Now, Hun Yuanzi had silently released his inner elixir, clearly indicating that he no longer cared.
“What’s going on?” Yang Hao couldn’t hear the conversation between Hun Yuanzi and the Kadis Dragon Clan at all, and he was sweating profusely.
“I’ve always taken advantage of you, so now it’s time to return the inner elixir to you,” Hun Yuanzi feigned indifference. Yet anyone could discern from his voice that Hun Yuanzi was now speaking with a tone imbued with deep, aged emotion.
“I don’t want you to return it. I like keeping it with you, just like depositing it in a bank. Today you swallowed so much from me, someday I’ll make you spit it all out!” Yang Hao became frantic, shouting, “What exactly are you trying to do? We still need to fight this dead dragon together, we still need to escape this cursed place, we still need to seek revenge!”
“Listen to me!” Hun Yuanzi firmly silenced Yang Hao, “My current strength is simply insufficient to confront dragon breath, and there’s no way we can escape from the Kadis Dragon Clan. There’s only one way now, the only way…”
“What way?”
“The Dragon Breath Pill!” When Hun Yuanzi spoke this name, his voice was even more desperate than Yang Hao’s, “This is a pill only recorded in legends, no one has ever truly seen it, let alone crafted it. Legend says that whoever consumes this Dragon Breath Pill will no longer fear dragon breath, and might even rapidly elevate a common person’s spiritual power, enabling direct mental communication with the dragon race.”
Yang Hao really couldn’t understand why Hun Yuanzi was so desperate, “If there’s such a great thing, then quickly teach me how to cultivate it. I’ve got the cauldron and the herbs with me. Just tell me what you need!”
“It won’t work, it won’t work.” Hun Yuanzi was so desperate he had become indifferent, “The Dragon Breath Pill is no ordinary item. Do you think it can be cultivated whenever you want?”
“What’s so difficult about it? Is there any pill I can’t cultivate now?” Yang Hao was truly不服气 (unconvinced). Even extremely challenging pills like the Soul Spring Elixir, which nearly transcended cultivation levels, he had once successfully created. At worst, it would simply drain his pill-cultivating abilities and weaken his combat strength—which was still far better than dying.
“The final crisis teaching,” Hun Yuanzi was practically saying his last words, “What did I teach you before? What are the three essentials for cultivating pills?”
“Ability, tool, and ingredients.” This question was child’s play for Yang Hao. Although over such a long time, Hun Yuanzi had always seemed to joke around and never acted like a master, he had indeed taught Yang Hao many things.
“The Dragon Breath Pill is a legendary pill that has only appeared in tales. As far as I know, no one in our sect has ever successfully cultivated it,” Hun Yuanzi spoke as if telling a distant story unrelated to himself, “The history of the Pill Cauldron Sect is long and enduring, spanning thousands of years, but the legend of the Dragon Breath Pill dates back millions of years. At that time, humans and dragons still coexisted in the same world. To communicate with dragons, human sages thought of cultivating the Dragon Breath Pill. However, those ancestors never anticipated the enormous cost they would pay for the Dragon Breath Pill.”
“What cost?” Yang Hao’s eyes widened, almost forgetting that there was still an ancient dragon in front of him.
“To attempt to cultivate this pill, ancient cultivators nearly lost half their numbers, with countless sages’ blood spilled before the dragons,” Hun Yuanzi’s words made Yang Hao instinctively look at the distant Kadis Dragon Clan. The dragon was calm, wings folded, exuding no aura of taking lives in an instant. Hun Yuanzi continued, “When the Dragon Breath Pill was finally created by a cultivator, he stood atop a mountain, gazing into the distance, only to find all his friends and warriors dead below the valley. The Dragon Breath Pill in his hand had become unbearably heavy.”
“What happened then? What happened after he took the Dragon Breath Pill?”
Hun Yuanzi fell silent, whether in sorrow or nostalgia, after a few seconds that felt like centuries, he used a sigh to suppress his emotions, “If he had truly taken that Dragon Breath Pill, perhaps the fate of humanity would have changed long ago. We descendants could have understood the gods’ thoughts, and there would have been no bloody history afterward.”
“He didn’t take the Dragon Breath Pill?” Yang Hao could hardly believe his ears. After spending so much time and paying such a huge price, nearly half the cultivation experts died to obtain the Dragon Breath Pill, yet that person didn’t take it.
“No.” Hun Yuanzi was decisive, without hesitation, “The original intention of cultivating the Dragon Breath Pill was to communicate with the dragon race. But that person, holding the Dragon Breath Pill, saw the blood of his compatriots killed by the dragons. Suddenly, he felt that such hatred no longer required any communication between humans and dragons. So he cried bitterly and threw the Dragon Breath Pill into the cliff. From then on, this person returned to the human world and diligently trained more experts. From that time on, humans wrote the first chapter of the dragon-slaying history.”
