Chapter 837: Second Bloodline Refinement
The Heretic Poison Dao occupied Aksai’s entire consciousness.
He contemplated how poison could become medicine and vice versa.
How destruction could preserve life, and how healing could sometimes lead to death.
Countless thoughts appeared and disappeared inside his mind. The more he contemplated, the deeper his understanding became.
Time slowly lost meaning.
The spirit essence inside the cave continuously circulated around him, while the Heavenly Poison Demon Tree quietly supplied him with energy.
Aksai’s breathing had become so faint that he almost looked lifeless.
Around him, dense spirit essence continued gathering in waves.
The Heavenly Poison Demon Tree silently supplied him with additional energy while releasing faint poisonous essence into the surroundings.
The poison element had become deeply connected to Aksai’s current cultivation.
Yet Aksai himself was completely unaware of his surroundings. His consciousness had sunk deeper and deeper into contemplation.
The Heretic Poison Dao had occupied his entire mind. The concepts kept colliding endlessly inside his mind.
One thought gave birth to another. Each answer created ten new questions.
Slowly, something inside Aksai began changing.
Without warning—
The Spirit essence surrounding him trembled violently. A faint ripple spread outward from his body.
Then another.
Then another.
The roots around him began vibrating. The leaves growing on the Demon Tree above rustled loudly despite there being no wind inside the sealed chamber.
Deep within his dantian, the spinning Core Formation construct suddenly accelerated. The spirit core rotated faster and faster. Cracks of invisible force spread through the surrounding air.
A sudden wave of pressure exploded outward.
Aksai had entered enlightenment.
His consciousness had fully merged with his understanding of the Heretic Poison Dao. The breakthrough began instantly.
The spirit essence flooding through his meridians surged like a river breaking through a dam. The pressure inside his body rose sharply.
The stable cultivation base he had maintained at the Fourth Stage of the Core Formation Realm started shaking violently.
Then—
It broke.
A loud pulse erupted from his body.
The spirit core inside his dantian expanded rapidly. His cultivation stepped into the Fifth Stage of Core Formation.
But the breakthrough did not stop there. A massive amount of spirit essence still continued rushing into his body.
The Heavenly Poison Demon Tree responded immediately. More energy poured through the roots connected to the cave.
The entire chamber started glowing green. The concentration of spirit essence rose sharply.
Aksai remained motionless. His face remained calm.
His consciousness had already sunk too deep into enlightenment.
At that exact moment—
Something else awakened.
Deep inside his body.
His bloodline.
The second stage of his bloodline refinement had begun.
This was an unplanned bloodline refinement. Unlike the first stage of the bloodline refinement that took years to complete, this refinement was accelerating at a rapid pace.
Aksai’s blood started boiling. The veins visible on his neck instantly bulged outward. The temperature inside his body rose to terrifying levels.
His skin turned red. The blood flowing through his body moved faster and faster as if molten lava had replaced it.
Then came the pain.
Crack.
A faint sound echoed inside the chamber.
Then another.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
His bones had started shifting. Every bone inside his body creaked loudly as microscopic changes began occurring throughout his skeleton.
His muscles suddenly tightened. Every muscle fiber contracted violently.
His shoulders twitched. His fingers curled inward. His jaw tightened hard enough to crack teeth if he were conscious enough to resist it.
Then both his hearts reacted.
Thump.
Thump.
The first heart accelerated violently.
Then the second heart began beating even faster.
Soon both hearts were pounding like war drums inside his chest. The sound echoed through the cave.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Each heartbeat pumped boiling blood through his changing body with frightening force.
Sweat immediately covered his skin. His breathing became uneven. His chest rose and fell rapidly.
Pain signals screamed through every nerve in his body. It felt as if someone had thrown him into a furnace while slowly crushing every bone inside him.
Even in his enlightened state, a part of Aksai subconsciously registered the suffering. The pain was overwhelming. Enough to make ordinary cultivators scream in agony. Enough to make many lose control of their breakthrough entirely.
Yet Aksai ignored it.
His mind remained completely focused on his Dao comprehension.
Poison and medicine.
Life and death.
Creation and destruction.
Opposites becoming one.
The pain no longer mattered. It became background noise. His consciousness remained locked onto enlightenment.
The transformation continued. His muscles compressed further, becoming denser than before. His bones slowly grew stronger. His blood started changing composition.
Every drop carried traces of poison essence now. His skin slowly started hardening under the refinement process.
Spirit essence continued pouring into his body endlessly.
