Old Refining Spirit

"What are you laughing at?!" the sect leader roared.

"I laugh at you, for even as death approaches, you are still indulging in your pipe dream."

Li Xuangeng lowered his hand, his voice echoing in the vast cavern of his heart, each word piercing to the soul.

The "Oral Formulas of Immortality" clearly state: "The so-called infant (i.e., the Golden Elixir) is my one true spiritual nature, pure and unmixed. For the immortals teach people to nourish their spirit, to have a mind free from defilement, where all worries are dissolved." The body of the Golden Elixir should be completely integrated inside and out, utterly free from attachment and defilement!

Li Xuangeng pointed at the old man with deformed bone wings soaking in the blood pool, his tone filled with high-dimensional mockery and disdain.

"Look at the grotesque state you are in now! You forcibly seized the essence and blood of others, pieced together the remains of alien beings, and used resentment and malevolent energy to turn yourself into a disgusting lump of flesh. You dare call yourself a 'Golden Core'? This is nothing more than a moldy 'tumor'!"

"shut up!"

The sect leader, whose sore spot had been hit, flew into a rage. He had cultivated diligently for hundreds of years, resorting to any means to achieve ascension, and he hated nothing more than others denying his "Great Dao".

"I am the Heavenly Dao! I am a True Immortal! Die!"

The fleshy cocoon burst open with a deafening roar! The sect leader's skeletal wings unfurled abruptly, unleashing a foul-smelling, blood-red hurricane. Countless sharp bone spikes shot forth from his wings, like a dense rain of swords, raining down on Li Xuangeng. Each bone spike was coated with a deadly poison capable of instantly turning a cultivator into pus!

Faced with this devastating blow, Li Xuangeng no longer dared to be careless this time.

Because this is a "main course" that he should take seriously.

"Since you remain so stubborn, then I, this humble Taoist, will show you what the true [Creation Golden Elixir] is!"

Li Xuangeng slowly raised his hands and put them behind his head.

Under the sect leader's horrified gaze, the white-robed Taoist priest, who had been blindfolded, ripped off the three-finger-wide white silk covering his eyes.

"Whoosh!"

The moment the white silk ribbon fell.

Li Xuangeng's eyes, which had been tightly closed, suddenly opened! It turned out that he was not the blind Taoist priest that others had been talking about; he was not a blind Taoist.

What kind of eyes were those! No whites, no pupils, what flowed within them was the purest light of absolute rationality, representing the laws of birth and death of all things in the universe! Like two cold, miniature stars, mercilessly scrutinizing this filthy world of flesh and blood.

The moment he opened his eyes, a terrifying pressure, more than a hundred times stronger than that of the sect leader, erupted from Li Xuangeng's body like a supernova!

"All things are created, heaven and earth are one furnace! Open for this poor Daoist!!!"

Li Xuangeng suddenly raised both hands upwards!

The [Creation Furnace] behind him, which was originally only a few feet tall, expanded rapidly after absorbing all of Li Xuangeng's true energy!

Ten zhang! One hundred zhang! One thousand zhang! Ten thousand zhang!

A colossal furnace, its entire body imprinted with Daoist runes and burning with endless, dark blue Samadhi True Fire, burst open the heart cavity of this ancient demon! It even shattered the purplish-red dome of the entire "Myriad Demon Secret Realm," standing firmly between heaven and earth!

The venomous bone spikes that rained down from the sky were instantly vaporized upon contact with the furnace fire, without even causing a ripple.

"What...what kind of monster is this! Who are you?!"

The Xuan Tian Sect Master, who had just been calling himself a true immortal, now felt like a lowly ant facing the sun under the pressure of this ten-thousand-foot furnace, unable to even muster the thought of resistance! His proud white bone wings shattered inch by inch under the terrifying suction force.

"I am Li Xuangeng, a gourmet who values ​​hygiene."

Li Xuangeng stood with his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed on the sect leader struggling desperately in mid-air, his lips curling into a sickly yet cruel smile.

"This world is sick, and the Xuan Tian Sect is rotten to the core. Since you can't even concoct a decent medicine..."

Li Xuangeng clenched his right hand downwards! The lid of the ten-thousand-foot furnace slammed shut, forcibly locking the entire core of the Myriad Demon Secret Realm, along with the remains of that ancient great demon and the sect master of the Xuantian Sect, into the furnace!

"Then this humble Taoist will refine this secret realm, you all, and this entire world together..."

"Boom—!!!"

As Li Xuangeng made a grasping motion with his right hand, the dark golden lid of the Myriad-Foot Creation Furnace slammed down with earth-shattering force, emitting an ancient roar like the grandest bell. The purplish-red sky of the entire Myriad Demon Secret Realm instantly collapsed, and the fleshy earth churned violently, like dregs thrown into boiling water, irreversibly sucked back towards the center of the furnace.

"Let me out! Li Xuangeng! I am the Sect Master of Xuantian Sect, an ascendant personally selected by the Grand Preceptor of Dayuan Kingdom! If you dare to kill me, the Grand Preceptor will surely exterminate your entire clan!"

Inside the furnace, the sect leader's hoarse roar and the dull thuds of frantically pounding against the furnace walls could be heard.

"You dare to use a three-thousand-year-old fox to intimidate me when you're about to die?" Li Xuangeng hovered in the void, his hands elegantly forming a series of orthodox Taoist alchemy seals in front of his chest. "Your flesh is already rotten; if you utter a few more words of nonsense, you'll only taint my alchemical aura."

