Alex needed to find a way to not only keep the spirit of the beast, but also use it to improve his Blood Beast. Such a thing was difficult to come up with on his own, but thankfully, he didn’t have to.

There was something that did exactly what he wanted all without him having to force it.

The Infected Beast cores.

The blood lizard lay at the corner of the room, nowhere to go. Alex brought out a Sunheart alone at first with the intention to see how it would affect the Blood Beast.

He had the Blood Beast sit by it for a while, but nothing happened at all. He then had the Blood Beast swallow the Sunheart. He waited for something to happen this time.

Something did happen, but it was not to his expectation.

The blood lizard squirmed after a long few minutes, its body randomly twitching. It stood up, trying to want to do something, but Alex forced it to remain where it was so he could properly see what was happening.

Light began glowing from the inside, and he could feel steam rising from the beast. Its skin bubbled as the blood boiled.

Then, the beast suddenly roared and its body turned limp, splashing on the ground in a pool of blood.

It was dead.

Alex stared in surprise and searched through the blood in search of the blood core that would be at the center of the Blood Beast.

It was gone, turned back into blood. A dim Sunheart lay at the center of it all.

“Okay…” Alex thought. Feeding a beast Sunheart didn’t work, it appeared. It would only destroy it.

“Good to know.”

He started preparing for the other tests.

Alex put away the Sunheart, just in case it had been tainted by the blood or weakened. He could not experiment with such a Sunheart after all. So he brought out a fresh one and placed it in front of him, next to a regular beast core.

Then, he stayed there and carefully observed every minute detail that took place in the infection of the beast core.

Alex observed the beast core doing nothing at first, unresponsive to the Yang energy permeating around the Sunheart. The Sunheart pulled in the Yang from the surrounding, which the beast core slowly got acquainted with.

As he continued watching, the beast core then changed. Instead of remaining there, it appeared to take in the Yang from the surrounding area. At the same time, something about that resonated with the Sunheart, and suddenly, the Sunheart slowed down its absorption.

As he watched, Alex was stunned to realize that the Sunheart had not only stopped absorbing Yang aura in the presence of the beast core, but was now actively giving away its Yang to the beast core.

The Sunheart was decaying.

Alex knew that Sunhearts decayed after decades and decades of inactivity, centuries even. But he had never known that it could also be forced to start to decay so very quickly.

Alex had never had the time or the intention to ever truly see how a beast core was infected. Having finally seen it firsthand, he was stunned to realize the truth.

The beast core seemed to come alive all of a sudden as well and sucked in the Sunheart in a matter of minutes. Alex saw the Sunheart shrinking right before his eyes until it was all gone a minute later, its energy now safely stored within the beast core.

Alex sensed the beast core and realized whatever was to happen with it was done. The beast core had now accepted the Yang energy and thus it began to consume it all, to form a Sun Wraith.

He still observed what he could, but it became difficult after that. There was nothing he could sense regarding what was happening on the inside. He could only stay there and watch as the beast core began to grow brighter and brighter, the energy inside churning like clouds in an evening sky.

Then, when it reached its peak brightness, right before the Sun Wraith was to be formed, Alex consumed it. The beast core was then devoured by his body, the energy within it pooling like lava in his stomach, flowing through his meridians like liquid fire.

Alex cultivated with its energy for several days before it all ended. When he was done, his cultivation base improved once again, pushing him closer to a breakthrough.

Once Alex was done, he began the same experiment again, with three different beast cores and three Sunhearts.

For the first one, he stopped right as the Sunheart stopped absorbing Yang from the surrounding.

As for the second, he stopped right as the Sunheart began decaying and pouring its energy into the beast core.

And for the third, he let it devour the entire Sunheart.

He put away the Sunhearts and then looked at the beast cores. One of the beast cores appeared to have just been awakened from a deep slumber, and the other awakened a while ago, now hungry and looking to feed. The last one was one that was fed and satiated.

Alex made Blood Beasts with all three of them, comparing the results.

For the first beast core, where no Yang energy from the Sunheart had gone into the beast core, the Blood Beast that formed was slightly better than normal Blood Beasts.

Its strength was around the start of the Immortal realm.

For the second beast core, where it had just begun devouring Yang from the outside, the Blood Beast that formed was much better. This Blood Beast had fought against the blood aura quite fiercely, but after it stopped, it seemed happy enough to absorb a lot of the blood aura.

The last one was perhaps the best Alex had made just yet. It fought fiercely, causing Alex much trouble in refining it. But when he won against the beast inside, it devoured the blood aura.

And when it formed, it was much different as well.

It was no longer a Blood Beast, but a beast of yellow and red.

Of Sun and Blood.