Chapter 595: Fear in the Heart, True Meaning of the Divergent Path

Inside the Star Dou Hall, the white-robed Daoist sat cross-legged.

Silent and soundless, as if in extinction.

After a long while, he suddenly spat out a mouthful of turbid air.

Such a long breathing rhythm would have been suffocating for others, but on this Daoist, it was full of rhythm and cadence, as if an ancient Xuan Turtle was swallowing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Suddenly.

The Daoist slowly opened his eyes.

Feeling his state, he revealed a relieved smile.

"Sure enough, focusing on casting for a long time has a great impact on cultivation. Fortunately, my foundation is solid enough to stabilize it."

To refine the Monster Emperor's remains, Luo Chen spent a full year.

And before that, he had just broken through to the Golden Core sixth layer.

It should have been a time to strike while the iron was hot after the realm improved, but he didn't expect that such long casting would cause great damage to his spirit and physique.

Even because he swallowed top-grade True Flame Pills as if they were energy-replenishing pills, a large amount of fire poison occupied his Qi Sea.

Before, he was intoxicated by casting and hadn't discovered it.

When he returned to the normal cultivation rhythm after nourishing the treasure embryo, Luo Chen realized the impropriety.

His Golden Core sixth layer realm, which he had just ascended to, almost regressed.

For this, Luo Chen first used the Dragon-Slaying Technique to remove the fire poison in his body, then ate a large amount of various tonics, and finally rested for a month or so before restoring his body to a normal state.

In this way, Luo Chen practiced with restraint for another two months and finally stabilized his realm.

At this moment, the entry of Golden Core sixth layer 1/100 on the attribute panel hung there quietly, bringing Luo Chen great peace of mind.

"The treasure embryo has been cast, and the remaining things are nourishment and array engraving; my time has suddenly become abundant."

"Three months of recuperation restored my spirit and energy to the peak, but I can't be slack anymore."

Looking at the attribute panel, Luo Chen planned the things to come.

The time waiting for the treasure embryo to be born naturally couldn't be wasted; he had to find something to do.

The first thing, without a doubt, was cultivation.

For Luo Chen, his regular cultivation was divided into two parts.

Qi Refining, Body Refining.

Combat power naturally prioritized body refining, but regarding the Great Dao of longevity, Qi Refining cultivation could not be slackened at all.

Luo Chen made a slight estimate according to his previous cultivation speed.

With the "Heavenly Phoenix Nirvana Sutra" as his life-bound cultivation method, supplemented by a large amount of top-grade True Flame Pills, and even the blessing of the third-grade high-grade spiritual land of the Star Dou Hall, his cultivation speed was the efficiency of a genuine Heavenly Spirit Root cultivator.

Finally, Luo Chen came to a rough deadline.

"Ten years!"

"If there are no outside matters to disturb me, hiding in the Star Dou Hall of Penghu, I only need ten years to ascend to the Golden Core seventh layer and become a genuine Great Cultivator!"

Before, when ascending from the Golden Core fifth layer to the sixth, the original estimate was six or seven years.

As a result, it took a full nine years.

The extra two or three years were, first, because he went to the Qu Yang defense line to do a garrison task, and the cave dwelling there only had a third-grade low-grade spiritual energy environment, which greatly delayed his cultivation speed.

In addition, he had been putting his mind into improving the "Ten Thousand Paths Convergence" in the middle, constantly adjusting the body refining cultivation method, which also had a lot of impact on his body.

In the end, it led to wasting three more years before ascending to the Golden Core sixth layer.

Dual cultivation of law and body is like this.

Cultivators don't value physique, but physique indeed affects cultivation efficiency.

Dual cultivation of both, there are always times of conflict, and even with the help of the system panel, Luo Chen had to pay the price for this.

However, fortunately, "Ten Thousand Paths Convergence" had been adjusted successfully, and it shouldn't affect his normal cultivation in the future.

Now he possessed combat power comparable to a Great Cultivator, and ten years later, he would possess the realm of a genuine Great Cultivator. By then, his combat power increase would be even more terrifying.

If the array engraving of the treasure embryo succeeded, and he had an extra defensive magic treasure refined from the Monster Emperor's remains.

Then by that time, Luo Chen might be able to heroically say: "If the Nascent Soul does not appear, who can compete with me!"

Of course, these hopes were still just fantasies.

At present, the road still had to be walked step by step.

After Qi Refining, it was Body Refining.

Ancient third-grade 81/ Looking at the attribute panel, Luo Chen pinched his fingers to calculate the amount of Black Emperor Paste.

