Chapter 525: Assimilating the Golden Cicada’s Bloodline

It actually wasn’t that Jiang Chen didn’t want Fatty Lu to get his hands dirty, because to be honest, as the hallmaster, he was certain to be more skilled than Jiang Chen in the area of refining items. The reason Jiang Chen decided to do it himself in the end was while he had been familiar with refining in his past life, he’d rarely had a chance to practice in this life. If he had a few chances for practical application, he’d be a first rate refiner, if not a top master refiner. Also, something like refining a formation flag was best done personally. Even if he could, he wouldn’t be at ease handing it over to anyone else either. It was a good thing that he’d received more than enough aubergine gold from Elder Lian Cheng, so he had the materials to waste if need be.

He successfully refined the required thirty six formation flags after seven days. He’d actually refined more than fifty, but he wasn’t quite satisfied with the initial ones and destroyed them all. The ones who remained were the finest of his creations.

With the formation flags completed, Jiang Chen didn’t linger and prepared to leave the Hall of Refinement.

Fatty Lu made several attempts to keep him back. “Jiang Chen, it’s rare for you to visit; let me play host this time. Come, let’s have a few drinks.”

Jiang Chen really didn’t have the time to stay and drink. “Hallmaster Lu, if you don’t think it beneath you, please come stay as a guest at my residence next time. I’m rather short on time these days and need to make many preparations for the soon to come Pill Battles.”

Fatty Lu nodded and sighed. “I won’t be keeping you since this is the case then. Come by as much as you like when you have the time. You can treat the Hall of Refining as half a home too.”

The fatty’s socialization skills were nothing to laugh at, and he had quite the glib tongue. He’d managed to quickly struck up a brotherhood with Jiang Chen. His behavior was easily explained though. Whenever Sovereign Area geniuses came by the Hall of Refining, they weren’t entirely enthused at the sights. After all, since this hall was neither the Hall of Might or Herbal Hall, it was of little value to them and destined to not have much in common with them. Therefore, even though Fatty Lu was an honorable hallmaster, very few of those top geniuses was willing to open their hearts and be friends with him.

Jiang Chen was the first, and that was why he was so highly valued.

To put it bluntly, Fatty Lu’s position as the Hallmaster of the Hall of Refinement wasn’t even necessarily on par with the top five elders of the Hall of Might or Herbal Hall.

“Hallmaster Lu, please come find me at my residence any time when you’ve collected all of the ingredients for the Hexarune Dragon Pill.” Jiang Chen wasn’t the sort to be ungrateful and burn a bridge after he’d crossed it.

“I will, I will.” Fatty Lu was utterly delighted. He’d wanted to ask Elder Yun Nie to refine the pill for him, but his position was far too distant from the master of the Herbal Hall, so he hadn’t dared make the request. After all, Elder Yun Nie was a venerated elder and one of the three heavyweights of the Regal Pill Palace.

When he returned to his residence, it was time for Jiang Chen to make good on his agreement with the Golden Cicada. He didn’t go back on his words, summoning the Cicada and sending it to the wood spirit spring. When the Cicada saw the spring, it was wholeheartedly convinced of Jiang Chen’s words and joyously hopped into the waters.

The Cicada was different from any other spirit creature. It was the type that dined on the wind and supped on dew. Not only would this spring baptize its body, but it would also serve as the Cicada’s food. Absorbing its waters would naturally give it an edge for reforming its bloodlines. And of course, it wasn’t that other spirit creatures couldn’t drink the waters, but that the effects of them drinking the waters was vastly inferior to the little Cicada’s.

The Cicada’s baptism was destined to be a long process, and Jiang Chen didn’t want to watch over it every second of the day. He spent his days setting up the formation, and his nights in training.

The little Cicada completed its bloodline evolution after roughly a month, and its form had undergone great changes. It had changed from the size of a fist to the size of a watermelon. It was a full meter when it extended its wings. “The little Golden Cicada greets the master.”

According to their previous agreement, the Cicada had to submit to Jiang Chen after completing its bloodline evolution and take Jiang Chen to be its master.

“No need to call me master, little Cicada. I’m called Jiang Chen, so you can call me young master Chen like the others.”

“Then I’ll call you big brother Chen.” The little Cicada had spent a long time with Jiang Chen and was familiar with his personality. It knew that this human master wasn’t one of those immensely evil and violent villains. It also knew how lucky it was to have such a master.

Although the Golden Cicadas possessed a noble bloodline, their attack strength was limited, so they had to seek succor from other races throughout the harsh worlds. Of those who offered shelter, humans were a race that the Cicadas turned to more often than not. In taking Jiang Chen for his master, the Cicada had found a great backer and didn’t have to spend his days in fear and apprehension anymore.

“Haha, call me whatever you like.” Jiang Chen was in a great mood as he asked, “Now that your bloodline evolution is complete, have any of your heritage of memories awakened?”

The little Cicada was also incredibly astonished when they spoke of this. “It’s just like you said, big brother Chen. We are indeed impervious to all poisons and lightning.”

As for the arts of the Cicada Wing and Cicada’s Counterfeit, it had long since known of those two abilities. For Jiang Chen, his memories from his past life had laid out the little Cicada’s abilities in crystal clear fashion. But to the little Cicada, all of this was quite wondrous. Big brother Chen had known of all this before his heritage of memories had awoken. Does he have the ability to see the future?

