At 11:40 p.m., Huai Shi, as if an alarm had gone off, opened his eyes from a dream. After washing his face while still in his pajamas, he pushed open the door to the basement and slid straight down the rope into the cellar.

In the familiar swelter, only the hum of the inferior air purifier could be heard.

"Is it time yet?"

Huai Shi simply sat down on the ground and gazed at the silent, large cauldron operating within layers of steel—more precisely, it should be called a Rune-Sealed Refining Furnace.

This thing, looking no different from the huge hot water tank set up at country banquets, had cost Huai Shi over three million. Even so, he had bought second-hand goods phased out from a regular Alchemy Workshop.

As Raven put it, a brand new one couldn't be bought even with thirty million, so it made sense to go for a second-hand one that was still functional, considering it would be discarded after one use anyway.

A disposable Refining Furnace.

Such extravagance, Huai Shi could only hope that it was worth the price.

Without need for a clock, Raven listened to the low echoes within the furnace. "Five minutes left."

Silence ensued, and no one spoke again. Apart from the buzzing purifier, only the faint sound of dripping could be heard from the furnace.

Unlike other Alchemy Furnaces, this type employed a hydroponic low-temperature cold refining method. It used a special solution to fully atomize the material before molecular coupling and extraction, sacrificing time and efficiency to pursue absolute stability and gentleness.

To use the developer's words, even if you overloaded it with the most flammable and explosive materials, there would never be any explosions. It was touted as absolutely leak-proof and completely safe.

Huai Shi could only hope that their word was solid. Otherwise, if the stuff inside the furnace were to leak, not just the Stone Marrow Pavilion, but the entire Qingshiu Mountain behind it might risk contamination.

Most of the research conducted by the Sublimators required extreme caution or immense risk. A slight error could create Hell on Earth.

What was now being refined and purified inside was nothing short of potent poison.

According to Raven's recipe, half of Huai Shi's blood was used as the base material. Like mixing a cocktail, it underwent hundreds of steps over three days. Various ingredients were added, transforming the Blood of the Yin Soul, teeming with negative energy, into a toxin filled with various primordial malice and Dark Essence.

From the most original plague formula to the essence of wolfsbane, everything was hidden within. It was followed by smallpox, dengue fever, Ebola, and other terrifying epidemics that had to be properly stored in bio-labs. There were even various viruses and bacteria that proliferated in the Border.

During the entire process, Raven had displayed skills that would be enough to win the World Grand Finals of the Chef Demon contest.

Even the memory of carefully handling these substances a few days prior gave Huai Shi nightmares. The pranks he'd made to kill Raven in the past two days were child's play in comparison; they didn't even deserve to carry her shoes.

In Raven's work, one-third was spent creating a monstrous poison with a mutation rate so fast it was measured in seconds, while the remaining two-thirds were used to devolve and revert it, preserving the most basic structures and then forcing it to enter the most stable state of Deep Sleep.

It was like creating a Demon and then forcibly turning it into a baby.

If Huai Shi could barely understand a bit of the first third, then by the latter part, he had no idea how Raven completed such an inconceivable miracle.

"And... what's the goal?" Huai Shi asked. "You make a great effort to build a skyscraper, then tear it down to just the foundation. Isn't that a bit of a waste?"

"Doesn't that prove that the foundation alone can support a skyscraper?" Raven replied calmly. "Proving that is enough."

Huai Shi wanted to ask more but heard a crisp echo coming from the furnace. The lengthy smelting had reached its end.

"First, go turn off the air purifier and the ventilation fans," Raven said gravely. "Just in case."

Soon, all the electrical devices were shut off. Huai Shi pulled over the covers, layer by layer, then sealed the final alloy gate completely, cutting off all internal and external connections. The narrow cellar became increasingly suffocating.

Fortunately, Raven was not a living being, merely a bundle of ink, and Huai Shi could enter the state of the Yin Soul, minimizing his need for oxygen to avoid suffocation.

As the layers of the furnace doors opened, a vial with crystal-clear droplets slowly rose from the core amidst the sudden release of vaporized ammonia and various solution vapors.

In the vial, roughly twenty milliliters of blood had been refined to colorlessness, appearing much like some new type of saline solution, entirely ordinary. In the cold of the ammonia, it remained liquid, but once it returned to room temperature, it would rapidly vaporize. At that moment, a boundless Demon would occupy every corner of the cellar.

If no one catalyzed it deliberately, in a few days, countless viruses would burst forth as though thronging to a fair, turning this place into a no-go zone.

"Are you ready?" Raven looked back at him.

Subconsciously taking a deep breath and holding it, Huai Shi nodded slowly. Carefully, he picked up the tweezers, then opened the box beside him.

