Chapter 229: Refining True Essence

With everything in order, Su Che entered seclusion to form a core. The location for seclusion was a cultivation cave atop Xuan Yu Peak. Given that a minor heavenly calamity was impending, the peak was temporarily closed to all access.

For this attempt at forming a core, Su Che did not take any precious pills that could increase the success rate. It wasn’t out of arrogance or overconfidence, but because of the Fire God Technique—he found pills utterly useless.

The Fire God Technique was an unparalleled cultivation method, already offering a much higher success rate for core formation compared to other techniques. Moreover, its method of core formation was extremely special: it involved using spiritual flames to refine the essence. The quantity, grade, and intensity of these spiritual flames could all boost the success rate. Without such advantages, it wouldn’t deserve to be called an unparalleled technique.

The only drawback was that this method was highly exclusive. Even if pills were taken, their effects would be burned away by the spiritual flames, rendering them ineffective.

According to the requirements of the Fire God Technique, at least three spiritual flames were needed—two yang flames and one yin flame, all of grade five or higher—to increase the core formation success rate by 30%.

Inside the bronze treasure gourd, Su Che had collected seven types of spiritual flames, five of which were grade six or higher. For this attempt, he planned to use five of these flames: three yang flames—Grade 7 Golden Crow Heavenly Flame, Grade 6 Purple Heart Mysterious Flame, and Grade 6 Golden Forging Strange Flame—and two yin flames—Grade 7 Netherworld Earth Core Flame and Grade 6 Deep Sea Immortal Flame.

The quantity and grade of these spiritual flames far exceeded the basic requirements of the Fire God Technique. Roughly calculated, this could increase the core formation success rate by over 50%.

With this 50% boost, plus other factors, the success rate should be around 70-80%, right?

Of course, the so-called success rate was just a figure of speech. If luck was bad, even with 90% confidence, failure was possible.

But now, even Su Che believed: “I am blessed with great fortune; I can’t be that unlucky!”

Venerable Mysterious Insight shared this view and wasn’t worried about Su Che’s attempt to form a core. With such profound fortune and abundant resources, if he still failed to form a golden core, he might as well throw himself into death!

Inside the cave, Su Che released a minuscule thread of the Golden Crow Heavenly Flame from the bronze treasure gourd. Relying on his own true essence, he refined it into a thread of his own Golden Crow True Flame.

This process was extremely dangerous. Even though it was just a tiny thread, it was still a Grade 7 heavenly flame. If not controlled carefully, it could ignite the fire nature in his true essence, leaving him with nothing but a small amount of ash—which would already be considered fortunate.

He carefully completed the first refinement, and a trace of Golden Sun True Fire formed within his body. But at this point, Su Che was still in the later stage of foundation building, without a Golden Core, meaning he lacked a suitable container to hold the true fire, so he could only temporarily suppress it in his dantian.

Next, he released another trace of Level 7 Nether Earth Heart Fire and refined it into true fire as well, suppressing it in his dantian. In this way, his dantian now contained two types of true fire—yin and yang. These two forces balanced each other, complemented one another, yet also checked each other, resulting in a more stable state.

This process took two days and two nights. It must be said that cultivation is indeed a very tedious task; to achieve anything, one must endure loneliness.

“I’m so tired. Let’s rest for a while!”
Su Che lay down, intending to take a nap.
In truth, his body wasn’t tired; it was mainly his mental energy that was exhausted. The process of refining spiritual fire was too dangerous, keeping his nerves constantly tense.

“It’s much harder than I thought…” Su Che thought to himself. “Lao Hei, if my true form could enter the Immortal Prison and utilize that all-powerful state of the prison’s ruler, I could simplify this process a hundred times. How wonderful that would be!”

Inside the Immortal Prison, as its ruler, one’s abilities would increase a hundredfold, effectively reducing the difficulty of various tasks by a hundred times. This state was truly desirable. Unfortunately, though Su Che could trap others in the Immortal Prison, his own true form couldn’t enter.

“It’s absurd that I, as the master of the Immortal Prison, can’t enter it myself! Or maybe I need to activate a certain layer of the pagoda to fulfill this wish?”
Exhausted mentally, Su Che mused about these things in a drowsy state…

Lao Hei suddenly said, “Master, you’ve always used your lower dantian for cultivation. Why not try using your upper dantian?”

“Hm?”
Half-asleep, Su Che replied as if in a dream, “The upper dantian is the abode of the spirit, used for cultivating the path of the original spirit. I haven’t formed a core yet—where would I get an original spirit from?”

What ordinary people call the mind is what cultivators refer to as the upper dantian, also known as the abode of the spirit.

Lao Hei murmured, “Others’ upper dantians can only be used to cultivate their original spirits. But your mind contains the Immortal Prison—capable of holding thousands of prisoners. Surely your own true energy can fit in as well?”

In fact, Lao Hei’s suggestion was just a hypothesis. He didn’t have any specific, practical method to teach Su Che; all he could say was that everything needed to be explored. Whether it would work was uncertain—not necessarily!