"Should be able to last until the perfection of the third-grade body refining, right?"

He was a bit uncertain.

This set of body refining paths he created himself was smooth sailing at the beginning, later used fire instead of thunder to speed up body refining, and recently used the casting method to refine both internally and externally, which could be called perfect and flawless.

At least, it was perfect and flawless in Luo Chen's current vision and pattern.

But this path, as a whole, seemed relatively rough and savage, and even in the system classification, it didn't divide into layers like the Golden Core stage, only using a large realm division of Ancient third-grade.

This led to Luo Chen's perception of the improvement of each level being relatively blurred as a whole.

Especially, the cultivation of any Great Dao is harder the further you go.

This progress bar of eighty-one, away from the perfection of one hundred, what degree of resource consumption would there be in between, Luo Chen also had no idea.

"Just take one step at a time!"

This path, with no law to follow and no precedent to follow, Luo Chen could only cross the river by feeling the stones himself.

After Qi Refining and Body Refining, Luo Chen's attention fell on the array column.

Fourth-grade array: Two-Yi Six-Armor Array

This is a combination array, with the third-grade Two-Yi array as the core, supplemented by six third-grade defensive arrays.

Among them, the six third-grade defensive arrays, he had all cultivated to the master level or above, and with this as the core, he had refined six sets of Profound Armor respectively.

But to refine the treasure embryo cast from the Monster Emperor's remains, the core Two-Yi array could not be neglected at all.

This array, the grade was only third-grade, but the power had almost no upper limit.

Influencing the power of the array depended on the materials used for the array.

Mentioned before, what is Two-Yi?

Yin and Yang are Two-Yi.

Heaven and Earth are also Two-Yi.

Odd and even or rigid and soft, Xuan Huang and Qian Kun can also be Two-Yi to each other.

Even, water and fire, men and women, old and young can all have the meaning of Two-Yi.

In short, taking the opposite meaning, the array arranged has the true meaning of Two-Yi.

Its power also depends on the two.

From this point of view, this third-grade Two-Yi array is a bit like the third-grade Heaven-Work Spirit-Seizing Array of the Ghost God Valley back then, all claiming to have no upper limit of power.

The Two-Yi Five-Element Sword Array, which Han Zhan used as a killing method back then, also valued the upper limit of the Two-Yi array.

When Luo Chen obtained this set of casting blueprints back then, he learned the Two-Yi array from Han Zhan and easily entered the door.

But in the subsequent practice, the progress became increasingly slow.

Up to now, it was still stuck at the perfect level and could not reach the master level, which was Luo Chen's minimum requirement.

As the core of the Two-Yi Six-Armor Array, how could it lag behind the Six-Armor?

"It seems I have to take time to visit Han Zhan and ask for his guidance."

Luo Chen sighed, but there was a bit of reluctance in his eyes.

Perhaps outsiders who knew the relationship between the two would feel strange about Luo Chen's reluctance.

Clearly they were friendly and helpful before, living together harmoniously, so why would they not want to see each other now?

This had to mention the thought of fear in Luo Chen's heart.

Back then on the merchant ship Langya of Langya Mountain, Luo Chen removed the bad luck on the Soul-Nourishing Wood for Han Zhan and encountered a bad luck impact on his sea of consciousness.

That time, it was quite dangerous.

Inside the sea of consciousness, illusions were reborn, and even the soul defensive magic treasure Rotten Black Chess couldn't resist.

It was Han Zhan who personally took action to solve the illusion crisis for Luo Chen.

Because of this matter, Luo Chen gained from the disaster, cultivated the Dragon-Slaying Technique to great perfection, and took the opportunity to upgrade the illusion Mirror Flower Water Moon, possessing a second layer of illusion. After Mirror Flower Water Moon, the Ghost Immortal Building appeared again, and the name of the latter was inspired by the three words "Ghost Immortal Building" blurted out by the white-clothed cultivator in the monster hunter assessment task.

But this matter also gave Luo Chen hidden worries.

That was that Han Zhan could ignore the defense of the Rotten Black Chess and invade his sea of consciousness!

I don't know if that is the universal means of Nascent Soul cultivators, or Han Zhan's special secret technique in soul refining, but in front of Han Zhan, Luo Chen felt for the first time the fear of being naked and undefended in terms of soul.

On the way before, Luo Chen had never shown similar fear and got along well with Han Zhan.

But since coming to the Wan Xian Society and entering this eight-hundred-mile Penghu, he had deliberately lived in different places from Han Zhan.

He used a very reasonable excuse.

