Chapter 799: Heavenly Demon Body Refinement

"Before anything else, there’s one more thing I need to take care of. Given the anomaly caused by the bone flute, it’s best to stay far away from other immortal cultivators. I need to find an uninhabited island..."

Qin Sang flew away from Leichen Island, chose a direction, and traveled a great distance until he found a deserted islet.

There were no signs of cultivator activity nearby. Qin Sang landed in silence and set up isolation barriers before taking out his belongings.

The Mustard Seed Pouch, the star turban, the armguard...

He was actually very curious about the hooked-nose man's wings as well, but they had vanished along with the man’s death.

He casually picked up the Mustard Seed Pouch and swept his spiritual consciousness through it. A flicker of surprise appeared on his face.

With the hooked-nose man’s strength, his belongings should have been quite impressive.

Yet inside the pouch was nothing but a modest stash of spirit stones and a jumble of miscellaneous items. The most numerous were various types of demon bones. Although still valuable, they did not match the man’s level of cultivation.

What Qin Sang had truly hoped to find was the man’s body-refining art. The fact that his physical body was so powerful made it clear that the art must be extraordinary.

If the art suited him, focusing on body cultivation could be a viable path.

But no matter how thoroughly he searched, Qin Sang found no body-refining art or any secret art related to cultivating those wings.

His frown deepened. Suddenly, his gaze shifted to the star turban, and he reached out to grab it.

He noticed a common thread. Everything in the Mustard Seed Pouch resembled the star turban. They were all raw spiritual materials, with no signs of refinement or human crafting.

"This man didn’t rely on astras at all... Was he imitating the ancient body cultivators, pursuing a path of pure body cultivation without relying on any external tools, channeling all strength into the body?" Qin Sang was deeply astonished.

In ancient times, countless cultivation paths had flourished, each capable of reaching incredible heights.

Back in Ziwei Palace, he had seen a massive handprint that had obliterated a celestial city. Wandering Man had suspected it was the work of a top-tier body cultivator who had mastered the great divine ability of World Manifestation.

Human cultivators, unlike demonic beasts, did not possess inherited bloodline power.

In ancient times, secret arts were countless, and immortal herbs could be found everywhere. Now, even moderately valuable spiritual herbs were extremely difficult to obtain. Pursuing the path of pure body cultivation had become exponentially harder.

Qin Sang examined the star turban carefully, attempting to understand its properties. He soon confirmed his earlier speculation. The star turban was indeed a rare treasure that needed to be charged with energy before it could be used.

It was not man-made, but seemed to be the shell of a strange kind of spiral-shelled demonic beast.

By storing it within his body and continually refining it, he could infuse true essence into the star turban. When faced with an opponent, unleashing the star turban would produce terrifying power.

The power it could unleash was closely tied to the cultivator’s realm and the time spent refining it. It wasn’t as simple as injecting true essence, it required a complex process and considerable effort to condense its strength.

Qin Sang placed the star turban into his Qihai, sensed it briefly, and was immediately struck with lingering fear.

The hooked-nose man had likely used it once already. This time, he had not refined it for long. Otherwise, the damage it caused would not have stopped at destroying the Golden Jade Lock.

Of course, the star turban had its limits. Even if Qin Sang refined it to the greatest extent his current cultivation allowed, it could never match the power of the Flame Orb. Still, its destructive force was impressive. If used unexpectedly, it could directly kill a late-stage Core Formation cultivator.

Since the star turban was a natural object, it could not be evaluated with standard grade classifications. Its value, however, clearly exceeded that of a middle-grade astra.

The only drawback was that it could only be used once per battle. If it missed, it would be rendered useless for a period of time.

Precisely because the star turban was a naturally formed item, Qin Sang faced no resistance while refining it and was able to easily take control. He left it in his Qihai to slowly absorb and condense his true essence.

Aside from the star turban, another object caught Qin Sang’s attention. It was a tortoise shell tablet.

It was palm-sized, with natural patterns on the front and several strange runes carved onto the back, clearly added by someone later.

The runes were peculiar and indecipherable to Qin Sang. The aura of the tablet did not feel like it belonged to the human race, and it did not contain any powerful energy. He simply stored it away for now.

The rest of the spiritual materials were also valuable. A few of them were rare. As an artifact refinement master, Qin Sang could make the most of these items in his hands.

After storing everything useful, Qin Sang took a deep breath and picked up the armguard.

The armguard was woven from demon bones and extremely durable. Qin Sang summoned the ebony sword and channeled his sword qi, bringing it down directly on the thickest part of the armguard.

Crack!

The armguard shattered, and a cylindrical bone flute segment tumbled out.

Qin Sang let out a silent smile and retrieved the two bone flute pieces he already had. He brought the three segments together.

Snap!

The flute fused automatically. A flash of flowing light rippled across its surface before it returned to stillness.

A look of puzzlement appeared on Qin Sang's face. He muttered inwardly, wondering if this still wasn’t the complete set. After a moment's thought, he attempted to channel his spiritual consciousness and infuse true essence into it.

The next instant, a shocking scene unfolded.

The bone flute suddenly quivered, then erupted with radiant light, dazzling as the stars and so intense that it nearly tore through the barrier-breaking array around him.

Qin Sang was both startled and delighted.

Before he could react, the starlight suddenly condensed.

A passage of text formed from starlight appeared in front of him.

"This is..."

Qin Sang moved the bone flute, and the starlight-text rippled like waves, following his movements. The flute itself showed no powerful offensive capabilities. He quickly realized that it was not some peerless weapon, but rather something akin to a jade slip that was used to store information.

A jade slip, broken into three fragments, scattered across thousands of li. That was strange enough in itself.

Since it wasn’t a supreme treasure, Qin Sang couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. He focused on the text, and soon his eyes widened in surprise. It was written in the language of the demon race.

After Canglang Sea had been connected to the Demonic Sea, human cultivators had discovered hidden realms and ancient artifacts left behind by the demon race. As a result, they were no strangers to the demon race's language and had studied it in depth through ancient records.

For convenience, Qin Sang had also studied some of it. While his knowledge was limited and reading the entire text was difficult, he could still roughly understand portions of it.

"Titled Heavenly Demon Body Refinement... It describes tempering the body through the power of the cosmic orbit stars... using bloodline power to refine stellar malevolence, which also strengthens the bloodline itself... This is a cultivation art meant for the demon race!"

After reading the entire text and understanding its contents, Qin Sang couldn’t help but feel disheartened.

No wonder the bone flute contained stellar power. The technique was connected to the stars of the cosmic orbit, and the flute served as an aid to draw that power into the body and help the practitioner begin cultivation.

But it was an art of the demon race, and it required bloodline power to activate. Naturally, it was impossible for a human to cultivate it.

After all the effort and risks he had taken to obtain this treasure, he never imagined it would turn out to be a cultivation art completely useless to him.

Heavenly Demon Body Refinement

... Just the name alone carried immense presence and grandeur.

In ancient times, heavenly demons were beings ranked on par with Mahayana Realm cultivators, standing at the peak of existence.

Although Qin Sang only skimmed the surface, he was certain this was a top-tier cultivation art from ancient times, likely once a secret never passed down.

But no matter how extraordinary an art was, if he couldn’t cultivate it, it was no better than scrap paper.

"Hmm? Something’s off..."

Suddenly, Qin Sang noticed something. His gaze sharpened as he stared intently at the text.