Chapter Fifty: The Arrival of Su Tan

Tong Jin possessed both the Profound Yin and Profound Yang constitutions. Naturally, he was entirely capable of unleashing the Profound Yang fire that the Profound Yang body could generate. However, aside from falling unconscious during terrifying moments of explosive power outburst, he remained completely clueless about how to control his dual yin and yang physique.

Though anxious, Tong Jin did not act with undue haste in pursuit of quick success. Since he could not use innate fire for the time being, he decided to start by learning with acquired fire sources first.

With this thought in mind, he stood up, casually pried a boulder from nearby, and began chipping away at it bit by bit, mimicking the shape of the alchemy furnace illustrated in the book. Before long, a crude stone alchemy furnace took shape, though its bizarre appearance looked genuinely comical.

Tong Jin could not help but chuckle softly to himself, thinking that had he known it would come to this, he should have simply purchased an alchemy furnace back in the Holy Capital.

Still, he had no excessively high demands for a furnace at the moment. Since he was merely experimenting, as long as it was functional, that would be quite sufficient—even though this stone stove could only accomplish the simple refinement of the lowest-grade pills.

Opening the pages once more, he saw that the Qi Gathering Pill required as many as seven types of ingredients. Fortunately, aside from a relatively precious spiritual fruit known as Heavenly Circle, the other six were advanced herbs that were quite easy to acquire.

Tong Jin let out a breath and felt a sense of hunger emerging from his belly. He thought it would be better to go out to gather herbs and concurrently capture some game, whereupon he stood up and darted toward the cave's exterior.

Just as he had left the cave dwelling for a short while, a figure of similar build appeared within the canyon, cautiously darting toward the direction of the cave dwelling Tong Jin had just excavated.

This figure was draped in a wide, white robe, halting to stare closely at what was in their hand after advancing a certain distance. Resting upon their palm was actually a Thunder-Sound Golden Cicada, crawling along at a slow pace.

"According to the direction sensed by the Golden Cicada, it should be nearby," the figure muttered to themselves, raising a hand to pull back the hood draped over their head. This person turned out to be Su Tan, who ought to have been recuperating from his injuries in the Divine Repose Palace.

At that very moment, Su Tan spotted the newly chiseled stone fragments on the ground ahead, and immediately looked up along the cliffside to discover the cave dwelling where Tong Jin was temporarily residing. A smile instantly bloomed on his face as he nimbly climbed upward, scrambling onto the platform before the cave entrance.

"Brother Tong!" Su Tan called out. To his surprise, no one answered.

Su Tan produced the Thunder-Sound Golden Cicada from his palm. This time, the golden cicada was not crawling in any particular direction, but instead rested obediently upon his palm. Su Tan smiled. "I suppose Brother Tong must have gone hunting." With that thought, he crossed his legs and sat down, beginning to circulate his internal energy to tend to his internal injuries, which had not yet fully recovered.

After a while, Tong Jin returned carrying a small wild boar. While still beneath the cliff, the Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants within his bosom suddenly stirred and wriggled, then shot out with a swoosh, taking the lead as they darted flying toward the cave dwelling.

Tong Jin casually tossed the wild boar aside and stared with tightly furrowed brows in the direction of the cave. Suddenly, a harsh, grating sound rang out from inside the cave dwelling, immediately followed by Su Tan's piercing scream, "Ow, mother of mine! Brother Tong, quickly call the poison ants back!"

Tong Jin was momentarily stunned, then split his mouth in a wide grin and burst into laughter. "Kid Tan!!" With that, he produced a stone box and tapped it a few times. The Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants spun in a circle and flew back, vibrating their wings as if demanding credit. In high spirits, Tong Jin gently stroked their hardened pairs of wings before they slowly crawled back into the stone box and quieted down.

With a single leap, Tong Jin appeared before the cave entrance. "Kid Tan! Hahahaha! Why are you here?"

Su Tan was cowering pathetically in the innermost depths of the cave dwelling, clearly thoroughly frightened by the Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants, and walked toward Tong Jin with a bitter expression. "Brother Tong, those poison ants of yours are far too ferocious! How come they still aren't familiar with me after all this time?"

Tong Jin stepped forward and gave him a big embrace, patting Su Tan's shoulder as he said, "You brat, instead of staying properly at the Divine Repose Palace, why have you chased me all the way to this place?"