The Fifth Stage breakthrough stabilized.
Yet even then—
The pressure inside his dantian kept increasing. His cultivation had not stopped rising. The Spirit Core rotated faster than ever before.
The cave walls began trembling. Loose stones started falling from the ceiling. The Demon Tree roots surrounding him tightened as if reacting to the violent energy fluctuations.
The air itself had become unstable.
Then suddenly, a huge vortex of Spirit essence formed directly above Aksai’s head. The entire underground chamber shook violently.
Even outside on Emerald Cove Island, spirit farmers and guards started looking toward Aksai’s palace in confusion. They could sense something enormous happening beneath the island. But nobody dared approach.
Inside the cave—
Aksai remained seated beneath the violently shaking roots. His entire body trembled uncontrollably. His expression remained peaceful despite tremendous changes happening within him that made him feel waves of pain one after another.
Yet, he remained detached to his suffering. At least a major part of his consciousness refused to acknowledge the pain. As if none of the suffering belonged to him. As if pain itself had lost meaning.
His consciousness had gone too far into enlightenment to care about such trivial things.
Inside his dantian, the breakthrough into the Fifth Stage of Core Formation had already stabilized.
However, the second bloodline refinement had not finished.
The bloodline transformation continued forcing even more changes into his body.
It was as if Aksai had suddenly hit a jackpot when he decided to walk on the path of the Heretic Poison Dao. The progress that he couldn’t imagine even after taking all his advantages into account was getting made at this point simply because he started his Dao journey early and made a firm choice.
Suddenly—
The newly stabilized spirit core trembled violently once again. The spirit essence flowing through his meridians surged several times stronger than before.
The pressure inside his dantian suddenly reached a critical point. A loud pulse exploded outward.
A circular shockwave spread from his seated body and smashed against the cave walls. The roots around him bent violently under the pressure.
At that exact moment—
The spirit core inside his dantian expanded once again.
Another breakthrough.
His cultivation forcefully rose from the Fifth Stage into the Sixth Stage of the Core Formation Realm.
Another intra-realm breakthrough.
Aksai had become a Sixth Level Lord.
The spirit essence surrounding him instantly became calmer. The violent breakthrough pressure slowly settled.
But something even stranger had begun happening elsewhere.
Inside Aksai’s Sea of Consciousness.
The vast spiritual space within his mind was already occupied by six floating Innate Cubes.
Three belonged to his original dantian. And the remaining three belonged to the pseudo dantian inherited from Verdant Elder.
Each cube floated in silence while radiating unique elemental energy.
The first original cube glowed warm green-gold.
Druid’s Healing.
A rare healing spell deeply connected to his druidic bloodline. It allowed Aksai to rapidly heal wounds, recover damaged organs, stabilize injuries, and recover spirit exhaustion far faster than ordinary cultivators.
The second cube rippled with silver-blue light.
Silverblue Moonsteps.
An agility-based spell that allowed him to move with frightening speed while reducing his physical weight drastically. It made him seem like moonlight itself while fighting.
The third cube pulsed deep brown with tiny star-like specks floating within it.
Yellow Earth Skin Shell.
A defensive spell that hardened his body by covering his skin with compressed earth essence, turning his entire body into a living fortress capable of resisting heavy attacks.
Nearby floated the three Innate Cubes from Verdant Elder’s pseudo dantian.
The first was deep green.
Vine Barrier.
A defensive and control spell that summoned powerful living vines capable of restraining enemies while also forming thick protective barriers.
The second cube was brown-gold.
Earth Control.
A direct earth manipulation spell that allowed Aksai to freely shape surrounding earth and stone according to his will during battle.
It had to be noted that Vine Barrier and Earth Control could be combined to summon Devil’s Den.
The third cube glowed faint red.
Fire Breath.
A destructive fire spell capable of releasing concentrated flames powerful enough to burn spirit beasts and melt defensive techniques. This Innate Cube basically belonged to the Verdant Elder’s snaketail, which had its own consciousness because of the beast’s mutation.
Six Innate Spirit Spells.
This alone already made Aksai an abnormal existence among all Core Formation Lords.
Most Lords possessed only one.
Talented Lords sometimes possessed two.
Rare geniuses possessed three.
Aksai possessed six.
Yet at this moment—
Two new disturbances appeared inside his Sea of Consciousness.
Strands of dark green poison essence slowly began gathering above the floating cubes.
The poison essence rotated faster and faster. The energy compressed into dense spheres.
The spheres slowly took shape.
Then—
Cube number seven was born.