Refining the Mountains and Rivers

Chapter 416 – Replacement

In a corner of the chamber, the puppet maid’s eyes revealed a hint of struggle. But soon, that struggle became pain. She coughed and lowered her head, her expression turning to sorrow.

She was a puppet personally refined by Grandmaster Yao. During these years when she had followed him, she had always been used as a tool on which he vented his anger. When other people learned she was a puppet, they also treated her like a tool, with cold and callous indifference. The only exception was Qin Yu. Although they hadn’t come into contact often, he treated her like a normal person. Unfortunately, she was to be controlled forever. She could only watch helplessly on as he was killed, and there was nothing she could do about it!

“I’ve been waiting for so many years and now I’ve finally found a pure body to melt the curse in my soul! Once I am reborn, I will take back everything I lost and more!” With a loud shout, the black light projecting from Grandmaster Yao’s eyes completely vanished as it drilled into Qin Yu’s own eyes. His pitch black eyes darkened and his aura completely vanished.

And at this time, the true battle was occurring within Qin Yu’s soul space. All of that dark light gathered here, condensing into an incomparably old form. This was Grandmaster Yao’s true body.

He looked at the closed eyes of Qin Yu’s soul and the blood red chain that wrapped around its surface. A macabre cackle came from his mouth and he pounced forward.

As long as he could swallow Qin Yu’s soul and completely fuse with his aura, then he could obtain the acknowledgment of the mortal body and thoroughly possess it.

At this time, Qin Yu’s soul suddenly opened its eyes. It looked at Grandmaster Yao and its lips curved in a mocking smile.

Grandmaster Yao was shocked. Then, he diabolically grinned. “It’s useless, you cannot resist me!”

“Is that right?” With a thought, a crescent purple moon appeared above Qin Yu, sprinkling down a pale purple light that covered the blood red chains. When this thing formed from countless blood red runes was shrouded in the purple moonlight, all of those runes stiffened as they were frozen by an invisible strength!

Qin Yu lightly said, “It’s all over now.”

Whoosh –

A ray of purple moonlight shot out, instantly piercing through Grandmaster Yao’s soul. With a terrified scream, his soul shattered into countless fragments.

Within the chamber, a wisp of dark light escaped from Qin Yu’s eyes and fled into Grandmaster Yao’s body like a bolt of lightning. Then, Grandmaster Yao shook and his eyes opened back up, fear covering his face.

“Hurry! Hurry and activate the alarm! This boy wants to kill me!”

Shua –

Qin Yu lifted a finger and pointed at the space between Grandmaster Yao’s eyebrows. A small round hole appeared in Grandmaster Yao’s head and white and red goo splashed out from behind. The dark light escaped and tried to flee but in the blink of an eye it was sucked into Qin Yu’s eyes. Faintly, one could hear the roars of Grandmaster Yao, filled with despair and unwillingness.

Qin Yu let out a breath. He secretly thought he had barely managed to make it through. He never expected that Grandmaster Yao had such strange methods; even in such a situation he was able to escape. He turned around and looked at the puppet maid in the corner of the chamber. Her eyes were filled with relief as she was extricated from her eternal pain. She faintly smiled at Qin Yu and then fell to the floor, her aura rapidly fading away.

Since the master died, the puppet would die with him.

A moment ago, she surely had the chance to ring the alarm. But after Grandmaster Yao screamed, she clearly remained silent.

Qin Yu stood up and cupped his hands, bowing towards the puppet maid’s corpse. “I may not know your name, but I thank you for helping me today.”

Qin Yu lifted his hand and the robe covering Grandmaster Yao flew over, falling into his hand. This robe was cool and soft and the surface wasn’t stained by any blood; it was clearly a precious piece of clothing. Qin Yu put the black robe on his body and his aura suddenly became much darker and gloomier. He was secretly overjoyed. It seemed that Grandmaster Yao had also used this clothing to change his aura before. This would actually save him a considerable amount of trouble.

The bones within his body started to crack and pop. Qin Yu’s body shrank and changed as his outline shifted to match Grandmaster Yao. He took several steps forward and carefully recalled Grandmaster Yao’s own behaviors and actions. Soon, his walking quickened, becoming much more similar.

