194: Chapter 193 Martial Arts Promises

Cao Xiao lay back on the chair, humming in pure comfort, feeling his body become light as if he were about to ascend to immortality.

He did not know how much time had passed when that wonderful feeling suddenly vanished. It turned out that the clump of negative energy was no longer receiving any replenishment and had become incredibly weak, on the verge of annihilation. Cao Xiao could not let it disappear, so he quickly withdrew his positive aura. However, as soon as he withdrew it, that bit of energy tried to escape his body, forcing him to restrain it once again.

This phenomenon was likely due to a change at the source; the consciousness within that corpse had severed the connection between them, which was why the negative energy was weakening from a lack of replenishment.

He was still craving more, so how could he let it go? The consciousness of the negative energy and the consciousness within the corpse were of the same origin. Since the other side had initiated the connection, he could forcibly re-establish it and continue to absorb energy.

Even the Supervision Department feared that corpse like a tiger. If he could use this method to directly finish it off, it would be a monumental achievement whenever he chose to reveal it.

The Supervision Department was a massive tree reaching into the clouds; Cao Xiao would not refuse to find a good spot to enjoy its shade.

If he was going to play, he would play big. Since the other side had discovered his theft, they would be on guard. It would be best to succeed in one strike and drain it dry instantly.

However, it was already too late. He checked the time and found it was already one in the morning; Xiao Pinger and her mother must be worried sick.

Xiao Xia had not yet woken up; it looked like he had been put through quite a lot earlier. Cao Xiao checked his body and discovered that Xiao Xia's physical state seemed to have aged twenty years all at once. His skin had wrinkles, and his internal tissues were damaged in many places. At his current age of over fifty, he feared that his life would reach its end in less than ten years.

Today's opportunity was thanks to Xiao Xia, so he might as well see the good deed through to the end and let Xiao Xia fully recover.

Having mastered the method of creating this miraculous energy, he could generate it within the industrial mother machine space by utilizing both yin and yang energies and release it directly into Xiao Xia's body. Doing this would not cause secondary damage to his body. Furthermore, the negative energy synthesized by the industrial mother machine had no consciousness and was completely under Cao Xiao's control and regulation. It was also far more vast than what he had absorbed from that corpse; channeling even one-thousandth of the energy of a nuclear fusion reactor could keep up with replenishing the maximum consumption of Xiao Xia's body.

As the energy was continuously and rapidly injected, Xiao Xia's bodily functions were strengthening at a rapid pace. All the cells in his body were slowly becoming full, and the cells in the damaged parts of his body were rapidly dividing, slowly repairing the damaged tissues. His skin regained its elasticity and luster, his muscles became firm, and even his hair, which had been somewhat gray, turned as black as ink. Even more miraculously, all the hair on his body and his fingernails had grown significantly.

The repair process lasted for a full half-hour, and Cao Xiao only stopped when Xiao Xia's body could no longer absorb a single bit more energy. However, the sight of Xiao Xia now made him somewhat regretful. He could have stopped long ago, but he had wanted to test the limits of the human body's absorption of this miraculous energy and see what kind of miraculous effect it would have in the end. As a result, it had become somewhat absurd; Xiao Xia now looked like a young man in his thirties, more than thirty years younger than his previous aged appearance. It wasn't just his appearance; his physical functions were also equivalent to those of a young person in their twenties or thirties. As long as he didn't contract any terminal illnesses in the future and maintained himself properly, living a full life to a natural death would be absolutely no problem, and the human life limit was over one hundred and twenty years old!

In just half an hour, he had reversed the life state of someone who had only been half-dead moments ago; this was simply a miracle!

This was a monumental blessing for Xiao Xia, but for Cao Xiao, it was a monumental problem. Such an obvious change could not be explained even if he had eight mouths, because it involved the mystery of longevity. According to the latest survey statistics from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Population Division, the average human life expectancy today was only around seventy, with men living on average five to ten years shorter than women. While the theoretical human lifespan was over one hundred and twenty years, in reality, people who lived to be one hundred accounted for only one in twenty thousand of the total human population. In this world, apart from those who wanted to die, no one could resist the temptation of longevity. Once this incident was discovered, the first people to come looking for him would definitely be his colleagues from the Supervision Department, and from then on, he would spend the rest of his life in the dark, sunless underground.

What he needed to do now was to quickly disguise Xiao Xia and then, before anyone discovered him, make him disappear from public view for a period of time. After a few years, even if others were suspicious, they would only think that Xiao Xia knew how to take care of himself and would not associate it with this incident.

