Chapter 66: Refining the Black Pearl (Part 1)

  After four days and nights, a jade bottle containing a pale red dan medicine finally fell into Jiang Huan's hands.

  Gulu!

  He swallowed hard, and Jiang Huan's eyes stared fixedly at the jade bottle in his hand. As his gaze flickered, his breathing also became urgent.

  "Teacher, can I take it now?" Jiang Hao licked his lips and asked cautiously.

  "Heh heh, what's the hurry?" Tianyi smiled, "The refinement of Hei Zhu is no trivial matter. Due to limited materials, there's only one Qing Ling Dan, so it's naturally reserved for a critical moment to maximize its medicinal effect."

  Jiang Hao nodded slightly, pursed his lips, and put his hands together in a Buddhist prayer-like gesture, while the Qingling Dan was lightly placed in front of him.

  Wow!

  He lightly exhaled a breath, and Jiang Heng's mind stirred. The black bead gradually floated to his chest, but no matter how hard he tried to urge it on, the black bead wouldn't budge another inch, tightly embedded in his chest, eerily so.

  Boom!

  As soon as the black pearl appeared, Jiang Heng felt that the entire stone chamber's war energy seemed to be pulled, crazily surging towards the black pearl, even the whirlpool transformed from the dragon egg was forcibly sucked over. The war energy was like a tornado sweeping across the stone chamber, exceptionally magnificent, and Jiang Heng was right at the center of the tornado.

  Jiang Hao's eyes were tightly closed, and he only felt a terrifying suction force coming from his chest, followed by a series of powerful war energies that directly poured into his chest. In an instant, the several meridians in his body were all expanded to several times their original size.

  A sudden severe pain that came from within his body almost made Jiang Hao faint, but a faint golden aura kept emerging under his skin, tightly protecting Jiang Hao's heart meridian. So although those meridians were swollen to such an extent, they still didn't show any signs of bursting, which showed just how abnormal the half-dragon physique was.

  Ah!

  Although he had the body of a half-dragon, the pain was still heart-wrenching and made him howl in agony. Fortunately, this stone room was soundproof, otherwise it would not be good if some of the Jiang family's elders were startled.

  "Hold on to your dan Tian and Shi Hai!" Di Tian's voice whispered into Jiang Hao's mind.

  Hmph!

  Jiang Hao let out another muffled hum, and the dragon-like battle aura tornado fiercely poured in, some of the tiny meridians inside his body had already reached their limit.

  At this moment, the black pearl that had been ineffective no matter how hard Jiang Huan urged it to move suddenly emitted a faint dark glow. Upon closer inspection, the dark glow was actually formed by some black flames, which were precisely the Black Flames!

  A black light flashed by, and the rotating air mass suddenly stagnated, but it actually reversed its direction. However, the speed was more than twice as fast as before. At this time, the center of the whirlwind had already moved to the top of the black bead!

  Whoosh!

  The air was being wildly sucked away due to the battle aura, and bursts of thunderous sounds were transmitted. The space around the battle aura tornado was distorted as if it had been torn apart, with black spatial fissures constantly appearing.

  Jiang Hao only felt his body lighten, and his entire being was already suspended high above the stone platform. The swirling air twisted and whistled past, completely enveloping Jiang Hao's body, like a cocoon, and Jiang Hao's own breath was also gradually disappearing.

  The black pearl rotates slowly in the whirlpool of war, compared to the high-speed rotating whirlpool, it is like static, dynamic and static, complementing each other.

  The surface of the black flame seemed to be weakening, and it was about to go out in the whirlpool, but it eventually rose again. The surroundings of the black bead were like a vacuum, and no matter how crazy the air vortex rushed in, they were all swallowed up by the black flame.

  The surging meridians in his body finally subsided, and the war qi that had been absorbed into his body began to surge outwards. The direction was surprisingly where the black bead was located. This situation naturally alerted Jiang Huan, who tried to stop the leakage of the war qi by operating his techniques, but after several attempts, he could only helplessly give up and let the war qi in his body be greedily swallowed by the black bead.

