Chapter 645: Sailing in the lower decks

After everything that had happened, Fading Fang sailed as far away and as fast as possible from the carcass of the Stormriser Leviathan Emperor at the bottom of the Divine Blood Ocean. Everyone knew that it would ultimately attract a lot of scavengers. Most likely, it would cause an even greater Blood Storm than what they had experienced. Indeed, the very blood of the Stormriser Leviathan Emperor would cause one by itself. But as many demonic beasts would fight over the body, more and more blood would be spilled. In the end, it could produce a devastating Blood Storm even 9-core demonic beasts and late Spirit Warriors and Accomplished Demons couldn't even survive. The crew wasn't as clear as to how the Blood Storms were caused. Unlike Cao Yun, they had not understood the entire process. However, their superstitions told them that the death of powerful demonic beasts would bring about a Blood Storm.

For many, it was some form of divine act. Maybe it was a remnant of the blood of the Weaver of Souls interacting with the death of a demonic beast. Anyway, even though their reasoning was flawed, they had the right idea. Besides, what mattered to them was to survive their travels, they didn't really care about exploring the reality of the phenomenon.

After Cao Yun had slain a 9-core demonic beast, the crew had a completely different attitude toward him. Of course they had known that he was much more powerful than them. But at this moment, they fully realized how terrifying he could be. Cao Yun was not even thirty years old at the moment. When he had been sent to the Desolate Sepulcher, Cao Yun was around twenty. By now, less than a decade had passed by. Honestly Cao Yun himself wasn't entirely sure how long it had been.

To be fair, Cao Yun had been through a lot in the past years. Although the last year or so had been going relatively well for him, his first years in the Desolate Sepulcher had been terrible. He had traveled a lot throughout the continent. He had faced many deadly situations and had almost died a few times. After much suffering and hard work, he had survived and had risen higher than ever before. If he had to guess, he had spent eight years in the Desolate Sepulcher, by counting the time of his current travel. But he couldn't be sure whether the portal he had gone through had sent him to the exact same time.

Obviously, he hadn't been thrown into the past or the far future. But it was possible that he had lost a year or two, maybe even more. There was no way for Cao Yun to know as he didn't know how time had been behaving in the portal he had taken. After all, he knew that in this realm where the Weaver of Souls and Demon God Da Mo were time was different. It was a real possibility that he had spent several months or years in that transitional place before breaching through it and entering the Desolate Pillar.

Anyway, Cao Yun would soon get his answers. Fading Fang was now sailing straight for the shore of God's Land. In a matter of weeks if not days, Cao Yun would finally be back.

Since the crew was now awed by his presence, even Jing Baiyu had to ask Cao Yun not to work. It wasn't that the crew was afraid of him, but they wouldn't act in the same way around him anymore. And the White Whale couldn't afford any mistake. At this point, he wanted to end this travel as soon as possible. Besides, the Divine Blood Ocean would get more dangerous for a while.

On that topic, Cao Yun apologized to Jing Baiyu. There was almost no time to talk while sailing on the Divine Blood Ocean but the captain found the time to talk to Cao Yun, alone in the lower decks. Cao Yun was pleased to notice that Jing Baiyu's attitude had not changed at all. To be fair, he wasn't even afraid of Lord Wanghuo either. Moreover, Cao Yun, despite all his strength, did need a ship to sail safely through the Divine Blood Ocean. Demonic beasts were less dangerous than nature itself. And Jing Baiyu was the best navigator in the entire Piaolu planet.

"Boy, don't take it to heart. For the time being, just focus on... on whatever you want to focus on, I don't know... Stay with your chicken, we'll handle the ship."

"I understand, sir. I am sorry about the Stormriser Leviathan Emperor. It might make your travel back more difficult."