Su Tan smiled. "How could I, Su Tan, be someone who flees in the face of battle? To avenge me, Brother Tong spared no effort to single-handedly confront the Six Major Factions. The matter is now spreading like wildfire across the entire Holy Capital—you've become quite the celebrity!"

Tong Jin was taken aback, then twitched his mouth. "Who cares to be that kind of celebrity can take the title themselves." He raised his head and asked, "By the way, how did you manage to find me?"

Su Tan reached out and pulled the larger Thunder-Sound Golden Cicada from his bosom. "It's all thanks to this fellow! Among my three Thunder-Sound Golden Cicadas, only this one successfully evolved last night. My master said that after its evolution, it possesses a special perceptual ability capable of discerning the traveling route of your Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants, which is how I tracked you all the way here."

"Senior Shennong sent you?" Tong Jin asked in astonishment.

Su Tan rolled his eyes. "Of course I begged him, though master didn't put up too much resistance either." With a smile, as if suddenly remembering something, he added, "Right, Brother Tong, master asked me to bring you some things." Saying this, he retrieved an inconspicuous cloth bundle from within his wide robes.

"Oh?" Tong Jin took it, placed it on the ground, and unwrapped it to reveal a delicate copper alchemy furnace no larger than a palm, alongside bundles of meticulously selected spiritual herbs.

A wave of gratitude welled up in Tong Jin's heart. Just moments before, when he had gone out searching for herbs, he had practically turned the entire mountain upside down only to barely find a single ordinary herb, and his heart had been filled with gloom.

"Senior Shennong treats me truly well," Tong Jin said from the bottom of his heart.

Su Tan smiled. "Right, Brother Tong, master only said you escaped safely. Quickly tell me, how did you manage to break free from the joint pursuit of the Six Major Factions?"

Tong Jin looked at Su Tan, whose curious eyes were shining brightly, and shrugged helplessly. "It's nothing much. I just relied on Sister Tianfeng's help, and coincidentally made a minor breakthrough of my own at a crucial moment, and so I managed to escape."

Hearing Tong Jin gloss over the matter and attribute his escape to the help of Fairy Tianfeng, Su Tan nodded in slight disappointment, before suddenly coming to his senses and crying out in shock, "What? A breakthrough?!"

Watching his exaggerated expression, Tong Jin smiled with amusement. "Yes, a breakthrough."

Su Tan froze on the spot. "What do you mean by 'a minor breakthrough'! At fourteen years old, reaching the peak of the Qi Condensation Realm means that here in the Holy Capital, or even across the entire pugilistic world, you can be considered among the very top tier of the younger generation." His almond-shaped eyes pulled almost level as he curled his lips in an expression of envy and jealousy.

Tong Jin raised a hand to scratch his head. "Alright, you'll catch up to me soon enough. Once I master the art of alchemy, I'll feed you spiritual pills like jelly beans, making it impossible for you not to break through."

Only then did Su Tan break into a grin.

The two of them butchered the wild boar beneath the cliffside and enjoyed a hearty and lavish meal.

As night fell once more, Su Tan crossed his legs inside the cave dwelling and circulated his internal energy to regulate his breath, striving to recover from his injuries as quickly as possible. Ever since he heard that Tong Jin had single-handedly barged into the Heavenly Firmament Sect, he had been filled with restless anxiety inside the Divine Repose Palace. Forget about regulating his breathing to heal his wounds; he could barely sit still for even a moment.

By the flickering light of the campfire, Tong Jin was meticulously polishing three or five stone boxes before him. Just moments earlier, as he routinely pulled out another stone box from his bosom to draw his blood and feed the immature Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants, to his surprise, even after feeding them over a dozen drops of blood, the interior of the box still refused to quiet down. With no other choice, Tong Jin stepped outside the cave, selected a quiet spot to remove the lid, and was astonished to discover that all thirteen Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants in the box had matured into adult insects simultaneously!

This news filled Tong Jin's heart with a surge of excitement. He immediately recalled the poison ants, returned to the cave dwelling, and set to work crafting stone boxes for breeding adult insects. According to the records in the book, Corpse-Sinking Poison Ants were oviparous, with each female capable of laying over a hundred eggs, though the survival rate of these eggs was not particularly high.

Tong Jin could not worry about such details now; he could only follow the instructions in the texts, preparing the stone boxes required for breeding exotic insects along with the spiritual herbs needed for feeding them.