Then drops appeared one after another. Each one resembled tears of reality leaking out from an invisible gash in the firmament. Three… seven… fifteen… The dripping intensified. It continued for a few minutes until a small blob of Water Source Marrow floated in the center of the gem. The Water Source Core then let out a final pulse. The dripping stopped.
Cha Ming took a deep, shaking breath as he willed the orb over. It was a struggle at first, since the distorted space-time made it difficult to control his transcendent force. “After all this time, I finally have you,” he whispered as he gripped the gem in his palm, feeling its cool surface with expectation.
“Looks like I underestimated how much time the Runic Nirvana Pill required,” Sun Wukong said. “But this is ideal. You can strengthen your body to better withstand healing your core.”
Cha Ming nodded. He took out his Clear Sky Brush and expertly extracted the glowing blue stream. Then he painted a flowing blue script in the air. He painted it one rune at a time in three dimensions. As his soul was now a transcendent one, the process was much faster than last time. Only a single day passed before the 1,080-rune script was completed. The moment the last character was painted, it burst into its component runes and rushed into Cha Ming’s three-colored marrow.
A thousand and eighty hints of blue light began growing where red, green, and brown coexisted. The blue lights brought flow to the marrow, which had originally been still and lively. It complemented the energetic, vibrant, and solid marrow from before. His blood changed over several times as the marrow transformed. The bad blood was expunged by his body through his pores, and though it was messy at first, the ooze generated diminished with every cycle.
The process took three days, much longer than last time. The transformation stopped once his blood was completely replaced. Then the blue runes, which still contained most of their original energy, dove into the voids in his bones. Living water runes filled the depths of space; they split and recombined, forming their own cycle.
Meanwhile, a smaller portion intruded on the once-stable worlds of blistering sands and scarce vegetation. Lakes, rivers, and oceans appeared on the once-dry planets, destroying the subtle balance that had been achieved over many years. But water was flow, and flow always proceeded to equilibrium. Soon, a cycle finished forming. It was a water cycle that flowed around and between pieces of land. Plants thrived, while the blistering heat was tempered by the quenching liquid.
But the world was missing something. Cha Ming knew what it was, but he was in no position to supply it yet. He would introduce himself to this makeshift universe once he found the Gold Source Marrow. In the meantime, he reveled in his increased strength.
Cha Ming’s flesh crackled as his body broke through to peak marrow-refining realm. His strength surged until it finally reached what he’d wielded in the Bridge of Stars. At initial bone forging, his strength had hovered around 4,320 jin, as his strength was one rank higher than other body cultivators’. It had increased gradually until he’d broken through to initial marrow refining, where he’d possessed a strength of 43,200 jin. One hour ago, his strength had sat at 87,200 jin. Now, his strength had grown to 108,000 jin, that of a half-step-blood-awakening cultivator’s.
One hundred and eight thousand jin. He knew that was a lot, but he also knew that it was far from what a mortal plane could support. Though transcending would increase his strength by a factor of ten, his journey on the Bridge of Stars told a different story. By completing a precarving on a core, his strength as a qi cultivator could increase by as much as three times and a third. He wondered if a similar thing was possible between peak marrow refining and blood awakening.
Regardless, Cha Ming felt nigh invincible on the Ling Nan Plane. His bones were as hard as half-step-transcendent treasures, which meant that only transcendent treasures or attacks that approached the transcendent realm could mortally wound him in a single attack. The only other way to kill his body was through attrition. His enemy would need to deplete the many small worlds of vitality within his bones. Even if half his body was somehow destroyed, including his internal organs, he could regrow them in just a few seconds. But mere flesh wounds? He couldn’t care less about them.
The surge in strength was very welcome, but with his newfound ability, Cha Ming discovered something else: a small speck of hope he’d gained with the boost in strength. If he found four portions of elemental marrow, he should be lucky enough to find a fifth, shouldn’t he? And even if he didn’t, did it even matter, since the Runic Nirvana Pill would be completed soon?
They waited. Some time later, a soft gray light appeared near the Sea God Clock Tower. The Runic Nirvana Pill had finally reached maturity. A maelstrom that sucked in all ambient energy didn’t appear around the pill like before. Such a surge of energy wasn’t required, as the pill had taken tens of thousands of years to absorb ambient energy from the plane. What did appear was a gray seal—a Grandmist seal. It slowly etched itself onto the pill over the span of a few seconds before the glow finally died down.
Cha Ming summoned the pill with his transcendent force and stared at it. He’d been fighting for this pill for many years. He’d braved the Bridge of Stars and Jade Moon Planet for it. He’d crafted its transcendent version but failed, only to have to settle for this pale imitation. A shadow of doubt still lingered in his heart, but he smothered it like an unwelcome ember in a doused fire.
“It’ll work,” Sun Wukong said, appearing again. “You have to trust in yourself, trust in your work. It won’t be perfect like the original Nirvana