That’s right, just before killing him, Qin Yu had already thought about what plan to follow. Grandmaster Yao had an eccentric temper and he rarely interacted with outsiders. Even within this Black Demon Sect, he only had a single disciple and that was one he rarely ever contacted. With this, Qin Yu would replace him.

By killing Grandmaster Yao and masquerading as him, he could then find a chance to quietly leave the Black Demon Sect. This was Qin Yu’s initial idea, but as he swallowed Grandmaster Yao’s soul, there were suddenly many matters that he learned about. For instance, news related to the Black Demon Sect as one of the 13 subordinate branches of the Demonic Path.

After a short period of contemplation, Qin Yu decided to alter his plans a little. Using the identity of ‘Grandmaster Yao’, he would stay at the Black Demon Sect. This was because if he wanted to retaliate against the Immortal Sect, using his own small strength was simply impossible. But, in the Land of Divinity and Demons, the Demonic Path was actually one of the lofty influences that stood on par with the Immortal Sect.

If he joined the Black Demon Sect, then once he entered the Demonic Path himself in the future, he would have the chance to borrow its strength and have the Immortal Sect pay the price. Moreover, since he cultivated the Undying True Demon Body, joining the Demonic Path was the best choice to begin with. There was a likely chance he would be highly valued. At that time, not only would he be raised up, but his safety would also be guaranteed.

Of course, before he had sufficient strength, Qin Yu couldn’t reveal his own identity. As for how long he could stay in the Black Demon Sect without being discovered by anyone…Qin Yu faintly smiled. He muttered in a soft voice, “Grandmaster Yao, I really must thank you.”

After swallowing his soul, Qin naturally obtained all of Grandmaster Yao’s memories. Grandmaster Yao’s true name was Yao Cu. He was a rogue demonic cultivator, and at the pinnacle of his life, he had a powerful sixth level Blue Sea cultivation. But what a pity, sometime afterwards he tried to refine some taboo pill and suffered the backlash of a mystical curse that attacked his soul. Thus, he struggled to survive for the next thousand years. His cultivation drastically fell and his subordinate betrayed him. He became a fugitive who wandered around in distress until he joined the Black Demon Sect.

In fact, when it came to demonic alchemy, Grandmaster Yao was actually a true and blue grandmaster level existence. According to his memories, in his peak golden years he had even helped a Calamity Immortal realm existence refine a pill. As repayment, that Calamity Immortal realm existence had given him a formidable treasure. Unfortunately, when he was betrayed his treasure was also taken away by his subordinate. Otherwise, if Qin Yu wanted to kill him, it might not have been so easy.

This was all miscellaneous side information. The most important thing was that after swallowing his soul, Qin Yu also obtained Grandmaster Yao’s lifelong attainments in alchemy; all of that was now Qin Yu’s. Demonic path alchemy skills truly caused him to open his eyes. So, pills could also be refined using life essence, flesh and blood, inner cores, and all sorts of other things. It could be said that even if Qin Yu hadn’t refined any demonic path pills yet, he was theoretically a grandmaster level alchemist of them.

As long as he experimented a few times, then with the little blue lamp and Ninth Province in hand, there shouldn’t be any problems disguising himself as Grandmaster Yao.

Qin Yu flicked his finger, tossing a fireball at Grandmaster Yao’s corpse and burning it into ashes. Then, he momentarily put away the corpse of the puppet maid and sat down cross-legged on the stone bed. While he had obtained the memories of Grandmaster Yao, in the end they weren’t things that truly belonged to him. He needed to carefully sift through them to not be surprised. In particular, the memories related to alchemy. He needed to ponder on those in order to completely use them himself.

Fei Jin had an anxious expression. He paced up and down through the hall. He had no idea what Grandmaster Yao was doing, but he knew it was something incomparably important. Over ten days had passed and yet there wasn’t a single sound, so how could he not worry? If something were to happen to Grandmaster Yao, all of his former efforts would be for nothing.

Suddenly, there was the sound of heavy footsteps coming from the depths of the hall. Fei Jin was overcome with happiness. He quickly knelt down in place, “Disciple greets honorable master!”

He was very familiar with the sound of these footsteps; it was Grandmaster Yao.

