Shen Yuan exhaled slowly, letting the sandalwood incense's smell fill his nose. His eyes closed for a brief moment. When they opened again, they were steady and sharp.
He slapped the side of his storage.
Three streaks of light shot out from the bag, landing on the floor with soft thuds before settling into their actual forms.
The first was a piece of black wood — not charred black, but naturally so dark it seemed to drink in the light around it. It bore no grain, no texture, as if it had been painted with pure shadow.
The second was a small, crystalline vial holding a greenish liquid so vivid it seemed alive. It swirled sluggishly, clinging to the glass like venomous sap, unmistakably some kind of poison.
The last was a bundle of grass. Its strands were the colour of fresh-spilled blood, and from them seeped a faint metallic scent of death.
Shen Yuan's gaze lingered on them for a moment before shifting to the cracked flute on the floor. A faint frown tugged at his lips.
"Only one thing is missing," he murmured. "The Yin corpse bone."
The most troublesome material.
A real Yin corpse bone could only be taken from the remains of a yin cultivator or a yin beast, both rare, both dangerous to acquire.
Still, Shen Yuan had a backup plan. If he couldn't have the real thing, he would make one.
He tapped his storage bag again. This time, a single beam of light flew out and expanded as it landed, revealing a massive bird skull, its size nearly rivaling a human torso. The bleached-gray bone still carried a faint, deathly chill.
It was the tempest falcon. The same beast he had once killed for its wings.
It floated upward as he used his formless grip to grab it, rotating lazily in the air. Shen Yuan's hands formed a rapid series of signs, and beneath the skull, a pale formation bloomed into existence. This array would serve as his refining aid, as it would make it easier for the refinement process.
He extended two fingers toward the skull. Yin Qi streamed from his body into the bone, curling along its contours in ghostly tendrils.
For a moment, the Qi seeped in as expected. But the pale bone remained dull, refusing to take on the distinctive icy glow of a true Yin corpse bone.
Shen Yuan narrowed his eyes and pushed more Yin Qi into it in a rush.
That was when the skull twitched violently.
A sudden pull surged from it, the skull began drinking his Qi with a greedy, almost uncontrollable hunger.
His reserves seemed to dip fast, but he did not panic. For a Quasi-Elysian cultivator, Qi replenishment came easily, he could draw it from the surroundings with little effort. But still, the drain was sharp, threatening to cut into the time he could afford to spend here, if he was fully emptied it would take a whole day to recover.
The skull's colour began to shift, pale white spreading across the surface.
Shen Yuan's eyes lit briefly in satisfaction, before flattening into disdain.
"That's enough," he said coldly.
The skull was still absorbing his Qi.
His tone deepened, carrying a killing edge. "You are already dead. I erased your soul. Don't mistake my patience for weakness. Good beasts know when not to fight back."
He bit his lower lip, drawing a bead of blood, and spat it onto the skull.
The moment the blood touched it, the skull shuddered uncontrollably. A faint screech, almost imagined, rattled through the air. Then, slowly, it stilled. The hunger vanished.
It drifted toward him like a subdued servant.
Shen Yuan caught it in one hand and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. "Fake or not… you'll do for now."
Then he made another sign and the formation flared to full strength. Shen Yuan tossed the broken flute into its center, where it hovered and rotated, locked in place by the force of the formation.
Qi spread from Shen Yuan's palm, wrapping tightly around the flute. With his other hand, he crushed the skull into fine powder. Not a speck escaped, with his Qi gathered the scattered powder mid-air and sprinkled them over the suspended flute.
The reaction was immediate. The flute trembled, turning slowly as it absorbed the powder. A milky white glow bloomed from within, soft but cold.
Shen Yuan's Qi surged, unraveling the flute's structure until it became a shapeless mass of luminous white energy. It drifted like a blob of liquid light.
"First step… complete."
His hands moved, stretching the blob of energy into a new shape. He stretched it thirty inches in length, slightly thicker than before. A flute but cleaner, sharper in outline, however it was still in an energy form.
Now came the real challenge.
He picked up the black wood. With a sharp squeeze, viscous dark liquid bled from it, pooling on the floor. This was the true prize, not the wood itself. His Qi lifted each drop, guiding them toward the hovering flute shaped energy.
The moment the drops touched it, the white glow dimmed, dark streaks spreading through it. A low, resentful hum filled the room, as if the energy were remembering old massacres. However this was normal since the tree of this wood only grows in places with war deaths.
Shen Yuan bit his finger this time, letting a drop of his blood join the mixture. The hum deepened, settling.
