Wang Hui sits cross-legged upon a smooth stone at the centre of a mountain spring.
Mist rises quietly around him while streams of ghost energy drift through the surrounding mountains.
Behind Wang Hui, four elemental spheres continuously rotate through the air.
A crimson sphere of fire.
A dark-yellow sphere of earth.
A deep-blue sphere of water.
And a pale-green sphere of wind.
The four elemental balls repeatedly collide against one another.
Yet despite the collisions, they do not explode apart.
Instead, they begin to merge while remaining separate.
Fire does not become water.
Earth does not become wind.
The four elements overlap without truly fusing.
Gradually, the rotating elemental spheres flatten and transform into a circular disk.
Four distinct colours divide the disk into equal sections.
Crimson.
Yellow.
Blue.
Green.
The four elemental powers remain clearly separated inside the disk.
Wang Hui silently observes the transformation.
His understanding of the four elements is still insufficient.
Not enough to truly fuse the elements together into a higher element.
Not enough to create true elemental unity.
So the elements can coexist only temporarily, rather than combine completely.
The elemental disk slowly descends into his dantian.
The moment it enters,
The blood energy within his body immediately begins changing.
The blood energy first transforms into Fire Element Ghost Energy.
Crimson fire energy rapidly fills the dantian.
Then the elemental disk begins rotating.
The Fire Element Ghost Energy starts changing again.
Its quantity rapidly decreases.
More than seventy per cent of the fire energy disappears during the transformation.
At the same time, impurities hidden within the fire ghost energy are burned away and removed.
Finally, the remaining energy transforms into Earth Element Ghost Energy.
Heavy earth energy spreads through his dantian.
Wang Hui immediately absorbs ghost energy from the surroundings to replenish the loss.
The ghost energy enters his body before being refined continuously through the elemental disk.
Slowly, the amount of Earth Element Ghost Energy inside his dantian increases once more.
Then the elemental cycle continues.
The Earth Element Ghost Energy transforms into Water Element Ghost Energy.
Again,
More than seventy-five per cent of the 'Earth Energy' disappears during the transformation.
The process strips away impurities while condensing the remaining energy into a purer form.
The deep-blue Water Element Ghost Energy gradually fills his dantian again.
Wang Hui calmly continues circulating ghost energy.
The surrounding mountain spring begins trembling slightly as ghost energy continuously gathers toward him.
Then the Water Element transforms into Wind Element Ghost Energy.
Again, massive losses occur.
Again, impurities disappear.
The Wind Element Ghost Energy becomes lighter.
Sharper.
Purer.
Then finally,
The Wind Element Ghost Energy transforms once more into Fire Element Ghost Energy.
The cycle completes.
Yet it does not stop.
The elemental disk continues rotating endlessly inside his dantian.
Fire becomes earth.
Earth becomes water.
Water becomes wind.
Wind becomes fire.
Again and again.
Every completed cycle purifies the elemental energies further.
And every cycle reduces the percentage of energy loss.
Seventy-five per cent becomes seventy per cent.
Then sixty.
Then fifty.
Then thirty.
Then ten.
The transformations gradually stabilise.
The elemental conversion becomes increasingly smooth.
The four elemental energies begin reaching balance with one another.
The losses continue decreasing until eventually,
No more energy disappears during the transformations.
The elemental cycle finally achieves perfect circulation.
Then, when the Wind Element Ghost Energy transforms once more into Fire Element Ghost Energy,
A sudden change occurs.
The Fire Element Ghost Energy violently surges upward.
The elemental disk begins melting.
The balanced four-element structure starts collapsing inward toward the fire element.
The fire rapidly becomes stronger.
Hotter.
Denser.
The other three elemental powers do not disappear.
Instead, they become fuel.
The disk completely melts apart.
Then,
Inside his dantian,
A single wisp of crimson flame quietly forms.
The flame is small.
Yet the moment it appears, the surrounding ghost energy trembles slightly.
The crimson flame flickers silently within his dantian.
The remaining fragments of the elemental disk completely dissolve into it.
