Paragon of Sin

The process of Bai Xiu's assimilation was without difficulty or surprise; she absorbed her smaller version with ease, digesting her, leaving an empty physical vessel that was the Pure Utmost Cauldron. Wei Wuyin noticed that a portion of that Pure Utmost Cauldron's base that contained an Alchemic Rune was the only thing missing, not even the faint traces of Utmost Purity Mist were touched by Bai Xiu; obviously, it was far too low grade for her.

"Yum!" Bai Xiu manifested into her full form, appearing as an extraordinarily cute and impressively dignified human princess of a grand dynasty. When she appeared, the former excessively haughty demeanor of hers had long since been completely refined, exuding a reserved dignity that greatly resonated with a Crown Princess than a typical, ordinary princess of a Mortal Kingdom. She licked her lips deliciously.

Wei Wuyin quietly inspected her physical spiritual form, noticing that her existential presence felt more tangible and complete. He hadn't gotten the sense earlier that she was incomplete, only malnourished, so this was a little bit of a shocker to the mind. Her recent consumption of grade three, four, and five Utmost Purity Mist had greatly handled her malnourished state, almost bringing her to a full human size like Wang Yutian. Now, she felt different.

If he had to draw a comparison to this feeling with something else, then it would be the assimilation of his alternative self that was as suave as could be from the River of Time. She was still herself without any change but she was now more.

"Enjoyed your meal?" Wei Wuyin smiled with relief coursing through his mind. As long as Bai Xiu was safe, he didn't mind easing back into normalcy.

"Mmhm!" Bai Xiu nodded excitedly. She was too big to sit on the edge of her cauldron despite her recent shrinkage from the Transcendent Mystic Concoction Session, so she manifested a seat out of Utmost Purity Mist and sat down. Her pretty eyes blinked.

"There's a lot to say, Master!"

Wei Wuyin had already formed a seat for himself, constructed out of a mixture of Enlightened Scholarly Mist and Utmost Purity Mist.

"I'm all ears."

"Mn!" Bai Xiu collected her thoughts and memories, including the memories of that other version of herself. At times her expression was solemn, then contemplative, and other times they were a little helpless or elated. After ten or so minutes, she started into a long, two-hour explanation without pause. Not a single minute of the two hours was wasted unnecessarily. At the end of it, Wei Wuyin's mental incarnation was surging with mental fluctuations, and Enlightened Scholarly Mist gathered at his feet and fingertips.

The most critical and foundational information needed to understand everything was that Bai Xiu wasn't always Bai Xiu. Bai Xiu's first memory was awakening as the Spirit of Dao, the Spiritform, tethered to the Pure Excellence Cauldron.

The most important thing to understand was that the Pure Excellence Cauldron that Qingye Ying and Tian Xiaolu were fighting over was not the original Pure Excellence Cauldron.

Prior to her renaming, an act that the Heavenly War Spirit had emphasized would create a substantial ripple effect on Wei Wuyin's attempt to resonate with the heavens when he reached the Resonant Soul Realm, every cauldron she was refined into was forcefully renamed the 'Pure Excellence Cauldron'.

Furthermore, the shape and design of any cauldron she inhabited naturally underwent a metamorphosis, becoming like the Pure Excellence Cauldron with time. This changed significantly after her renaming as the implication of karmic ties had induced subtle transformations.

The Heavenly War Spirit didn't speak about it anymore, but this was the case for every Spirit of Dao that eventually gained individuality via a cultivator. Wang Yutian had gained his individuality from the King of Everlore. To this day, Wei Wuyin had never heard of a 'Wang Yutian' from anyone's memories of history, not even those who inhabited the Endless Purgatory who had a shared history with his pre-Spiritform transformation, but had seen someone else that look the same as him.

