With just half a year of focused cultivation, this technique could reach completion.
Of course, this did not mean that within six months Wang Yu would soar directly to the ninth layer of the Qi Refining Realm. The so-called "completion" of a cultivation method was more about the perfection of one's control, comprehension, and balance of spiritual power. The higher the mastery, the greater one's control over the body and meridians, and the deeper the refinement of spiritual energy.
When the Bloodburn Art reached the state of completion, it would fundamentally transform his cultivation efficiency. Through skill, precision, and instinctive mastery, Wang Yu could overcome his innate disadvantage—his wasted spiritual root—and make up for his inability to absorb enough spiritual qi. In essence, this art was a clever trick, a way of turning self-destruction into progress, a method to accelerate cultivation through pain and sacrifice.
Ordinary cultivation arts often came with auxiliary methods—spells, secret techniques, alchemical recipes, and even diagrams for crafting spirit artifacts. Yet the Bloodburn Art stood apart. It came with no such gifts. It offered only a single, eerie companion technique—the Life-Burning Secret Art.
This secret art was meant to be practiced alongside the main method. It deepened comprehension, refined control, and pushed cultivation speed to its absolute limit. The best part was that Wang Yu had already met the requirements for practicing it.
With both Idle Slots functioning simultaneously, each continuously refining energy, he could now produce one strand of spiritual power every single day. In less than ten days, his realm would rise to the second layer of Qi Refining. However, such progress was too quick—so quick that it was bound to draw suspicion. He needed a way to cover it up.
He already had a plan. He would burn his own lifespan—ten years of it—in one go. The loss of life essence would leave traces on his body: the paling of his complexion, the dimming of his eyes, the whitening of his hair. Those changes would serve as proof of the price he had paid.
He was too young for slow, subtle methods. If he wished to deceive the eyes of those who watched him, the transformation had to be dramatic. There was no room for hesitation.
"A Qi Refining cultivator has a lifespan of about one hundred and fifty years," Wang Yu murmured to himself. "Even if I burn fifty of them, it's still worth it."
He exhaled slowly, steeling his resolve. Then, forming the Life-Burning Seal, he channeled his power into the Bloodburn Art and activated it with his entire being.
At once, a thin mist of crimson vapor began to seep from his skin, wrapping around his body like a living shroud. The air in the stone hut thickened with the pungent scent of blood. Beneath his skin, his veins burned as if molten metal flowed through them. The sensation was sharp and searing, but still within the limits of endurance.
Strictly speaking, this was the first time Wang Yu had truly cultivated with his own body. Yesterday's so-called "practice" had been little more than observation. He had failed even to sense the existence of ambient spiritual qi—it was only through the Idle Slot that he had managed to reach the threshold of the Dao.
Now, however, the situation was completely different.
As his lifespan burned, as the candle of his essence guttered and flared, the very air seemed to change. His vision blurred, and within that haze, he could faintly see motes of colored light floating in the darkness—five hues shimmering like tiny stars. The crimson mist pouring from his pores spread outward like a net, ensnaring those lights and drawing them toward his body.
The Bloodburn Art operated with a strange rhythm, its meridian paths glowing faintly red. Having broken through to the Qi Refining Realm, Wang Yu could now sense his own inner state directly—his spiritual perception sharpened into something akin to an inner sight.
Within that vision, he saw blood-colored light coursing through his meridians, each strand formed from his own burnt life essence. It refined the spiritual energy he drew in with remarkable efficiency. Though most of the qi still slipped away due to his poor aptitude, a small portion was captured, purified, and absorbed.
Time passed slowly.
Finally, deep within his dantian, a new wisp of blood-red spiritual power began to form. It was distinctly different from the faintly white strand of power he had refined before. The two energies did not merge; they hovered side by side, mutually exclusive yet perfectly balanced.
This was the mark of the Life-Burning Secret Art—spiritual power tainted by the essence of blood and time. When released, it would glow with a faint scarlet light, revealing its violent, consuming nature. In battle, this aura would be unmistakable.
And for Wang Yu, that was exactly the point.
"This is my proof. This is what I'll show them. I burn my life for strength—if they doubt me, that's their ignorance, not my lie."
When the final circulation ended, Wang Yu let out a long, ragged breath. His body trembled slightly as he opened his eyes.
His vision was clearer than ever before. His hearing sharper. Yet when his fingers brushed the ends of his hair, he froze.
Among the dark strands, there gleamed a streak of stark, snowy white.
"One year of life… for one strand of spiritual power."
The realization made his heart clench. It was an insane cost.
The sect's manuals stated that the first layer of Qi Refining required only a single wisp of power. The second layer demanded ten. The third required a hundred.
