Chapter 10: Three Years of Quiet Cultivation, the Monkey King Attains Jin Xian

Su Chen did not know how long he had remained in that chaotic space; he only knew his primordial spirit was enduring an extreme trial.

The “True Explanation of the Primordial Golden Core” was far too profound; each character seemed as heavy as a thousand catties, and merely imprinting it fully onto his primordial spirit had nearly drained all his mental strength.

When the final character settled, he felt darkness engulf his vision, and his primordial spirit nearly scattered apart.

At that moment, a cool, gentle force enveloped him, granting his weary, fractured primordial spirit a moment of respite.

“How much you gain depends entirely on yourself.”

The distant voice of Patriarch Bodhi echoed in his ears, like evening drum and morning bell, rousing him from his half-comatose state.

Su Chen snapped open his eyes and found himself back in the humble hut on the back mountain, seated cross-legged on the bed.

Outside the window, night was deep, the sky filled with stars.

Everything he had just experienced—the grand cultivation panorama, the profound supreme scripture—felt like a fleeting dream.

Had it not been for the crystal-clear “True Explanation of the Primordial Golden Core” in his mind, he might have believed it was merely a dream.

As he drifted in thought, a flash of golden light appeared before him, and the Heavenly Mechanism Mirror’s interface surfaced automatically.

【Detected: Host has received the Great Dao alongside Sun Wukong, the protagonist of the Journey to the West, significantly altering the karmic threads of the Journey to the West world…】

【Obtained Heavenly Mechanism Points +200】

【Current Heavenly Mechanism Points: 250】

Seeing this prompt, Su Chen finally confirmed that everything he had experienced was real.

He had succeeded!

He had not only hitched a ride on this opportunity but also acquired a supreme Dao no less potent than the “Great Celestial Immortal Art.”

The Golden Core Dao!

The moment those four characters entered his mind, Su Chen could no longer remain calm; not a trace of sleep remained.

He immediately closed his eyes, sank his spirit into his dantian, and began attempting to circulate the qi within him according to the Foundation Establishment method in the opening of the “True Explanation of the Primordial Golden Core,” using the Qi Refining Art modified by Patriarch Bodhi.

“The origin of the Dao lies in Foundation Establishment. If the foundation is weak, the tower cannot rise. One must guide qi back to its source, gather it in the dantian sea, and transform the postnatal into the prenatal…”

He carefully guided his internal qi along an entirely new route, far more complex than any he had known before.

The process was even more difficult than he had imagined.

Many of the meridian nodes along this new route were ones he had never touched; each impact brought sharp, needle-like pain.

Yet Su Chen paid it no mind; he was utterly absorbed in the mysterious sensation of this exploration.

He could clearly feel that with each full circuit along the new route, his qi grew slightly purer.

The qi, once tainted with traces of postnatal impurity, was slowly yet steadily transforming into pure, flawless “prenatal primordial essence.”

This sensation of rebirth and transformation entranced him.

Unaware, the horizon had begun to lighten with the first pale glow of dawn.

“Squeak—”

The door to the hut swung open, and a figure dashed inside.

“Younger brother, I seem to have forgotten to call you last night,” Sun Wukong said apologetically.

His memory was hazy; he recalled last night clearly—he and Su Chen had sat together in the back hall listening to the Dao, yet when he awoke, he was alone.

He had thought he had simply forgotten Su Chen.

He had even planned to find a way to pass on a copy of the “Great Celestial Immortal Art” to Su Chen once he had mastered it himself.

Su Chen was jolted from his enlightenment, slowly opening his eyes and exhaling a long, turbid breath.

He looked at Sun Wukong’s embarrassed monkey face and smiled: “I’ve been here all along.”

“All along? That can’t be right—I only saw Master in the back hall, not you.” Sun Wukong scratched his head, utterly baffled.

“Perhaps… the Master we each saw was not the same one?” Su Chen rose, stretching his numb limbs, speaking with implied meaning.

Sun Wukong tilted his head, pondering long and hard, yet still could not understand; in the end, he attributed it to Master’s miraculous abilities.

“Who cares!” He slapped his thigh. “The point is, we both received the true transmission! Younger brother, Master taught me the ‘Great Celestial Immortal Art’—it’s incredible! What did he teach you?”

“The Golden Core Dao.” Su Chen replied succinctly.

“The Golden Core Dao? Sounds pretty impressive too!” Sun Wukong didn’t understand, but the name sounded grand.