Wei Wuyin had once again been reminded that names have unfathomable power. Bai Xiu had jumped from cauldron to cauldron, from alchemist to alchemist, and had even, at one time, been refined into the cauldron that had concocted the Mystic Dao offending Mystic-Refined Divinity-Forging Pill, a forbidden product that could bestow an Ascended Existential Framework to mortals. This served as the basis that would become the Neo-Dawn Paragon-Forging Pill blessed by the Daos that did not infringe on any single domain.

She wasn't old. Bai Xiu was only a few tens of thousands of years in age, but whenever she moved between cauldrons or remained inactive due to hunger or lack of concoctions, she entered a stasis slumber that halted her age. She had been alive even before the One-Star Era, an era that was more than two million years ago, and that was only her fourth cauldron at the time!

As for her constant awake state since becoming the Neo-Dawn Ascension Cauldron, this was because she was either chatting with Eden regarding the Alchemic Dao, the Heavenly War Spirit, sneaking off with Ori, or eating Utmost Purity Mist that was like an all-you-can-eat buffet. She was almost always active, and Wei Wuyin ignored her shenanigans, especially when she took Ori out with Luo Ning at times.

Her first memory was faint, but she distinctly recalled that she was created alongside six others. When she seized the Pure Excellence Cauldron, she immediately knew that this was one of the other six! They all inhabited cauldrons, a total of seven.

Bai Xiu then went into something that shook Wei Wuyin to the core. According to her, her very early days were exceedingly difficult and stressful, and she worked in tandem with six others to form an Alchemical Array that was hard to describe. She was only one portion of it. According to both of their memories, it was named the Pure One Immortal Convergence Array, and each cauldron was imbued with the extreme profoundness of an alchemical path, tasked with handling a single process out of the seven that existed.

The other Bai Xiu was the Spirit of Dao of Alchemical Creation, tasked with the Creation Process.

Bai Xiu was tasked with the Transformation Process. When Wei Wuyin thought of Tian Xiaolu and Qingye Ying, who were likely going to involve the Myriad Transformations Alchemic Saint, he was enlightened. The link of karma was inexplicable yet the Heavenly Daos were rather direct with its clues and hints of influence after one looked for it.

Over time, her uniqueness was evened out as she leaped from cauldron to cauldron, becoming a generalized Spirit of Dao. Bai Xiu was on her ninth cauldron. Shockingly enough, the other Bai Xiu was also on her ninth cauldron…

The significance of the number ten in cultivation societies was almost always constant, even from the most savage, nascent tribes, they understood that the number signified transformation and evolution into a perfect and complete state. Despite the future implications the Heavenly Daos was setting with far-sighted machinations, Wei Wuyin learned that the Pure One Immortal Convergence Array was a failure. That was all Bai Xiu knew. The final step, the Fusion Process, was met with a calamity that caused widespread destruction. It was only with her intimate connection with Wei Wuyin that she could deduce that they were blasted into the Void.

The seven Spirits of Dao were scattered throughout time and space in a heaven-shaking failure. She didn't know what happened to her alchemist at that time, even the memory of them was fuzzy for them both, only slightly cleared after the assimilation process. The only thing she was certain of was that the person was incomparably powerful, unable to even determine their gender.

It was quite something since they were created for a single purpose. They were each tasked with conducting a pill, likely an Immortal Pill, but she only knew of a single portion of the whole Concoction Method, the Transformation Process, and now she knew the Creation Process, yet she still didn't know what pill it was. Two fragments of seven for an Immortal Pill was incredible.

At this point, Wei Wuyin inquired about the details of the process and then unleashed the Alchemic Stars of Unparalleled Creation! Others might have difficulty determining the name, but with the Eye of Immortality, Wei Wuyin could actually sense and visually perceive immortal qualities, including the inherent abilities of his Magi Bloodline that stemmed from Creation. That said, this was one of the extraordinary abilities of the Alchemic Stars of Unparalleled Creation.

The name of the pill was extracted as his eyes bled profusely, and he exhaustedly told Bai Xiu its name. Eternity of the Ether Pill!

Additionally, and shockingly, he found a second name for the product.