The liquid from the wood had fully integrated now. Then he made very thin threads from his Qi, carving small hollows into the flute shaped energy. One by one, seven tone holes appeared along the flute's length. The resentment fought back in faint ripples, but Shen Yuan's will easily pressed them down. Almost an hour passed before the refining of the tone holes were complete. It looked more and more like a flute now.
The glass vial came next. He uncorked it slowly, even the air seemed to flinch from its smell. Shen Yuan slowly poured a single drop of the greenish poison on the flute-energy very carefully, as even a single drop on skin would be enough to rot his blood. This type of poison wasn't much rare as it was normally formed when a cultivator dies to some poison cultivators or poisonous beasts, but what makes this dangerous was from whose corpse the poison was extracted and the one Shen Yuan had was from an elysian cultivator's corpse.
Just as the drop of that poison fell on the flute shaped energy… there was no hiss, no smoke, just a sudden shift. The glow now carried a thin shroud of death. The air seemed to grow heavier.
This was now perfect for calling the dead.
The third step done, only the last step remaining was to infuse the red coloured grass or better known as Crimson Death Grass.
Shen Yuan gripped the bundle, tossing every strand into the flute shaped energy. At once, the energy flared red, pulsing like a beating heart. The sensation of death thickened, almost. The main purpose of this was to change spiritual energy to death energy, after all the dead can't work without death energy.
However this was the hardest but also the most important to make this refinement a success. The grass fought back viciously, resisting integration. Shen Yuan's Qi output surged, pressing harder, guiding the rebellious energy into submission.
Two hours passed in relentless focus, to integrate the Crimson death grass in the flute shaped energy.
Finally, the energy stilled. The crimson light deepened, and faint screeches of neither fully human nor beast could be heard from its hum.
The glow condensed. Slowly, the energy hardened into a form, revealing a plain crimson flute with a silver sheen, intricate designs curling along its body
Shen Yuan held it in his hands. A demonic treasure, born on his first attempt at refining.
He traced a finger along its cool surface. However he couldn't use it yet, not until he stepped into the Elysian stage. Using it now could very well kill him. After all this needed spiritual energy that is a higher form of energy, but one must be at the Elysian stage to be able to use it. But having it ready was victory enough.
With a sigh, he dispelled the formation and stored the flute away in his storage bag.
He adjusted his sitting position slightly and he was in the lotus pose, drawing in Qi. Seconds blurred to Minutes, then into hours before he finally opened his eyes, feeling his reserves whole again. He had taken nearly two hours to replenish his Qi.
"Only one hour before the team battles," he murmured. "Enough time to refresh myself."
Then he made a gesture dismissing the isolation array. He stepped outside of his private room, vanishing from the courtyard and reappearing in the bustling market.
This time, he wandered the general section that was run by mortals.
There were many shops that sold simple flowers, some were selling different kinds of sweets, while some had story books and so on.
After a few minutes of walking, he paused before a small shop where the scent of noodles and dumplings drifted warm in the air.
A memory stirred. Dumplings… a taste from over three centuries past. He no longer had the need to eat since stepping into the Nirvana Stage. However he had the sudden urge to eat some dumplings, not because he needed to eat, but because he wanted to taste the food again that he had left behind.
The shopkeeper, a bearded man in his forties, stiffened as soon as he saw Shen Yuan's robes. His face twitched, and he bowed deeply.
Shen Yuan raised an eyebrow and took a seat. "Why bow?"
The man, still bent low, replied quickly. "How could we not? You are a cultivator… to us mere mortals, cultivators are like gods."
A stillness settled over the table. The man's brow was dampened with sweat, wondering if he had said something foolish.
Shen Yuan's voice came quiet and calm.
"Gods? No. Cultivators are men who walk paths drenched in blood, struggling against the heavens themselves. We cultivate to escape the chains of life and death, not to be worshipped. In the end, we are still human. Only with more years to kill and be killed, and means mortals cannot touch.
"If you must bow, bow to the heavens… not to me."
The shopkeeper froze mid-bow. Slowly, he straightened, hands trembling — not in fear, but from the strange gravity of the young man's words.
For the first time, he dared meet Shen Yuan's gaze. There was no arrogance. No divine glow. Only depth. A quiet, endless night sky. To him Shen Yuan was unlike most cultivators who demanded worship or service.
He swallowed, voice quieter now. "Honored guest… may I take your order?"
Shen Yuan's lips curved faintly.
"Jiaozi and Xiao Long Bao. One plate each."