Chapter 685: Hui Yue Refines a Body
A loud screech escaped the beak of the blue phoenix, a screech that was filled with excitement and eagerness, happiness and joy, but beneath this one could also sense the pain and agony that he had gone through for many years. This was a screech that fully showed just how much the newfound freedom meant for him.
Flapping his wings, Lan Feng flew into the air and circled a few times around the group of experts before he landed on the ground once more as his phoenix body slowly transformed back to that of a human again.
A smug smile appeared on his lips. It was clear that Lan Feng was incredibly proud of himself.
Seeing this, Hui Yue could not help but chuckle. He could still feel the emotions that the phoenix felt. It was clear that although he had never complained about being stuck inside of Hui Yue’s body, the freedom gained was something he was looking forward to for a long time, and now that he had gained it uncontainable joy filled his entire soul.
The rest of the night was spent with everyone chatting with one another, eating food, and drinking wine.
Hui Yue was smiling the whole night feeling happy for his best friend, while at the same time trying to stay at the back ensuring that Lan Feng was the focus of the evening.
Hui Yue spoke a bit with the Alchemist God, and when he wasn’t discussing alchemy, he would joke around with Huli and Sha Yun two women and enjoy their company.
Lan Feng was his best friend, and they would never turn against each other, but one had to know that during the last many years Lan Feng had only been able to speak with Hui Yue. It was the time to let him speak with others, to interact with others, which was the reason Hui Yue kept a low profile and stayed back.
The following morning Lan Feng sat out with Xiao She, ready to explore the world and get used to his own strength. He was eager to travel the galaxy on his own for once, and no one tried to hold him back.
While he was busy exploring, Hui Yue threw himself wholeheartedly into body refinement. He understood that the Alchemist God had gone as slow as he possibly could yesterday without messing up his tempo so that Hui Yue could observe and understand the process as much as possible.
He knew that he would need the Alchemist God to once more show him how to refine a body, but he had to understand the refinement first. Therefore, he started to refine his first batch of materials.
In Hui Yue’s hand floated a blue flame. This blue flame was blue because of his merged soul with Lan Feng. Blue flames were the strongest of all flames meaning that he needed to be extra careful when refining because with it he would be able to reduce the materials to their base energy in a very short amount of time.
The Alchemist God nodded his head in approval when he saw the blue flame that was hovering in front of Hui Yue, but he said nothing. He just took one herb after another and handed them to Hui Yue.
“Refine!” he exclaimed before he paused and took another bit of metal ore. “Stop!”
“Add this!” herbs and metal ores flew through the air as the flame grew larger and larger, and the tempo of adding the materials was just perfect.
With help from the Alchemist God, he succeeded in half of the refinement before the flame went out of control.
The moment the flame went out of control, Hui Yue closed his eyes and waited for the backlash, but right as he felt the strong heat erupt in his face, a gentle coolness appeared in front of him blocking the whole flame.
“You can’t allow it to hit you,” the Alchemist God chuckled. “A strong backlash from a flame will be enough to severely injure you. There are different ways to block it; I will teach you these later on.”
“You did very well for your first time,” the Alchemist God praised him. “Restore your mind and take an hour to rest. After an hour we will attempt once more to refine a body.”
Hui Yue nodded his head in agreement. He sat down and closed his eyes while resting his soul. Refining pills and bodies required focus and Ancestral Worldpower. If one wanted to do their best in refining then they would have to use their full attention for it, therefore, they would not be able to pay attention to what was happening around them while concocting pills, and as a result, Huli, Little Green, and Sha Yun stood around them as guards.
Although there was no one else in this world other than Xiao Hui, the Alchemist God, and Hui Yue’s friends, they could never be too alert, and as a result, they would continue to guard them.
This let both the Alchemist God and Hui Yue truly calm down. They focused all their attention on cultivating; they did not even look around as they rested for the remainder of the hour.
After they had refreshed their minds, they once more started refining a body, and once again Hui Yue managed to get a little more than half way before the flame went out of control.
Waiting another hour, and contemplating on what had happened the last two times, Hui Yue understood that as long as the Alchemist God was by his side as the assistant the problem he was having couldn’t be his tempo of adding the materials or the materials themselves.
His problem had to be his control over the flame. The flame grew in size time and time again as more ingredients were added to it, and unfortunately, it seemed that his current ability only allowed for him to control the flame to a certain size.
