Paragon of Sin

Forty days ago.

Excitedly, Wu Yu departed with the World Genesis Elixir in hand, intent on refining it and cultivating the Blood Origin Method. The surprise of holding a peak-quality Mystic-Earth grade product was still causing waves to surge within his heart.

When he explored the Aeternal Sky Starfield, he didn't simply idle about, but deeply learned about this new civilization and its standards. There was a hefty pile of envy when he learned about Han Yuhei, the little brat's success and reputation over the years, and it only grew with each passing moment. It was hard to reconcile with it.

All those years ago, that little brat was afraid to even be in his presence, stumbling over his words and displaying fear towards his every expression. Now, he was a grand Earthly Saint that was supposedly one of the strongest cultivators in the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region.

Even the San Clan, those servants of the King of Everlore, had grasped greater strength and means than him. He wondered if he knew any of those who left before. With the lifespan of an Ascended being, as long as they weren't killed or inflicted with an illness beyond Mortal Limits, they should still be alive today. And he learned of a single name that frustrated him further—San Luoyang.

He hadn't recognized the snot-nosed, wide-eyed brat that would serve delicious fruits during their old gatherings before, but after he delved into the depths of his memory, he recalled him with extreme clarity. The little Qi Condensation servant favored by the King of Everlore all those years ago had become a Demi-Mortal Lord and an acclaimed Prime Mortal Sovereign Alchemist.

There was a tinge of regret held within his heart at his decision to not follow the King of Everlore before. However, that regret soon melted like snow in the summer as he held the World Genesis Elixir and the Blood Origin Method. These two things weren't simple at all.

The price of a Mystic-Earth product at the high-tier, low-quality was roughly 300 mystic stones, such as the Mystic-Will Convergence Pill. This World Genesis Elixir was peak-tier, and after Wei Wuyin's miracle refinement that still brought him tremendous shock, it had become peak-quality. Moreover, it didn't seem like Wei Wuyin post-refinement was too focused on increasing its quality, but easing the refinement process.

The value of a product of this level was inestimable. In the Aeternal Sky Starfield, unless you were one of the three Saint Alchemists, this level of product was utterly impossible to obtain without great sacrifice of time, effort, resources, and high-levels of luck. He knew that there were times where Mortal Sovereign Alchemists gathered together to jointly refine Mystic-Earth products, but these were typically low-tier at best. Yet even then, a peak-tier product at peak-quality wasn't simple for even the three Saint Alchemists to concoct. In fact, they might not be able to do so…

The value of this single ounce of liquid might be enough to outright buy half of a lower-ranked Starfield. He didn't bother asking Wei Wuyin how he obtained it or where, accepting it wholeheartedly. If his Young Lord wanted to tell him, he would've.

"Huh, Young Lord…" Wu Yu was in the depths of the sole ocean of the planet, seated on the seafloor. This place was abnormally dark, but to his spiritual senses, everything was abundantly clear. A faint smile surfaced on his face.

He calmed down and spent two days regulating his emotions and priming his body to refine the elixir. He repeated the instructions within the Blood Origin Method in his mind roughly a hundred times, thoroughly familiarizing himself with all aspects of the cultivation method. The Blood Origin Method was divided into three stages: Tri-Blood, World-Blood, and Heart-Blood.

Each stage signified greater progression in the method, evolving one's blood. Eventually, the heart will transform, capable of acting as a Secondary Dantian for the cultivator. It was extremely profound. The first stage, Tri-Blood, needed a cultivator to merge Origin Essence and Mystic Intent into their innate blood, creating a tri-polymerization of his blood.

As someone who failed the Third Ascension, he was extremely familiar with the requirement of merging Mystic Intent into the body. With this method, this process would be partially completed, increasing the compatibility one has with mystic energies, and thereby guaranteeing their success up to a certain level.

In the method itself, it listed the World Genesis Elixir as one of the alchemical products capable of expediting the method's progression. However, it hadn't delve into how much. The fact that Wei Wuyin had both this method and the elixir that went along with it, he felt that Wei Wuyin was becoming more and more unfathomable.

He no longer hesitated and proceeded to open the World Genesis Elixir as a strong worldly aura permeated inside the ocean, causing all the marine life to become abnormally active. The vial gushed out white light that engulfed him. He took one last breath, and dumped the contents of the elixir into his mouth.

He proceeded to refine the elixir in accordance with the Blood Origin Method. Instantly, his veins and arteries became flooded by flowing white light. They began to protrude from his skin, causing his skin to look veiny as they throbbed beneath his skin. His expression became dignified as the elixir circulated throughout his blood circulatory system as if it was a living parasite, infecting every ounce of fluid within his body.