Qin Yu looked at the extremely humble Fei Jin on the ground. His eyes flashed with a cold light. This person had originally forced him to test medicine; his methods had been cruel and ruthless. Moreover, out of the numerous cultivators in the Black Demon Sect, this Fei Jin came into contact with Grandmaster Yao the most. He could be called the greatest unknown variable in Qin Yu’s continued camouflage as Grandmaster Yao. The sooner he eliminated him, the better.

His thoughts stirred. Qin Yu copied the voice of Grandmaster Yao and coldly said, “You came at just the right time. There are some things I need you to do.”

He turned and walked away.

Fei Jin’s heart skipped a beat. Grandmaster Yao didn’t seem to be in a good mood today. But, he didn’t dare to delay. He stood up and hurriedly followed behind.

Soon, Grandmaster Yao stopped outside a chamber. “Bring away the corpse inside and carefully process it. Make sure no one sees you.”

Fei Jin was startled. It was just processing a corpse, but he was needed to do it? A trace of doubt flashed in his mind, but Fei Jin didn’t dare to anger Grandmaster Yao in his current unhappy mood. Although they were teacher and apprentice, Grandmaster Yao was someone whose mood changed with the wind. It was always better to be a bit more discreet.

He respectfully bowed and then entered the chamber. He was startled. Beside a stone bed, there was no corpse in the chamber at all. His heart leapt in his chest, but just as he was about to turn around he discovered that the entire chamber was blocked off by a massive amount of magic power.

Fei Jin was bewildered. “Honorable master, what is the meaning of this? This disciple had been nothing but loyal and devoted to you!”

Qin Yu sneered, “Go tell that to Grandmaster Yao below.”

Fei Jin was horror-stricken. “It’s you…save me! Save me!”

Black poison gas gushed out from every corner of the chamber. Fei Jin held his breath but it was a clearly useless action. Soon, he lay on the ground twitching. His face had turned blue and purple and his body had blown up like a balloon before it finally exploded, causing corpse fluids to spray out. When that corpse fluid touched the air it violently burned away, and in the end not even ashes were left behind.

Qin Yu coldly snorted. He didn’t feel any sympathy towards this sort of malicious and ruthless person. Who knew how many innocent lives had been taken by Fei Jin?

Those who killed should expect to be killed!

In an instant, Qin Yu had already lived at the Black Demon Sect for over two months using Grandmaster Yao’s status. He deliberately remained low key. In addition to Grandmaster Yao’s eccentric personality, there wasn’t any problem so far. The only problem came from the dungeon. Grandmaster Yao was known for being cruel and vicious, and yet he hadn’t called for any criminals to experiment on in the last two months; this was actually confusing. Of course, no matter how much courage they had, they would never come to ask the reason why.

In the alchemy room, Qin Yu lifted a hand and patted Ninth Province. This pill furnace, one that seemed a total wreck but actually possessed heaven-defying capabilities, popped open on its own volition. Seven blood red pills were wrapped up by an invisible strength as they flew out from the top.

Unfortunately, just as three of them flew out, they flew back into Ninth Province. There were several chewing sounds before they vanished without a trace.

Qin Yu bitterly smiled. It seemed that Ninth Province hadn’t changed its habit of eating up pills. At the very least it had softened its manner and allowed Qin Yu to refine some pills.

He waved his hand and grabbed the remaining pills. Lowering his head and taking a smell, he revealed a satisfied smile.

Spirit Blood Pill, a sixth grade demonic pill; it could supplement a cultivator’s blood energy and had an effect of strengthening the body. This was possible because Qin Yu was an alchemy expert to begin with, and in addition to Ninth Province’s help, he was able to refine these pills. If it were anyone else, they absolutely wouldn’t have been able to refine sixth grade demonic pills in two months.

After all, although he had the memories, they were still different from reality.

He casually put away the Spirit Blood Pills. Then, he closed his eyes and adjusted his condition. He turned his hand and a jade bottle appeared; inside this was the blood arrow he obtained from the Infinite Realm.

By using this as the main ingredient and then combining some other materials, he could refine a Blood Marrow Pill, something that could help a cultivator awaken their bloodline. As a precaution, Qin Yu had never used it. But now he could begin refining this pill.

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