Chapter 254: To Follow Is Mortal, To Reverse Is Immortal

"Squeak! Squeak!"

Watching the tiny thing in his hand thrash wildly and emit monkey-like cries, Feng Xue sighed and turned to Bi Gelei, who had just broken free from possession and divine descent:

"Can you make it quiet?"

"No chance. In my world, a familiar's personality is tuned by the ratio of elements mixed during its shaping: fire elements are passionate and wild, wind elements are sensitive and playful, water elements are fickle and changeable, earth elements are steady and stern, light elements are gentle and calm, dark elements are gloomy and inscrutable—plus there are composite elements with variations. Those who master this can easily customize any personality they want."

"But this familiar is completely different—its composition isn't even elemental. I have no idea what kind of junk your guiding goddess mixed into it. All I can do is weaken its mobility or cancel the summoning entirely to make it dissipate. Beyond that, I'm helpless."

Though Bi Gelei was surprised that the little bell had actually created such a perfect familiar, she simply couldn't comprehend a state that defied even her familiar elemental framework.

Not to mention, even in her homeland, the sentience—or consciousness—of elements was essentially a black box.

Feng Xue sighed. Since he'd already replicated it, he figured he could just remake it, so he gripped the little bat with both hands, binding it with immense force, then activated the Qi-Seeing Technique to examine its basic structure.

"Master, this structure…"

"Mm, I know." As the spiritual light in his Qi-Seeing vision resolved, both Feng Xue and Xiao Lingdang simultaneously showed expressions of shock—Xiao Lingdang because her personality code required her to, and Feng Xue because he was genuinely stunned.

Because the creature's "body" was essentially the same thing as his "monster suit."

Not superficial similarity like energy-materialization—but a deeper, almost identical application at the level of willpower.

But the problem was, this little bat wasn't simulating willpower—it was simulating…

"Yuanqi… or rather, a state hardened by the Qi-Extraction Technique. Could this 'primordial yuanqi' truly be the primordial qi? If so, then what is willpower? Yuanqi generates zongqi to sustain heartbeat and pulse, drives blood circulation; blood absorbs nutrients from food to transform into yingqi; yuanqi activates yingqi, turning it into weiqi; ying and wei circulate, organs produce five qi, yuanqi differentiates into the five elements to nourish the five organs; refining qi into spirit—the soul also draws upon yuanqi. Then, if willpower arises from thoughts, is it not a secondary energy derived from yuanqi?"

At this moment, Feng Xue felt his scalp prickling, yet also felt an overwhelming clarity—as if he'd touched some fundamental truth. If he kept investigating, he feared he'd soon confront questions like: which is the true source of consciousness—the human brain or the soul? But regardless of the answer, according to his mystical system, both were born from yuanqi.

"Every human is born with one breath of primordial yuanqi. Yuanqi belongs to lesser yang, like a newborn sun. Body cultivators use yuanqi to activate weiqi, strengthening yang with yang, cultivating old yang. Mystics nourish the soul with yuanqi, drawing yang to replenish yin, cultivating lesser yin…"

Feng Xue reorganized the rules of the Folklore World—and suddenly froze, because—

"Ghost cultivators belong to old yin, drawing upon incense-worship willpower or living beings' yuanqi to cultivate lesser yang ghost bodies… I should've realized this long ago!"

Feng Xue's eyes widened. Since the day he crossed over, he'd encountered ghosts who cultivated by extracting yuanqi—but when he learned ghost cultivators relied on incense-worship willpower, he'd never connected the two!

No, perhaps precisely because he was Chinese—because since childhood he'd been steeped in ghost stories, films, and novels with this exact setup—that he'd never considered these two might share the same underlying principle.

"This is the unity of Heaven and Man?! So the Folklore World's system is actually a cycle. To truly transcend, one shouldn't follow the Four Symbols' lifecycle—that only perpetuates the cycle. To follow is to be mortal; to reverse is to become immortal. The correct cultivation path must go backward: return everything to its origin, focus solely on that single breath of primordial yuanqi, use lesser yin to nourish lesser yang, achieving yin-yang balance—only then can one transform the postnatal back into the prenatal, refining primordial yuanqi into primordial qi!"

With this insight, Feng Xue felt utterly refreshed. The "external path Golden Core" method that had previously plagued him now had no more bottlenecks. His earlier thinking had been too conservative—using Kidara as a soul vessel was still the ghost-immortal path.

He should reverse it: use his own yuanqi as the vessel for willpower, absorbing the sentience within willpower—just like the power forming this little bat. It's not that the technique has a spirit; it's that the qi gains spirit and becomes qi.

"If I ever get the chance, I really want to visit your homeland!" Feng Xue, having grasped this key insight, looked at Bi Gelei with a complex expression.

Sensing Feng Xue's gaze, Bi Gelei shivered involuntarily and frowned:

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing much. Just curious what a world where primordial qi hasn't yet differentiated looks like."

Feng Xue shook his head, convinced Bi Gelei's world must be fascinating—living there, one might even extend their lifespan just by breathing!

"But the Folklore World has its own advantages. The richer a world, the cruder its cultivation methods become, because refining techniques yields far less benefit than boosting stats. Conversely, in resource-scarce worlds like the Folklore World, where people can't climb the stat ladder, they're forced to develop exquisitely refined cultivation strategies."

Feng Xue thought this over, then quietly marveled: his greed for completeness had led Xiao Lingdang to help develop the Xuanwu Twin-Cultivation Pact—and it was shockingly close to yin-yang cultivation. Though it still clung to the "nourishment" model, compared to the normal "following," it was already "level." All he needed now was to insert Kidara—or any other phantom spirit—to achieve "reversal."

"All this primordial qi or not primordial qi nonsense—what exactly did you find in the familiar? We agreed to share progress. I gave you tech, you found something—share it with me!"

Watching Feng Xue start grinning like an idiot, Bi Gelei's blood pressure spiked again. If she thought she could win, she'd hang this man up and beat him senseless!

"Fine, fine! If you understand it, I'll give it all to you. No—even if you don't understand it, I'll teach you until you do!"

"Eeek! Why did you change your attitude so fast? Are you up to something else?" Bi Gelei stumbled back two steps, instinctively crossing her arms over her chest, watching him warily.

But she couldn't blame herself—Feng Xue's gaze at her now was genuinely odd. To his eyes now, this wasn't a vampire—it was the very foundation of his Dao!

(End of Chapter)