Chapter 42 Something Went Wrong

"How can this be? The Immortal Elixir didn't work! This is impossible!" Luo Yan discovered that after refining the Immortal Azure Lotus Elixir, his body had not regained its youth, which shocked him greatly.

After a brief moment of shock, he calmed down and began to observe the changes within his body.

Deep within his Sea of Bitterness, a figure was condensing, undergoing a nirvana-like rebirth akin to an infant, yet it lacked a soul, resembling a stillborn baby.

The medicinal properties of the Immortal Elixir flowed through it, constantly remolding this body. This body transformed from an infant into an adolescent, then from an adolescent into a middle-aged man, and subsequently into an old man. After the old man died, an infant burst forth from within his body, once again repeating the entire cycle.

It was as if a... Samsara!

Luo Yan recalled some old legends... The Chaotic Green Lotus had once received a drop of blood essence from the Wilderness Heavenly Emperor. At that time, the Wilderness Heavenly Emperor was at the very least an Immortal King giant, unfathomable.

Later on, he even broke through to the Supreme Realm, and that drop of blood essence most likely triggered a resonance...

That drop of blood essence had remolded the Immortal Azure Lotus body for the Chaotic Green Lotus, and Luo Yan had used the Green Lotus to live out a second lifetime; the effects naturally far surpassed those of any other Immortal Elixir!

Luo Yan continued to observe that figure, and the more he observed, the more astonished he was to find... the Immortal Azure Lotus Elixir intensely rejected his original body, and thus condensed a brand new body within his Sea of Bitterness. When it all boiled down... it was simply because it looked down on his old one!

Eventually, that body ceased its evolution, terminated the Samsara, and settled into the appearance of a seven or eight-year-old child, almost identical to what Luo Yan looked like in his youth.

"What is this supposed to be? A man within a man?" Luo Yan wore a peculiar expression. He could sense that with just a single thought, he could inhabit this child's body, as though it were custom-made for him, or rather, this was what his childhood looked like.

"This body... is very bizarre! It possesses no cultivation at all, yet the hardness of its physical shell is comparable to that of a Great Emperor!" Luo Yan exclaimed in admiration. He had truly struck gold this time!

The Immortal Elixir, formed by a drop of Supreme Blood entwined with Immortal King foundations, was refined by him, and combining it with his own origin resources, it evolved into a body comparable to an ancient Emperor—his second lifetime!

That single drop of blood had remained undying across the ages, giving birth to the Qing Emperor, and the remaining supreme immortal power had now transformed into his second lifetime.

"What should I do? Do I still want this original body?" Luo Yan's gaze locked intently onto that child's body, his eyes burning with fervor.

"Children only make choices; adults want everything! I can refine my current body into a puppet!"

Luo Yan was a man of action; once he thought of it, he did it. Besides, he wasn't the first pioneer—didn't the Empress in White refine her own past-life body into the Heaven-Swallowing Devil Jar?

It was perfectly reasonable for him to refine one into a puppet!

Luo Yan took possession of his second-lifetime body and immediately set to work refining his first-lifetime body. That body was a physical vessel at the peak of the Quasi-Emperor realm, making it the supreme material for crafting a puppet.

From entering seclusion to awakening, and finally to crafting the puppet, a full century passed.

"I suppose I can be considered someone who has achieved the Dao in an alternative way now, right?" Luo Yan gazed at his fair, tender little hands, which contained the physical might comparable to a Great Emperor.

Achieving the Dao through the physical body!

No different from the legendary Great Completion Ancient Sacred Body! Able to stand up against Great Emperors!

"Wait... where is my Quasi-Emperor cultivation?" Luo Yan's eyes widened as he looked toward the puppet, which still radiated the cultivation aura of the Quasi-Emperor peak.

"It's over! My cultivation is gone!" Luo Yan's youthful face instantly turned pale.

"And... this body seems incapable of cultivation!" Upon inspection, Luo Yan found that this body hadn't even opened up a Sea of Bitterness, or rather, it was simply impossible to open one!

This physical body itself had condensed within the Sea of Bitterness and was the physical manifestation of it.

"I could vomit blood!" A mouthful of stagnant blood welled up in Luo Yan's chest.