His eyes were icy, and he uttered the incantation softly: "Samadhi Fire, drawing out tendons and bones, discarding the dross, and refining the essence. Refine!"

"Huff—!"

The ancient runes on the surface of the Creation Furnace instantly shone with golden light, and the deep blue Samadhi True Fire rose from the bottom of the furnace, transforming into nine fire dragons that frantically ravaged the furnace chamber.

"Aaaaaah—!! My immortal bones! My sea of ​​blood!"

The sect leader's screams suddenly became ten times more shrill. In his higher-dimensional perspective of absolute rationality, Li Xuangeng could clearly see that the sect leader's mutated body, pieced together from the blood and essence of 100,000 mortals, was peeling away layer by layer under the scorching heat of the Samadhi True Fire. The tumors covered with compound eyes, the blood vessels flowing with corpse poison, and even the beating purplish-black heart, all turned into foul-smelling black smoke under the extreme heat.

"This kind of filthy karma isn't even worthy of being used as medicine dregs. Burn it clean for me!"

Li Xuangeng remained expressionless as he unleashed his true energy without reservation.

As the black smoke was forcibly crushed and expelled from the vents by the furnace's purification array, the innocent souls who had been devoured by the sect leader for over a hundred years were finally released. They transformed into specks of pure white light in the flames, bowed respectfully to Li Xuangeng, and vanished into the void.

But this is only the first step.

"Having stripped away the toxins, the next step is to reshape the origin." Li Xuangeng clasped his hands together sharply. "The *Zhouyi Cantongqi* says: 'Qian and Kun are the gateway to the *Yi*, the parents of all hexagrams. Kan and Li form the framework, the axis of movement.' Let the remains of this ancient demon be 'Kan Water,' and the Xuan Tian Sect Master's century of cultivation be 'Li Fire.' Water and fire merge, dragon and tiger unite in harmony!"

"Buzz—"

The enormous furnace began to spin rapidly, the immense centrifugal force interacting with the high temperature of the Samadhi True Fire. The collapsed spatial laws within the secret realm, the remaining essence of the ancient demon's blood and qi, and the last drop of "Original True Yin" remaining after the Xuan Tian Sect Master was burned away of all impurities, began to collide and merge violently at the center of the furnace.

The furnace, which had been filled with howling and wailing, gradually quieted down. In its place came a strong and rhythmic rumble, like the beating of a heart.

"Thump...thump...thump..."

With each jump, a ripple would appear in the void.

"The time is right; Core Formation is complete!"

The dark golden nebula in Li Xuangeng's eyes reached its peak as he slammed his right hand onto the phantom of the furnace.

"boom!"

The massive furnace exploded with a deafening roar, showering the sky with a rain of dark golden light. The crimson "Myriad Demon Secret Realm," which had originally covered an area of ​​a hundred miles, was forcibly transformed into an absolute vacuum!

In the very center of that vacuum, a blinding beam of pure purple-gold light, even surpassing the brilliance of the sun, shot into the sky, piercing straight to the heavens.

"Ding! Remnants of an ancient demon and the essence of a century-old mutant were detected. They have been refined and purified by the Samadhi True Fire!"

"The Creation Furnace has successfully completed the refining process!"

"Congratulations! You have obtained a peerless immortal-grade elixir: [Supreme Creation Abyss Pill] x1!"

The pillar of light gradually dissipated. A pill, about the size of an infant's fist, entirely purple-gold in color, with nine naturally formed mysterious lightning patterns on its surface, floated quietly in front of Li Xuangeng. It didn't even need any support; it could rotate autonomously in the void, emitting a pure medicinal fragrance that commanded the submission of all things. Just a whiff of it made one feel as if their entire body was soaking in a celestial spring, an indescribable sense of comfort.

"This is what a true golden elixir should be."

A satisfied smile appeared on Li Xuangeng's lips. He extended two long, pale fingers and gently pinched the [Supreme Creation Great Abyss Pill].

Without the slightest hesitation, he tilted his head back slightly and tossed the elixir, which contained the energy of an entire secret realm, into his mouth.

"Gurgle."

The elixir entered the stomach.

In an instant, Li Xuangeng felt as if ten thousand ancient dragons had awakened within his body! An unimaginably vast amount of pure spiritual energy swept over every corner of his meridians, bones, and even soul with overwhelming force. His moon-white Daoist robe fluttered in the void, and a layer of light, like mutton-fat jade, appeared on his originally pale face.

"Click...click..."

With a series of crisp cracking sounds as the shackles within his body broke, Li Xuangeng's aura surged upwards at an incredibly terrifying speed, directly surpassing several major realms that ordinary cultivators dream of, reaching a profound and unfathomable state of returning to simplicity.

He slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, which transformed into a pure white lotus phantom in the void, lingering for a long time.

"The taste is alright, but it's a pity the portion is still a bit small." Li Xuangeng smacked his lips, seemingly still wanting more.

He slowly and deliberately pulled out a brand-new, three-finger-wide white silk ribbon from his wide sleeve.

He didn't glance once more at the void he had completely devoured and that no longer existed. His slender fingers went behind his head, retying the white silk ribbon, once again completely concealing his [Eyes of Truth], which were capable of piercing the laws of the universe.

"There's too much filth in this Great Yuan Dynasty. It's better to keep your eyes closed and keep things clean most of the time. Otherwise, seeing too much of this filth will make you nauseous."

After doing all this, Li Xuangeng straightened his perfectly wrinkle-free robes, took a step forward, and his figure transformed into a white rainbow, gracefully descending towards the group of Xuantian Sect remnants outside the secret realm who were already terrified.