Chapter Sixty-Nine: Consuming Spiritual Energy

The energy pearl slid down his throat, leaving no sensation at first.

It was only when it reached his stomach that a sudden surge of sharp pain and intense heat erupted. It felt as if his digestive organs were being boiled, and his abdomen distended, swelling to twice its normal size.

Chen Yu had no time for reflection; he poured every ounce of his mental energy downward, desperately attempting to bind the spiritual energy that was rampaging and dispersing throughout his body.

Yet, the spiritual energy would not submit. It raced into his flesh, skin, and membranes, wandering incessantly within him.

The next moment, a deafening roar echoed in his ears, like a vast, sky-collapsing ocean crashing down upon him. Everything around him blurred into chaos, and even with his formidable mental strength, he was nearly pulled into a hallucination, on the verge of sinking into oblivion.

Within his boundless sea of consciousness, something stirred. But Chen Yu was no longer the helpless, passive man he had been when first encountering spiritual liquid. He opened his Niwan Palace at the center of his brow and, gritting his teeth, forced one of the three massive, swirling silver-gray vortices suspended there to shatter.

Instantly, a colossal wave of mental power surged forth, nearly rupturing his ethereal Niwan Palace.

Enduring the agony, he wielded this torrential flood of mental energy like a waterfall, engaging in a frantic struggle against the spiritual energy within his body.

However, the spiritual energy dispersed too rapidly. He had taken in too much, and he could only manage to reseal about two-thirds of it. The rest had already fused into his flesh, blood, and bones. To his surprise, Chen Yu discovered that his own Qi had also absorbed a significant portion, seemingly growing stronger in the process.

Can spiritual energy be directly converted into Qi?

Pfft! Before he could contemplate this further, the rupturing wounds beneath his skin warned him of his dire situation.

Had his body not undergone transformation, and his five internal organs not been forged to such an extreme, he surely would have been crushed from the inside out, leaving his internal structure in ruins.

He stepped out of the courtyard and reached the peach tree. After witnessing the efficacy of the mutated peach blossoms, he had infused the other six trees with spiritual essence as well. Now, although the first tree he had nourished had already closed its petals to nurture fruit, the others were still in full bloom.

Chen Yu did not dare to delay; the heat within him was intensifying, and his mental strength was barely holding it back. Worse still, his Qi, along with his flesh, seemed to be cheering for the arrival of the spiritual energy. Otherwise, the meridian system he had painstakingly built throughout his body would have been able to intercept all the incoming energy with ease.

He grabbed a massive handful and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing them like a cow devouring peonies.

Mouthful after mouthful, the thick bitterness nearly made his teeth ache, and he longed to vomit his very bile.

But he had no choice.

Meanwhile, as the mutated peach blossoms entered his system, the subtle warmth they provided was barely noticeable amidst the raging turmoil, yet their effect was undeniable.

In truth, the injuries to his internal organs were not severe. They had been constantly tempered and had undergone a separate transformation, granting them a much higher resistance to spiritual energy. At this moment, he focused his healing efforts on his muscles and bones, leaving the knife-like lacerations across his body unattended.

Viscous blood flowed over his skin, and thin wounds appeared on his face as if carved by invisible, silent blades. Yet, in the next instant, the power of the peach blossoms would stitch them back together.

He didn't mind the wounds on his body, but he still cared for his face.

Only after picking and eating the flowers from the better part of the tree did Chen Yu finally catch his breath. He felt as though his mouth and his entire digestive tract were filled with bitter sap.

Even the turbid air he exhaled carried a fishy, acrid stench.

It was a wonder he had been able to eat so much in one go. Looking at the bare, half-stripped peach tree, his face twitched. He felt he had suffered for nothing this time.

Why on earth had he thought to consume the spiritual energy? And all at once, too!

Turning his focus inward to the chaotic mess within, Chen Yu drew in a bitter breath, feeling as if a spring of gall had opened in his heart.

His injuries were secondary; his five internal organs remained barely intact, and his flesh, once the initial surge was halted, seemed to have gained some benefits.

Unfortunately, seven or eight-tenths of the meridian system he had worked so hard to build had been destroyed.

As for the various pathways he had begun constructing from his hands and feet as a secondary layer, they were in tatters, completely unrecognizable and utterly shattered.

Shaking his head with a sigh, Chen Yu quickly suppressed his frustration. Looking at it from another perspective, he had absorbed an entire energy pearl without exploding or dying—he had to admit, he had profited somewhat.

Perhaps.

After comforting himself, he directed his mental energy to wrap up the remaining spiritual energy that had not yet been "consumed" and gathered it into one place.

Since he had already absorbed it, and despite the danger, he now understood the efficacy of the spiritual energy. He certainly wouldn't let it dissipate and leave his body now.

If he were to do that, his suffering would have been in vain.

After a long while and a few more peach blossoms, Chen Yu felt his bloated stomach return to its normal size, though his physique seemed slightly larger. Fortunately, his head had not grown; the expansion was merely the result of the spiritual energy not yet being fully digested, something that would recover in time.

By then, perhaps his constitution would reach an even higher level.

He set these thoughts aside. Rubbing his bitter, numb cheeks, he turned to head back into the courtyard, failing to notice a small chestnut-red deer approaching not far away. Its lively eyes flickered toward the half-bald peach tree.

They sparkled.

It was the joy of discovering a new food source.

...

Hm? Why had his mental strength increased as well?

Back in the courtyard, Chen Yu carefully audited all the changes in his body. He examined himself inch by inch, noting and organizing every discovery; there might be clues related to the secrets of spiritual energy hidden within.

In the end, he let out a long breath, his gaze falling upon the remaining energy pearls on the stone table. Spiritual energy truly was an extraordinary thing.

Through his exploration, he could confirm three points for now:

First, spiritual energy provided significant reinforcement to his flesh, particularly the skin and membranes, while the effects on his original blood, bones, and internal organs were comparatively less prominent.

Second, spiritual energy was useful to his Qi and could directly strengthen it.

At this thought, he condensed a wisp of Qi to float in his palm. The meridians in his limbs and internal organs remained, while the rest were destroyed, but this did not prevent him from drawing Qi from his acupoints. The acupoints remained intact, even becoming a bit tougher, and the fetal membranes on their walls were stronger than ever, making it difficult for small amounts of Qi to break through.

Flesh production was rare, and his original blood could only be converted and increased through the transformative power of his heart and his increasingly robust bone marrow.

On the other hand, Chen Yu looked at his Qi. The effect of spiritual energy on Qi was, in fact, quite ordinary compared to its effect on his flesh. Yet, because it stood out as a distinct change, it was worth his attention.

Because after the injection of spiritual energy, the Qi did not proliferate—it was purely reinforced!

But it was not a qualitative tempering in the conventional sense.

To use a common analogy: his original Qi was like an average man weighing a hundred pounds. After tempering, it might turn him into a hundred-pound veteran soldier—a qualitative change in strength.

But now, under the enhancement of spiritual energy, he was still an average man, but his physique had grown from a hundred pounds to two hundred!

Chen Yu did not know if this change was good or bad, but for now, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. Because of the improvement in his Qi, his control over it had become much simpler; he could now project it up to ten feet, which already exceeded the limits of his mental-assisted control.

Not only that, but when engraving formation patterns, although the difficulty of some highly intricate, delicate lines had increased, the execution of most formation patterns had become much easier.

He had to admit, such a change seemed acceptable enough.