He immediately began applying makeup to Xiao Xia, trimming his hair and fingernails back to their original state, dyeing his hair white, and applying a layer of harmless, wax-yellow pigment to his skin that would not be washed off in the short term. Once everything was done, he didn't look significantly different compared to before, just that his complexion had improved a little. It was natural for one's complexion to improve after recovering from a serious illness, so even Xiao Xia's wife would not be able to detect any issues in the short term.

Just as Cao Xiao finished, Xiao Xia woke up on his own. As he started to sit up, he felt full of energy and asked Cao Xiao somewhat unrealistically, "Mr. Cao, am I… better?"

"You have completely recovered, but you still need to recuperate for a period of time. Mr. Xiao, you can feel your physical condition now; the treatment results were unexpected. Your body is at least ten years younger. I am not talking about a feeling, but a reality. Do not ask why, because even if you ask, I will not tell you. No one would believe this if it were told, but you should know what this implies and what the consequences would be if people found out! I hope you can keep this secret forever, so I suggest you check out of the hospital first thing tomorrow morning. Moreover, you must pretend that you are critically ill and are transferring hospitals, then disappear for a period of time and go live in a completely unfamiliar place. It is best if you go abroad. If you need any help in the future, you can contact me," Cao Xiao said to Xiao Xia with a solemn expression.

Xiao Xia was stunned as he listened to Cao Xiao. He could not imagine that in just that short amount of time, his body had not only fully recovered but had also become younger. Was Cao Xiao reversing time or had he fed him a longevity medicine? Such things were unheard of in reality; an encounter that one could only see in novels had actually happened to him. It was simply too inconceivable!

Even without Cao Xiao saying it, he could imagine the consequences if people found out about this. There would always be some crazy people in the world, and his fate would definitely be worse than Cao Xiao's! This was both a great blessing and a great curse for him. If he couldn't keep the secret, the blessing would turn into a disaster. In the future, he would have to become careful and cautious in his speech and actions, sleep with anxiety, and his life would no longer be free and easy.

He was also very curious about how Cao Xiao had done it. He knew that the world of super-powered individuals existed, but no matter how miraculous those people were, they wouldn't reach such a heaven-defying level. He absolutely could not ask about this; if he couldn't keep the secret, Cao Xiao would help him keep it, and that was not something he wanted to experience.

Therefore, he took a deep breath and said solemnly, "I know the gravity of the situation. I am an archaeologist and know how to handle traces. No one other than you will know. Tomorrow, I will be 'critically ill,' then apply to transfer to a hospital abroad, and leave Hong Kong as soon as possible to settle in a remote place abroad."

"Good! Then go to South Africa. The environment there is relatively stable, and after tanning for two years, it won't be noticeable. I will leave now. In the future, as long as you are still on Earth, I can help you resolve anything." Cao Xiao gave Xiao Xia a solemn promise and rose to take his leave.

After leaving the ward, while Xiao Pinger's attention was focused on Xiao Xia, Cao Xiao slipped away quietly. During their short time together, Cao Xiao had grown fond of this pure girl—not in a romantic way, but simply a pure kind of affection. He did not know when they would meet again, and parting without saying goodbye would avoid added sorrow.

Leaving the hospital, he got into the Rolls-Royce provided by the hotel, driven by Duan Hong, and returned to The Peninsula Hotel.

Commissioner Zhang had called several times before, but he hadn't been able to answer. Presumably, the other side was waiting anxiously. He had no choice but to arrange for Li Quanshuo and Zhang Qiling to fly back to Huanghe City overnight to take the mechanism box there. He also had Zhang Qiling relay a message to Commissioner Zhang to notify the Supervision Department headquarters to urgently capture the members of the grave-robbing group that had kidnapped Xiao Xia and their boss across the country. That grave-robbing gang was an unstable factor that could threaten the safety of Xiao Xia's family at any time. The police would need to collect evidence slowly to make arrests, but the Supervision Department could use extraordinary means to get to the bottom of it in the shortest possible time.

With everything arranged, the matter of the mechanism box came to an end.

Because his body had undergone changes, his spirit was also overly energetic, and he had no sleepiness at all. Alone in the luxury suite late at night, feeling very bored, he continued the work he had left unfinished at the hospital earlier.

He speculated that the Taoist corpse in the Tang Dynasty royal tomb in Shangqiu, Xijing, should be a zombie, but it was an unknown form of zombie. The Supervision Department's records contained no mention of such a zombie with a transparent body. Moreover, zombies did not use negative energy for long-range attacks. That corpse also possessed a powerful consciousness and obvious intelligence, and it even had three eyes. Throughout history, the number of people who had grown a third eye could be counted on one hand, and all of them were figures from myths and legends, let alone it being a zombie.

