Chapter 315 – Spirit Tool: Crimson Holy Grail

Mu Lin was still unaware of the actions of the East Sea King and the Evil God. At this moment, he continued to use the Twilight Illusion Life-Death Array to grind away the consciousness of the Scarlet Overlord.

However, before the consciousness within the Divinity could be fully extinguished, the consciousness of the Scarlet Son within the dark golden Holy Grail was the first to be erased by Mu Lin.

As a result, he obtained his first Spirit Tool—or rather, Holy Artifact—the Crimson Holy Grail.

This was an exceptionally powerful artifact. In terms of rank and grade, it could even compare to an Earth Master True Person, surpassing the Mortal Shedding Adept level that Mu Lin had yet to reach.

Fortunately, most artifacts share a common flaw: they gradually unlock their power in accordance with their owner’s strength and cannot unleash Earth Master-level power on their own.

The Crimson Holy Grail before him was no exception.

Its abilities were formidable, but the previous Scarlet Son had been utterly incapable of utilizing them, having exhausted all the blood stored within the Crimson Holy Grail.

Although the Scarlet Overlord was powerful, without blood and with little energy left, he too was unable to activate this Holy Grail. It was precisely for this reason that Mu Lin could slay the Evil God and obtain this Treasure.

“The Crimson Holy Grail—for practitioners of the life-affinity path, this could be called the universal cauldron.”

After a brief refinement, Mu Lin had already grasped the functions of the Crimson Holy Grail. His only impression was one of overwhelming power, versatility, and comprehensive strength.

“Everything about this Holy Grail revolves around blood and bloodlines. First, purification—it can purify the quality of my blood… With it, the path for my Jiao Dragon to transform into a True Dragon no longer requires a slow metamorphosis, followed by accumulating momentum through the ‘walking water’ ritual and finally taking a desperate gamble.”

“Second, fusion—this Holy Grail can merge the essence blood of different demonic monsters, transforming them into new species.”

“Third, adaptive evolution… Life is a magnificent miracle, capable of changing in response to its environment. Just as birds evolve differently—penguins in the frigid Antarctic become plump and stout, sparrows in forests, eagles on plains and mountains, and seagulls over the ocean…”

Life finds its own way and can adapt to nearly any environment. This is adaptive evolution.

Of course, in his previous life, organisms in the natural world required millions, even billions, of years to slowly adapt and evolve.

In this world, despite the existence of Spiritual Energy—a universal force—the evolution of living beings still demands millennia of time.

Yet the Crimson Holy Grail, this universal cauldron of life, can accelerate adaptation and evolution.

Naturally, this does not come without cost.

First, the consumption of blood energy is immense. Whether for purification, fusion, or adaptive evolution, vast amounts of energy are required as fuel. This is also why the Crimson Holy Grail can only unleash its full effects in the hands of an Earth Master.

Second, aside from purification, fusion and adaptive evolution are not guaranteed to succeed.

The fusion of organisms is never solely beneficial—it also carries risks. Various genetic diseases are a prime example.

Moreover, only a tiny fraction of organisms can adapt to their environment and evolve. The majority simply perish in harsh conditions.

These are the risks, and such risks further increase the energy consumption of the Crimson Holy Grail.

Apart from this, the Crimson Holy Grail had another flaw that Mu Lin didn’t know how to describe—creatures nurtured by it, tainted by Scarlet, would also be imbued with Scarlet’s aura.

Such an aura would grant these creatures the Scarlet trait, making them bloodthirsty, cruel, and grotesque in appearance.

However, correspondingly, their strength would also be further enhanced.

“This doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care about appearance, and I can accept being a bit more ferocious after transforming into a True Dragon.”

“As for the brutal temperament, it can be resisted by the invincible will nurtured by the Vow Power Heart Flame.”

After some contemplation, Mu Lin realized that the Crimson Holy Grail had some influence on him, but it wasn’t significant.

Once he confirmed this, Mu Lin immediately dripped his blood into the Crimson Holy Grail and began the path of purification.

He intended to refine his Jiao Dragon Blood into True Dragon Blood, thereby forging a True Dragon Body for himself.

In fact, even a pure True Dragon Body didn’t satisfy Mu Lin. He also added Yin energy, the Forbidden Power of Sky Burial City, and refined Yin-Yang energy into the Crimson Holy Grail.

“Although ordinary dragon species are strong, they are merely at the level of ‘strong’ and cannot be called invincible. There are even Golden-Winged Great Pengs that prey on True Dragons.”

“Since I am walking the path of invincibility, I will nurture the strongest dragon species.”

There are many legendary dragon species in the world, such as Yinglong, Five-Clawed Golden Dragon, and so on.

If he were a member of the imperial family, Mu Lin would walk the path of the Five-Clawed Golden Dragon, connecting his Dragon Body to the nation’s Dragon Vein and becoming the dragon of the Human Dao’s will.

If his main cultivation technique focused on Feng Shui and Thunder, Mu Lin would walk the path of Yinglong or the Thunder Marsh Dragon God, ruling over the skies and the four seas.

However, Mu Lin’s main cultivation revolves around Yin energy, following the path of the Netherworld’s Underworld Deity.

Therefore, the dragon species Mu Lin chose was—the Candle Dragon.

