The Rank 4 Boundary

Yaan first spread a tincture all across the surface of his skin. The tincture was a black tar-like substance and it smelled quite appalling, but this tincture would massively increase the chances of success when using the Rank 4 Boundary Ascension Pill.

The Boundary Ascension Pill was still the best method to help push a body temperer's Vital Energy past the rank boundary, but of course, this alone did not ensure success. When Yaan ascended to the 3-Star Realm, he used various supplementary medicines, not only to improve his chances of succeeding with the ascension, but also to develop additional benefits.

The Realm ascension was a challenge, but there were also many benefits that could be reaped in addition to the ascension itself.

Whilst cultivating Vital Energy itself didn't actually alter the physical body all that much, the changes to the fleshly body were actually quite significant with each Realm ascension!

Yaan planned to use the Realm ascension this time to improve upon his four Progressive Body Constitutions, but more importantly, he wanted to increase the total quantity of blood essence within his body.

The reason that he had not yet developed the Progressive Blood Constitution despite easily having the ability to do so was simple - developing and improving this constitution required the burning of blood essence. This burning process was permanent, the blood essence would not recover. Since it became easier to develop each drop of blood essence when you possessed more to begin with, Yaan decided to build up his blood essence as much as possible before attempting the blood burning.

On a side note, when it came to blood essence, Yaan was a bit of a freak. Typically, a 3-Star Realm demon who did not pay any attention to their fleshly body would develop a single drop of blood essence during their 3-Star Realm ascension, and this may or may not improve during their progression through the 3-Star Realm.

As for Yaan, he had already developed nine drops at the 2-Star Realm, which grew to 81 drops after reaching the 3-Star Realm.

Right now, he had 1,280 drops of blood essence.

This was the result of using many blood essence type medicines to build up his blood essence. Having this much blood essence was of massive benefit to his vitality and ability to recover from injury, but Yaan knew that he needed far more if he wanted to develop the Obsidian Blood Constitution.

For this reason, he would be using multiple Rank 4 blood essence pills during his ascension. The tincture that Yaan applied to his body also had the effect of lengthening the duration of the ascension, so he would have more time to use these blood essence pills.

And so, it was time to begin. Without further ado, Yaan swallowed the Rank 4 Boundary Ascension Pill!

The difference compared to Yaan's previous ascensions would be like night and day this time, regardless of the supplementary medicines, due to his Astral Power and Psyche Power.

Astral Power was an excellent tool for controlling medicinal energy within the body, whilst Psyche Power was the supreme power for improving control over your own existing powers. This combination gave Yaan a level of fine control which ordinary 3-Star Realm body temperers lacked.

The moment the Boundary Ascension Pill expanded and released a burst of energy within his stomach, Yaan immediately urged his Astral Power to move. The black power poured out from his 4-Star Astral Tattoo, before wrapping around the medicinal energy and controlling its release. He allowed the medicinal energy to spread out through his body, but did his best to exert fine control over this power, neither letting it rampage through his body, nor letting it escape.

The Boundary Ascension Pill was inherently explosive and violent though, it was this burst of power that allowed body temperers to transcend past their limits and into a new cultivation realm.

Yaan was quite experienced with realm ascensions at this point, but the 4-Star Realm ascension was slightly different.

His Vital Energy was stirred, rapidly circulating through his body and reforming within the centre of his chest. The Vital Energy seemed to be pushed back, unable to properly form into a Vital Core…

But Yaan expected this. Even though right now, the Vital Core was unable to form within his body, he focussed his attention inwards and pictured the formation of this core. Gradually, an illusion of a Vital Core began to appear within the centre of his chest…

Yaan focused on the illusory Vital Core within him - this was the foundation of his dao comprehension, and he would use his foundation to reach the 4-Star Realm!

At Rank 4, all beings would form a sort of core, whilst their dao comprehension was the key component which facilitated the formation of this core.

If a cultivator could successfully use their dao comprehension to form their core, they would step past the Rank 4 realm boundary!

Focussing intensely, Yaan urged the channelled his Vital Energy inwards, urging it to replicate the form of the illusory core. This took an immense amount of focus to achieve, whilst the Rank 4 Boundary Ascension Pill was steadily increasing in strength. After some time passed, Yaan's face turned red and blood dripped down from his nose…

CRACK!

