Once Zheng Jinlong's matter was settled, it also meant that the School of Blue Jade was also dealt with. Thus for the moment, there were no more worries about future consequences. Miao Yi could finally focus his energy into cultivating.
But before this, he still had one more affair to attend to. Having just taken over East Arrival Cave before, he had intended to reorganize the place but didn't have the time to do so. Now that he had, he decided to try performing Lao Bai's procedures on the Hell Mantis eggs that they had obtained from the Boundless Secular World before.
On the next day break, Miao Yi told Qian'Er and Xue'Er to keep watch outside with the intent of not letting anyone enter to disturb him. He stayed in the silent quarters alone to make preparations. He had no choice but to do so, because Lao Bai had said that this secret art must not be leaked!
When he took the large cluster of eggs out, the temperature inside the room seemed to drop by a little. The eggs, when held in his hand, resembled a chunk of ice.
Miao Yi clicked his tongue, "That is really freaky!"
He carefully removed the eggs one by one from the mucous membrane. A hundred black eggs, each about the size of a quail's egg, were placed onto a jade plate.
Again, he felt about and drew out a small knife in his hand, holding the handle in his right hand while grasping the cutting edge of the knife with his left palm. Immediately, the palm of his left hand was drenched in blood.
The blood-drenched palm swiftly flipped over and caressed each of the eggs. Previously, Lao Bai had told him that he had to use his blood to cover and wrap around each egg. There must not be any place left untainted. The blood essence was used to partition the Yin and Yang of the eggs, and at the same time, it was also to allow the dark embryo in the eggs to completely sense his breathing from the beginning of the breeding stage.
After expending some effort to make each of the eggs turn into a reddish-black color, he carefully ensured that there were no mistakes before spreading out his tied hair, and forcing himself to pull some hair out from his head.
This was also part of the secret art that Lao Bai had explained. The hair needed to be complete and should not snap; the root of the hair must be present as well. He had said that since Miao Yi wanted to incubate the dark eggs, then fate must not be severed.
In one grip, he pulled out more than a hundred of them. After meticulously picking through them, there were about a dozen strands of hair without the root which were useless, so he plucked a couple of more times repeatedly from his head, eventually making up the numbers for a hundred strands of undamaged long hair with roots.
He then stained the hundred strands with the blood from his left palm, and clutched the tips of the strands of hair in his hand.
Invoking his art, the long hairs immediately hardened, resembling ox hair needles and diverged apart, akin to a hedgehog.
The hand gripping onto the hundred strands of long hair was suspended over the jade plate. He invoked his art to individually target each of the eggs on the jade plate before immediately pricking them.
The outer shell of the eggs was not hard but was instead, abnormally tough and smooth. After expending some effort, he finally pierced the blood-drenched hundred strands of hair through the outer shell of the eggs, and into the eggs itself.
In Lao Bai's own words, this kind of technique was known as leading a thread through the two realms of Yin and Yang.
Yin referred to the dark eggs while Yang referred to Miao Yi. Miao Yi's hairs were the threads of fate for the two to connect. This would allow the Hell Mantis to breed and connect with him in heart and mind, accepting his control.
For Miao Yi, the reason why had he plucked his hair and performed self-harm to bleed, was in the hope that one day, he could control the frightful Hell Mantis.
Although he did not know exactly how powerful the Hell Mantis was, the fact remained that even after he became a cultivator, he could still feel that he did not have the slightest amount of strength to retaliate when facing off with a Hell Mantis.
It was practically at that moment when the hundred strands of long hair had stabbed into the dark eggs, that the sensation of a penetrating coldness was conducted through the hundred strands of hair. It wasn't purely gloom and cold, instead it seemed a sensation of hallucination had arised, as though he was instantly thrown into the netherworld, causing his spirit to shiver because of it.
Such a strange feeling made Miao Yi instantly sink into an absent-minded state. Gradually, his soul appeared to be floating all about in the netherworld, a place where there were no daylight, drifting about!
