Chapter 39: Li Yu's Compassionate Heart Form

In the bright and eerie alchemy room, accompanied by terrifying heat, plumes of strange gas erupted.

They came in all sorts of colors and odors, foul to the extreme.

If a living person were here, they would be poisoned to death on the spot.

Of course, it was no match for a mechanical maid.

Hongdou stood before the alchemy furnace, and though she had been waiting for who knows how long, her posture had not changed in the slightest; only her pair of mechanical eyes, glowing with red light, scanned back and forth.

Suddenly, a series of "bang, bang, bang" impact sounds erupted from the furnace before her, and the heat surged instantly, scorching the toxic gases until they twisted.

"Warning! Warning!"

"Alchemy furnace temperature out of control. Inner lining about to shatter. Probability of furnace explosion rising: fifty percent... sixty percent... seventy percent."

"Furnace explosion imminent!"

"Initiating backup protocol to prevent master from losing control and escaping."

Accompanied by Hongdou’s cold and heartless voice, the familiar whirring sound came; this time, she had not only drawn her chainsaw sword, but also retrieved her electric blade gun and defensive shield, keeping them at the ready.

The next instant, the alchemy furnace indeed exploded.

Fragments flew everywhere amidst the surging smoke and dust.

Li Yu, stark naked, coughed "cough, cough, cough" as he stood up, immediately looking for his maid.

But the moment he looked up, he heard the roar of a chainsaw and saw Hongdou’s delicate and charming fox-girl face.

"Stop, stop, stop!"

"I haven't lost control."

Li Yu, ignoring the waves of discomfort coming from within his body, hurriedly shouted for her to stop.

At this moment, he suddenly regretted pre-loading the "Master's Secret Command" for this unlucky child; once the conditions were met, she truly didn't hold back.

In a normal state, Li Yu couldn't block her chainsaw sword, let alone now, when he was stacked with negative status effects.

If he had shouted a second later, his arms would likely have been severed.

As soon as Hongdou stopped, Li Yu had no time to complain further; suppressing the unspeakable pain in his gut, he lunged out of the smoke, quickly grabbed a sandalwood box for storing elixirs, and then suddenly opened his mouth.

The next moment, with a sound of "retch."

With saliva trailing and his mouth corners splitting, a black elixir the size of a fist, perfectly round and shimmering with metallic luster, was forcibly spat out by him and landed in the box.

After spitting out this elixir, Li Yu felt his whole body lighten, and all negative status effects were swept away.

On his face, a look of joy mixed with lingering fear and relief emerged.

From this expression, one could judge that the frantic and stimulating alchemy scene just now was not his own doing.

"I don't know whether to say I'm lucky or truly cursed."

"On the very first step of Alchemist cultivation, I triggered an [Epiphany] and was forced to use the Furnace State to refine the elixir."

"In the normal sequence, I should have slowly used the alchemy furnace to refine dozens of batches before gradually advancing to the Furnace version—that is, using my own body as the alchemy furnace to release elixir fire for internal refinement. Only at that stage can alchemists create their own formulas."

"It’s thanks to this basic-model furnace maintaining the external temperature for me; otherwise, if I had started with internal refinement right away, I fear I would have already burned myself to death."

"Could it be a lingering side effect from refining the Forbidden Egg last time? Why do I want to jump into a furnace the moment I see one?"

Li Yu muttered to himself.

Then, not even bothering to put on clothes, his scorching gaze fell upon the excessively large spirit elixir.

Although it was a result of a fortuitous coincidence!

This elixir was indeed created by him.

Extremely complex formulas and related information surfaced in his mind:

"Unnamed Spirit Elixir!"

"Judging from the ingredients, it has a bit of every effect. The quantity and taste of the strange objects I just consumed almost caught up to the food Jiao Qing and Sun Sanniang have been feeding the original body for years, and it also purged all my negative emotions..."

"Can this thing be eaten? If I swallow it, I won't end up like Yi Ya, will I?"

"Taste a little and see. I won't die anyway; at worst, I'll just vomit again."

While muttering, Li Yu reached out, scraped a small lump off the fist-sized spirit elixir, and put it into his mouth.

The elixir flesh, still stained with his saliva, instantly turned into a cold, bitter-to-the-extreme energy that melted into his limbs and bones.

The next instant!

He transformed.

The scene was quite similar to when he had mutated into a [Child of the Forbidden God] before.

His limbs turned into sharp claws, his muscles filled out, his skin hardened, a scarlet vertical eye grew in the center of his forehead, and at the same time, large patches of flame-like "markings" crawled all over his body...

There were some elements of the Child of the Forbidden God, but it was very different and even more evil.

If it had just been that, it would have been fine, but the terrible part was yet to come.

After the transformation, a strong murderous intent suddenly surged within Li Yu’s otherwise calm mind, along with a cold indifference toward all living beings.

Driven by these emotions, he vanished from the alchemy room as if teleporting, and when he reappeared in the blink of an eye, he was holding a cold, gleaming coroner's scalpel.

The Compassionate Blade!

When Li Yu gripped this small knife, that biting murderous intent reached its peak.

In a trance, Li Yu felt as if he were a combination of the "Child of the Forbidden God" and "Yi Ya."

If not for the last shred of reason in his mind, which seemed to be completely locked and unable to disappear no matter what, he feared he would have already started a massacre.

It was this remnant of reason that left the Hongdou opposite him in confusion.

Her chainsaw sword was raised, then lowered; clearly, she couldn't accurately judge whether "the master had gone crazy or not." It was fortunate that her intelligence was recovering; if it had been the initial Hongdou, she would have crashed and started smoking by now.