“The flame is my main focus. Right now I have the assistance from my honored teacher, and I don’t need to worry about the tempo or the materials I am refining. In that case, I should learn how to control my flame and focus on the flame not going out of control.”
Hui Yue mused to himself and nodded his head time and time again. Although he needed to be able to do everything himself in the end, now was not the time. He should use this time when he had his teacher to advance slowly, and he was not about to give up.
Hui Yue tried again, and this time he focused on the flame and on controlling the flame. The flame went from half-sized to three-quarters of the size of the end result, the two-meter tall flame that the Alchemist God had created, and he felt that he might even succeed. That was until the refined energy within the flame started to split from each other.
Since Hui Yue had focused on the flame, he had not given enough attention to the refinement, and some imperfections had been left behind from the materials which now made it impossible for the energy to stay merged.
Sighing, Hui Yue understood that he had made a mistake and had focused too much on the flame and too little on the refinement process which would cause the refinement to fail, so he had to stop it.
“This energy cannot be used since it has impurities within,” the Alchemist God smiled, but he was also rather surprised to see how far Hui Yue had come in such a short amount of time.
Days went by as Hui Yue slowly showed improvements. He was now spending five hours for each refinement. He was able to refine constantly, and he became better and better at controlling the flame while refining the materials.
At some point the Alchemist God stopped giving him the materials and allowed for Hui Yue to control the tempo himself. After having failed fifty times, he knew the order of the materials by heart and also became completely familiar with the tempo at which he needed to refine the materials.
Hui Yue saw improvements every single day, and it was with bated breath that they on the fifth day succeeded in fully refining the materials needed.
“Well done,” the Alchemist God said, but he wasn’t very ecstatic, and neither was Hui Yue. Having succeeded in the refinement of the materials was a start, now he needed to mold the body, and this was the part he was worried about.
He took a deep breath as his eyes turned determined, and he dove straight into the flame with his hands. This flame was his own flame, and thus he knew that it would never hurt him, but he still felt worried about the energy. How easy was it to mold it?
Still, he was relieved that he had come through the first-half of the task and had succeeded in refining the materials so now, he was not going to let go of such a great opportunity.
His hands grabbed the lower part of the energy inside of the flame and started molding it. He remembered what the Alchemist God had said, that it did not need to look exactly like a human, it just had to have the limbs of a human. In return, it would be able to take the final shape after coming into contact with the soul that would reside within.
Feet were slowly molded by Hui Yue as sweat beaded like pearls on his forehead from the amount of intense concentration the molding of the body took. Slowly after the feet, legs formed as well. The legs were long and slim, but Hui Yue did not have the time to care about that for now.
He had to control the flame at the same time as molding the energy. This was if possible even more difficult than it had been to refine and control the flame at the same time, but Hui Yue persevered.
He felt that this part was quite difficult; he could feel his clothes sticking to him as he was soaked in sweat, and he started to see black dots in his vision as he forced himself to continue working harder and harder.
He could feel that although he was not using soulforce, the strain on his soul was quite taxing. The use of Ancestral Worldpower to keep the body in place was also taxing, and he was controlling his energy for such a long time that he truly feared whether or not he would have enough to fully finish molding the figure that was coming to life in front of him.
From this one could see that although Hui Yue was strong and his Ancestral Worldpower pool had increased time and time again, it was not even half of what the Alchemist God controlled. He had truly been a God for far too short a time.
Still, he grit his teeth just as the torso was finished forming. It was rather square, not showing any curves or figures, but the Alchemist God nodded his head approvingly.
“Just a little more, you will be there soon!” he encouraged Hui Yue, and the exhausted Hui Yue nodded his head meekly. He was not going to give up now, but he truly had spent a great amount of energy.
He summoned the remaining energy within his body and started to mold the arms and hands alongside the fingers. Much like the legs, the fingers and arms became slim and long.
This figure now only lacked a head, and with the last energy that Hui Yue could muster he formed a head which was a little too big for the body.
When he finished, he finally collapsed to the ground heaving heavy breaths of air, and everything went black for a few moments. Only after a minute or two did he gain enough energy to be able to sit up and look expectantly at the Alchemist God.
Was this body perhaps good enough to be considered a success or was it a failure?