“I don’t understand. I’m confused!”

Su Che had fallen asleep. In his current state, he was likely dreaming of conversing with Lao Hei. Ordinary people dream, but the sleep of cultivators is a complete rest; they hardly ever dream. When dreams do occur, they usually carry profound meanings.
“Master, let’s give it a try. You inject your true essence into the Immortal Prison, and I’ll help you refine the spiritual fire…”
Lao Hei boldly suggested, “Completing this process in the Immortal Prison can reduce the difficulty by a hundred times and eliminate any risks. Even if it explodes, it will only result in a loss of some true essence and spiritual fire—nothing that will harm you.”
“Whatever.”
In his dream, Su Che didn’t think much about it and instinctively began pouring his true essence into the Immortal Prison. Though it was his first attempt, he did it with great ease and skill, as naturally as if Lao Hei had been infusing him with life force from the Immortal Prison all along—smooth and effortless.
One can enter and exit; the same principle applies whether it’s true essence or life force. It’s just that Su Che had never thought of it this way before.
As continuous streams of true essence flowed into the Immortal Prison, Lao Hei made a gesture, and Su Che’s fire-based true essence condensed into an orange-red crystal ball in midair. At least on the surface, it indeed resembled a crystal ball.
The ability to condense true essence into a crystal ball once again demonstrated that the rules governing the space within the Immortal Prison were completely different from those of the normal world. In the normal world, a cultivator’s true essence would dissipate instantly once separated from the body, becoming invisible and intangible—impossible to detect through sight or touch.
Describing true essence as a liquid is merely a metaphor; it doesn’t mean it has a tangible, stable form like water. It is energy within the cultivator’s body, capable of manifesting only inside the body.
“Enough, enough,” Lao Hei exclaimed. “Master, this is sufficient. I’ll give it a try first—no need to waste too much.”
Su Che immediately stopped pouring in true essence, entering true deep sleep and unaware of anything else.
Inside the Immortal Prison, Lao Hei stared at the fire-based true essence crystal ball before him, pondering hard about what to do next.
“Refine it!”
Suddenly inspired, he summoned a mid-grade spiritual artifact-level pill furnace—the best one currently available in the Immortal Prison. The top-grade spiritual treasure-level Golden Crow Pill Furnace hadn’t been subdued yet, so no one else could use it.
“The master is asleep. Even if I waste some of his true essence, he won’t scold me.”

Lao Hehe chuckled to himself, encouraging himself, “Go ahead and experiment boldly—there’s no big deal. If it works, great; if not, it doesn’t matter!” So, Lao He took out the bronze treasure gourd, released a ball of Golden Crow Heavenly Fire from it, and placed it in the alchemy furnace. He then added the Fire-type True Essence Crystal Ball into the furnace as well, beginning to refine Su Che’s Fire-type True Essence using the methods of weapon forging. Originally, Su Che had to refine the heavenly fire with his own true essence to transform it into his own true fire. But this time, Lao He did the opposite—using the heavenly fire to refine the true essence. Lao He’s idea was: just burn it; after all, no one would die. Maybe this way, the true essence would naturally acquire the characteristics of the Golden Crow Heavenly Fire, after which he could use the other types of spiritual flames to burn it one by one… “Burn it, burn it—no one will die anyway!” So, Lao He spread out his two furry, thick legs, stood by the alchemy furnace, and continued to refine it nonstop… An hour passed, and the Golden Crow Heavenly Fire in the furnace completely died out. Lao He took out the True Essence Crystal Ball and examined it carefully, then burst into a wide grin. “Not bad, not bad—next spiritual flame!” Whoosh! A small ball of Netherworld Core Fire was poured into the alchemy furnace, and the orange-red True Essence Crystal Ball, glowing with a golden light, was stuffed back in. Keep going! Another hour passed, and the Netherworld Core Fire gradually died out. Lao He took out the True Essence Crystal Ball and saw that the color of the Fire-type True Essence had changed slightly, and its size had decreased a bit. “Not bad, not bad—keep going!” The third spiritual flame: the positive Purple Heart Mysterious Fire… After more than five hours, Lao He finally finished refining all five types of spiritual flames. The mass of true essence that Su Che had initially infused had been reduced by half. However, it hadn’t been consumed—it had been condensed, becoming twice as rich and dense. Yet, it still retained its original liquid form. Of course, it should be like this. If it had been turned into a solid mass, how could it be returned to Su Che? After some time, Su Che, who had slept for six hours, slowly woke up. Upon waking, he habitually conducted an internal inspection and immediately noticed that a quarter of his true essence had disappeared. “What’s going on?” Su Che tried to recall carefully and vaguely remembered that he seemed to have had a dream in which he had spoken to Lao He… “Master, I’m going to return your true essence to you.” In the Immortal Prison, Lao He tried to suppress his excitement and kept his tone as steady as possible. He was already certain that the refined true essence was stable, and returning it to his master wouldn’t cause any harm to him.

So, the moment to test the results has arrived.
“True essence? What true essence?”
Su Che asked in confusion, “How could my true essence end up with you?”