The box contained one of the prizes he had seen in the resting room before: a seemingly ordinary and broken bowl filled with a handful of Ashes.

It was a gift from one of the judges at the Chef Demon competition.

Although he didn't know why, his choice of mask was indeed of good taste.

In Raven's words, it was something of little use—although it wasn't planned, it was a pleasant surprise that it could be used.

Although it looked like a bowl, it seemed to be subjected to some unbreakable law. No matter how he shook it, or how the Ashes tumbled, they would not fall out of the bowl. Even if turned upside down, they would hover in the air inside the bowl.

It was as if they were bound within. But this binding was incredibly fragile, seemingly pierceable by even a pair of tweezers.

When Huai Shi's tweezers reached into it, the numerous Ashes collapsed inward with the closing of the tweezers, and in the end, they became a speck of dust clamped in the middle by the tweezers.

The nearly inexhaustible bitterness and anger condensed into a single point.

It was a Disaster Crystal, a concentration of Dark Essence far surpassing Apocalypse, powerful enough to leave Huai Shi's negative energy behind by hundreds of thousands of miles.

Huai Shi couldn't imagine what kind of Fate and experiences would leave such immense resentment and despair behind after someone was burned to Ashes.

And now, as the tweezers moved and opened, that speck of ash silently fell into the test tube, merging with the dangerous virus.

Without the slightest rejection or abnormality, and with no resistance or repulsion, the two became one as if they were meant to be that way from their inception.

Thus, the mindless virus seemed to have been endowed with a dark Soul, creating waves of grey ripples, with numerous colors changing rapidly, until at last, they became a black that even countless Suns could not penetrate.

"So, the deed is done." Raven quickly screwed on the test tube cap and let out a sigh of relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Although this thing isn't technically demanding, doing it in an almost completely unprotected environment like this is extremely thrilling. One wrong step, and your place would have exploded…"

"Can we find another place next time?" Huai Shi wiped away a cold sweat. "There are so many deserted places on Qingshiu Mountain, yet you just had to pick my home."

"Don't forget, the Stone Marrow Pavilion is like an incomplete Spirit Coffin. With the old house here, it's like having a Spirit Coffin suppress the earth veins and floating spirits, at least ensuring the purity of the Source Substance. Do you think Alchemy is like inviting someone to dinner, where you just lay out a table anywhere and start? Even inviting someone to dinner isn't this careless, right?"

Raven carefully placed the test tube into an ice chest lined with dry ice, nodding in satisfaction. "With this, we can begin the advancement of the Yin Soul."

As she spoke, she pointed to the pallet in the middle of the cellar, her tone becoming sultry, like a late-night female radio host. "Alright, lie down quickly. Time is precious; we shouldn't waste it."

Huai Shi rolled his eyes.

Indeed, expecting this woman to be serious was the real waste of time.

Huai Shi lay back, resting his head on a pillow, rolled up his pajama sleeves, skillfully tied the rubber band around his own arm, and then flicked his pale forearm, examining the raised veins on it.

"Come on," he closed his eyes, not daring to look any further. "Don't go easy on me just because I'm a delicate flower…"

Raven was stunned for a long while, and after a long time, she replied awkwardly, "Sorry, that joke is so old I actually didn't get it for a moment."

"…Just get on with it, OK?" Huai Shi was utterly deflated.

He lay spread-eagled, awaiting Raven's transformation.

If one were to explain it briefly, he was going to undergo an advanced blood dialysis.

Yes, this was Raven's plan, the shortcut for Huai Shi to advance from a Yin Soul to a Mountain Ghost.

Legend has it that the phantoms and ghosts roaming the mountains were once mistaken for godly miracles. Their essence, found within the Mountain Ghost Stigma of the Heavenly Kingdom Genealogy, is actually inherently connected to the Yin Soul.

Their gift lies in their Ability to extend their own attributes into the surrounding environment.

The only difference is the medium.

The Yin Soul uses Source Substance, while the advanced Mountain Ghost, in addition to the original fog of Source Substance, can also obtain life force that is completely compatible with plants.

In fact, this talent was especially suitable for gardening and planting.

However, unlike the Druids, who are Shepherds of Trees, Mountain Ghosts cannot make plants grow or wither out of thin air. Instead, they achieve the effect of bestowing and extracting life force through its circulation.

In short, after the advancement, not only would the effect of Huai Shi's own Apocalypse Fog be greatly enhanced, but he would also gain plant affinity and the Ability to bestow and extract life force from plants to a certain extent.

He could be called a little expert in gardening.

The original advancement wasn't so simple, but with the Jug of Tree Blood in hand, the lengthy ritual and painful transformation could be skipped, acquiring the best results in the fastest and most effortless way.

And during this process, Raven, struck by a sudden inspiration, decided to add a little something extra for Huai Shi.

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