The third eye was also called the Heavenly Eye or the Celestial Eye. It was not a supernatural power or magic spell cultivated by Buddhists or Taoists, but a real, innate eye. Those who possessed a third eye must have been accompanied by supernatural traits and were absolutely incredibly powerful during their lifetimes; it was not surprising that their corpses would exhibit various strange phenomena after death.

Regarding such a bizarre and powerful existence, Cao Xiao only dared to plot against it from such a great distance. If he were to actually see it, even with the protection of the industrial mother machine, Cao Xiao would run away in terror. Perhaps even with all his defenses up, the other party could kill him in an instant with just a glance; such an existence was not something he could rival at his current level.

Even now, when plotting against it, he had to be extremely careful; otherwise, he could not predict whether the other party possessed those kinds of evil curses that directly targeted the soul or fate.

That clump of negative energy should be mutated corpse qi. Taoists called the energy carried by ghosts "yin qi," and what dead bodies carried was called "corpse qi." In addition, a zombie's body also carried deadly infectious corpse poison. The aura on living people was called "yang qi," and what cultivators inhaled and exhaled was called "spiritual qi" or "primordial qi."

Corpse qi was essentially a type of energy, but its attributes were negative, opposing the yang qi on living people. Perhaps because corpse qi was produced by the physical body, it was only after it confronted and annihilated with the positive aura that it produced the miraculous energy beneficial to the body. Cao Xiao named it Yuan Energy. Based on its attributes, it should be a type of spiritual qi or a primordial energy with a higher energy level than spiritual qi. This Yuan Energy should be obtainable through cultivation after the body absorbed spiritual qi. However, due to various reasons such as the density of spiritual qi in the world, cultivation techniques, and individual physical cultivation aptitude, the Yuan Energy conversion rate for cultivators was not high. Yet now, Cao Xiao had directly mastered the path to synthesize Yuan Energy, which was equivalent to mastering the mystery and shortcut to physical cultivation. For a martial artist, this was a ladder to the heavens; from now on, the martial path held promise.

Unlike the passive absorption from before, this time it was an active attack. Since he was going to unleash a big move, he had to be prepared to defend against a fierce counterattack. Cao Xiao was not prepared to risk his own body; instead, he attempted to create an item that could store energy so that even if the other party counterattacked, it would not hurt him.

However, he tested every item in the space. Apart from some natural gemstones that could store a small amount of energy for a short time, others—including metals, non-metals, and other chemical compounds—did not possess an affinity for energy. Even the beryl with the highest affinity and largest volume fell far short of his requirements.

He sorted through his thoughts from the beginning and couldn't help but think of the Eight Extremes Yin-Devouring Formation Diagram. The unknown animal skin material used for that formation diagram was very strange; its hardness, toughness, melting point, and other characteristics were actually more exaggerated than the super alloy he had created. It did not look like an organic material of biological fur at all. Apart from space cutting, he could not find any way to destroy it, and it would release a mysterious energy field that prevented the industrial mother machine from detecting it. However, after being magnified countless times, the texture and structure on it indeed proved that it was biological leather, which made it impossible for him to start from the material. He could only change his approach and try to replicate the mysterious symbols on the formation diagram onto gemstones.

He used emerald to make an octagonal thin slice of the same size as the animal skin, replicated those patterns and symbols onto both sides, and performed energy infusion. After adjustment and testing, it only increased the energy retention time by one millisecond.

But this also allowed him to see hope, indicating that the patterns and symbols on the Eight Extremes Yin-Devouring Formation Diagram had the effect of binding energy. So, if he engraved the formation diagram on all ten sides of an octagonal disk, would it be able to completely prevent energy from dissipating?

But the other eight sides of an octagonal disk were rectangles, which did not meet the conditions in terms of shape, and it was impossible to combine octagons of the exact same size and shape into a polyhedron. After racking his brains, he thought of splitting and engraving the formation diagram onto an octahedron. Through the manipulation of the intelligent brain to conduct tens of thousands of experiments simultaneously, he actually succeeded in the end. A diamond-shaped regular octahedron composed of eight equilateral triangles could completely seal and prevent energy from dissipating from the inside to the outside. Although the stored energy was not much, he could increase the size, perform purification treatment, and continuously improve it. In addition, he could also use the positive aura of the formation diagram itself to refine it, which could also enhance its energy affinity, thereby expanding its capacity.

However, he was somewhat reluctant to part with that natural beryl, and he also felt its size was too small, fearing it would not be enough. In the end, he used a synthetic method to create a huge emerald diamond-shaped octahedron with a volume of a full one thousand cubic meters. Not to mention using it to plot against that zombie, he feared that if such a giant object were smashed down, it might directly finish it off.