A cracking sound echoed out from Yaan's body. He involuntarily let out a loud gasp as the 4-Star Realm boundary was breached, causing his Vital Energy to rapidly surged into the centre of his chest! Before, it was repulsed, but now, it was being dragged in ceaselessly.

Yaan's pain tolerance had been tempered so far that despite the horrific agony, he was able to ignore it without a change to his expression.

As the Vital Energy converged in the centre of his chest, gradually forming a ball of dense Vital Energy, his body was also undergoing certain alterations. Due to the formation of the Vital Core, the changes to his physique were more noticeable compared to previous changes.

His skin seared with a blistering heat so intense that it turned red, releasing steam as it was tempered whilst impurities were released continuously from the ongoing refinement of his Vital Energy. New layers of more perfect skin formed over and over again, only to be burned away and replaced in the next moment.

Yaan's organs were displaced within his chest, causing a knock-on effect to travel through his body. It was an extremely uncomfortable feeling, even Yaan felt disconcerted by the feeling of his internal structure rearranging continuously.

His bones, tendons and muscles were tempered by the medicinal energy released by the Boundary Ascension Pill, combined with the tincture rubbed across his body.

As Yaan felt the effect of the medicinal energy moving towards his blood, he immediately grabbed a Rank 4 blood essence pill and swallowed it without hesitation.

As the effect began to explode through his blood stream and stormed towards his mind, he remained calm and showed no change in expression.

'As expected, most of the energy from the blood essence pill has been absorbed into the Vital Core's formation.'

Yaan knew that the Rank 4 Boundary Ascension Pill on its own was not enough to form the Vital Core, it could only barely push him to the start point of this process. In order to fully form the Vital Core, a massive amount of energy was needed. If he did not obtain this energy from external resources, the Vital Core would either fail to form, or it would begin devouring his body, eventually killing him.

This time, Yaan only planned to use blood essence pills to supplement the needed energy. His goal was to separate the portions of medicinal energy released from the pill. He wanted to use the parts of the medicine that could form blood essence to form his own blood essence, whilst channelling the remainder of the energy directly into his developing Vital Core.

Yaan was ambitious, he wanted to form as much blood essence as possible, but he had learned from his past mistakes. He would not rely on luck, he would not rely on someone stepping in to save him, he would only rely on himself. He would take some degree of risk, but he would keep a firm grasp over this danger, controlling and managing it, whilst continually monitoring the progressing situation using his Psyche Power and his enhanced intelligence.

To be rational, fearless and ambitious, all at the same time, was actually quite a difficult thing that many cultivators failed to achieve throughout their long lives. Yaan had been made painfully aware of the importance of attaining these qualities in balance though. He had decided that he would work on this, starting here and now.

The moment the effect of the blood essence pill began to dwindle, Yaan consumed another. Like with the first pill, he exerted a large amount of effort to prevent the lingering will within the pill from actually entering his mind, as such a thing could send him into an illusion and distract him.

There were many additional benefits that could be gained during ascension, but Yaan decided to focus all of his efforts on this one thing; blood essence. His reason for this was simple…blood essence was too difficult to develop!

Yaan consumed the third blood essence pill. With the consumption of each consecutive pill, the pressure built up further within his body, since he was consuming the next pill before completely devouring the medicinal effect from the last.

After consuming three pills, Yaan's Vital Core was still barely one third the way formed.

And yet, his blood essence had shot up to 1,672 drops already! After properly devouring and making use of the medicinal energy within these three pills, it would surely rise further…but Yaan was determined to consume more of these medicines!

The Vital Energy that Yaan gained from the blood essence pills was integrated into his body far more rapidly compared to the formation of the blood essence. Because of this, Yaan constantly felt that his Vital Core was only barely managing to take in energy at a fast enough rate, whilst his blood vessels felt as if they were on the verge of rupturing.

Time passed by painfully slowly.

As Yaan consumed more and more blood essence pills, the strain on his body became increasingly immense. He was determined to only consume blood essence pills, so he was forced to swallow them at a faster rate than his body could tolerate in order to supply enough energy to the Vital Core.