A living target in the cultivation world?! And the kind that couldn't be beaten to pieces???

Without cultivation, possessing only a Great Emperor's physique, how was this any different from a living target?

A mortal's cultivation, a Great Emperor's body.

"I just knew that fellow who drinks beast milk could never be anything good!"

"Boom—"

Luo Yan shrank his neck, almost forgetting that "drinking beast milk" was that person's inverse scale. If he hadn't used that person's blood essence to form this physical body, he probably would have been dead by now.

"So... I've practically adopted a Great Father?" In a sense, Luo Yan could be considered the son of the Wilderness Heavenly Emperor, in the blood-related sort of way.

Luo Yan stared at the puppet body over and over again before finally saying, "Let's merge!"

Although his true body could not wield mana, it could inhabit the puppet's Sea of Bitterness, once again seizing control of his original body to unleash the strength of the Quasi-Emperor peak.

Of course, this feeling was far from pleasant; it placed a heavy drain on Luo Yan's spiritual power, so he would avoid using it unless absolutely necessary.

"I'm completely ruined! If I had known it would turn out like this, I should have asked the Empress first!" Only after a mishap does one realize the folly of their actions.

For the next year, Luo Yan began constantly adapting to his new physical body while attempting to maneuver his old shell. Because his mana was entirely lost, it indirectly caused his divine sense to malfunction as well, fluctuating erratically between strong and weak.

When strong, it was infinitely close to the Quasi-Emperor peak; when weak, it was almost indistinguishable from a mortal. This frequently resulted in the spectacular scene of him suddenly freezing up while controlling the puppet body, appearing as though he had dropped dead.

Once his divine sense went dormant, his true body would also become trapped within the Sea of Bitterness, unable to forge a path out, making it no different from being placed under house arrest.

While the probability of this happening was low, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't easily be reduced to a mortal.

Even so, Luo Yan had no choice but to swallow his pride and accept it.

...

In the outside world.

"Have you heard? Wan青 has caused a massive disaster this time! He has alarmed the entities within the forbidden zones! Word has it that a son of a forbidden zone, who had been sealed away since ancient times, has walked out of the zone!"

"What! Even a Life Forbidden Zone has been disturbed!"

"You guys probably don't know this, but rumor has it that Wan Qing's origins are unimaginably mysterious, tied to the legendary Immortal Elixir!"

"An Immortal Elixir? Could it be that rumor from over a decade ago? Wasn't it debunked as false? The strongest among those few demons was merely at the Half-Saint level, and even a Saint King wouldn't necessarily be able to see through Wan Qing's origins. News from a few Half-Saints... is most likely false!"

"In my opinion, it's hard to say. A terrifying old ancestor at the Saint King level once ventured deep into the starry sky to seek out the 'Demon Star' mentioned by those demon clans to verify it! The starry sky is vast, and life planets named Demon Star number in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Who knows if that senior found any clues!"

Some cultivators were discussing one of the most dazzling new stars of the past century. This person was named Wan Qing, who also occasionally claimed the title of Qing Emperor. A hundred years ago, he suddenly emerged from the Eastern Wastelands, cutting down all obstacles along his way, defeating peers of extraordinary talent, and fighting opponents above his realm.

By now, he had become one of the peerless monstrous talents suppressing all prodigies of the Big Dipper, referred to alongside the prince of the Central State's Supreme Dynasty and the Barbaric Divine Body of the Southern Domain as the Three Heroes of the Contemporary Era.

His strength completely crushed other prodigies! Direct descendants of transcendent holy lands and ancient immortal families paled in comparison to these three, sitting entirely on a different tier.

Among them, the Qing Emperor was the most mysterious. The world only knew that his foundation had an incredible background, his innate talent was terrifyingly high, and he was the strongest prodigy of the contemporary demon race.

To be acknowledged by the Heavenly Demon Palace of the Southern Domain and the various demon clans of the Eastern Wastelands as having talent far surpassing all other demon prodigies, one could only imagine just how astonishing this person was!

Since ancient times, various demon factions looked down on one another and refused to acknowledge each other, yet now they jointly revered a young junior... His talent could truly be called one of the greatest in history!