, Cao Yun slowly realized that a tiny amount of Death Energy remained in the bones. It was so faint that he literally spent three years before sensing anything. This remnant of Death Energy was clashing with his own. As such, Cao Yun had to harmonize his own Death Energy with the Death Energy of the bone, the remnant of life in the corpse.
After a lot of work, Cao Yun was finally able to animate a bone. However, a bone alone wasn't very useful. It took him longer, but not that much longer, to animate the entire skeleton of a tiny bird with around a hundred bones. Animating tiny bones was difficult, and making them work together was harder. In fact, Cao Yun quickly understood that he didn't have to animate each bone individually. In a way, he was breathing a new kind of life into the skeleton, and he had to trust in it enough to let it move on its own. This wasn't too different from the Bone Demon.
His 'Macabre Dance' wasn't perfect, but it was definitely working. Cao Yun could now bring corpses back to life. Of course, this wasn't a resurrection, it was just animating corpses. Honestly, Cao Yun was curious to test it on freshly dead corpses. At the same time, it didn't feel right. For now, he would keep working on bones, dealing with rotting flesh didn't excite him too much.
Cao Yun entered his inner world. Once again, he was walking on the green plain as if he was physically inside. The small flowers had grown a bit. But much more than their size, what interested Cao Yun was the fact that they had tiny roots digging in the soil. Speaking of soil, Cao Yun grabbed a handful of soil. There was nothing in it, no trace of life at all. In real life, flowers or grass, for that matter, would never be able to grow in such a place. The more Cao Yun explored this place, the more curious he was. Even he had to remind himself that this was just a manifestation of his Soul Embryo. At the same time, it felt incredibly real, despite some strange details. In a way, it was as if the Dao was incomplete here. Maybe it would change as Cao Yun cultivated.
In the center of it all, his inner pagoda was slowly becoming tangible. He could see the foundation of his pagoda. At the moment, the foundation itself was around half a mu*. However, the size wasn't really stable. Anyway, walls were starting to appear as well. Soon, Cao Yun would form the very first floor of his pagoda.
On the other hand, his asura cultivation progressed as well. He was getting closer and closer to being a 3rd-grade Exalted Demon, but he wasn't quite there yet.
While Cao Yun was fully immersed in his cultivation, he felt a presence. There was no noise and no disturbance. The presence stayed there for a few hours while Cao Yun was slowly coming out of his meditative state. Indeed, this was Feng Yingyue's presence. Ten years had passed, and she gently took him out of seclusion.
Cao Yun was sincerely surprised. He would have never guessed that an entire decade had passed. However, he still decided to leave. After all, he could imagine that his family was missing him. This time, again, he would leave for a year and go back into seclusion. However, he was already wondering how long he should stay in seclusion next time. Ten years were not enough anymore. At the same time, he was also realizing that studying the Dao without dealing with its natural occurrences was foolish. Slowly but surely, his pace was slowing down dramatically. Soon, even a century wouldn't be enough for him to improve his understanding of any form of Dao. Thankfully, he knew for a fact that the Withering Fusang Domains would help him a lot.
While he was thinking all that, Cao Yun was wondering if he should spend less time in seclusion now or wait for a few decades before slowing down. However, he truly wanted to improve his cultivation as much as he could. Even if he had to slow down his understanding of the Dao, he could still develop his asura cultivation. After all, he would need a lot of strength.
Anyway, for a year, he didn't think about this. He spent his time with his wife and his family. Thankfully, Emperor Lixing was competent, and the political situation was extremely stable. Even the demon territories weren't at war with each other. To be more accurate, there was no open war, but there were still conflicts of varying intensity. The Sisters of the Abyss had prospered a lot, and the continent had stronger ties with the Desolate Sepulcher. Unfortunately, the presence of powerful demonic beasts in the Divine Blood Ocean was preventing even stronger ties. After all, each trip was incredibly dangerous.
Cao Xinyi had grown a lot and now had a brother, Cao Yuchen. Cao Sheng and Ji Xueqin were married but had no children of their own yet because they were too busy with the military. Despite the lack of open conflict, there were still problems with raiders, both demons and humans, as a matter of fact. Besides, Cao Sheng and his wife were both worried that a new war would begin.
Ironically, a small faction of demons, former soldiers, attacked a nearby village. Since Cao Yun was out of seclusion, Emperor Lixing asked him to make a show of strength. As such, he went with his son. Cao Sheng prepared a very ingenious battle plan. A bit embarrassed, Cao Yun didn't dare to tell him that it would be useless. As soon as the bandits were found, Cao Yun went there with the army. The army stayed behind, and Cao Yun attacked alone. Cao Sheng was shocked by his father's strength. Even without wielding a weapon, he was a weapon. Cao Yun was stronger than all the soldiers under Cao Sheng.
Cao Yun didn't hold back at all. Suddenly, he unleashed a torrent of flames. The sky was red from his Heart Constellation, so the flames looked like heavy rain falling on the battlefield. For an instant, Cao Sheng was terrified because there were human captives. However, Cao Yun controlled his flames so well that they barely felt the heat. All the demons, except for their leader, were reduced to ashes. If Cao Yun had pushed more, they would have been completely annihilated. However, he wasn't absolutely confident in his control over fire if he pushed the heat too far. And he didn't want to hurt any captive.
Most captives were women, as the men were often killed during battle. The few men who survived were used for menial work. Obviously, everyone knew what the women were used for, besides cooking and chores. Cao Sheng's soldiers freed all the captives while Cao Yun entered the soul of the demon leader. In an instant, Cao Yun had all his memories laid bare before him. There was nothing special. Indeed, they were just former soldiers turned mercenaries and then bandits because they lacked work and thought killing villagers was easy. None of them had even been an Accomplished Demon. Their leader was only a 6th-grade Golden Blood Child. Of course, they didn't stand a chance. However, they didn't kill the leader. They kept him and used him to spread rumors about the strength of the human army, without saying that it had been Cao Yun himself. Other demons began to wonder how powerful the human cultivators had become. After all, they knew that the Hongchen Kingdom had a handful of Sages.
This was the only thing Cao Yun did this year, except visiting his family and friends. His children were happy to see their father, but they had their lives now. His grandchildren were happy too, but the relationship with them was different. Of course, Cao Yun was attached to them, but this wasn't really the same. Soon, they would have children of their own, and so on and so on. Cao Yun wondered when it would be too much. Considering his longevity, he would live through many generations of his own lineage. At what point would they become strangers to him?
Honestly, although he was happy to be with his children and grandchildren, he was also melancholic and thought about the future a lot. Thankfully, Feng Yingyue knew exactly how to comfort him. Ten years without seeing her husband made their dual cultivation that much more intense.
Before going back into seclusion for more than ten years this time, Feng Yingyue told Cao Yun that she would also enter seclusion to advance her alchemy and cultivation. She was a 4th-grade Spirit Warrior and needed to send her Soul Embryo fully into her Upper Dantian. Dual cultivation with Cao Yun had already helped her. Feng Yingyue was thinking about secluding herself for two or three decades, as she thought it would be enough to become a 5th-grade Spirit Warrior. Unlike Cao Yun, she had watched Cao Xinyi and Cao Yuchen grow up and knew that Cao Sheng and his wife wouldn't have children for some time. They definitely wanted children, but not now. As cultivators, they could wait much longer than mortals, even for most of their lifespan really.
By the end of the year, Cao Yun and Feng Yingyue both entered seclusion. The husband decided to stay as long as his wife. This time, he would also break through. After this seclusion, half his time in the Hongchen Kingdom would have passed.
* 1 mu = 666 m²