This made Empress Harris even more terrified. The poison in that wine was the most lethal in the world; for an ordinary person, not to mention walking around as usual, they would likely be dead after drinking just half of it. Yet Henry Lewis drank every last drop, and seemed completely unaffected, as if nothing had happened. This utterly unbelievable situation left her completely dumbfounded.

Henry Lewis paid no attention to any of this. He returned directly to his own bedchamber, and after dismissing his attendants so that no one else was around, he took a jade talisman from under his tongue.

The pure white jade talisman seemed to be tinged with a faint ink-like hue, and an eerie fragrance wafted from it. After examining it for a while, Henry Lewis thought to himself, “Although this anti-poison jade talisman hasn’t been fully refined yet, it’s already more than enough to deal with ordinary poisons!”

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Chapter 3: The Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven

He put away the jade talisman in his hand. Before he could train his body to be immune to all poisons, he still had to rely on this treasure—which he had once looked down upon—to save his life. Ever since it was refined, he had kept it close to his person at all times. As long as he carried it, even if he was poisoned, it could keep him alive for a while, and if he put it in his mouth in time, it could detoxify him.

No sooner had he put it away than a palace maid came in to light the lamps in his bedchamber. Although Henry Lewis was a prince who didn’t receive much attention, he was still of royal blood. In terms of daily life, he really had nothing to worry about. Even if his food, clothing, and living conditions weren’t the very best in the palace, they weren’t far off.

At the same time, the palace maids assigned to him were all young and beautiful women. In a sense, they were at Henry Lewis’s disposal. Yet Henry Lewis had never laid a hand on any of them. This surprised not only everyone in the palace, but even his father, Mark Lewis, who was quite astonished. In private, he even said to his trusted chief eunuch, John Bennett, “Xuan’er is still young, yet he can be so self-disciplined. If he were to become emperor, perhaps he could be a wise ruler!”

But only John Bennett in the palace knew of these words. After saying them, Mark Lewis regretted it, and never mentioned the matter again. In fact, from that day on, he began—consciously or not—to avoid seeing Henry Lewis. However, he didn’t realize that John Bennett had secretly kept those words in mind.

Henry Lewis was unaware of all this, and even if he knew, he wouldn’t care. After the palace maids left, Henry Lewis returned to his bed, released the white crane folded from white silk, checked his surroundings, and then slowly began to circulate the Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven.

During the day, he cultivated to absorb the scattered Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven. At night, when it was inconvenient to absorb more, he mainly tempered the Dragon Qi already within his body. Otherwise, even if he absorbed the Dragon Qi, it wouldn’t obey his command, and would be awkward to use. Having cultivated this once before, Henry Lewis naturally wouldn’t make such a mistake.

“True power is power I can command. No matter how strong, if I can’t control it, it’s useless!”

At present, the Dragon Qi within him still appeared as mist and clouds. This was merely the very initial stage of the Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven—not even the first step completed. When first cultivating this technique, as long as some Dragon Qi was condensed, it would take on this form inside the body.

The misty cloud form was just the beginning. As the Dragon Qi gradually increased, the white mist would slowly take on a pale yellow hue, then turn golden. Only when all the cloud Qi turned golden could he begin the next stage: condensing the dragon egg.

This dragon egg was not a metaphor, but a real egg condensed within. Only when this dragon egg was formed could the foundation of the Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven be considered established.

Next came the incubation period... This stage of the Dragon Qi was rather awkward, as it brought little benefit. The Dragon Qi absorbed during this time couldn’t be used, but was all condensed within the body, circulating around the dragon egg, constantly nurturing and nourishing it, until this stage was completely over.

When the dragon egg cracked and the young dragon hatched, he would enter the next stage—the young dragon stage. The young dragon nurtured by the dragon egg was very small, but even so, the Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven could be considered initially mastered. From then on, things became much simpler: he just needed to keep cultivating, raising the young dragon into a golden giant dragon.

But that wasn’t the end. In Daoist thought, nine is the ultimate number. A single golden dragon was far from powerful; if that were all, the Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven wouldn’t be considered a top-tier technique. To truly master it, he had to cultivate nine golden dragons. Only then would the Dragon Qi of the Son of Heaven be truly complete.

According to Henry Lewis’s original estimation, if he could reach the realm of eight golden dragons, he would already surpass his previous cultivation. If he reached nine golden dragons, then none of his enemies would likely be a match for him. But all that was still a long way off, and there was no need to think about it now.

At present, his Dragon Qi only had a faint yellow tint, still some distance from gold, let alone nine golden dragons.

Logically, even though the Dragon Qi was thin at the end of the dynasty, after more than ten years, he should have at least completed the first step. But he had used a considerable portion of the Dragon Qi for other purposes. Now, Henry Lewis stood over eight feet tall. He estimated that he was a bit shorter than Lord Guan, but wouldn’t be at a disadvantage even against someone like Zhang Fei.

Because he was ambushed last time, the weakness of his body not being strong enough had made him more vigilant. In his previous cultivation, he thought that with companions by his side, his physical weakness wouldn’t matter. Unexpectedly, someone exploited this weakness and stabbed him in the back, nearly causing his soul to scatter and perish from the world.