His reason for doing this was simple - using any other medicines to build up his Vital Core would mean reducing the amount of blood essence pills used during the ascension, thereby reducing the amount of blood essence gained.

One of these blood essence pills might be able to form a few drops of blood essence in normal times, but this increased to hundreds of drops during the realm ascension! The value in ascending this way was obvious.

As the Vital Core grew in size, it expanded from the size of a seed, to that of a grape. Eventually, after consuming 22 Rank 4 blood essence pills, alongside multiple recovery pills to heal over the repeatedly rupturing blood vessels throughout his body, Yaan's Vital Core grew as large as a small spherical plum. At this point, the core was connected to countless veins, arteries and capillaries throughout his body, leading into every major blood vessel, and supporting every organ throughout his body!

This was no longer a mere illusory Vital Core…this was a true Vital Core, proving Yaan's success in breaking through to the 4-Star Realm!

Yaan slowly opened his eyes. A strong fire of vitality burned within the gaze, as did a hint of excitement and anticipation.

He could feel the immense power within his Vital Core. He could feel the Vital Energy circulating throughout his blood stream as his blood flowed in and out of the core. He could feel the overwhelming vitality that he now possessed…

A 4-Star Realm demon's vitality was so powerful in fact, that so long as the Vital Core was undamaged, the demon would not die!

That's not to say that body temperers were invincible aside from having their Vital Core destroyed. For example, if Yaan's head was cut off and his brain burned to ash, he would likely suffer from serious memory damage and perhaps lose his intelligence. Or at least, that would usually be the case…but Yaan was different, he was a Psyche Power cultivator, he possessed a Sea of Consciousness!

So long as he was alive, it didn't matter if his brain was damaged, because his memories were stored within his Sea of Consciousness.

Even if his body was destroyed, so long as his Vital Core was intact, he would be able to recover. Of course, the recovery process after losing one's head would be extremely slow and it would be difficult to influence such a thing consciously. Besides, realistically speaking, considering any situation where he lost his head to begin with, it would probably be followed by his death shortly after.

Despite the insane power of his vitality, his dantian was only beginning to show the initial signs of recovering. After observing this for a few minutes, Yaan let out a sigh, realising that this would take at least months to complete, if not years.

However, this still made him feel excited. For the first time since it was crippled back then, his dantian was finally showing signs of recovering!

But compared to the shocking improvement to his vitality, Yaan was more excited about something else…

Without even assessing his body's condition, Yaan leapt to his feet and urged his Vital Energy. His core lit up within his chest as the dense Vital Energy filled his blood vessels, then spread out to encompass his entire body. With the feeling of immense vitality emanating throughout his body, Yaan urged the energy upwards.

"Haha!" He couldn't help but laugh aloud as his feet left the floor!

Yaan controlled his Vital Energy to move him around, focussing on getting used to this feeling, before analysing how quickly his energy was being depleted. Eventually, he landed back on the ground and pondered.

"Due to the high Spiritual Pressure and gravity, my Vital Energy is burned away rapidly during highly controlled flight. In battle, it isn't really practical to sustain indefinitely, and I guess it's even worse for Qi refiners. That's why those Demon Core Realm fellows I killed only used their flight ability in short bursts to evade and attack."

Yaan was better off compared to Qi refiners in the 4th Trial Realm's environment when it came to the high gravity and Spiritual Pressure. In this environment, Vital Energy was not drained as rapidly compared to the Spirit Qi used by Spirit Core Realm Qi refiners and the Demon Qi used by Demon Core Realm demons.

"Now then, let's see how it changes when I combine my Vital Energy with Astral Power and Psyche Power." Yaan eagerly flew back up after recovering his Vital Energy, experimenting once again. This time, he imbued his Astral Power throughout his body whilst using his Psyche Power to better control both his Vital Energy and Astral Power.

The effect was phenomenal! Whereas before, high speed and high precision flying alone would burn away most of his Vital Energy within half a minute, now, he could easily endure for multiple minutes at a time. Not only that, but his speed and control both practically tripled!

Flying…was incredible!