  The volume of the black bead has increased by more than double its original size, and its surface is also surging with more and more black flames. As the black flames envelop each other, more and more battle auras are being absorbed into the black bead.

  Time flies, and the black bead is like a black hole, constantly absorbing the fighting energy in the air without stopping. Unbeknownst to him, dozens of days have passed, and the black bead has grown to the size of a fist.

  Jiang Hao's consciousness was starting to become blurry, the battle energy inside his body had been absorbed by the black pearl until it was almost depleted. Even the twenty-six large crystal beads in his dantian had lost their original luster and were now dull to the extreme, as if they would shatter at any moment.

  In the midst of confusion, another three days passed in a daze. The fist-sized black bead finally stopped expanding and spinning, and the dragon-like battle aura whirlwind slowly dissipated into thin air.

  Looking closely, the surface of the black bead was actually boiling with all black flames. The black flames jumped and danced, constantly distorting the surrounding space, making a crackling sound, as if the space itself was being burned by the black flames.

  The entire black pearl was completely formed by the black smoke, and in its very center, there seemed to be a tiny black dot, so profound that it was almost invisible. If an ordinary person were to see it, they would probably lose their sight instantly.

  The originally howling stone room was now eerily quiet, and the dragon egg also seemed to have sensed something, having stopped absorbing the battle aura. After the disappearance of the battle aura vortex, Jiang Heng's figure still hung there in a strange manner, with only the black pearl on his chest occasionally fluctuating, without any other movement.

  The calm before the storm always fills one's heart with anxiety, but that calm is short-lived, and the storm will soon sweep in, leaving no room for breath.

  Boom!

  The entire stone chamber was shaking, and the black bead that had been formed by the black smoke suddenly contracted. The next moment, the black bead condensed to the size of a fingernail and drilled into Jiang Hao's body. In an instant, the black bead had penetrated Jiang Hao's chest and reached his dantian.

  This scene directly made Jiang Hao's scalp feel numb, if this black pearl were to wreak havoc in his own dantian, he estimated that even with a half-dragon body, he would either die or be crippled.

  In a state of panic, Jiang Hao hastily turned his body's remaining battle energy into a frantic defense at the dantian, attempting to stop that black bead. However, reality and imagination are always far apart; the black bead directly ignored Jiang Hao's defenses, lightly flashing by like an instant movement, already entering Jiang Hao's dantian.

  Jiang Hao suspended in mid-air at this moment was extremely eerie, his face had turned pitch black, but there was nothing unusual about his body.

  Seeing this scene, the assassin who had been paying attention to Jiang Hao knew that the time had come, and with a flick of his finger, the Qingling Dan turned into a red light that flew out of the jade bottle and was thrown directly into Jiang Hao's mouth.

  After the black bead entered his dantian, Jiang Heng had already given up resisting and let the black bead roam freely inside. The black flames seemed to be extremely joyful, falling from the black bead with a whooshing sound. In just an instant, half of the space in his dantian was occupied by the black flames. However, Jiang Heng didn't feel any pain at all. The black flames continued to change and move about inside his dantian, spinning left and right without any regular pattern.

  Just as Jiang Hao felt helpless, a cool and refreshing sensation suddenly came from his mouth, and the numbness in his mind was instantly awakened. It seemed that he had sensed Jiang Hao's awakening, and the black flames suddenly burst out, sweeping out of his dantian and rushing towards Jiang Hao's meridians. The pale golden dragon energy jumped up and down, trying to block the black flames. However, there were too many black flames, and in the blink of an eye, several meridians had already been devoured.

  However, Jiang Huan did not panic. The dan medicine in his mouth instantly dissolved and turned into a faint red fragrance. After just a brief pause, it surged towards the dantian, constantly flashing green light dots that directly entered the meridians, continuously strengthening them.

  As the black bead dispersed those dark fumes, only a small black dot remained. At this time, the pale red liquid had already entered the dantian. A flash of cyan light passed by, and Jiang Huan only felt an unprecedented comfort in his dantian. Those dark fumes seemed to fear the cyan light, shrinking back with a shiver.

  The effect of entering Dan was different from what he had expected. Jiang Hao's heart was filled with joy, but the next moment's change threw him into the abyss again.