One year.
An entire year had passed since Meng Hao had arrived in the Blood Demon Sect. During that time, he didn’t even step half a pace outside of his valley, nor did anyone disturb him. In the utopia of his valley, he and Xu Qing watched the sun rise and set. Everything was calm and peaceful, and they spent their time enjoying the warmth and sweetness of each other’s company.
During that year, Xu Qing did not practice cultivation. She lived like a mortal woman, accompanying Meng Hao. Occasionally, her laughter would drift out from within the valley, and the Blood Demon Sect disciples standing guard on the outside would smile and look back toward the valley.
This was their Blood Prince and their Blood Prince’s beloved.
During that year, Meng Hao’s reputation inside the Blood Demon Sect did not lessen. Furthermore, stories of what had occurred in the Black Sieve Sect began to spread out from the Blood Demon Sect into the rest of the Southern Domain. Soon, Meng Hao’s name became even more illustrious.
He was a Spirit Severing expert, Grandmaster Pill Cauldron, Blood Prince of the Blood Demon Sect, and had waged war against the Black Sieve Sect. The stories spread, and soon the name ‘Meng Hao’ was on the minds of everyone in the Southern Domain.
As for Meng Hao, he learned of the tragic fate of the Wang Clan, and heard about the broken-souled lunatic who raved of Immortal Ascension and wandered around, having lost everything…
During that year, Meng Hao did not give up on cultivating the Blood Demon Grand Magic. However, on repeated occasions he sensed that he was incapable of reaching the third level. He was missing something.
He had reached a bottleneck, that much was obvious. Patriarch Blood Demon did not provide him with any tips or reminders. Actually, during the entire year, he didn’t even speak to Meng Hao at all. It seemed he had delivered the entire Blood Demon Sect into Meng Hao’s hands. Meng Hao now had authority over the life and death of everyone in the sect.
Although he experienced no breakthrough in the Blood Demon Grand Magic, he did gain enlightenment regarding the cultivation of the Nine Heavens Treasured Body Seal.
The art was crude and simple, but it could temper the fleshly body to an incredible degree. Unfortunately, it required a vast number of magical items to fuse into the flesh. Essentially… it was a divine ability that could refine one’s body into a treasured magical item.
Most people, even if they could gain enlightenment, would find it difficult to cultivate. After all, it required incredible amounts of magical items. Just to cultivate the first level required 10,000 Spirit Severing level magical items.
Thankfully, the requirement wasn’t Spirit Severing life-essence treasures; were that the case, Meng Hao would have given up immediately. He simply could not cultivate something like that.
However, if he could successfully cultivate the first level, then his fleshly body would exceed Spirit Severing, and would reach the Dao Seeking stage. When the fleshly body reached Dao Seeking, the qi and blood contained a natural law of Heaven and Earth.
Such a body was like a precious treasure.
If the second level was cultivated successfully, the fleshly body could break through Dao Seeking and then experience Fleshly Body Immortal Tribulation. If transcended… the qi and blood could reach Immortal Ascension.
“There are a total of four levels to this art. If I can cultivate the highest level…” His eyes gleamed with a brilliant light for a moment. It quickly faded. The items required to cultivate the fourth level were things the like of which he had never even heard of.
“And then there’s the Withering Flame Demon Magic True Self Dao!” he thought, his eyes shining with a strange light. During the year, his greatest achievement was not related to the Nine Heavens Treasured Body Seal, but rather, the Withering Flame Demon Magic True Self Dao!
After much pondering, Meng Hao had finally gained a bit of understanding. It was actually an art that could be used to create a clone. Granted, clone magic was not common in the Southern Domain, but neither was it rare, and most Spirit Severing Cultivators had found a way to create clones.