“The dragon-slaying history?” Yang Hao exclaimed in astonishment. He never imagined that the history of the Dragon Breath Pill would be linked to the famous dragon-slaying history.
Strictly speaking, the dragon-slaying history was not a segment of the era but a name people gave to a certain period. In the previous era, the human world would send a ten-member dragon-slaying warrior group every ten years to engage in a life-and-death battle with the dragon race at a certain dragon cliff. Although in ancient times, dragons were also considered gods, humans were like moths rushing to their deaths, repeatedly engaging in the same dragon-slaying battles for over a thousand years. Countless experts died on the path of dragon slaying, but many dragons also perished.
This dragon-slaying history only truly ended when dragons completely disappeared from the human world. The stories recorded in ancient history and magical legends were called the Age of Rebellion.
Could it be that today Yang Hao would also become a dragon slayer like those in the Age of Rebellion? This was something Yang Hao could hardly imagine. But at least he had come to deeply understand the origin and difficulty of cultivating the Dragon Breath Pill.
“The ability, ingredients, and tools required to make the Dragon Breath Pill are all extremely difficult, so since the dragon-slaying history, no one has been able to create even one,” Hun Yuanzi actually managed to smile, “Among the three, ability is the simplest. It only requires a cultivator who has broken through the Yuan Ying stage and uses pill-cultivating ability.”
“This is still called simple!” Yang Hao almost spat out blood, “I struggled with all my might, endured countless life-and-death trials, and finally barely broke through the Harmony stage, but I’m still far from the Yuan Ying stage. Not to mention needing to use pill-cultivating ability, which for a cultivator means a direct decline in combat power,” “As for the other two, ingredients and tools are unimaginably difficult.”
“The raw materials required for the Dragon Breath Pill are impossible for others to find, but for us now, they are within reach.”
“Dragon breath!” Yang Hao was naturally not stupid, he figured it out from the name itself, “Of course, the raw material for the Dragon Breath Pill is dragon breath. That damned Kadis dragon keeps glaring at me, looks like it’s about to spray a mouthful for me, its dry son, to taste.”
“The truly unimaginable part is the tool for cultivating the Dragon Breath Pill.” Hun Yuanzi paused mysteriously, “After countless people lost their lives, we finally learned that to cultivate such a divine pill as the Dragon Breath Pill, one must use a real dragon itself as the container for the cultivation.”
“Real…?” Yang Hao swallowed hard and asked a redundant question, “Would the dragon agree?”
This was indeed a redundant question. If dragons were willing to agree, would there have been those days when thousands of people died? So there was no need for Hun Yuanzi to answer; Yang Hao already understood, “Aren’t you just talking nonsense? According to what you’re saying, the Dragon Breath Pill is impossible to create, and we can only watch helplessly as it kills us.”
“Only the Dragon Breath Pill can save you!” Hun Yuanzi insisted unexpectedly, “Without the Dragon Breath Pill, you’re doomed, but as long as you can make the Dragon Breath Pill, you can still save your life. Don’t forget, you can’t die now. You have your responsibilities.”
Yang Hao didn’t want to die, but he had been pushed to this point. His mood was terrible, and he couldn’t help but roar, “You said yourself that the requirements for cultivating the Dragon Breath Pill are so difficult that it’s practically impossible to achieve.”
“It can be done!” Hun Yuanzi was decisive.
“Can be done?” Even if Yang Hao were to be killed, he wouldn’t believe it, “How is that possible? I haven’t reached the Yuan Ying stage, how can I cultivate the Dragon Breath Pill?”
“I haven’t, but I have. Thousands of years ago, I already broke through the Yuan Ying stage. Otherwise, how could your master still exist as a ghost without dispersing?”
Yang Hao was stunned. He finally understood that all along, Hun Yuanzi had not been asking him to cultivate the life-saving Dragon Breath Pill, but rather Hun Yuanzi himself wanted to do it.
“But…,” “What about the tool? It must be made using a real dragon. That Kadis dragon isn’t your relative. Would it let you enter its body to cultivate the pill? That’s a joke. You’re still making such a ridiculous joke at a time like this.”
“It will. It’s waiting for me to enter its body,” Hun Yuanzi said calmly, as if making a decision he had long intended to make, “Although the Kadis Dragon Clan is one of the most brutal creatures in the universe, it does not feed on human lives. Even consuming countless bodies brings no benefit to the dragon race. The true sustenance that supports the growth and strength of the Kadis Dragon Clan is the cosmic power entities.”
“Power entities? What are power entities?”
“A Yuan Ying is a power entity. A soul with power, an awareness with power, that is a power entity. Such power entities are the best food for dragons. Only by consuming large amounts of power entities can they become more powerful.”
Yang Hao shuddered all over. He suddenly understood why Hun Yuanzi had been speaking so strangely today, why he seemed to want to teach him everything in one go, why Hun Yuanzi seemed to be placing all the responsibilities on his shoulders.
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