The juice from the fruit exploded in Yin Xiu's mouth tantalizingly as it slowly trickled down his throat. He hurriedly finished off the fruit and then patiently waited for the poison's effects to take hold. A few seconds after he had completely consumed the fruit, he felt his body weaken, his muscles softened, his skin wrinkled, and his hair started to slowly turn white. His vitality was rapidly disappearing.
'A pure Wood element poison is the antithesis of what wood attributed treasures generally do. Instead of adding to my lifespan or healing me, it's absorbing my lifespan instead... hold on, is it using my lifespan to form a seed of some sort?' Yin Xiu inwardly marveled as he felt a lump forming rapidly in his stomach which was exuding a familiar life force. It continued to grow larger, while Yin Xiu became increasingly hunched, age spots slowly forming on his once flawless face. His eyes also slowly turned turbid eventually his entire body now exuded an aura of twilight. Before he truly died of old age, the runes lit up in his chest once more, directing the remaining toxins into the few remaining bones in his head.
The potent poison swiftly refined them completely, the once pristine white bones turning the same ominous black as the rest of his skeleton. As soon as the refinement was completed the bone in his chest thrummed subtly, initiating a mysterious reaction which started branding dim runes onto every bone in Yin Xiu's body. Waiting quietly to be completely activated and sublimate into something more. Once the unnoticed reaction was completed, Yin Xiu's appearance was then quickly reverted to his normal teenage self, almost as if the stooped old man was just an illusion, going back in time to the prime of his youth.
The mysterious bone in his chest corralled the remaining poisons once more, directing it to Yin Xiu's liver. As the toxins seeped into his liver it shuddered uncomfortably, almost as if it would soon stop functioning, luckily Yin Xiu's increasingly poisonous blood had prepared his organs enough that it didn't fail at this crucial moment. The leftover poison was quickly integrated masterfully by his physique. The toxins managed to refine his liver by around sixty percent before running out of potency.
Yin Xiu then hunched over in pain suddenly, as the seed that was just created was forcibly rejected by his once again healthy body. He heaved repeatedly as it was slowly removed from his stomach. After wretching for close to ten minutes Yin Xiu finally coughed out a strange emerald green seed. It was oval in shape and twisted into a familiar braid, almost identical to the unique form the fully matured plant's stems grow.
'Well this was an unexpected harvest.' He carefully picked up the seed before placing it in the newly empty medicine box to ensure no vitality was lost. 'It's my vitality after all, I don't want to have to waste a single bit of it.' He shuddered briefly as he recalled the horrible method of condensing this particular seed. 'The Heavens are truly ingenious to create such things... I was wondering why only one fruit was a treasure, and the other two were poisons, but it ensures two more will eventually grow. It is a truly ingenious if not somewhat sinister method.' His musings quickly turned in a different direction.
'Perhaps Hu Fang will let me plant it somewhere on her territory, the summer area she controls should meet the necessary conditions. I think she shouldn't mind, it should be quite lucrative. A pure wood type sprit fruit will always be in demand, and for the poisonous ones either I can use one, or we can use weak spirit beasts to condense the seeds.' His thoughts gradually becoming clear. Resolving to talk to Hu Fang later, he turned his attention to the remaining fruit. A hint of trepidation in his movements as he slowly picked it up. As he hesitated to debate whether or not to take a break to recover from the recent unpleasant experience. He felt his chest heat up, as if quickly urging him to consume it. Begrudgingly listening to his body he quickly devoured the fruit, ready to undergo the awful process of his body weakening and aging once more.
To his surprise, the poison didn't even have the chance to react, as it was forcefully directed straight into his liver by his physique. The refinement beginning once again in earnest. The liver whose original purpose was to detoxify harmful substances in the body had its function slowly warped. Instead of detoxifying the blood it now helped refine the toxins in Yin Xiu's blood becoming more poisonous as a result. It took roughly fifteen minutes after he had eaten the last fruit when his liver was completely refined, an illusory wood character flashed as a green band formed around the organ. As soon as it was completed, a pure aura radiated off of Yin Xiu's body as small saplings rapidly sprouted, and grew next to him. Just as it appeared a miraculous spectacle of life was about to unfold, they abruptly withered and began to turn black, shriveling into themselves before dying completely. The poison strangling their short lives almost as soon as they had started.