“Don’t look at me like that, little Cicada. Actually, if your memories fully awaken, you’ll know that the arts of metamorphosis that your tribe possesses are even more amazing. When you train them to their peak, you’ll have the ability to transform into all sorts of shapes. This is something that’s even more incredible than what you see now.”

The Golden Cicadas’ combat ability was indeed pretty much trash. But in return, they were talented in almost every other field. In particular, their metamorphosis arts could bewilder anyone, shifting into any shape and form imaginable. This was how this race had survived in the worlds despite their poor battle strength. However, these methods were equally useful for the other stronger races.

The Cicada tittered. “Big brother Chen, you’ll have to wait until I enter the sage realm to get the art of metamorphosis! Do you want to learn it?”

Jiang Chen was indeed a bit green eyed with desire for this particular art. But although the little Cicada had awakened its memories and had its bloodline improve rapidly, this rapid advancement of its cultivation had only brought it to the level of the human minor origin realm. There was still a long way to go if it wanted to enter the sage realm.

“Teehee, big brother Chen, I’m teasing you. I’ll now give to you the drop of blood I promised! When I learn the art of metamorphosis and shift into human form, I’ll give you another drop of blood essence so you also have the chance to train this art.”

Such were the Golden Cicadas. They were very opposed to humans before they took a master, but once they did, they were the epitome of loyalty. Every decision they made from that point on would place their master as their highest consideration, carefully taking in all aspects.

The little Cicada squeezed out a drop of essence blood as it spoke. A drop of rain, filled with an ethereal spirituality, landed in front of Jiang Chen. He opened up his hand and absorbed this drop of blood, assimilating into his own blood.

It was a common thing for a human cultivator to absorb beast blood, but this drop of blood from the Cicada bloodline was extraordinary. To Jiang Chen, it was temporarily more valuable than even dragon blood!

After all, the bloodline of the dragons could strengthen one’s energy and blood, increase the purity of the human bloodline, enhance the cultivator’s aura, and help the cultivator practice many more stronger arts. However, the bloodline of the Cicada could help Jiang Chen receive the heritage of the entire Cicada race. Arts such as the Cicada Wing, and Cicada’s Counterfeit, as well as inherent abilities such as immunity to all poisons, and a defense that could withstand ten thousand strikes of lightning were all things that the dragon bloodline couldn’t possibly supply.

Of course, this wasn’t to say that the bloodline of the Golden Cicada was more noble than the dragon’s, it was just that the Cicada’s bloodline was more suited for Jiang Chen. The dragon bloodline could help him obtain more battle power, but that wouldn’t occur overnight. Jiang Chen also had many ways to increase his battle strength, so he wasn’t limited to just using the dragon bloodline, but the arts available through the Cicada’s were irreplaceable.

If Jiang Chen’s bloodline would show a high degree of fusion with the Cicada’s and his powers of comprehension were high, he’d be able to grasp all of the arts of this race. The only pity was that the little Cicada itself still couldn’t train the arts of metamorphosis. Otherwise, this drop of blood would’ve been even more valuable.

“Little Cicada, train near this wood spirit spring in the future. I’ll plant the Thundercloud Tree next to the spring, and it’ll surely grow into a patch of Thundercloud Trees in the future.”

Jiang Chen needed a certain amount of time to assimilate the drop of blood after absorbing it from the Cicada. How this process went would directly determine how much of the Cicada’s legacy he’d be able to obtain. Jiang Chen didn’t dare treat it lightly and immediately announced a seven day seclusion.

It was a commonplace occurrence for cultivators to go into closed door cultivation. There was someone doing so every two or three days in Jiang Chen’s residence. Because Jiang Chen had understood much of the Golden Cicadas in his past life and had his own unique views on assimilating bloodlines, he made enormous gains during this time and used an almost perfect way to meld this bloodline with his.

Having done so, Jiang Chen noticeably felt the additional attributes of his body. “My body is truly impervious to all poisons and durable to the point of repeated lightning strikes. I finally don’t have to worry about becoming scorched and burned when I met a strong thunder genius in the future, or anyone who specializes in the thunder attribute.”

Boundless confidence suddenly rose in Jiang Chen’s heart. He’d already had a certain immunity to thunder ever since he’d refined the stick of Thundercloud Tree, but now that he’d refined the bloodline of the Cicada, his immunity to the arts of thunder had risen by more than tenfold! Ordinary arts of thunder posed absolutely no threat to him now.

As for poison, he was a master of poison to begin with, and his immunity to poison had been extremely high even before assimilating the Cicada’s bloodline. Now that he had this additional inherent defense, it acted as an extra layer of insurance. Jiang Chen could now no longer think of any poison that could harm him in all the planes beneath the heavens. As for Cicada’s Wing and Cicada’s Counterfeit, those arts couldn’t be obtained overnight, but they were the two arts that he’d yearned for the most. Particularly Cicada’s Wing, the temptation of flight was greater than anything else in Jiang Chen’s heart. If he was able to fly during the origin realm, that would absolutely be a great advantage!