BTTH : Wandering Soul

He soon collected the amount from the middle aged man and started purchasing required medicinal ingredients from the stores in auction house. After that he also went to the main market in Wu Tan city and did the same, not caring for money at all.

With all the purchases, he was left with only around 500 gold coins in his name. He had even spent the 2,000 gold coins he had received from his father upon leaving home. Indeed, alchemy was not cheap, he silently thought.

With everything bought, He returned to his room. He only needed to practice now. But there was one more thing that was bugging him. It was Misty Cloud sect, or more accurately Nalan Yanran. He couldn't do anything about Hall of Souls right now. Only way to solve that problem was increase his strength. But he could indeed do something about Nalan Yanran.

He had deliberately planned to not change his path from his memories. If he did then he wouldn't have advantage of knowing things in advance. So he could make use of this information without changing anything too much. If he changed his path, then future could very well become far worse than he could ever imagine.

But it didn't mean he'd just watch as his clan get attacked or worse, his father get abducted. So this time he'd use diplomatic approach. He knew Nalan Yanran wasn't a bad girl—prideful and arrogant, sure, but not bad at all. So talking with her would at least save any humiliation for both Misty Cloud sect and Xiao clan as well. And there'd be no direct conflict between the two.

Xiao Yan wasn't sure if she'd decide to annul marriage because of his newly revealed strength. But he couldn't take any gamble.

With these thoughts in mind he decided to write a letter to meet with her in person. And best way to do so was through Ya Fei. Ya Fei had many connections and one of them was Nalan Yanran. She knew Nalan Yanran personally.

But Xiao Yan wasn't acquainted with Ya Fei. So he would contact her under the guise of selling medicinal pills through auctions. And after couple of meetings would ask her a favor. With this plan she'd surely have high opinion of Xiao Yan as an alchemist and would gladly help him.

...

With all his affairs in order, he finally settled into his daily routine, which mostly consisted of training, alchemy practice, and the little time he could spend with Xun'er.

Yao Lao had already given him Flame Mantra. With his guidance Xiao Yan started practicing it diligently. He had yet to use Flame Mantra to devour the Yin-Yang Twin flame. It'd have to wait as he still needed tier two medicinal pills, Path Protecting Pill and Icy Heart Pill. These two types of pills are essential to protect one's qi paths. Even with his special physique he still decided to be cautious. 

So he'd wait until he can refine tier two pills before using flame mantra to devour the flame. Until then he'd just practice diligently. As for the dou techniques, he was practicing three techniques.

Vacuum Hand : Low Xuan level Dou Technique. If trained to max, it can suck up boulders that are thousands of pound. Against enemies, it can forcibly suck the blood out of their body. Only drawback is - this only works if your level is higher than your opponent. If you meet someone stronger than you, they can use the chance to get close to you and the unlucky would be you. He had got it from the Black Metal piece he had bought earlier.

Octane Blast: Xuan High Level Dou Technique, close-combat Dou Technique. Focus' on attacks and when mastered, attacks have eight different forces that stack up and the power is equal to a Di Low level Dou Technique!

Even though Octane Blast doesn't have high requirements of one's Dou Qi, it has a huge toll on the body. This technique is a close combat Dou Technique and with weak arms and legs, if you really try to use it, you'll probably end up with broken limbs before you even touch your opponent. Due to Xiao Yan's strong body, being equivalent to magical beasts in strength, this wasn't problem for him at all.

The attack power of 'Octane Blast' is sufficient to be compared to that of a Low Di Dou Technique. If it is trained properly, it is not difficult for your actual fighting strength to exceed someone who is stronger than you by two to three stars.

Fire Palm: Low Xuan Level, Able to create huge gusts! The founder of this was a blacksmith who had been a blacksmith for his entire life. Because of the fire of the furnace, after a couple decades, he invented this technique. In his memories Xiao Yan combined this Dou Technique with Vacuum Hand.

Xiao Yan was busy with all these things to do, along with his alchemy training, for months to come.