Seeing the same result as before—the Silver Page was unharmed—Li Yan could only shake his head in resignation.
"Although the amount of this Li Fire is small, the power of its flame is comparable to the Earth Fire in the alchemy rooms on Lord Lao Peak. In fact, for a short period, its power is even a few degrees stronger than Earth Fire.
"After half an hour of calcination, the Silver Page shows no change at all. This means the Earth Fire of Lord Lao Peak will likely be ineffective against it as well."
Li Yan helplessly realized this fact. For a moment, he felt that all his previous speculations might have been wrong. 'The Essence Blood is still hidden within the Silver Page. I don't know what material this Silver Page is made of. Could it be that it exists solely to preserve important treasures?' Li Yan thought, feeling that this result might be the actual truth. And just like that, he was back to square one. Where was the Essence Blood? At the thought of this question, Li Yan felt his head begin to throb again.
Shaking his head, Li Yan decided not to dwell on this problem any longer. All reasons could only point to the fact that he was still too weak to solve this puzzle.
Li Yan could only reach out and grab the Silver Page from the air. At that moment, his eyes suddenly narrowed. He quickly opened his palm again and, with extreme speed, used his thumb and forefinger to carefully pinch and re-pinch the four corners of the Silver Page.
Then, at his fastest speed, he took out the other two unrefined pages and carefully pinched them several times as well. "They really are different. The four corners show signs of softening and have shrunk slightly inwards. The edges have become a bit thicker due to the shrinkage."
Just now, when the Silver Page landed in his hand, Li Yan suddenly felt that the edges of the calcined page seemed different. Upon careful inspection, he discovered that the four corners of the Silver Page had warped and contracted with a very slight curvature.
If Li Yan hadn't been observing the Silver Page for so many days and hadn't firmly memorized its patterns and minute details, he really wouldn't have noticed such a subtle difference.
"This means that the calcination of the Li Fire is effective on the Silver Page, but the amount of Li Fire is too small, and its power is naturally insufficient. From this, it can be seen that if I use Earth Fire for calcination, although it can burn for a long time, the fundamental nature of its flame is different, so it won't be able to refine the Silver Page."
Thinking of the power that the Li Fire exerted in a short time, and then thinking that even the alchemy Earth Fire might not be able to achieve the same, Li Yan couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. If the Li Fire could have achieved the current effect in the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, then Li Yan felt that by using Earth Fire, he would still have hope of obtaining the Essence Blood.
Now that there was hope, the amount of Li Fire was pitifully small, and the power of Earth Fire was insufficient. Li Yan's heart felt as if it were being clawed by a hundred claws. All sorts of ideas flooded his mind, but he rejected them one by one. In the end, he even fantasized about being able to use Nascent Fire, which was just the chaotic thoughts of a person at their wit's end.
It wasn't until a long time later, on a certain day, that Li Yan learned that his idea of using Alchemical Flame and Nascent Fire to refine the Silver Page had been tried by many Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators long before he had thought of it, but all had ended in failure. Only then did Li Yan realize that his guess back then had been half right—it was the fundamental nature of the flame that was different.
Just as Li Yan felt his head was about to explode, perhaps it was a flash of inspiration, his eyes suddenly lit up. "The Li Fire is effective because the fundamental nature of the flame is different. Fundamentally different... The origin of the Li Fire is that strange Blood River. The Blood River nurtured the Li Fire, perhaps..."
Thinking of this, Li Yan hurriedly pointed at the Li Fire Profound Yellow Fan. A miniature Blood River immediately appeared in the void of the cave.
Without another word, Li Yan took the Silver Page, whose four corners had already straightened out again, and tossed it into the Blood River. His Divine Sense remained firmly locked onto the page.
The moment the Silver Page was thrown into the Blood River, what surprised Li Yan first was not any change in the page, but the eight Flying Sickle Blood Mantises that had been cultivating inside. The instant the Silver Page fell into the Blood River, they scrambled out in a panic.
As they flew out, their bodies trembled uncontrollably. Even the soul of the early-stage second-rank Flying Sickle Blood Mantis had a look of incomparable terror in its eyes, its body shaking non-stop, as if the Blood River had instantly turned into a river that could take their lives at any moment.
Li Yan hurriedly communicated with the soul of the early-stage second-rank Flying Sickle Blood Mantis with his Divine Sense. He then received a piece of information. Just now, the Flying Sickle Blood Mantises had felt the advent of death. They didn't know where the death came from, only that in an instant, the Blood River seemed to have turned into countless blood ghosts clinging to them. They felt as if their very souls would turn into a pool of blood in the next moment, which made them instinctively flee the Blood River at once.
"Bloodline suppression, this is bloodline suppression. It's the level suppression brought by the supreme bloodline of the Undead Nether Phoenix." Li Yan's first reaction was that his guess was correct. If the Silver Page was a vessel for storing the Essence Blood, it shouldn't be without the function of isolating the pressure of the Essence Blood. This was like a jade bottle holding medicinal pills; before the jade bottle was opened, the fragrance of the medicine should not be constantly leaking out.
