Chapter 121: Refinement

I removed the suit from the mold and ended up with a product that looked like an astronaut's suit. The Cool Steel infused into the various metals made the suit feel cold at the touch, and that was the best product I could create to tackle my next objective.

The heat-resistant suit had a lot of dirt from the molds, I cleaned it and began donning it, then I cleared the room to begin refining the Heart Flame. 

First thing first. Refining objects is a simple procedure, infusing one's essence into an object. Though cultivation level and the level of the object play a big role the general idea is still the same. To refine a low-level item one just needs to add their blood on it, and it will belong to them. But the higher you go, the more you need, as for this heart flame, I'll need to refine it using my divine sense. And for something greater, one will need their divine sense and their essence blood. Essence blood is unlike normal blood, it's something that is specific to cultivators.

But I'm not using that, after all, for a Heart Flame, divine sense is enough. Especially since this Veridian Heart Flame, though extremely powerful, it's still not in its final stages. As it can also grow stronger if I were to feed it Heavenly Treasures, such as Spirit Fruits, or even other Heart Flames. The Heart Flame can also be cultivated to higher levels.

I opened the Poison God's book and began releasing the Veridian Heart Flame, drop by drop.

The first drop flared and shook as its heat began elevating the room's temperature. Only one drop was capable of melting steel that was a couple of meters away, thankfully I cleared all the objects that could be affected by the Heart Flame from the room.

I slowly poured a bit of my divine sense into that drop of Heart Flame and began familiarizing myself with the heat of the Veridian Heart Flame. Thanks to the suit, my body wouldn't turn to cinders if I'm exposed to the heart flame, and I could easily infuse my divine sense into the liquid to refine it.

The first drop of the Viridian Heart Flame was successfully refined and I put it to the side. Once refined, I could easily control the drop's heat, and I made it refrain from releasing its heat.

Then another drop, and another. I slowly refined the Heart Flame, drop by drop, this was a rather unorthodox way of refining, as for any cultivator, they would refine the whole thing at once, but I didn't have the space to pull out the whole pond size Heart Flame here, nor did I have the will to sustain the compounded and collective heat of the pond. So bit by bit, I continued refining the Heart Flame. 

My objective was to at least refine half of the pond, drop by drop, then refine the rest at once. But seeing how long it was going to take to refine the whole pond, drop by drop, I soon shook my idea off, this would take years to finish and I didn't have time, luxury, or patience to wait for a year to fully refine this pond. So I doubled the intake, I took two drops at a time, though this might not look like an improvement, I was only doing this to know my limit and further understand the Veridian Heart flame.

Hours later, I started refining ten drops at a time, then twenty, then mug size worth of drops at once.

I increased the amount of refined Veridian Heart Flame, and I realized two things. First, that the Suit though it had great heat resistance, seemed to be crumbling, and the second, the first drop I refined began shaking off the refinement. This was bad, this means that I'll need to increase the pace.

The suit will break down and I won't be able to fully refine the Heart Flame, this was probably why cultivators refined the Heart Flame all at once. 

Yet this was not all bad, because after having refined a good portion of the Veridian Heart Flame, the remaining though it's dauntingly big, it's much less than the original size of the Veridian Heart Flame.

So, I did something stupid, I pulled the rest of the Veridian Heart Flame from the Poison God's book, and coated it with my divine sense, refining the whole thing at once. The Cool Steel Suit flared and began releasing steam. The cold nature of Cool Steel tried desperately to convert heat into cold, and try to cool down the rest of the metals making the suit, but it seems that the concentration of Cool Steel in the suit was far disproportionate to fully cool down the suit. I have less than a minute before the metals start melting while I'm inside them.

There was no turning back!

I infused more of my divine sense into the liquid and refined for my life's worth. Converting and forcing the Veridian Heart Flame to my will. Though this was difficult, as I felt like a sweating chicken inside a sauna within these armors, this was far easier than would have happened if I didn't make the suit, or if I tried to outright refine the Viridian Heart Flame in its entirety.

Just as the gloves on my suit began melting, and burning my hands, I managed to submit the Veridian Heart Flame to my divine sense, and the room's temperature dropped immediately. I then began condensing the Veridian Heart Flame, now it looks like a floating pool of green liquid, and when I started pressing it against itself with my divine sense, it began condensing into a smaller size.

From a pool size pond, I forced my divine sense into the Heart Flame.

"Condense!"

The pool volume stretched first then it collapsed on itself, shrinking to a sphere the size of a ball.

"Condense!" I gritted as I forced more of my divine sense to press against the Veridian Heart Flame. 