When the flowing light breached his spine, his entire skeletal system was revealed by bright, scintillating light. With his bones and blood systems highlighted, he looked highly abnormal, but faintly reminiscent of a luminescent jellyfish on the seafloor. The dark, damp area was set ablaze by its brilliance.

There was a hint of discomfort as he felt as if his blood, bone, and skin was slowly emanating the same aura as a Worldly Domain, causing his eyes to contract instantly. Without warning, he felt a tremendous pain in his heart.

BA-DUMP! BA-DUMP! BA-DUMP!

The explosive beats caused seismic ripples that shook the ocean, causing massive waves to besiege the nearby areas and earthquakes to shake the planet. The inhabitants of the world were unintentionally afflicted by Wu Yu's cultivation efforts. They wailed and ran, afraid for their lives, but Wu Yu couldn't distract himself as the pain intensified. If a mortal experienced this, they would faint on the spot from the pain, if not directly explode into bloody mist.

Fortunately, Wu Yu was an Ascended cultivator with vast experience in refining alchemical products, so he hurriedly followed the Blood Origin Method to refine the latent power of the World Genesis Elixir into himself. Slowly but surely, his blood was merging with the Origin Essence and Mystic Intent generated by the elixir.

Soon, the pain subsided as a steady, miraculous mixture began.

Thirty-seven days later.

Wu Yu's body had gradually dimmed as more of the elixir was refined, and roughly thirty percent of the elixir had been properly refined. If other Ascended beings were told of this, they would unhesitatingly laugh at that person's ignorance. This was especially the case if they refined Mystic-graded products before, experienced in its difficulties to refine.

Wu Yu, however, wasn't able to dwell on this shocking development. His eyes were glossed over by faint light that mortals would be unable to describe in color. Within his pupils and floating in his sclera, Mystic Runes flowed animatedly within. His expression was entirely neutral, lacking any ounce of emotion, as his mind was seemingly elsewhere.

After taking the World Genesis Elixir, refining a tenth of its effects, he had easily reached the first stage of the Blood Origin Method, the Tri-Blood Stage. His blood essence had become one with Mystic Intent and Origin Essence. He even began to emit a similar aura as World Realms, Worldly Domains, and planets at their creation. It was as if he had become a person-sized world.

Within his dantian, his innate spatial energies began to instinctively combine with his physical energies enhanced by the Blood Origin Method, generating a pocket dimensional space within that bore remarkable similarities to a spatial ring's!

Without any action on Wu Yu's part, his Mystic Soul proceeded to facilitate the fusion as if it was an extremely natural process. A strange spatial fluctuation began to leak out of his dantian. If Ma Zheng saw this, he would be flabbergasted by this development. This was the sign of an Internal World's creation!

The Internal World was a World Realm-like spatial construct that was established within one's dantian, but it was abnormally difficult to cultivate, and even some Earthly Saints lacked it. It could be used to carry living beings and mystic-graded materials!!!

The mystic-graded rings that Cai Liuyang and Jing Jiu carried weren't byproducts of some worldly materials and formations, but extracted Internal Worlds from living Ascended beings. It was a brutal, cruel fact. While most willingly extracted their Internal World and recreated them with heavy effort, some were taken more…forcefully.

While an extracted Internal World greatly suffered, unable to be used to carry living beings, it was boundlessly useful to contain mystic-graded materials that reacted violently to fixed spatial energies.

As Wu Yu kept refining the World Genesis Elixir, not only was his progression of the Blood Origin Method abnormally quick and smooth, he had begun the creation of an Internal World, and his Sea of Consciousness was drowned by the Mystic Runes of the elixir.

When he inspected the Mystic Runes prior to Wei Wuyin's advancement, he recognized those runes and lost himself within them, losing a majority of his mental energies. At that time, he realized two of the three runes were runes that he himself had comprehended, while the third was an unknown rune that carried insights of Mystic Intent that he hadn't fully comprehended.

He hadn't expected that when it was being refined that he would be drawn into the Mystic Runes floating within his blood, slowly merging with his body little by little. As he focused more on these runes, his mind became enthralled by the magnificent qualities of the runes. He discovered that these runes were covered by a layer of seven-colored light that, interested in this, he pulled one into his Sea of Consciousness to better inspect it.

The World Genesis Elixir wasn't an enlightenment elixir, and it was designed to do so. However, it had been refined by the Seven Source Soul Light and its mystic runes carried wisps of its profound Mind Dao qualities. It adhered to Wu Yu's mind and began to fuse with it.

Wei Wuyin was completely ignorant of this development, not knowledgeable enough about the Seven Source Soul Light or Mystic Runes to predict this outcome. Yet the world's greatest discoveries were typically inadvertently created, found by accident and exploration.