That was that Han Zhan had obtained the Soul-Nourishing Wood and needed to restore his cultivation and strength. He had many things to do, and if they were always together, he would inevitably disturb him.

Han Zhan was naturally happy to see it, or perhaps he had seen through Luo Chen's thoughts and took the initiative to avoid suspicion.

In short, the two had been "living apart" for many years.

Even when he encountered confusion in improving "Ten Thousand Paths Convergence," he relied on his own exploration and did not seek Han Zhan's guidance.

But now, he still had to take the initiative once.

"It's time to see him, lest we grow distant."

Luo Chen muttered a sentence and sent a sound-transmission talisman outside the hall.

In the eight-hundred-mile Penghu, on a lonely island.

Unlike other places, there were no flowers, plants, or water birds here, no insects, ants, or beasts, and the barren island ecology even gave people a feeling of extinction.

But precisely, this was Han Zhan's place of living alone.

A few days ago, Luo Chen and Han Zhan agreed on a time to meet.

Today, Han Zhan found time to meet Luo Chen.

"There is a sentence I have always wanted to say: your path of practicing arrays is a bit rigid, or rather, you have taken a divergent path."

"In the past, I thought you had array talent; various low-grade arrays were easy to get started with as soon as you learned them, and you made rapid progress as soon as you started, and even some arrays you arranged had effects better than me, a dignified Nascent Soul True Person, which was truly incredible."

"But later I found that you seem to only be obsessed with copying and engraving in a rigid manner, only valuing its form, not its meaning."

"This set of learning methods might be feasible for low-grade arrays, but it's not enough once it involves high-grade arrays."

"You must know that any powerful array master never sticks to conventions when arranging arrays. They will adapt to local conditions, but they will also transform the environment and arrange the most suitable array in their minds. Why can they do this? Because they understand the true essence of the array!"

"Because of understanding, so they are not restricted."

"You don't understand, so you are restricted everywhere."

"Every high-grade array has the philosophy of the creator when it was designed. You can only arrange the perfect appearance of the array, but cannot involve the true core, which is just having the form but not the spirit."

"For example, the Sea-Sealing Eight-Trigrams Array, you can only arrange it in places with rich water vapor, but I can forcibly arrange it in places where volcanoes erupt. Can you understand the gap?"

"Or like this Two-Yi array, you started very fast, but now you are stuck at the small success level. The power arranged only makes Golden Core early-stage cultivators feel tricky. Do you know the essence of the Two-Yi array?"

Luo Chen never expected that what he thought would be an ordinary meeting where he asked for advice and Han Zhan gave guidance would actually be a head-on blow from the other party in the learning of arrays.

The self-righteousness of the past seemed so ridiculous in these words of guidance.

He thought he could learn various arrays without an upper limit by relying on the proficiency panel, but now it seemed he had clearly taken a wrong turn.

While reflecting in his heart, he found the general truth of what Han Zhan said in the way of alchemy.

His alchemy, even after great perfection, still had a success rate of about fifty percent for top-grade pills, meaning there was a fifty percent failure rate.

This probability was actually already very high.

It was enough to be called an alchemy master.

But there was one point wrong; Luo Chen had long discovered that the longer he refined a certain pill, even after great perfection, the success rate could still be slowly improved, and it wasn't far from the so-called ten-out-of-ten.

At that time, he only thought the truth was "nothing else, just practice makes perfect."

Now it seems that he was clearly comprehending the essence of a certain pill subconsciously in the way of alchemy.

At this moment, Han Zhan's sudden awakening in the way of arrays made him understand another meaning beyond the proficiency panel.

That is, above proficiency, there is true meaning!

From a high vantage point, Luo Chen reflected on the past.

After the Fireball Technique reached great perfection, it had the effect of "Blazing Sun Technique," which was the true meaning of the Fireball Technique itself.

After the Spirit Eye Technique reached great perfection, it took root in the eyes; this technique should have been to transform the cultivator's eyes at the beginning of its creation, allowing them to possess good eyesight, see the life and death of vitality, and avoid dangerous places.

Mirror Flower Water Moon is like this, Dragon-Slaying Technique is like this.

All kinds of things are like this.

As for other spells that didn't show special effects, was it because the upper limit itself was not high, or because he didn't understand the true meaning, so he stopped at great perfection?

For a time, inside Han Zhan's cave dwelling, Luo Chen fell into deep thought.

Han Zhan didn't disturb him either.

Until Luo Chen woke up, he returned to the topic and gave the advanced cultivation method of the Two-Yi array to him.

When Luo Chen walked out of the barren and lifeless lonely island, he couldn't help but look back at Han Zhan's direction.