If he continued cultivating at this rate, burning his life for each thread, even if he were reduced to dust, he would never reach higher than the third layer. It was a cruel arithmetic—a perfect reflection of his "wasted root."
He clenched his teeth, his expression dark and cold.
"Damn it… Even a life-burning demonic art can't overcome my flawed roots? What a joke."
The anger rose from within him like poison. He recognized the feeling immediately—it was the side effect of burning too much lifespan too quickly. The excess of energy made his blood unstable and his thoughts turbulent. The influx of spiritual energy was huge, but his body could not refine it efficiently, causing part of it to scatter.
He forced himself to calm down. Theoretically, he should burn his life more slowly, in small increments, to avoid waste. But that was not his purpose today. What he wanted was not efficiency—it was transformation. He needed visible signs of decay, of age, of sacrifice. Only then could his unnatural progress seem believable.
After the burning subsided, Wang Yu stopped cultivating. He could feel the weakness in his limbs, the dryness in his breath. Burning too much life essence at once could easily cause death.
Even cultivators who could live for over a century could not withstand the sudden loss of thirty or forty years in a single breath. The body's systems would fail, unable to stabilize the imbalance of essence.
Wang Yu was not reckless. He had studied The Miraculous Compendium of Qi and Medicine in his previous life; he understood the risks of imbalance better than most physicians. He would never gamble his survival needlessly.
With two distinct energies now circulating in his body—the pure, pale spiritual power and the blood-refined one—Wang Yu decided to test something new. He wanted to condense Spirit Sand using the energy provided by his Idle Slot.
Condensing Spirit Sand was not a true spell but rather a cultivator's instinctive technique. It required a carrier, since those in the Qi Refining Realm lacked the fine control to crystallize spiritual power directly. The carrier was usually powder ground from depleted spirit stones.
The ration bag sent to him on the first day contained exactly one tael of such powder—about the size of a hen's egg.
Wang Yu carefully divided it in half and began infusing it with his spiritual power. The powder glowed faintly, binding with the energy before solidifying into fine, glimmering granules.
When he was done, he weighed them in his hand. There was barely two qian of Spirit Sand.
One tael equaled ten qian. One strand of spiritual power produced only two qian of sand. That meant a Spirit Slave needed at least five strands of power every month to meet the sect's base quota of one tael.
For those with good spiritual roots, this was trivial. But for people like him—those cursed with mixed or wasted roots—it was nearly impossible.
And yet, impossible or not, it was mandatory.
Those who wished to earn extra rewards, like the ones the stewards had offered in their letters, would need to contribute even more—an additional four qian each month.
Which meant more burning. More lifespan lost. More pain.
Layer by layer, the system was perfectly designed. They would burn themselves away to increase the sect's wealth, shortening their lives while fattening their masters' coffers.
"A clever hand indeed," Wang Yu muttered, his tone low and bitter.
He rolled the Spirit Sand between his fingers. It glittered faintly under the dim light, beautiful and cold. Then, with a sigh, he lay down on his narrow bed and closed his eyes.
The Idle Slots were like tireless reflections of himself, hidden beyond his perception yet constantly working, endlessly refining energy without pause. Day and night, they cultivated in silence.
Each day, ninety-six cycles of cultivation—
and still, he could only produce a single strand of pure spiritual power.
Such was the cruelty of a wasted spiritual root.
The next morning, Wang Yu did not attend the usual teaching session. Instead, he focused entirely on cultivation, repeating the same rhythm as the day before.
Five days passed in the blink of an eye. By the fifth day, he had condensed one full tael of Spirit Sand.
He performed a test, infusing his blood-refined spiritual power into the sand. At first, it glowed faintly red, like burning embers. But after a few hours, the color faded, the crimson light dissipating until it became indistinguishable from ordinary Spirit Sand.
Perfect. No one would notice.
Besides Steward Duan, the other two stewards had also sent him notes, each promising different rewards and representing separate factions under Cold Blood Peak.
Behind them were three true disciples in the Foundation Establishment Realm—figures whose power and authority were as distant as the stars. To those people, Spirit Slaves were no more than livestock.
Wang Yu knew his place. For now, he could only keep his head down and bide his time.
On the twelfth day since joining the Reverse Blood Sect, within the dim confines of his stone hut, Wang Yu sat cross-legged once more. His eyes were closed, his breath steady.
Suddenly, the air trembled. A surge of power erupted from his body, and crimson energy roared through the room like a tide.
When he opened his eyes again, they gleamed with faint red light.
"Qi Refining—Second Layer."
He clenched his fists, feeling the strength coursing through him. Though it was only a small step forward, the transformation was real—his body felt denser, tougher, more alive.
And yet, he knew this was only the beginning.
(End of Chapter 6)