HSSB352: Dragon's blood refining body
His control of his aura-qi extremely intricate, Yan Zhaoge opened a fist-size hole on the ice pillar, not damaging the ice surrounding it in the least.
However, from within that hole, an extremely powerful qi and blood could immediately be felt.
When praising a martial practitioner's strong, healthy qi and blood, their physique shocking, one would sometimes praise them as 'qi and blood full of power and grandeur, resembling dragons and elephants'.
And what currently lay before Yan Zhaoge and Ah Hu was a true dragon.
While it was already long dead, only its corpse left behind, that vigorous, flourishing qi and blood could still be felt, shocking and intimidating the surrounding area, as though the two were currently truly standing before a live, powerful lifeform.
It could be imagined how shocking an aura the dragon would have possessed when it had still been of this world.
However, while only a small hole had been opened, the suppressive effect of the ice pillar was instantly compromised as its effectiveness immediately began decreasing.
Within the ice pillar, the dragon's scales actually began to heave up and down together.
This dragon was already dead, and things like its revival would definitely not occur, but the spirituality it contained had not dispersed, and remained unwilling to be restricted.
Yan Zhaoge had long been prepared for this as the pillar of the Divine Palace suppressed it once more, the true dragon's body regaining its former calm.
Through the hole, the white dragon scales that shone with a faint golden radiance and emitted heavy white qi could be seen.
This was an ice dragon. While it was dead, cold qi was still emitted from its body unceasingly, the coldness penetrating one's very bones.
Yan Zhaoge extended his index finger, aura-qi agglomerating at his fingertips, gradually transforming into a streak of light vapour, extending through the hole, resembling a long, thin sword of light.
The sword of light extended unceasingly, coming into contact with the corpse of the ice dragon.
Ah Hu looked curiously at Yan Zhaoge's actions.
While it was already a corpse, the powerful firmness of a dragon's body was still an indisputable thing. Especially when this was a complete ice dragon's corpse, no deficiencies or wounds on the exterior of its body whatsoever, complete and without flaws.
Under such circumstances, wanting to break through the defence of the dragon scales, it was undoubtedly an extremely difficult thing. The defensive power of the scales of dragons was definitely no joke.
Ah Hu thought that even with an awesomely sharp low-grade spirit artifact on hand, he himself would also not be confident of breaking open the flesh and blood of this dragon's body.
However, Yan Zhaoge often performed deeds that were impossible for others, as Ah Hu still had confidence in his Young Master's ability to succeed.
Yan Zhaoge was focused to the extreme as the tip of his sword of light extended forward unceasingly, till it directly touched the ice dragon's corpse.
He did not use the sword of light to barbarically attack the dragon's body. Instead, as it touched the dragon's scales, it turned from tough into supple, resembling flowing water as it permeated towards the dragon's body.
A clear lustre was applied onto the dragon's corpse, circulating unceasingly.
As though it had been stimulated, originally already having appeared very calm and stable after having been stabilised by the pillar of the Divine Palace, the dragon's body now shook once more.
Yan Zhaoge watched this with a focused gaze, extending his index finger and shaking it unceasingly with a unique and strange rhythm.
Accompanied by the shaking of his index finger, the stream of light that extended from his fingertip also began shaking unceasingly, attempting to merge with the aura of the ice dragon's corpse.
Gradually, the stream of light on Yan Zhaoge's fingertip dimmed, its radiance no longer as dazzling as before, instead appearing blurry and unclear, full of chaos.
And accompanied by this, the ice dragon's corpse gradually regained its silence once more.
And within the stream of light, a faint ice-blue substance could vaguely be seen as it flowed out from amongst the dragon scales, merging within the stream of light.
A blazing hot, flourishing qi and blood emanated, yet caused Yan Zhaoge and Ah Hu to feel an extreme, bone-piercing chill.
