Deep within the underground palace, atop the Bagua Mountain, Ryan stood before the towering bronze pill furnace—but did not touch it.
The ancient furnace was a relic smuggled from the East centuries ago, a masterwork that had survived over two thousand years of history.
Across that time, it had passed through countless hands—emperors, monks, warlords, and collectors—each leaving behind traces of their will, their emotions, their obsession.
By the time it fell into Ryan's possession, the furnace was saturated with the Power of Will, like an empty vessel waiting to awaken.
The first moment Ryan saw it, he recognized its potential.
In the Immortal World, there existed a sect known as the Red Dust Demonic Sect—a cult that revered desire as the source of strength. Their sacred artifact, the Red Dust Heart Refining Furnace, had once shaken the heavens.
And now, Ryan held its embryonic twin.
To refine such a furnace didn't require rare treasures or elaborate rituals. It demanded something more abstract—emotion, desire, and will.
When these were continuously nourished by Spiritual Qi, the furnace would evolve on its own—becoming a true Magical Artifact capable of endless transformations.
A completed Heart Refining Furnace could concoct elixirs, forge weapons, command flames, refine Qi, and even suppress inner demons—stabilizing the cultivator's Dao Heart.
And where better to gather emotion than beneath a hospital?
Above this underground palace stood the Presbyterian Hospital—a place where, every single day, life and death intertwined.
Joy, sorrow, fear, rage, despair… the purest essence of human emotion constantly bled through its walls.
For two years, the furnace had devoured that energy.
Now, it was on the verge of awakening.
A true Magical Artifact—the first step toward Ryan's ascension.
But tonight, Ryan wasn't here to push it further.
He approached the furnace and murmured a brief incantation. A swirl of spiritual energy flashed, and from within the blazing core, a string of thirty-six luminous jade beads floated out.
Each bead gleamed faintly with a white, bone-like sheen, mysterious runes drifting beneath their smooth surfaces like living things.
Ryan plucked one bead from the strand.
The moment it separated, a surge of black mist erupted from it.
With a guttural hiss, a Withered Bone Demon emerged—its upper body skeletal, its lower body swirling with smoke and shadow.
The creature's hollow eyes burned with soul-fire as it knelt reverently before Ryan.
"Go," Ryan said evenly. "Find another to take your place."
The Bone Demon roared in acknowledgment, then shot off toward the abyss surrounding the Bagua Mountain.
Moments later, the sound of clattering bones echoed in the depths.
If one peered into that abyss, they would see it was filled with thousands of skeletal figures—Bone Demons, packed tightly, their soul-fires flickering like a sea of green lanterns.
Soon, the Withered Bone Demon returned—dragging behind it a newly formed Bone Soldier, fresh from the abyss.
Calling it a demon was generous—it was little more than an animated skeleton, nourished by Qi and resentment.
But Ryan knew what this meant.
He was one step closer to completing the Twelve Divine Bone Fiends of Yuanchen.
The method came from the White Bone Sect of Immortal World—an ancient demonic path known for its forbidden art, Countenance of White Bones.
This technique allowed a cultivator to use Spiritual Qi, Death Qi, and Demonic Qi to refine bones into sentient demonic spirits.
From Bone Demon → Withered Bone Demon → White Bone Spirit → White Bone God and Demon—each stage exponentially more powerful than the last.
When thirty-six White Bone Gods were refined, they could merge with Tiangang Qi to form the Twelve Divine Bone Fiends of Yuanchen—a protective formation capable of contending with True Immortal-level beings.
In modern terms?
A fully completed set was the equivalent of a Skyfather-tier personal bodyguard—something on par with Odin or Dormammu's lower avatars.
This was the safeguard Ryan had chosen to forge.
Because the Sullivan Family might be powerful, but in the supernatural world, true safety didn't come from wealth—it came from the strength to crush anyone who dared to threaten you.
To refine these Bone Fiends, Ryan needed one thing above all else: the bones of those who had died violently.
Only the remains of the resentful dead could give birth to true Bone Demons.
And in a city like New York—especially in Hell's Kitchen—such bodies were never in short supply.
Every day, his undertaker network collected them: murder victims, overdose cases, gang casualties.
Each body sent through the hospital's morgue earned Ryan another step toward his goal.
Legal or not didn't matter.
The city paid him to process corpses. The police paid him for disposal. Even the hospital billed families for "final care."
Everyone paid.
And every corpse eventually found its way into the abyss beneath the Bagua Mountain—where it would become fuel for Ryan's growing power.
Through this one-stop cycle of death and profit, Ryan's cultivation empire thrived.
From bone, he refined demons.
From flesh and blood, he forged blades.
The Blood Transformation Divine Blade—a weapon born from sacrifice—was already taking shape beside the furnace.
Soon, he would have both sword and shield.
And when that day came, not even the hidden gods of this world would be able to ignore his existence.