Fortunately, at this moment, the elixir's time limit expired. The bitter energy dissipated, he blinked, regained his full reason, and the strange symptoms on his body faded away.

The doubt that had previously existed in his eyes also vanished, turning into a sigh:

"The first self-created formula, born from an accidental epiphany, actually exhausted all my accumulations during this period?"

"Well, aside from the Child of the Forbidden God and Yi Ya, and the mental state I’ve been suppressing all this time, where else would I have found inspiration?"

"Good, good, I didn't actually go crazy."

"This is a good elixir, too. Consuming a small lump can maintain that form for about ten breaths. If I add this coroner's blade, even if I can't catch up to Yi Ya in his non-brain-damaged state, it shouldn't be too far off."

"It’s just that you have to eat it by digging out pieces; if you swallow the whole thing, you won't be choked to death, but you'll fall into a dangerous state."

"As for the name of this formula, let's call it [Compassionate Elixir]."

Li Yu, who was thinking about what name to choose, saw the coroner's blade in his hand and very sloppily committed plagiarism.

At this moment, his mood was already quite good.

Although the past few hours of his first alchemy practice had subjected him to torture-like suffering.

=9+Shu_ba

The way the elixir came out was also extremely disgusting.

But the harvest was beyond expectations.

After one refinement in the furnace, all the fatigue and discomfort in his body were gone.

The greater harvest was his "heart and soul." From the moment he was reborn into the original body until today, he had experienced too much during this time, almost constantly living in the tension of life-and-death crises, and often having to listen to the Forbidden God muttering songs about cannibalism.

If it were any other ordinary person, or even the kind of ruthless person the original body was—who could mutilate themselves into a human stick—they would either have gone mad or obediently joined the evil cultivator camp to become a pervert who happily and wantonly ate people.

For example, Yi Ya, Jiao Qing, Sun Sanniang, and all the neighbors; they weren't born crazy either, and they likely fell into depravity after experiencing something.

Li Yu hadn't gone crazy; he had just suppressed many negative emotions, and his style of conduct had become urgent and radical.

Now, this state seemed to be gone, all refined into the [Compassionate Elixir].

"But I fear it will be very difficult to refine this elixir a second time in the short term."

"It’s a huge consumer of elixir materials, and it requires the alchemist to be sufficiently suppressed, at the critical point of going crazy. The process is painful, the result is disgusting... If I write this formula out, I fear no peers would dare to experiment with it."

With this thought, Li Yu suddenly understood why many paths had sequences capable of refining elixirs and medicines.

Yet, the number of common elixir and medicine formulas was pitifully small.

Clearly, each had its own irreplaceable secrets.

With a "snap," Li Yu closed the box, put away the huge Compassionate Elixir still stained with his saliva, and then called out to his maid:

"Hongdou!"

"Contact that salesman Shi Dazhu, have him send another basic-model alchemy furnace, twenty portions of fire essence, fire-attribute minerals, and have him come forward to purchase the following strange objects and extraordinary ingredients for me..."

"Oh, and go out and get me a set of clothes."

Li Yu finished saying everything in one breath, feeling like he had forgotten something.

Only then did he realize he was still stark naked, and hurriedly added that.

After Hongdou went to busy herself, Li Yu stood at the door of the alchemy room, looked at the gradually darkening sky, and couldn't help but continue to ponder:

"With the unexpected joy of the Compassionate Elixir, my self-preservation ability has increased by a large margin."

"Next, I should prepare some elixirs for escape, such as the [Godly Foot Elixir] from the basic formulas."

"Compared to the other formulas, its cost-effectiveness is already the highest."

"As for the recovery and treatment side... I'll use medicinal cuisine; let's see if I can make some cheap and effective medicinal dishes."

Li Yu had these thoughts because he discovered something.

To achieve the foolproof preparation he had in mind, spending all the remaining ten thousand taels wouldn't be enough; he had to be as frugal as possible.

Of course, there were some places where he couldn't skimp.

For example, having Shi Dazhu purchase things for him; he could take Hongdou to the [Taiping Grand Market] and painstakingly purchase them one by one, which would definitely save a lot, but that would be too time-consuming and add some unforeseeable risks. It was better to pay a little extra and let the Heavenly Craft Sect salesman, who was already completely familiar with the process, do it.

Refining the Compassionate Elixir was an unrepeatable accident; his original intention was just to practice the art of "Ingestion."

"There is one day and one night left; I hope it's enough."

"I hope even more that these preparations, and preferably Hongdou as well, can all be brought into the so-called Strange Realm Spirit World."

……

A day and a night passed in the blink of an eye.

It was still the small courtyard, though this time they were in the kitchen.

Surrounded by swirling, fragrant steam, Li Yu looked at the pile of fresh, thumb-sized meatballs in the large pot before him with an expression of both anticipation and hesitation.

Hmm, perhaps a bit too fresh.

They were entirely scarlet, looking as if they had just been shaped and not yet boiled in the pot.

Hundred-Flavor Meatballs!

Li Yu had exhausted a large amount of precious ingredients, especially the flesh and blood of the strange entities transported from outside the city, to successfully experiment with this medicinal dish.

Of course, compared to proper elixirs, the cost was still much lower.

He had spent all of his remaining ten thousand taels; besides refining twenty additional Explosive Flame Pills and five replenishing Divine Foot Pills, he had used the remaining small portion to experiment and create the Hundred-Flavor Meatballs.

Unlike the [Nine-Turn Ascension Soup] that cost Yi Ya his life, Li Yu was certain these meatballs were edible, and each one possessed extraordinary effects; the minor side effect was that each one had a different taste, which is why they were called Hundred-Flavor.

As for what those hundred flavors were?

Even Li Yu himself could not be sure.

(End of chapter)