As the band stabilized itself completely it rotated around the organ once more, before branching off to surround his Dantian. Waiting for the other four elements to also reinforce Yin Xiu's Dantian in a cycle of mutual benefit. Essentially creating a rudimentary formation that allowed his mortal body to accumulate and store Qi. One-fifth of the freshly created runes on his bones also began flickering to life as they progressively lit up with a warm green glow. The glow exuded a pleasant feeling almost as if returning to nature. However, it was ever so slightly off-putting. A lurking toxicity that could end all life was disguised as the provider of life. The glow dimmed, as if in preparation to unleash their full glory when the remaining runes were also lit up alongside them. Their complete form unknown.
Now that Yin Xiu had refined the wood element liver his organ refinement path had been truly set. His heart would have to be the next organ to be refined as it corresponded to the fire element which is generated from wood, after the heart would be the spleen correlating to earth, then the metal attributed lungs, and finally the water attributed kidneys.
'Finding a strong enough fire attributed poison might take a little while, we only have two more days until we are planning on attacking the stone-armed baboon tribe, and it would be more beneficial to focus on that and finish practicing my throwing skills to the best of my ability instead of worrying too much about the next step in my organ refinement.' Yin Xiu stood up with an indescribably refreshing feeling, as his body once again took another step toward the miraculous. Only a short ways away from truly embarking on the path of cultivation.
Just as Yin Xiu was about to head to the clearing to practice his weapon skills, he noticed a black tiger walking up to him curiously from the forest, another poor beast hanging limply in his mouth. He trotted up to Yin Xiu before casually spitting out the beast. "Yin Xiu did you advance successfully?" A tinge of expectation in his voice.
Yin Xiu smiled broadly in return "I did indeed, the poison this time was once again quite torturous to cultivate with, but I completed both my bone and liver refinement completely!"
"Congratulations on taking another step closer to Immortality Yin Xiu!" Hu Meng paced around excitedly before a slightly pretentious look appeared on his face as he coughed slightly, "You still have quite a ways to go before you can stand toe to toe with me, but don't worry as the senior I will generously look out for you as my junior brother." Hu Meng's condescending tone quickly made Yin Xiu's smile a little more forced than a moment before.
"Don't worry Hu Meng, as the older one of the two of us, I'll surely become the strongest quickly. Once you are the junior brother I'll surely protect you from the wind and rain." Yin Xiu naturally rebutted.
"We'll see about that then." Hu Meng's hackles raised at the challenge-laced words. The man and tiger stared at each other for a few solid minutes without backing down. Eventually Yin Xiu was forced to look away as his eyes quickly dried up uncomfortably.
"Hmph." Hu Meng snorted victoriously, his gloating expression making Yin Xiu's teeth itch. 'He's just a dumb cat don't argue with him.' He forcibly reasoned with himself while taking a deep breath to calm down. Yin Xiu then quickly remembered something quite important "Hey Hu Meng, is senior Hu Fang busy right now? I made a new discovery that I think she might be interested in."
"I believe she isn't busy, but a discovery you say? What exactly is it?" Hu Meng's expression lighting up curiously. "I'm sorry Senior Brother Hu, it's above your authority." Yin Xiu smirked, his tone dripping in sarcasm.
Before Hu Meng could make a comeback he rushed up the mountain with laughter, completely ignoring the outraged howls of his friend. Stopping outside of the cave entrance Yin Xiu politely bowed, "Senior, Junior Yin Xiu wishes to speak with you."
"Come in." Hu fang's magnetic voice quickly resonated from the inside of the cave. As Yin Xiu entered he was once again struck by the majesty that Hu Fang's mere presence exuded. Not allowing his thoughts to wander too much Yin Xiu quickly showed Hu Fang the seed and detailed the experience of its formation.
"A type of spirit plant that we can continuously grow? Also, you believe that we should be able to steadily harvest two seeds at once because the second one was stopped from forming due to your physique suppressing it?" Hu Fang's eyes glowed with golden light as she pondered briefly. "I certainly have no issue with you planting it in the summer zone... How about this, when we harvest them, the normal spirit fruit will belong to us, and at least on poisonous one will be used for condensing a new seed. How you wish to use the other is up to you."
"Thank you senior." Yin Xiu said with a happy smile before quickly retreating out of the cave once his business was done.
"This human is always full of surprises." Hu Fang muttered before once more closing her eyes to meditate, making the last bit of progress before the territory expansion.