The flame absorbs everything.
Fire.
Earth.
Water.
Wind.
All four elemental powers converge within the crimson flame while still preserving their individual properties.
The crimson fire gradually stabilises.
Then it quietly settles inside Wang Hui's dantian.
The moment the crimson flame stabilises, it suddenly spreads throughout his body.
Streams of Crimson Fire rapidly flow through his meridians, flesh, bones, blood, and organs.
Then the refinement begins.
Previously, because of the existence of the four Demon Limbs, different sections of Wang Hui's body had been refined separately by different elemental powers.
His right hand had been refined by the fire element.
Another limb by earth.
Another by water.
Another by wind.
Each section of his body carried the characteristics of the corresponding element connected to the Demon Limb.
Because of this, his Demon Body had never truly become complete.
The elemental refinement remained divided.
Separated.
Unbalanced.
But now the Crimson Fire changes everything.
The Crimson Fire contains all four elemental powers within itself.
Fire.
Earth.
Water.
Wind.
The four elements no longer remain isolated from each other.
Instead, they circulate together inside the crimson flame while preserving their individual properties.
The Crimson Fire spreads through every part of Wang Hui's body.
Bones.
Muscles.
Blood vessels.
Organs.
Marrow.
Skin.
Every part of him begins refining simultaneously under the power of all four elements together.
His bones harden continuously under the combined refinement.
His blood grows denser.
His flesh becomes stronger.
The ghost energy hidden inside his body stabilises completely beneath the suppression of the Crimson Fire.
At the same time, the negative emotions hidden within ghost energy continue getting purified.
The eerie sensation carried by ghost energy gradually weakens.
The transformation continues for a long time.
Finally,
The Crimson Fire slowly withdraws back into his dantian.
And at that moment,
Wang Hui's Demon Body completely forms.
A terrifying aura spreads outward from his body.
His cultivation finally breaks through into a completely new stage.
At the same time, the energy within his body also undergoes a complete transformation.
The previous mixture of blood energy and ghost energy stabilises fully.
Wang Hui officially names this new power,
True Energy.
A power born from the fusion of blood energy, ghost energy, and elemental refinement.
While Wang Hui had been refining his body and forming the Crimson Fire, he and Aika had continued travelling westward.
The two continuously crossed mountains, forests, rivers, and dangerous lands.
Eventually, they crossed the endless ocean itself.
By the time Wang Hui had completely formed his Demon Body and advanced into the new cultivation stage,
They had already arrived at the Northern Grasslands.
Originally, Wang Hui and Aika believed that outside the Eastern Islands, there would likely be no human civilisation.
The world beyond the Burning Sun Empire seemed too vast and unknown.
But only a few days after entering the Northern Grasslands,
They discovered humans living there.
Not cities.
Not kingdoms.
But tribes.
Large tribes are scattered across the endless grasslands.
The tribespeople dressed differently from the people of the Burning Sun Empire.
Their bodies were taller and sturdier.
Most carried beast hides, bones, and weapons made from strange materials.
But what truly shocked Wang Hui was something else.
Inside these tribes,
There were no Chakra Refiners.
Not a single one.
Instead, every cultivator followed the path of Ghost Hunters.
Yet even these Ghost Hunters differed greatly from the Ghost Hunters of the Burning Sun Empire.
Inside the Burning Sun Empire, Ghost Hunters absorbed the power of spiritual metals into their bodies.
Using the metals, they gradually advanced from Ghost Hand to Demon Hand.
Then, eventually completed the Demon Body.
But in the Northern Grasslands,
The cultivation method was entirely different.
The Ghost Hunters here possessed the bloodlines of alien races within their bodies.
Some carried beast bloodlines.
Others possessed strange, monstrous characteristics.
Some had horns.
Others possessed scales, claws, or unusual eyes.
Through the alien blood within their bodies, they advanced through the cultivation stages.
And because of the alien bloodline suppressing the corruption,
They also did not sink into madness from ghost energy like ordinary Ghost Hunters.