The Samsara Jade

Chapter 18

The Chaos Root took the small drop of poison. It crushed it, burned it, and purified it completely. It turned the deadly purple acid into a single, tiny drop of incredibly pure, perfectly stable dark Qi. 

This new Qi was completely different from the bloated energy he had before. It was heavy. It felt solid. It felt like liquid iron. 

Li Chen carefully directed this single drop of dark Qi to his shattered legs. 

When the pure Qi touched his broken bones, the real healing began. It was not fast and messy like before. It was slow and extremely painful. 

Li Chen gritted his teeth until his gums bled. He felt the Qi moving the tiny, broken pieces of bone, fitting them together like a complex puzzle. The Qi acted as a burning hot forge, melting the bone fragments together permanently. 

He lay completely still in the dark, sweating, bleeding, and silently suffering. He did not sleep for a single second. 

…

By the second day, the pain in his legs had changed. It was no longer a sharp, stabbing pain. It was a deep, burning itch. The bones were knitting together perfectly. 

But a new kind of torture began. 

As the Chaos Root continued to slowly digest the ambient poison from the fog, the pure, heavy dark Qi began to flood his bloodstream. 

Li Chen felt his body temperature rise rapidly. He felt like he was lying inside a blazing oven. His skin turned bright red. He was burning with a terrible, magical fever. 

"The blood must be clean," Li Chen thought, remembering the ancient words of the Devouring Art. "To hold the power of the heavens, the human vessel must have no weakness."

The heavy dark Qi moved through his veins like a harsh, unforgiving cleaner. It attacked all the normal, human weaknesses in his blood. It attacked the dirt, the sickness, and the fragile cells. 

Suddenly, Li Chen’s body violently rejected the impurities. 

Thick, foul-smelling black sludge began to ooze out of every single pore on his body. 

It was disgusting. The black impurities covered his chest, his arms, and his face. It smelled worse than a dead animal. It was a mixture of dirty blood, weak bone marrow, and the toxic waste from his mortal life. 

Li Chen wanted to vomit, but he could not move. He could only lie there and let his body purge the filth. 

As the black sludge pushed out of his skin, his real blood began to change. 

Normally, human blood is bright red and thin like water. But as the purification continued, Li Chen’s blood turned into a deep, dark crimson color. It became thick and heavy. 

Thump... Thump... Thump... 

His heartbeat slowed down. It no longer beat fast like a frightened bird. It beat slowly, with a massive, powerful rhythm. Every single heartbeat sounded like a heavy war drum inside his chest. 

With every beat, the heavy, purified blood carried immense power to his muscles. His muscles tore themselves apart and rebuilt themselves instantly, becoming denser and harder. 

He was trapped in a cocoon of his own black sludge, slowly transforming in the dark. 

…

On the morning of the third day, the fever finally broke. 

The terrible heat inside his body vanished, replaced by a feeling of incredible, refreshing coolness. 

Li Chen opened his eyes. The glowing purple fog was still thick in the crevice, but it did not hurt his eyes anymore. He looked down at his body. 

He was completely covered in a thick shell of dried black sludge. It felt like he was wearing a suit of heavy mud armor. 

He focused his mind on his legs. He sent a mental command to his toes. 

They moved. 

Li Chen let out a long, shaking breath. He slowly bent his knees. 

CRACK. 

The thick black shell around his legs shattered as his muscles flexed. He pulled his legs up, and then pushed them out. There was no pain. His legs were completely, perfectly healed. 

But they were not just healed. They were transformed. 

Li Chen slowly sat up. As he moved, the dried black impurities cracked and fell off his body in large flakes, landing on the stone floor. 

He wiped the remaining black dirt off his arms and chest. He stared at his skin in pure shock. 

His skin was no longer the soft, pale color of a normal human boy. It had changed completely. His skin now possessed a dull, dark grey metallic sheen. 

When the purple light from the fog hit his arms, it did not reflect like normal skin. It looked exactly like cold, hard iron. 

He raised his right hand and stared at it. His fingers looked normal, but they felt unbelievably heavy and solid. 

Li Chen turned his head and looked at the jagged stone wall of the crevice next to him. 

Without gathering any Qi, using only his pure physical strength, Li Chen pulled his fist back and punched the solid rock wall. 

BANG! 

The sound was sharp and loud, like two metal hammers smashing together. 

Li Chen’s fist buried itself deep into the solid stone. A large spiderweb of cracks spread out across the rock wall. Dozens of small stone pieces broke off and fell to the ground. 

Li Chen pulled his hand out of the hole. He looked at his knuckles. 

There was no blood. There was no pain. His skin was not even scratched. The dull, metallic sheen of his flesh had easily crushed the solid rock. 

"The Void-Iron Physique..." Li Chen whispered in absolute awe. 

He had read about this in the ancient memories Old Kui had given him. By perfectly digesting a massive amount of deadly poison, the Chaos Root had upgraded his mortal body. This was the initial awakening of the Void-Iron Physique. His skin, his muscles, and his bones were now as hard and durable as forged steel. 

Normal swords and weak spells would simply bounce off his skin now. 

Li Chen closed his eyes and looked inward, checking his dantian. 

The dark vortex of the Chaos Root was spinning smoothly and calmly. Sitting perfectly in the center of his dantian was a pool of rich, liquid-like dark Qi. 

It was not a bloated, unstable mess. It was pure, highly concentrated, and totally under his control. 

He felt the barrier of cultivation break cleanly and naturally. He broke through to the 2nd Level of Qi Condensation. 

It was only the 2nd Level, but the quality of this Qi was terrifying. Li Chen knew that with this pure dark Qi and his new Void-Iron Physique, he could easily crush a normal 4th Level cultivator like Deacon Lin without even using a sneak attack. 

He had survived the grueling three days of immobility. The poison had not killed him; it had forged him into a weapon. 

Li Chen took a deep breath. 

The highly toxic, corrosive purple miasma rushed into his lungs. But this time, there was no burning. There was no pain. There was no need for his Chaos Root to violently fight the acid. 

His Void-Iron lungs easily handled the toxic air. He breathed the deadly poison effortlessly, as naturally as a normal person breathes the fresh morning breeze. The fog was no longer a threat. It felt comfortable. It felt like home. 

Li Chen smiled. It was a cold, confident smile. 

"The Azure Sword Sect threw me away because they thought I was trash," Li Chen said quietly to the dark crevice. "They threw me into hell to die. But they did not know that hell is exactly where demons are born."

He stood up. His heavy, metallic feet rested firmly on the stone floor. He looked up at the narrow opening of the crevice, thirty feet above him. 

He bent his new, iron-hard knees. He pushed his dark Qi into his legs.