Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 3159 Dead and Gone

It took 4 hours for the blood inside Xuan Luhei to reach the equilibrium Alex had been looking for. Then, he drained the snake's blood once more and poured more blood from the vial so he could start using it again.

Once Xuan Luhei returned to cultivation again, Alex focused on the drained blood, investigating it to see what had changed. He went through all of the blood and came to the realization that most of the bloodline elements within the blood had gone black, and the blood aura within it had also reduced by quite a bit.

The blood had died, the energy within it working to directly improve Xuan Luhei's bloodline. What should have taken decades had now been done in a matter of hours because of this method. Though, there were a few more sessions of transfusion to go before Xuan Luhei's body returned to how he was when he left for the lower realm.

The matriarch glanced at the blood, her slit eyes narrowing in thought.

"We still have a distance to go before we can consider this test successful, but I must say that you've already far surpassed my expectations," she said.

Alex smiled. "I'm certain I'm not the first person to give someone blood from someone with a stronger bloodline, and I will certainly not be the last," he said. "Can you tell me how often you use this method to help others?"

"Rarely," the matriarch said. "Our blood works exactly the same way as it is doing right now, only the efficiency of it is far less than what I'm witnessing."

"I concentrated the essence of many liters of blood into a few. I'm sure if you take that into calculations, it wouldn't be that high," Alex said.

"No, I have taken that into calculations. All the blood I've managed to gather in the past 3 years would not have been enough to recover him as much as you have just in the past few hours. We used to do it in the past when Black Tortoises with much denser bloodline were alive, but now, we just can't afford to. The cost is just too high."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Then you always knew this would work."

"I knew it would work if the concentration was high," the matriarch said. "But we've never known how to improve concentration. We tried for ages in the past and never quite succeeded the way you have. The idea has long since been forgotten in the current family."

Alex slowly nodded. He only knew these things because he had the Book of Boundless Healing. Without it, he would've been left sucking his thumb as well.

"Does the concentration have to be high?" Alex asked. "I primarily chose to improve the density of the bloodline so I could include all bloodlines from every branch of the family, thus reaching a bloodline that would belong to the progenitor. That and so I could get through things faster, instead of letting them continue to take in weaker blood forever."

The matriarch stared at him for a moment, a dry snort escaping her nose. "To think you did this by chance. Yes, it is important for the blood to have a concentrated bloodline. Imagine the bloodline as heat, and you're trying to form a sword. You could place the metal ingots in weaker fire for an entire year and it will never melt. But increase the temperature by a lot, and you'll get your sword within the day. That's how important it is."

"Ah!"

The analogy made perfect sense to Alex. So he had done good to improve the concentration of the blood.

He placed his focus back on the snake, searching for any changes, before looking back at the blood before him. He had to put it away for later use. While the blood was useless for this purpose, there was

enough blood aura there he could absorb.

Blood aura was necessary in keeping the blood 'alive, so he hadn't touched any of it just yet and was waiting for the right time. However, if he left it outside like this, the aura would slowly dissipate. Alex was going to put it away, but he noticed something inside the blood that caused him to pause.

The bloodline elements within the blood had gone black, which was what Alex had noticed at first. However, upon further examination, he was surprised to find that the amount of bloodline elements within the blood, be it dead or alive, was less than what it had started as. Alex scratched his chin, trying to understand where the rest had disappeared to. It couldn't still be inside the snake, as all blood was drained out. Then... had the snake absorbed it? Had that been the thing that had improved his bloodline?

Alex needed to find out. He let his senses enter the snake again, but this time focused on just a portion of the blood, following it as it passed through the snake's channels.

Focusing inside the beast was harder as its body rejected foreign senses naturally, but Alex forced through, focusing on just the portion

of blood he was following.

As the snake cultivated, Alex saw the blood move through blood vessels until it reached the portion where it merged with the meridians before moving out. The merge happened for no more than a few centimeters at best, where both blood and Qi moved together.

And when the blood came out, a small portion of the bloodline elements had turned black, and a smaller portion was missing.

Alex's eyes widened slowly as he realized what was happening. The Qi was either stealing the elements or using up its energy every time the blood passed through the small merged segments of the meridian.

The Qi both killed the bloodline and also used it up.

'The bloodline elements aren't that different from Elixir if I think

about it, Alex thought. 'Once it was in my body, I had to cultivate to take it in as well. Only, the bloodline elements can't handle Qi as well

as Elixir can!'

That made Alex wonder if it was better when the bloodline element

was dead, or if it disappeared entirely.