A phenomenon that originally seemed extremely full of contradictions appeared at this moment, yet did not appear sudden and unexpected at all as Yan Zhaoge and Ah Hu both had on expressions like it was only natural.
Looking at that ice-blue blood merged within the stream of light, Ah Hu was slightly dazed as he exclaimed, "Young Master, this is dragon's blood ah, pure dragon's blood. It is the first time I've seen some in my life."
While the ice dragon had already been dead for who knew how many years, its flesh and blood had not decayed, a flourishing spiritual qi still contained within.
As Ah Hu had said, in the current Eight Extremities World, one would not be able to find true dragons, at most only scaly dragons or hornless dragons.
Even if one could find a true dragon's corpse, it would most likely only consist of its skeleton, and even many skeletons were incomplete, some parts missing.
Therefore, such pure dragon's blood was truly rare to the extreme. Other than the founder of the Water Domain's Jade Sea City having once obtained a complete water dragon's corpse, others at most had had great luck that equalled the heavens as they discovered small amounts of dragon blood stored in containers amongst the legacies of predecessors of before the Great Calamity.
However, such luck was really as rare as the feathers of phoenixes and the horns of unicorns.
Under the entire heavens, most people, even many Martial Grandmasters and Martial Saints included, would not have the chance to personally true dragon's blood in their entire lives.
Through the stream of light extended from his fingertip, Yan Zhaoge guided out the dragon blood.
As the ice-blue liquid touched Yan Zhaoge's fingertip, Yan Zhaoge's finger involuntarily trembled lightly as he felt a chill, his fingertip numbed for an instant.
Yan Zhaoge sucked in a deep breath, his face gradually turning completely red.
A short time later, a layer of green qi vaguely emanated, red and green flashing intermittently, going back and forth in a cycle.
The qi mass within his body that resembled chaos now changed, splitting up to form fire as well as ice, intermingling whilst also opposed.
With this as a base, it stood against that dragon's blood that was icy cold whilst also blazing hot at the same time.
The ice-blue blood extended unceasingly, beginning to envelop Yan Zhaoge's finger before continuing to extend upwards, moving about Yan Zhaoge's palm and then arm.
The acupoints of Yan Zhaoge's body pulsed as though breathing, expanding and contracting as it unceasingly took the dragon blood within, refining and then absorbing its pure, refined qi.
Above his head, a roiling pillar of qi rose like steam, condensed and not dispersing, resembling a smoke signal.
Guarding by Yan Zhaoge's side, Ah Hu simultaneously observed their surroundings vigilantly.
After a long time, Yan Zhaoge completed his refinement of the dragon blood, the steaming qi above his head gradually dispersing, the intermittent glows of green and red also disappearing from his face as he returned completely to normal.
Within his gaze, the glow was bright as it had never been before, but it was gone in a flash, very quickly turning warm and smooth as it was even more sheathed than it had been before.
The only abnormal area was Yan Zhaoge's hand, which currently still shone with a faint blue light.
Ah Hu looked at Yan Zhaoge, "Young Master, your hand?"
Yan Zhaoge smiled, "It's fine. The essence of the dragon blood has not been completely refined, just requiring a bit more time. Other than outer appearance, it does not affect anything."
"You come try too."
Saying thus, Yan Zhaoge continued drawing dragon's blood essence from the ice dragon's corpse, then not refining it himself, but handing it over to Ah Hu.
Ah Hu clicked his tongue in praise, grinning widely as usual as he absorbed the dragon's blood essence, next beginning to try to refine it.
In the end, due to having bitten off more than he could chew, the martial arts he cultivated in also not all-encompassing like Yan Zhaoge's Peerless Heavenly Scripture, Ah Hu's entire body was enveloped in dragon's blood, shining completely blue.
Despite having gradually refined and absorbed most of the dragon's blood essence, with this not going to cause any other negative effects, Ah Hu was still directly shocked by this.
Yan Zhaoge looked at him, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, "…at least it's not green."