Chapter 305 Divine Elixir

Seeing that I seemed to be referring to something, the naval commander Xuanwu replied without hesitation, "You're talking about the token I gave to the Zhu family in the past, right? Each token corresponds to an agreement, allowing me to refine a miraculous elixir... Of course, I couldn't have forgotten that."

"Zhu Ba has already told me everything. There is a little girl in your place who is the same as me and Ming Zhuo. She is burned by the flames of the Great Impermanence and is like a curse, unable to let her soul return to its wholeness."

"You can rest assured, I will not break my promise just because I want to fight you. I will definitely give you the elixir that is due. Even if you die at my hands, I will definitely send it to the Zhu family mansion afterwards."

"However, you must be mentally prepared. That is ultimately a fiery and unpredictable flame. No matter how excellent my pill-refining skills are, I cannot completely cure it. But I can guarantee that I will heal it to the point of near recovery."

He seemed very confident, which put my mind at ease, but then doubts resurfaced.

“I’m relieved that you haven’t forgotten about this. But doctors need to observe, listen, inquire, and palpate to diagnose illnesses. You’ve never even seen the ‘patient’s’ face. Can you really prescribe the right medicine?” I asked.

“It’s alright. My Divine Elixir can restrain all injuries caused by flames, whether they are physical burns or burns to the soul… Moreover, when it comes to healing the Great Impermanence Flames, this is the only elixir I have. If even this cannot heal it, then I have no other elixirs that might be effective.” He said, “Although I don’t have a finished product on hand right now, if you are worried, I can refine it for you right now.”

"Don't worry, it won't take you long. If I want to, I can refine it for you in no time. But you must be careful, this pill has a very short shelf life; you must take it within one hour of me refining it..."

As he spoke, he actually raised his right hand, and his whole body emitted very obvious magical energy fluctuations.

I could vaguely sense his soul. Although he stood before me in human form, his soul was like a giant whale wandering in the abyss.

At first glance, the giant whale appeared imposing, but upon closer inspection, one would find that it was covered in wounds, its body riddled with scars and bleeding wounds from severe burns caused by flames, with sparks occasionally emanating from the wounds, as if an underwater volcano had grown on the whale's body.

His magical energy fluctuations gave me a gloomy and damp impression. This was consistent with his "Heaven and Earth in Harmony" and the nickname he had given himself. Xuanwu is the divine beast representing water among the Four Symbols. I even felt a sense of crisis, as if I had encountered a natural enemy, as if his power could strongly restrain me.

If I am truly a successor of the Yin-Yang lineage, then my power seed attribute is undoubtedly "fire," while his is "water."

No matter how much talent he possessed in the past, it would all eventually be overshadowed by this "water." Based on this, his renowned alchemy skills seem rather strange. Why does he still possess talent in alchemy?

It seems that his claim of cracking part of the mechanism of the Mountain Two Elements Ritual was not unfounded; this unrestricted performance may also be evidence of cracking the mechanism.

But I'm more concerned about something else right now.

"Wait, wait a minute..." I stopped him. "Don't refine the pills for me yet. Let's talk about this later."

Especially since the pill would become unusable an hour after it was made, it was even more important not to let him make it now.

"Oh? Why is that?" He stopped what he was doing, puzzled.

“There are some personal reasons. More than that… can your pills really heal the burns caused by Xuanming Fire?” I asked doubtfully. “I see that you yourself seem to be quite badly injured. Those are the burns you suffered when you failed to assassinate Xuanming in the past, right?”

"Since your so-called Divine Elixir is so powerful, and you can refine it so easily without worrying about materials or procedures, why didn't you heal yourself?"

"It's very simple. The ingredient for the Divine Essence Pill is my own soul, which I cut off. Using it on myself would be like robbing Peter to pay Paul, unable to heal my injuries, but it would be different on others." He said casually, "You've already noticed, haven't you? My current soul attribute is water, which naturally counters fire. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to escape from Xuanming. So you don't need to worry about the efficacy; I guarantee it will be very effective."

Hearing this, I remembered that Ma had mentioned before that the body tissue of the great demon "Genbu" that appeared in the apocalypse could be used to heal the wounds left by the flames of the Great Demon of Calamity...