The ball-sized Heart Flame resisted at first, but it was once again forced to shrink, this time to the size of a child's fist. But this was still too big. But I was near exhaustion, if I let out, and give up all my efforts would be gone to waste as the compression from divine sense will wane and the heart flame will return to its original size.

"Condense!" I shouted, forcing the rest of my divine sense to further press on the Heart Flame. It shook and shuddered, then started compressing while at the same time spiking all over, it looked like a small hedgehog, but with more effort, the rest of the spikes crumbled and the result was a small pill-sized Heart Flame.

Taking a breath of relief almost cost me my hard work as the pill wobbled trying to regain its former size. I focused again and removed my helmet. Now the real hard part.

I grabbed the not-so-hot pill and threw it down my mouth, I need this to merge with my core and find its place in my Sea of Consciousness through my Dantian. Once the pill fell into my throat, it felt like I had swallowed the sun. And I was going to be cooked from inside out.

This is why no one under the Nascent Soul should try and refine a Heart Flame.

But with the Poison Lord's notes, I should be able to do what many do not dare to.

I released the accumulated Poison Qi from my Dantian and sent it coursing through my veins and into my meridians, further rippling with power as it went from one meridian to the other, nourishing it and transferring empowered Qi to the next meridian. Then I sent the Poison Qi down my throat to guide the Veridian Heart Flame Pill, and force it down to fuse back into my Dantian along with the Qi.

I used the Poison Qi as a river that went and washed down the pill back to the Dantian. And soon, the pill began 'melting' like a sweet candy into my Dantian as it came in contact with my Poison Qi.

The heat from the pill lessened significantly, and soon, my Dantian was filled with the incinerating heat of the Heart Flame pill.

The Veridian Heart Flame, even after being refined was still refusing to submit and wanted to destroy my Dantian, but with my Core rotating. It began sucking in the heat from the Veridian Heart Flame, as it spiraled rotating with it the heart flame like a twister inside my Dantian.

I dived into my sea of consciousness and witnessed the scene, it looked like my green sea of consciousness was in perfect artistic display and in great contrast to the flaming world of the Heart Flame. 

Fire reigned above the serene green poison sea surface as the rotating Golden Core began absorbing the Heart Flame. And after a whole, the heat subsided, the Golden Core had fully sucked in the Veridian Heart Flame, and it gained a greenish sheen to it.

Waking up, I burped black smoke then my stomach began heating up.

I feared that I was entering cultivation deviation because whatever was happening to me was not a good sign. My whole body began heating up, I felt like if I didn't douse myself in cold water I'll self-incinerate.

But my fears were unfounded, as a positive effect of the Veridian Heart Flame, which was an alchemy pill, actually began 'refining' my body from impurities. My stomach was instantly filled with vile black sludge that I threw up immediately.

Gasping, "Good god, how many impurities do I have." I wretched again and again. But then I noticed that my arms, the tumors, and blisters that were on them began shrinking and disappearing, even the big ones had fully disappeared. I couldn't even sense a single one of these impurities left on my body.

And the more the pustules and tumors dissipated, the more black bile I threw up. From the first day of my cultivation, this was the thickest most disgusting, and concentrated impurities removal I had ever had.

Not only did my disgusting features disappear, even my skin no longer had those blackish liver spots that come with age, and my skin was no longer brittle and soft, it turned rougher and healthier, but the color of it didn't return to its natural 'pinkish' hue, it actually turned slightly pale. I had the skin of a sickly noble, but this skin was not sick at all, it was a side effect of poison cultivation.

My body had finally regained its bearing and I no longer felt the heat from the Veridian Heart Flame.

So I pulled a mirror, I noticed that my forty years old appearance had further been rejuvenated and I was now a healthy young man in the prime of his youth. Approximately in my mid-thirties.

"I guess cultivation does come with its benefits." I grinned.

Then for a test. I took a few herbs from my pouch and pulled the poison God's Book, there was a detailed method on how to create a Soul Strengthening Pill not through alchemy, but Receptarism.

Instead of using cauldrons, one will use the Veridian Heart Flame as the container and the heat regulator. So I followed the Poison God's steps, snapping my fingers a small flame kindled above my hand.

"This looks really cool," I smiled. I then threw the herbs into the flame, and the Heart Flame began refining them, extracting the essence and burning the remains into ash that never touched the essence lest it would reduce their purity. This was the advantage of Receptarism, the results are always far purer than using alchemy cauldrons.

Then I added more herbs and pressed the essences against each other to create a pill.

The result was…a burnt to a crisp pill that wasn't useful to anyone.

"Hah, seems that nothing is easy the first time, I guess I need to understand how to regulate the Heart Flame's temperatures before I start using it mainly to do Receptarism."

With that done, I turned to my other purpose, making swords for Y.