The god of Zhong Mountain is named Zhuyin. When it opens its eyes, it is day; when it closes them, it is night. When it exhales, it is winter; when it inhales, it is summer. It does not drink, eat, or rest, and its breath is the wind…

Opening its eyes brings daylight, closing them brings night, and it is said that its exhalation brings winter while its inhalation brings summer.

Such a dragon species, representing the cycle of day and night and the changing of seasons, is undoubtedly extremely powerful.

More importantly, Mu Lin’s cultivation aligns well with it.

The god of Zhong Mountain can “open its eyes for day and close them for night,” while Mu Lin also controls the Twilight Illusion Life-Death Array, capable of altering the colors of heaven and earth.

Additionally, this god of Zhong Mountain governs the cycle of the four seasons, and the so-called four seasons undoubtedly represent time. Mu Lin, too, can connect with time through Spirit Communication.

Thus, Mu Lin shares many connections and similarities with the Candle Dragon.

To put it more plainly, Mu Lin, who has transformed into an Ink Jiao and mastered the Twilight Illusion Life-Death Array and Spirit Communication, can be considered a youthful, impoverished version of the Candle Dragon.

There is a slim possibility for him to evolve toward the Candle Dragon.

Now, Mu Lin is using the Crimson Holy Grail, this universal cauldron, to turn that slim possibility into a certainty.

“The purification of bloodline must not be interrupted. The True Dragon Body is the foundation that carries everything.”

“But the experiments of fusion and adaptive evolution cannot stop either… I must continuously experiment, integrating Yin energy, the Twilight Illusion Life-Death Array, the Forbidden Power of Sky Burial City, and even the Black River Water into my Dragon Body, forging the strongest Candle Dragon.”

With this thought, Mu Lin immediately set to work.

Acting decisively had always been Mu Lin’s principle.

“Drip…”

As the blood dripped into the Crimson Holy Grail, purification and fusion began.

However, after a series of experiments, Mu Lin frowned, realizing that his attempts at fusion and adaptive evolution were not going smoothly.

It wasn’t due to a lack of energy… Although activating the Crimson Holy Grail required an immense amount of energy, Mu Lin happened to possess the City God Dharma Image, which allowed him to draw power from the Earth Veins to activate the Crimson Holy Grail.

Relying on the Earth Veins, Mu Lin’s efficiency in utilizing the Crimson Holy Grail surpassed that of most Mortal Shedding Adepts.

In an extremely short time, Mu Lin conducted over a dozen experiments.

What troubled him was that his blood could not seamlessly merge with Yin energy, Forbidden Power, or Black River Water, nor could it evolve under their influence.

“Yin energy turns my blood into pale, cold, and lifeless Zombie blood. While this isn’t entirely useless—it makes my constitution more compatible with Yin energy—it comes with more drawbacks and lower vitality, making it inferior to my original blood.”

“The rank of Forbidden Power is too high. Once it comes into contact with my blood, it immediately transforms it into tainted forbidden blood, capable of corroding and polluting everything… and it doesn’t obey my control.”

“As for Black River Water, as soon as it touches my blood, it dissolves it, leaving no time for adaptation or evolution.”

With external fusion proving difficult, Mu Lin also had no idea how to encode the Twilight Illusion Life-Death Array as information into his genes, turning it into an innate ability.

Thus, Mu Lin’s experiments came to a standstill.

Ultimately, he realized that to achieve his plan, he would either need extraordinary luck—relying on a stroke of fortune among billions of trials, as genes do have the potential to mutate—or possess sufficient knowledge.

Genetics, cytology, bloodline studies, Arrays, information theory… and other fields of knowledge would need to reach a level surpassing even that of Nobel Prize winners in his previous life. Only then could he, through experimentation, transform his bloodline from ordinary True Dragon blood into Candle Dragon blood.

“Knowledge surpassing Nobel Prize levels… I might as well rely on luck…”

“No, luck isn’t reliable either. Billions of trials don’t guarantee success. Am I supposed to experiment for thousands or even tens of thousands of years?”

Undoubtedly, evolving from ordinary Jiao Dragon blood to Candle Dragon blood was difficult—extremely difficult—but that was to be expected.

If bloodline transformation and sublimation were so easy, dragon species wouldn’t be so rare in the world, and creatures like the Candle Dragon wouldn’t be mere legends.

Difficulty was normal; if it were easy, that would be the real anomaly.

Though this aligned with common sense, Mu Lin couldn’t afford to wait.

“Is there no way to accelerate my progress…”

After some contemplation, Mu Lin realized he did have a method.

Burning Fate!

Luck was elusive in his previous life, but in this world, humans had many ways to enhance their luck, turning themselves into individuals of great fortune.

The Yan Family possessed such methods.

And through the Royal Crown, Mu Lin could indirectly access this ability.

“So, if I accumulate enough fate and burn it all at once, I might enter a state of heightened luck. At that moment, if I attempt blood fusion and adaptive evolution, I could slightly increase those minuscule odds of one in billions?”

The more Mu Lin thought about it, the more feasible this method seemed.

In fact, his fortune and reputation had grown sufficiently large, leading Mu Lin to believe that he had a chance, upon advancing to Mortal Shedding Adept, to directly transform his Jiao Dragon Body into a Candle Dragon physique.

(End of Chapter)