The naval Xuanwu before him had not yet reached the Great Impermanence realm, and was naturally not on the same level as the Great Demon Xuanwu. What the latter could do with just some physical tissue, he needed to sacrifice a portion of his soul as a price.

"...Is your attribute related to your prey being the Yin-Yang lineage of the fire attribute?" I wondered.

"Consider it so you can die knowing why. I'll tell you now, you're right. Yin and Yang give rise to the Four Symbols. There are four Yin and Yang successors who were harmed by the Yin and Yang of the Mountain. Just as I, the 'Water,' must be among them, there must also be a 'Fire.' And according to the principle of mutual generation and restraint, I must first devour the power seed of the Fire attribute."

He answered readily at first, then said, "Are you sure you don't want me to refine the pill for you right now? Although I don't know what you're trying to hide, you can deliberately let me refine the pill first. I'm going to kill you next, so you can take this opportunity to weaken my soul."

“There’s no need. I want to fight you when you’re in top condition—though I really want to say that, you’re already this badly injured… So, are you serious?” I felt genuinely sorry for you. “If you continue to cut and refine your own soul, it will be difficult for you to even fight me, let alone kill me.”

"The agreement is the most important thing, and I hate people who can't keep their promises the most." He said seriously, "Besides, even if I'm injured, it won't affect my fighting ability. If you think I'll become weak if I'm seriously injured, you'd better not be so optimistic."

"Really? Then I'm relieved." I took it seriously for now.

"Then we'll discuss the delivery of the Divine Elixir later. After I kill you, I will naturally hand over the elixir..."

Before he could finish speaking, I interrupted him, saying, "And what if I killed you?"

“Although that’s impossible, if it really happens, I will do everything I can to deliver the pill to you,” he said coldly.

"Okay." I nodded. "Then we've said enough. Shall we begin?"

I can't wait.

He shook his head: "No... what are you thinking? This is inside the town. I don't intend to fight you here, that would involve many innocent people, and besides, the Divination Master won't let us cause trouble here."

“If you want to fight, let’s go to Mount Moonshadow. There’s no one there right now, and it’s a wide-open space. With your skill in manipulating fire, I’m sure you won’t accidentally start a wildfire. I also have some things to do there, so I need to make some preparations first.”

Wildfire… Hearing that word, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind. Ah, so that's it… No wonder the fortune teller appeared in the form of that strange bird before.

Since the conversation had progressed this far, I took the opportunity to ask another question: "Besides contacting me, you must have come to Moonshadow Mountain City for other reasons. Did you come for Silver Moon?"

Shui Shi Xuanwu said simply and concisely, "I owe Ying Lingyun a favor and need to help him capture Yin Yue's avatar and bring it to him."

"Silver Moon should be deep within the mist. How do you plan to find her?" I asked. "Is your preparation related to this?"

"If it's something related to the Yin and Yang of the mountain, then fine, I don't need to answer questions about this part. You already know enough, don't you? Even if you die by my hand, you won't be a fool. You should be content." He said bluntly, "I will wait for you on Moonshadow Mountain tonight. If you still want pills, come find me yourself."

"You can also choose to hide in the crowd like a coward, then I will indeed be unable to make a move against you for the time being, but don't think that you can hide forever."

"Your life belongs to me."

After uttering these harsh words, his body immediately disintegrated, turning into a puddle of clear water that spilled onto the ground.

He left.

No one else was watching in the park, and this bizarre scene went unnoticed. I examined the water stains on the ground and found they were just ordinary water. Could the Water Master Xuanwu also be elementalized? It didn't seem so. According to what Zhu Shi had told me before, some spells could, to a certain extent, mimic the effect of elementalization, but with conditions and costs. Perhaps the Water Master Xuanwu had done something similar.

They kept saying they were going to kill me, but then they left first. However, the problem might actually be on my side. The original plan of the Navy's Xuanwu was probably to sort everything out first, and then come looking for trouble. They didn't expect me to capture them first, which probably disrupted their plans.

Then I activated the Flame Teleportation to transfer myself back to the inn, and explained to Mazao what had just happened and my plans for the future.

Soon I would be facing a life-or-death battle with the Navy's Genbu, so naturally I had to leave Asahi to stay at Tsukigami Castle. Although she regretted that she couldn't help, she could only obediently stay at the inn.

(End of this chapter)