Clear Sky Immortal Cascade Pill!

Having two names was rather shocking, but Wei Wuyin could sense that the name was in heavy contention somehow. If he had to make an unsubstantiated guess, completely relying on his instincts and lived experiences, then he would say that the product was concocted by two Alchemists at its inception who were rather divisive on its name after its creation.

Considering Bai Xiu clarified that it was only one person during her early memories, not two, once again a wild guess—Wei Wuyin felt that one of the Alchemists tried to concoct the pill on their lonesome, much to an astonishingly cataclysmic failure. While both Bai Xiu's came from a single source, likely split off from a single Spirit of Dao, they had soon come to become independent and complete Spiritforms of the Alchemic Dao. As for why they were tiny, this certainly had to do with the grade of their existence.

Bai Xiu was remedying this by consuming an egregious amount of Utmost Purity Mist that was utterly excessive for the normal person, and even after doing all that for decades on end, she still hadn't grown to a standard normal size, prior to her most recent reduction in size due to the transcendent Mystic-Rank product concoction.

Bai Xiu went over every last memory of hers, including detailing her other seven iterations in her lifetime, even adding the other Bai Xiu's lived experience with it. Just like her, this Bai Xiu came with innate knowledge inherited from her time of various alchemical lineages and products, greatly expanding Wei Wuyin's knowledge of the Alchemic Dao, and learning of some strange products. Furthermore, according to Bai Xiu, that other Bai Xiu was older. Significantly older. She had higher-level masters, so she was active more and for far longer, almost reaching a million years old. That said, technically, they were all the same age, but she was also sent back into the past further via the Void.

"Why didn't Paradoxical Correction take effect?" Wei Wuyin contemplated that for a while until Kratos and Eden chimed in. Kratos, as always, wasn't very helpful. "The River of Time was either too lazy, too busy, or just blind by a dragon's fart."

Ignoring that, Eden was far better at conveying theories and thoughts. "If we think about it carefully, then we're assuming that Bai Xiu exists in other flows of time. But what if each Bai Xiu is the only one in the timeline? A new addition rather than a paradoxical shifted existence that was relocated from a different temporal flow of time."

King spoke only gold as always, "There's only one Fuxi and many of you."

"..." Wei Wuyin's heart was pounding furiously. Fuxi had exposed this fact subtly. Fuxi had assisted many of him, including his alternative selves that he had personally met! He had the memory! But Fuxi was the same Fuxi! If so then…

The implication was incredible!

Bai Xiu only existed within a single timeline. Originally…

What timeline was that? An immortal one?

Wei Wuyin suddenly halted all fluctuations of his mental energy. He felt on an instinctual level that following this line of thinking might draw unwanted attention. The presence of the River of Time was growing heavier in his room.

"Huuuu…" Exhaling, Wei Wuyin looked at the innocent yet tense Bai Xiu. "You have something you want to say?"

"..." Bai Xiu started as her lips pursed, exhibiting a cuteness that could melt the heart of an ice-stone killer, "The others out there. Can we…find them?"

Wei Wuyin laughed.

"Of course. Now that we know they're out there, how could we not? Moreover, your combined form will know a true Immortal Pill! Just acquiring the Concoction Method would allow me to gleam into immortal-level insights!" He was all smiles. The thought of gathering them all, of single-handedly completing the product, he was ecstatic.

Bai Xiu's eyes brightened. Then, she said something that completely took Wei Wuyin by surprise!

"Then I'd like you to meet my sister—" She shuddered violently before splitting. Her physical spiritual form shrunk by half in an instant. Suddenly, two Bai Xiu's stood before him! She was dressed slightly differently, and her eyes exuded gentleness that was tender and pleasant, like a cute, obedient young princess who sought to do her best when she could and let no one down. It was outright adorable!

"..." Setting aside all his shock, Wei Wuyin's first thought was to look at both of their mouths and then their shrunken bodies, "Two mouths to feed…?"

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