If an ordinary man had taken his place, this sort of condition would have meant that the spirit had left the body, and it would have been a great deal of trouble indeed.
Fortunately, the Fiery Star Technique he was cultivating exhibited a great function at this crucial moment. Once the source of the transcendence energy in his body, painstakingly cultivated by him, was eroded by the force of the coldness, it immediately bounced back and circulated by itself. A warm feeling swiftly expanded until it enveloped his entire body, instantly expelling out the force of the coldness with lightning speed. It was unable to stand being polluted and was full of tyranny indeed.
Miao Yi trembled violently for a while, and woke up swiftly from his half-conscious mind with a start. Immediately, he discovered that the surface of the hundred strands of long hair was unexpectedly coated with a layer of ice.
"Be good, be good! These dark eggs are extremely strange. They could actually cause me to lose my state of mind!" Miao Yi clicked his tongue as he gasped in surprise.
Right now, he was beginning to look forward even more to what this thing would be like once it hatched.
Calming his state of mind, he carefully recalled and mulled over the core techniques that Lao Bai had taught him. He grabbed the hundred strands of long hair with his hand and began to silently channel his transcendence energy along the hundred strands of long hair into the hundred dark eggs, using the secret art to carry it out within.
In less than an hour, Miao Yi opened his eyes and retracted his transcendence energy, loosening the grip he had on the hundred strands of long hair.
Under his cultivation method, the ice on the hundred strands of long hair that had already melted, the frost rapidly pervaded from the root, binding them up again.
He didn't know whether doing it this way was of any use, but in any case, he would perform it according to Lao Bai's instructions.
He flipped his hand to retrieve the Glorious Star immortal herb from within the storage ring, before blowing a small wisp of starry clouds from the immortal herb with pursed lips, to the opened knife wound on his left palm. The open, badly mutilated wound visibly made a quick recovery.
After his palm was restored to its former state, Miao Yi stared at the immortal herb in his hand, unable to refrain the urge to shake his head as he reflected. He was incredibly fortunate that the Hell Mantis had unexpectedly come barging out of Boundless Secular World with a Glorious Star immortal herb hanging from it at that time. If it wasn't for this immortal herb, he feared that he would have run into quite a bit of trouble when trying to hatch the dark eggs.
There was no other reason except that according to the secret art Lao Bai had taught him, the dark eggs would require him to use his own blood to be spread throughout their surfaces every day. It would require a total of eighty-one days. For this entire eighty-one days, there must not be even be a single day gap. Otherwise, all his previous efforts would go down the drain.
In other words, he had to bleed eighty-one times, and had to continuously cut his body for everyday of that eighty-one day period. If not for his good luck in obtaining this immortal herb, forget mortals, even cultivators cutting themselves to bleed everyday would be irksome!
In the flowing hot spring pool, Miao Yi washed away the blood stains on his hand. Then, turned around and left his silent quarters with the jade plate.
Upon seeing the item he held in his hand, Qian'Er and Xue'Er who were guarding outside couldn't suppress their curiosity. What was the blackish red thing that was growing white hair in the plate?
Regardless of what it was, Xue'Er took the initiative to reach out to help Miao Yi hold it.
Perhaps Miao Yi had now become used to ordering them about, so he handed it over to her in passing. He was about to explain a few words but came to a realization that Xue'Er's face had instantly paled, trembling as she held onto the jade plate, which soon involuntarily slid from her hands.
Luckily Miao Yi had quick reflexes. He grabbed onto the jade plate while his other hand caught Xue'Er's arm as she fell over.
He soon realized it was his negligence. The eggs' Yin energy in the jade plate was extremely strong. He had almost fallen into its trap so ordinary people would not even be able to withstand it.
However, the cultivation method he cultivated was extremely useful in resisting the Yin energy. He quickly invoke his art, channeling it into Xue'Er's body, sweeping out the Yin energy eroding her body.
With her eyes still rolled up, Xue'Er gradually recuperated at last. However, her vital energy had already been wounded in that instant by the Yin energy, so she appeared slightly weak as she stood there, her complexion a deathly shade of pale.