"It was me who used the heart of a villain to measure the belly of a gentleman."

"Such teaching and guidance, even selfless teachers and close elders are no more than this."

"That's right, with the Great Dao oath made back then, how could he have any crooked thoughts toward me?"

Luo Chen smiled self-deprecatingly, and finally felt a big relief in his heart.

It was both because of Han Zhan's selfless guidance today and because he knew how to cultivate the Two-Yi array to a higher level.

Night fell.

The white jade plate rippled slowly in the water.

Deep in the bottom of the lake, in a water curtain cave full of algae and colorful corals, a huge Jiao Dragon was coiled, sleeping with its eyes closed.

And beside him, there was a slender figure sitting cross-legged with a straight back, hands pinching the formula in front, swallowing the incomparably pure spiritual energy of this place between breaths.

Looking closely, the figure was a young girl.

Dressed in water-green clothes, the white lotus flowers embroidered on them were lifelike.

White socks were faintly visible at the bottom of the skirt, and the slender waist seemed to be graspable in one hand.

As for the cheeks, the eyebrows were fine and the skin was snowy, and the bridge of the nose was straight.

It was a pity that while the spiritual energy was compelling, it was too clear and beautiful, lacking the baby fat peculiar to young girls.

Suddenly, a low voice came to the girl's ears.

"You should go back."

The girl opened her eyes, and a flash of cunning passed through her eyes.

"Uncle Dragon, how did you know I woke up?"

Black King looked at the girl helplessly. "You are absorbing the pure spiritual energy I refined and swallowed; I still don't know when you should stop?"

The girl curled her small mouth. "Tsk, boring."

Black King sighed. "Go back. I heard the Master say before that today is the Mid-Autumn Festival; don't you want to reunite with your family?"

When the full moon arrives, it is the time for reunion.

Zhang Jingqing looked at the outside blankly, and for a moment, she was speechless.

A rustling sound rang out, and Black King began to wriggle his huge body.

The girl panicked. "Uncle Dragon, just let me stay here for one night, please, I beg you."

Black King was puzzled. "Why don't you want to see your mother, and your father?"

"Father? He only has that younger brother in his eyes." The girl lowered her head, her emotions low. "As for mother, ever since she went to Qu Yang Island two years ago to send spirit stones to Lushan Jun and worshipped Lushan Jun as her teacher, she gave up her work at Qingyang shop and followed Lushan Jun to cultivate. I will go see her in a while."

In her words, there was still some attachment to her mother, but full of resentment toward her father.

Black King listened while his body began to slide outward gradually.

Seeing this scene, the girl's eyes were almost flowing with tears.

"Don't you like Xiao Qing anymore?"

Black King turned his head helplessly, his magic power rolled, and he carried her on his back.

"The Master has something to do with me; what does it have to do with whether I like you or not? Little girl, you have a lot on your mind. Come out with me; taking advantage of this beautiful festival, maybe the Master is in a good mood and will take you as an apprentice."

The Master in Uncle Dragon's mouth?

The girl sat on the Jiao Dragon's back, her face showing many complex emotions.

There was admiration and longing, as well as awe and fear, and there was more anxiety and unease in the flow of her gaze.

I don't know where such a young age got so many emotions.

The Jiao Dragon moved extremely fast. After coming out of the water curtain cave, it broke through the waves and dived all the way.

With a splash, as the waves flew, the Jiao Dragon appeared on the surface of the Great Lake.

On the dragon's back, the girl looked up.

Under the bright jade plate, a man and a woman stood in the air.

The woman was positioned behind; she was a familiar person from the girl's childhood, known to the outside world as Fairy Tianxuan, and she would sweetly call her Aunt Tianxuan.

And the white-robed man standing in the front, his skin was like fire, his body like a high mountain, even if the clear light of the bright moon fell on him, it was like a volcano that could erupt at any time.

The Jiao Dragon bowed its head. "Master, what is the matter with Old Black?"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 596 =====

On the dragon's back, the young girl looked up and gazed into the distance.

Beneath the bright, jade-like moon, a man and a woman stood in the air.

The woman, positioned behind, was someone familiar from the girl's childhood; the outside world called her Fairy Tianxuan, while she would sweetly call her Auntie Tianxuan.

As for the man in white robes positioned at the very front, his skin was like raging fire and his physique like a towering mountain; even with the clear moonlight falling upon him, he felt like a volcano ready to erupt at any moment.

The Jiao dragon lowered its head, "Master, what instructions do you have for Old Hei?"

(End of chapter)