Wu Yu had just discovered one of the most profound aspects of the Eighth Source Transcendence Spell that would soon set Wei Wuyin apart from other alchemists, establishing a crucial aspect of his future identity.

As the unknown rune delved into his consciousness, he began to comprehend all sorts of mystic insights that hadn't been discovered before. After three days, the insights coalesced into his Mystic Soul.

Without warning, Wu Yu's Mystic Soul began to release spiritual howls that rippled throughout the world. Wu Yu was startled awake as his eyes released boundless mystic light. He looked at his hands and arms to discover that tens of thousands of one-inch-sized illusory mystic runes were floating around him.

"Is this…?" A wave of disbelief engulfed him as he felt a sense of awakening from his Mystic Soul. It was as if it was asleep this entire time, and these spiritual howls were its call to life.

BOOOOOOOM!!!

A deep, unsettling explosion occurred within his body as he looked upwards with an aghast expression. Wu Yu wasn't typically one to feel fear or uncertainty, having the calm grade of a monarch entrenched within his bones, but as he felt the cascading call of the Mystic Dao, generated by the heavens itself, he felt trepidation.

"This shouldn't be possible!" Wu Yu didn't hesitate to shoot upwards at startling speeds. While he was besieged by fear, he had never been one to shy away from obstacles. Even when he was chased by a Demi-Mortal Lord throughout multiple domains, he never once felt hopeless.

He arrived in the Dark Void and his eyes caught sight of something he hadn't expected. Unfortunately, he was unable to experience further shock or gather himself as his Mystic Soul howled even fiercer, causing his body to forcefully unleash its Demi-Mystic State!

Wu Yu swallowed slightly, but he didn't hesitate. He pressed his foot bravely forward and vanished like dispersing mist. He seemingly entered an entirely different world beyond Mortal Limits.

-----

At this very moment, San Luoyang was concocting alongside seven other Mortal Sovereign Alchemists, surrounded by a violet-colored cauldron. It was none other than the Violet-God Cauldron, and it had an Utmost Purity Mist that spanned fifteen meters in diameter! Unlike its twenty-four meters counterpart, the White-God Cauldron, this was the third best cauldron of the Everlore Association.

The alchemists were all intensely focused, at the latter half of the concoction process. They had sweat upon their brows and backs, their eyes seemingly exhausted, and their complexions pale.

Abruptly, San Luoyang's eyes erupted with fierce light as he looked downwards at his feet.

"An Earthly Awakening?!" A genuine expression of disbelief flashed across his pale expression. The other Mortal Sovereign Alchemist also felt that aura as Ascended beings, feeling the disturbance of the Mystic Dao, and their minds that were taut and tugged began to experience drastic emotional changes.

"...!" San Luoyang immediately realized this development and hurriedly performed a hand-seal. A heavy explosive sound erupted from the cauldron causing the seven alchemists to cough buckets of blood as they were sent flying, crashing heavily against the wall. The sounds of bones breaking and wails of pain resounded as San Luoyang's expression was extremely cold.

He severed their spiritual senses and energies. San Luoyang's eyes unleashed an ocular transformation, revealing seven-colored stars in each eye! The Alchemic Stars of Mortal Spirituality! He had somehow obtained complete control of their remaining alchemical energies and handled the finalization process himself.

The burden was tremendous as he sent copious amounts of his alchemical energies within, exhausting every last bit of it he had refined through a unique method prior. Blood trickled down from his lips and nose, even the corner of his eyes. Clearly, handling the final stage of the concoction process was extremely difficult.

After an hour, a pill was taken from the cauldron and the Mortal Sovereign Alchemists were all standing around it with solemn expressions. They carried wisps of sour emotion in their eyes, looking at San Luoyang with some frustration. Yet none of them voiced their opinion, just looked at the low-quality, low-tier Mystic-Earth pill, and smiles began to creep on their faces.

A smile suffused with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

After a while, one of the Mortal Sovereign Alchemists, Mu Yura, spoke out as she looked at the floor beneath her, "Who dares attempt their Earthly Ascension in our Everlore Domain?!" The audacity of this expert was as high as the heavens, and they were all pissed. They scowled and scolded verbally.

Another alchemist chimed in, "Let's find out."

The lights of everyone brimmed with violent light. They looked to San Luoyang who had a cold pair of eyes and messy hair, completely disheveled by his attempt to save the concoction process.

He looked around the room at the pale, angry faces of the Mortal Sovereign Alchemists around him, and then settled on the pill. He said in a glacial tone,"Let's."

Those words were enough.