Watching the eight Flying Sickle Blood Mantis souls collapse to the ground in just a moment, unable to continue flying, Li Yan quickly waved his large sleeve and temporarily stored them in the "Earth-Spot."
In just this short time, when Li Yan's Divine Sense looked back into the Blood River, he was completely stunned. The Silver Page he had been watching had disappeared, and in its place, in the middle of the Blood River, was a single silver drop of water.
The water drop was only the size of a soybean, with only its top exposed. Although it floated in the Blood River, it was distinctly separate from the surrounding water of the river, bobbing up and down as it slowly moved across the river's surface.
From the water drop, Li Yan's Divine Sense felt a majestic and powerful force. This force was hidden and not released, firmly condensed within the silver water drop. Only a tiny trace of its power was emitted from the surface, but just this trace made Li Yan feel that his Divine Sense in the Blood River had become as heavy as a mountain.
"This Blood River is strange..." Li Yan's first reaction was not about the silver water drop, but that this Blood River was inscrutable in every way. The Silver Page he had refined for two days and two nights had turned into a drop of water in just a moment.
This Blood River was, of course, strange. Li Yan had known for a long time that this Blood River was strange, but he still said it out loud to himself. At this moment, it was just a different feeling in his heart.
"What is the Blood River made of? It can produce Li Fire, and it can refine the Silver Page in an instant. Could it originally have been a river? And who refined it into a magical treasure?" For a time, Li Yan seemed to have forgotten the "Undead Nether Phoenix" Essence Blood he had been thinking about for the past few days, and more questions appeared in his mind.
"The Blood River is definitely only a very, very small part of the original object. So what other functions does it have?"
It wasn't until a good while later that Li Yan finally pulled his thoughts back.
Li Yan sensed the pressure from the silver water drop, and now he came to a problem he had not considered from beginning to end.
"I've been so dazed by the joy of these three drops of Essence Blood that I've lost my usual state of mind. This is a drop of Essence Blood refined by an adult 'Undead Nether Phoenix.' I don't even know what terrifying realm it reached when it was alive. With my cultivation, how can I possibly refine it?"
Li Yan thought for a moment and felt that since things had come to this point, he had to give it a try. Even if he couldn't refine it, he wanted to know where the problem lay.
Li Yan had always been cautious. He didn't dare to touch the water drop directly with his hand. Instead, he formed a finger out of Spirit Power and slowly extended it into the Blood River, then moved it to support the bottom of the water drop.
The instant his Spirit Power finger touched the edge of the water drop, with a "bang," the finger immediately shattered. The part above the water surface instantly turned into specks of spiritual light that spread out into the cave.
Li Yan felt a great force strike him, shaking his body. "Huh!" After stabilizing himself, Li Yan let out a soft sound of surprise.
He had used nearly fifty percent of his power just now, and his mind was fully focused. But the moment his Spirit Power finger touched the bottom of the water drop, he felt as if it had been bitten fiercely by a deep-sea behemoth, and it instantly disintegrated.
Fortunately, all of this was within Li Yan's expectations. After steadying his mind, Li Yan gathered his Spirit Power again. This time, he raised his magical power to ninety percent, leaving only ten percent for protection.
When his Spirit Power-formed finger made contact this time, although it was still hit by a mysterious great force, it finally did not disintegrate. However, that great force traveled along the Spirit Power Li Yan sent out and struck his body, causing a stuffiness in his chest. His protective Spirit Power quickly circulated, which finally eased the pressure somewhat.
The Spirit Power finger that Li Yan had manifested slowly supported the bottom of the silver water drop. Then, Li Yan held his breath and concentrated, slowly lifting it out of the Blood River's surface.
The instant a small part of the silver water drop protruded from the water's surface, the unexpected happened. The cave was immediately filled with an incomparably heavy pressure. Although the cave had long been protected by the "Great Dragon-Elephant Formation," crushed stones still rolled down the cave walls like rain.
The "Great Dragon-Elephant Formation" also emitted a series of "kaka" sounds. If Li Yan had felt the pressure of the silver water drop was as heavy as a mountain before, now with just a tiny bit of it exposed from the Blood River's surface, the cave felt as if it had been directly pressed into the eighteenth level of hell.
"Pfft!" A large mouthful of blood sprayed from Li Yan's mouth. The moment the blood left his lips, his entire person was pressed to the ground by an irresistible force.
He slammed face-down onto the hard rock floor. Due to his body being heavier and the blood he spat out being lighter, and the force in the cave coming on so swiftly and violently, Li Yan himself hit the ground even before the blood he had spat out.
Li Yan's entire head first passed through the blood mist still floating in the air before crashing to the ground, so his face and hair were covered in crimson. Only after a dull thud did the scattered blood fall to the surroundings.
Li Yan felt a burning pain on his face, and a breath was stuck in his chest, making him feel extremely uncomfortable.
For a time, his head was muddled. It took several breaths before he slowly recovered. Li Yan propped himself up with both hands, laboriously pushing his body up section by section, until he finally sat upright again.