"Why the hell are you spewing out such idiocy?! You think we're punishing you because of that...?! Are you stupid?! Is there something wrong with your brain?! Well, there's got to be something wrong, right?! After all, you've fought this abomination... Even Lord Wanghuo would have probably ran away and left us to fend for ourselves... Stupid boy! You saved our lives! Don't take us for ingrates and beasts, right?! It's just that the crew won't be able to work as well with you among them. You're like some royalty, some great genius. They won't focus on their job as well with you in the crowd. Some will try to curry favors or impress you. Others will be too nervous not to make any mistake. Those big men can be quite sensitive I tell you. Pathetic...!"

"I really understand, sir. But I sincerely worry about you on the way back. I don't have to face the consequences of my actions but you..."

"Shut the hell up! If I tell you there's no problem, there is none! Who is the best navigator?! You or me?! Who knows this Divine Blood Ocean better?! You or me?! Do you want to sail Fading Fang in my stead?! Is that what you want?! No?! Then shut the hell up! With all the demonic beasts trying to carve a piece of this Stormriser Leviathan Emperor and its territory for themselves, other parts of the Divine Blood Ocean will be so calm that it won't even be fun. Don't worry a thing about us! Without your intervention, we'd be dead already after all. And we all accept that we can die at any point. Besides, it's not as if you've attracted the beast yourself. Stop blaming yourself, for the Weaver's sake! You sound like a young girl..."

The captain became more and more vulgar as the conversation advanced. In the end, Cao Yun simply accepted the current situation. Although he was worried about the crew, there had not really been any other way at the time. Maybe he could have tried to only injure the beast so the ship could escape. But it could have decided to chase them until the end. Moreover, even if it had only been injured, many demonic beasts would have still attacked the Stormriser Leviathan Emperor to take advantage of any injury. All things considered, this was probably the best outcome. And what Jing Baiyu was saying made sense.

In the lower decks, Cao Yun set up more array formations to completely isolate himself and Hongyu from the outside world. Even though they were getting closer to the shore, Cao Yun didn't want to waste any time at all. In fact, as he was getting closer to the shore, he was getting more and more anxious. Despite his victory against such a powerful demonic beast, Cao Yun deemed that he was only strong enough to challenge a middle Spirit Warrior or Accomplished Demon in a fair fight. Of course, he was not forced to face them in a fair fight, he had many other tactics such as array formations, pills, stealth, poisons, ...

That being said, he was not confident he could kill Emperor Weide himself. Although he could probably find allies to help him, at least he hoped it was still the case, he truly desired to kill Emperor Weide with his own strength. In a sense, it was the wish of the Cao family.

Cao Yun gave a large piece of meat to Hongyu as well as the largest demonic core from the Stormriser Leviathan Emperor. Within the isolating array formations, he had set up smaller ones so that Hongyu could absorb most of the Qi within without much problem. That being said, she still needed time to digest it all. But now her cultivation would go as fast as it possibly could. Honestly Cao Yun wasn't sure how far she could go with these demonic cores. During the condensation process creating demonic cores, energy was always lost. Besides, each demonic core was not as dense in every species.

At the very least, those demonic cores should help her form her seventh core and maybe even go all the way to the 8th core. But he couldn't be certain whether she would be able to fully form her eighth core, let alone her ninth demonic core. Still, it would help her get there much faster. It was hard to guess. However, Cao Yun would imagine that in less than six months, she should have formed her sixth demonic core. After all, she was able to digest Qi much faster than many other demonic beasts. In fact, the young man wondered whether it was due to her bloodline alone or if the Evil Core and Wrath Core were playing a role. Besides, his pills and array formations also helped her condense Qi faster than her metabolism could usually do on its own.

While she was cultivating by simply eating and absorbing Qi, Cao Yun focused on his soul. He had now formed the five Turbid Demons associated with the Five Elements. Flying Poison was the Soul of Earth, Unclean Evil the Soul of Wood, Stinking Lungs the Soul of Metal, Corpse Dog the Soul of Water and Fallen Arrow the Soul of Fire. Once again, those attributes were to be considered in a philosophical sense and not in any physical aspect. Besides, the first three Turbid Demons were also known as the Po of Jing, the Po of Qi and the Po of Shen, as each one was connected with those aspects of the body.