He leaned in, lowering his voice: “Younger brother, from today on, we’ll practice in secret.”

Su Chen nodded.

From then on, the cultivation lives of the man and the monkey entered an entirely new phase.

They continued as before—one chopping wood, one sweeping the ground—showing no difference before their fellow disciples.

Yet secretly, both trained tirelessly every day, their cultivation bases advancing by leaps and bounds.

Sun Wukong, having received the “Great Celestial Immortal Art,” was like a dragon entering the sea, a tiger returning to the mountains.

He was a primordial spirit born of heaven and earth, with terrifyingly deep roots.

The Badao law was perfectly suited to him; he did not even need to deliberately cultivate—merely through daily breathing and exhalation, his cultivation grew at breakneck speed.

The spiritual energy of the mountains, the essence of sun and moon, seemed to flow spontaneously into his body.

Su Chen’s cultivation, however, was an entirely different scene.

His “Golden Core Dao” emphasized the character “grind.”

Each day, he still went into the mountains to chop wood.

He integrated the methods of the “True Explanation of the Primordial Golden Core” into his “Axe Dao.”

Each axe swing became a forging of his internal qi.

He concentrated all his essence, qi, and spirit onto the blade, striking the wooden stump.

At the instant the blade met the wood, he drew back that force—along with the life energy of the wood—into his body, guiding it into his dantian sea for repeated refining.

It was an unbearably tedious and mentally exhausting process.

Yet he reveled in it.

Time flew, and three years passed in the blink of an eye.

Over these three years, Lingtai Fangcun Mountain remained as tranquil as ever.

Disciples like Wu Ming still struggled desperately to break through minor realms.

Yet the man and the monkey who had received the true transmission had long since left them far behind.

On this day, the wind was gentle and the sun bright.

Beneath a waterfall on the back mountain, Sun Wukong sat atop a massive rock, golden light swirling around him, his aura so powerful it warped the surrounding air.

Suddenly, he snapped open his eyes, and twin beams of golden light shot from them, piercing straight into the clouds!

A vast, boundless surge of magic power erupted from his body!

“Boom!”

The massive rock beneath him instantly turned to dust.

“I’ve done it! Old Monkey has done it!”

Sun Wukong let out a thunderous roar, his voice splitting clouds and shattering stone.

He felt boundless power coursing through every inch of his body; with a single thought, he could fly through the heavens, dive into the earth, pluck stars and seize the moon.

In just three short years, relying on his profound roots from the heavenly stone and the Badao nature of the “Great Celestial Immortal Art,” he had shattered the barrier between mortal and immortal, crossed the thresholds of Celestial Immortal and Mystery Immortal, and achieved the Jin Xian realm in one decisive leap!

The five energies in his chest converged, forming a five-colored radiance—henceforth immortal, eternal as heaven and earth!

On the other side, within the forest.

Su Chen had just finished chopping his final log for the day.

He too felt the astonishing surge from Sun Wukong’s direction, and a faint, wry smile appeared on his face.

“Monkey Brother’s talent is simply incomprehensible.”

He turned his awareness inward.

After three years of arduous cultivation, his progress was equally astonishing.

His internal qi had long since transformed entirely into prenatal primordial essence.

In his dantian sea, a faint golden glow, the size of a dragon’s eye, spun slowly—a phantom golden core.

This was the “Golden Core Foundation.”

His realm had long since advanced from the initial Qi Refining to the peak of Primordial Spirit Return to Void, now standing just one step away from Void Merging with Dao.

Such speed, in the mortal cultivation world, would shame any cultivator into utter humiliation.

Yet before Sun Wukong’s monstrous advancement, it still seemed inadequate.

One was an immortal, ageless, immensely powerful Jin Xian.

The other, merely a mortal with five hundred years of life—insignificant before a true immortal.

The divide between mortal and immortal had already begun to show.

Su Chen sheathed his axe, yet felt no envy—only a growing, urgent sense of pressure.

He knew this was a difference in origin.

Sun Wukong was a heavenly stone monkey, born with an impossibly high starting point.

He was merely a mortal; to have reached this point was already a great fortune.

The Golden Core Dao was inherently a path of slow accumulation and sudden breakthrough.

Slowness in the early stages was to forge the most perfect Dao foundation.

Once the Golden Core was complete, he would soar to the heavens!

“No rush, take it slow,” Su Chen adjusted his mindset, shouldered the firewood, and walked toward his dwelling.