Chapter 116: A new genius in the city Part1

Tang Yue spent the rest of the day gorging on the remaining three Repugnant Eversong Vine meat packets until the bloodline was complete and the evolution process triggered.

She sucked in a huge breath of air as she steadied herself for the initiation of the evolution process.

Ding. 100% Repugnant Eversong Vine bloodline absorbed

Ding. Bloodline Evolution has been initiated

A glimmering blob of energy enveloped her body and wave after wave of mystical wisps enriched her being and finally after a few minutes, the next series of notifications started ringing.

Ding. Congratulations. Bloodline Evolution completed.

Ding. Congratulations. 500 Experience points have been rewarded.

Ding. Congratulations. Mana affinity has been upgraded.

Ding. Congratulations. New Skill obtained.

[Lesser Mana affinity] - Passive skill, Host is able to absorb and integrate the atmospheric mana available at a fast rate.

Tang Yue's pillowy dark blue lips curved upwards as she looked at the godly notification and smirked.

"This is it!" The snake hissed happily.

The higher beings including the dwarves, elves, fairies, orcs, and druids, all possessed at the least this lesser mana affinity.

And this was the minimum. This constitution was actually considered pathetic and useless.

If an elf was born with this affinity, he or she would probably not even bother to cultivate and learn some other trade or craft.

But for a beast, this lesser affinity itself was a great deal because most commonly only rare or epic beasts possessed even this affinity.

A spirit beast slightly fell short of this level.

But now, Tang Yue was finally able to overcome this major hurdle!

This might be a poor constitution for elves because they depended on different cultivation techniques to absorb mana from the air.

However, for Tang Yue that was not the case. She was a beast! A beast only had to casually inhale to absorb and assimilate mana in its body!

She was a beast and she now had a superior affinity to mana akin to a higher being.

She had easily broken the delicate balance which existed in nature.

Tang Yue closed her eyes and inhaled and exhaled deeply, enjoying the surreal feeling of the tremendous gush of energy inside her body.

Her veins, bones, muscles, and every single organ thrummed happily drowned by the sudden surplus of energy.

She had barely taken a few deep breaths when another couple of notifications chimed in.

Ding. Congratulations. Mana Constitution has been upgraded to Gold Mortal Core.

Ding. Congratulations. New Skill obtained.

[Concealment] - Active skill, Host is able to mask and morph her presence, aura, and cultivation core.

"Waah! I only just upgraded the mana affinity and I already broke through to the next level. This is amazing." Tang Yue hissed.

She didn't pay much attention to the concealment skill which she just obtained because she was still in the mortal realm and her illusion magic would be very weak.

Any concealment or hide or startle spell she casts wouldn't last longer than a few seconds.

Hide or startle for a few seconds was still useful but concealment not so much. It was similar to disguising oneself and often required a prolonged time period.

Tang Yue closed off all the notifications and paused awhile. She didn't immediately pop in her next bundle of meat.

Binge eating and integrating useful beast bloodlines to her own bloodline was definitely the quickest way to improve her current power level. 

But it took a lot of time and rendered her unable to focus on other important things.

Finishing a single low-grade beast bloodline alone took her about two to three days. Not to mention any mid-grade beast bloodline. 

She didn't even have an idea as to how many mid-grade beasts she would need to complete a mid-grade beast bloodline and entirely absorb it to her own.

So she couldn't afford to purely rely on this for her preparations to compete in the upcoming contest for the labyrinth exploration.

More importantly, she needed a lot of gold and gems to purchase good pieces of equipment and other valuable items that could boost her strength doubly and triply.

"I would look like a fool if I compete with just this mid-grade sword." Tang Yue picked up and unsheathed the sword lying on the ground near her.

The luster of the mid-grade sword was truly blinding. Tang Yue couldn't help but lick her lips as she recollected the immense power and strength of the sword.

But she had a feeling that even this wouldn't be enough for the contest. She needed better armor and higher-grade weaponry. 

Tang Yue contemplated for a while before retrieving all the sets of ingredients she had prepared for the Devil awakening pill.

This was her only hope if any of acquiring enough resources to deck herself in high-grade and rare-grade items from top to bottom.

Tang Yue patiently took out all the ingredients she needed for the pill formula and the high-grade cauldron she had received during the alchemy examinations.

She then studied the backbone of the formula one more time.

It was a fairly straightforward formula, but it required a high level of mana manipulation.

And this was particularly difficult to someone like Tang Yue who was still a novice in the field of alchemy and hadn't really concocted any pills of her own.

This would in fact be her first trial and error attempt, and would inevitably result in multiple failures.

She however only had five sets of ingredients, which placed her in quite a predicament.

"Damn it, fatty!" She cursed Marvin and flickered her long forked tongue pondering what she could possibly do to improve her odds.

But then, of course, Tang Yue instantly remembered the small ball of cheat that usually hovered around her.

Since no one else was present here today, she was free to delegate her mana manipulation duties to the sweet and deadly Little Plum.

Tang Yue quickly got up and strolled around the Zither palace to locate the duo that were running around here and there.

Little Plum had a much better sense of Tang Yue's presence and it quickly ditched the wolf cub as soon as it felt her aura nearby.

The small wisp of fire instantly materialized near her, ready and eager to take orders, bobbing up and down.

Tang Yue chuckled and then slowly mumbled. "Do you want to help me concoct a pill?"

Little Plum immediately sizzled and bobbed up and down even more vigorously.

"I guess that's a yes?" Tang Yue grinned some more and walked back to her main chamber.

She had already laid out all the ingredients required and arranged the cauldron.

She then spent quite a while discussing with the blob when and where she wanted the mana manipulation and fireball bursts.

It did feel weirdly one-sided since all her complex explanations merely received a small motion of bobbing up and down as a response.

"Hmm… Hai Hai Little Plum, I wish you could speak! Can you even understand what I am explaining?" 

She shook her head and chuckled, but Tang Yue was still convinced that this would be the most efficient way to succeed.

Even if she manages to get a semi-successful pill with one set of ingredients, she would then be able to purchase a hundred set of ingredients for her to practice and learn.

"Ok here goes nothing."

Devil Awakening pill - 2 X Spine flower; 3 X Hill Duck feathers; 10 X Dark lithe bloom…

Tang Yue took a deep breath and signaled to Little Plum, who quickly got down to business.

The little ball conveniently placed itself near the bottom of the cauldron, directly beneath the outer surface.

Tang Yue also had one of her hands placed on the cauldron to sense and adjust the heat as she desired.

"Step 1. 8 petals of the spine flower and then 8 petals of the spine flower again." The snake muttered and quickly added the flower petals to the empty cauldron.

The soft and fresh petals instantly burned to a crisp but did not emit a foul burnt odor because of the careful manipulation of the temperature.

The resultant white ash-like powder now coated the entire inner surface of the cauldron.

"Step 2. 3 Hill Duck feathers."

The three silver patterned feathers floated from the warm vapors hovering around the cauldron and eventually settled at the bottom.

They were however not affected by the temperature since they were somewhat heat resistant.

Tang Yue nodded and quickly added in the next ingredient the Dark lithe bloom leaves. 

Just like the flower petals, the leaves quickly combusted but released an acidic juice because of their unique characteristics. 

This burnt the stubborn feathers and a sizzling sound escaped the mouth of the cauldron.

Tang Yue immediately signaled Little Plum who quickly adjusted the flames, allowing the sizzling sounds to only last for a few seconds.

The two of them were in unbelievably perfect sync and smoothly proceeded to execute the various steps in the concoction process.

Tang Yue could barely keep her excitement down. It almost looked like they were about to succeed in the first try itself!