Then, Corpse Dog and Fallen Arrow were respectively referred to as the Po of Yin and the Po of Yang. Those were the names of the non-corrupt version of those souls. With those two Turbid Demons, Cao Yun had now both the Yin aspect and the Yang aspect of his Po. The last two Turbid Demons were the Soul of Wind or Po of Life and the Soul of Void or Po of Death. Each one was responsible for the coordination of the seven Po during birth and the formation of the body as well as during death and its decomposition. Those were two very difficult Po to control. But honestly, Cao Yun wasn't afraid of them at all. Everything had gone well for him and it would continue, especially now that he could also use his Soul Embryo.

The next Po he would work on was the Po of Life, whose Turbid Demon was the Yin Bird. It was associated with anguish. Unfortunately, Cao Yun could boast that he knew a lot about this emotion already. He didn't need a lot of effort to feel it throughout his body.

Instead of worrying about his asura cultivation, Cao Yun focused on the human cultivation system. Indeed, he sent his intent into his Soul Embryo. At first he couldn't tell whether anything was different but he focused some more. It was very subtle but the Soul Embryo had changed a little. Of course, there was more energy coming out of it. But Cao Yun had been looking for deeper changes in its structure. Unfortunately, it was still impossible to tell how long it would take for this Soul Embryo to wake up. It could wake up in a minute or in a year, or in ten years. Such a thing was almost impossible to predict. Maybe someone like Cleansed Asura could have predicted it better with all of his knowledge. But even then, it was unlikely. Probing one's Soul Embryo was dangerous in itself so no one would risk that just to get an estimate.

Cao Yun kept on using 'Golden Hammer on Silver Rock' to slowly wake up his Soul Embryo. This time though, he also mobilized more and more of his Turbid Demons. After seeing the impact they had on his Soul Embryo, Cao Yun truly wanted to test that out. That being said, he wasn't reckless and didn't want to risk his future. Thus, he was extremely careful, monitoring his mind and soul as much as possible.

After a very long time, he decided that there was no danger. However, he couldn't see any obvious result either. Maybe it was the awakening of a Turbid Demon that had pushed his Soul Embryo. If that was the case, he would need to wait several months, two years at most, to see it again. Hopefully, his Soul Embryo would have awoken on its own by then.

After some reflection, Cao Yun decided to start working on the third stage of the Embryo Realm. After Awaken the Embryo, the next stage was simply known as Strengthen the Upper Dantian. The goal of this stage was obviously to temper one's Upper Dantian with the express purpose of welcoming the Soul Embryo in it. There were two components to it. First of all, the Upper Dantian had to be strong enough to stand the presence of the Soul Embryo as it would increase the pressure. In the worst cases, it could kill the cultivator or drive them insane over time as it would also increase the pressure in one's skull.

The other aspect though was something Cao Yun could not yet train. Indeed, it was to familiarize the Upper Dantian and the Soul Embryo with one another so they wouldn't clash at all. As long as one's Soul Embryo wasn't awakened, it was so dangerous to move it around that it was akin to suicide. Even Cao Yun wouldn't attempt that at all as he wasn't suicidal.

So Cao Yun decided to strengthen his Upper Dantian. With his mind cultivation, it was already very powerful. But Cao Yun knew he could strengthen it some more. Besides, he now knew how to do so effectively after working on his Lower Dantian and Middle Dantian. In fact, he could use his Golden Blood to make an even better job. It wasn't random if the Upper Dantian was the last one to be strengthened as one had to be extremely careful with this one.

As Cao Yun and Hongyu were in the lower decks, a few weeks passed by. Finally, Fading Fang stopped moving. Immediately, Cao Yun felt it and opened his eyes. It could only mean two things!