Chapter 42: Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence

Now that the Staff Entrustment Technique was mastered, Lu Yuan's next primary goal was to undertake the cultivation of Refining Essence into Qi.

In fact, during the half-month spent crafting the Jishanzhang, he had already been attempting to Refine Essence into Qi using the Guiding Technique, but because the Jishanzhang would eventually consume a massive amount of vital blood and essence, there had been little progress.

Fortunately, now that the Staff Entrustment Technique was mastered, he no longer needed to consume his essence and could focus on Qi Refining.

Just like that, Lu Yuan adjusted his state well, and that very evening, he officially began Refining Essence into Qi.

The so-called Refining Essence into Qi means that among the three treasures of essence, Qi, and spirit, with essence as the foundation, one goes through processes such as regulating the body, regulating the medicine, producing the medicine, gathering the medicine, sealing the furnace, and operating the refinement, so as to gather the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism to refine the original essence and original Qi together, thereby transforming them into light, clear, and formless True Qi, which follows the circulation of the Small Heavenly Circuit, continuously refining into a Pill Embryo, only then is the great work completed.

Simply put, this stage of cultivation is to transform one's own essence and Qi into True Qi, and then initially condense the True Qi into a Pill Embryo, or what could be called the embryonic form of an Inner Pill.

And once he started practicing, Lu Yuan discovered.

This process was far more obscure and difficult than the Hundred Days Foundation Establishment; even though he had mastered the entire Guiding Technique, it took him several days of effort to barely enter the threshold and become familiar with the steps of regulating, producing, gathering, and refining the medicine.

Following that, even after becoming proficient in the steps of Refining Essence into Qi, the process of refining True Qi was exceptionally slow.

For several nights after entering the threshold, Lu Yuan only produced wisps of scattered Inner Qi in his dantian, which would dissipate shortly after condensing, returning to his own essence and Qi, remaining quite a distance away from the condensed and non-dissipating True Qi Dharma Power.

Naturally, he did not believe in this setback; apart from his daytime Martial Arts lessons, he used all his time and energy to conquer this first difficult hurdle of entry.

Just like that, amidst the difficult exploration of cultivation, more than half a month flashed by.

This morning.

Inside his own room, Lu Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed; with every inhalation and exhalation, the air surged, and following the breathing rhythm that secretly matched a certain frequency, the corners of his clothes moved without wind, making his entire temperament appear ethereal and void.

Not long after.

Suddenly, his body trembled slightly, and the aura on his body changed abruptly, just as if a green, tender sprout had grown from parched earth; an indescribable, exuberant vitality radiated outward.

Lu Yuan opened his eyes, his pupils filled with shimmering spiritual light and infinite joy:

"The first strand of True Qi, finally refined."

After the Hundred Days Foundation Establishment and Refining Grain into Essence, he was already able to perform introspection of his own body.

At this moment, under introspection, he could see that within his dantian, a wisp of light and spiritual True Qi was condensed and did not dissipate, resembling substance, moving like a spiritual snake through the connected Qi Pulses, continuously circulating the Heavenly Circuit.

This undoubtedly represented that he had now officially stepped into the stage of Refining Essence into Qi, initially possessing Dharma Power!

It was precisely when this strand of True Qi was completely formed, while Lu Yuan's heart was filled with infinite joy.

The Heavenly Book in his mind hummed and shook; in the darkness, wind and clouds suddenly surged, and a large amount of Luck Power descended from thin air, making his heart stir instantly:

【Luck Power】 248 units

48 units were what he had accumulated previously; the extra 200 Luck was what had suddenly surged just now.

Clearly, refining the first strand of Dharma Power represented a complete entry into Refining Essence into Qi; such a large improvement in realm fed back into his Luck, bringing about a greater increase in Luck than during the Hundred Days Foundation Establishment!

The increased 200 units of Luck were enough to light up two Earthly Fiend Arts.

However.

After a brief joy, Lu Yuan had no mood to consider which Earthly Fiend Art to light up next; instead, his brows locked tightly, and he fell into deep thought.

Because after more than half a month of cultivation, he found that the process of Refining Essence into Qi was truly too slow, slow enough to be somewhat unbearable.

After all, refining True Qi was only the first step.

Refining Essence into Qi requires the continuous refinement of True Qi, and the condensation of True Qi into a Pill Embryo, to be considered the perfection of this stage.

However, to condense a Pill Embryo requires at least a thousand strands of True Qi; he had only refined such a pitiful wisp in over half a month. At this rate, it would be impossible to reach perfection without several decades.

The key was that he still had the Ingestion Technique at his side, and his essence could be replenished and strengthened at any time, far stronger than ordinary people. Under such circumstances, it would still take decades; even if ordinary people died of old age, they could never complete this step!

"No, there must be something wrong somewhere."

Lu Yuan carefully recalled and pondered all the content in the Guiding Technique, then remembered a problem he had encountered before:

"The step of Refining Essence into Qi requires refining one's own essence, and also gathering the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence, but I could hardly feel the existence of this so-called Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence during the cultivation process. Could this be the problem?"

In the Guiding Technique, Refining Essence into Qi takes one's own essence as the foundation, but during the process of producing medicine, if one can gather the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence to integrate, it can significantly speed up the process of refining and transforming into True Qi.

Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence is explained in the Guiding Technique as the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism. During the cultivation process, Lu Yuan did indeed faintly feel the existence of the so-called Spiritual Mechanism, but that feeling was minimal, almost as if it didn't exist.

He guessed there were only two reasons for this situation: one was that he was in the mundane world, where the aura of the red dust was intense, causing the so-called Heaven and Earth Spiritual Essence to be thin;

Second, this world itself was thin in spiritual essence, close to the severance of the Spiritual Mechanism, which is why there were no immortals, gods, or immortal cultivators, and even with cultivation paths like Martial Arts and Daoist Arts, the upper limit was not high.

It was not difficult to verify these two problems.

Lu Yuan thought for a moment and immediately went to ask Li Junxian for a few days of leave, claiming he wanted to return to Liujiang County to set up a grave and offer incense for his parents who had drowned in a flood.

Li Junxian agreed immediately, and Lu Yuan was also swift and decisive; that same day, he rode a horse and left Fengyang Prefecture.

Of course, he was not returning to Liujiang County to pay respects, but after some inquiries, he headed toward the most famous mountain and blessed land in the area, Fengyi Mountain.

This mountain was only a hundred miles away from Fengyang Prefecture, and it was said that there was a temple with flourishing incense, Qingyu Temple, on the mountain. Every holiday, many high-ranking officials and nobles from Fengyang Prefecture would go there to offer incense and pray.

A hundred miles could be reached in a day; Lu Yuan arrived at the foot of Fengyi Mountain that same day, then left his horse at the Welcoming Guest Inn at the foot of the mountain and climbed the mountain on foot.

Qingyu Temple was located halfway up Fengyi Mountain. Guests coming and going on the mountain path were not rare, and the Daoists who welcomed and sent them off all had upright postures, clearly possessing a foundation in Martial Arts.

Lu Yuan avoided all the pilgrims and Daoists and climbed straight to the peak of Fengyi Mountain.

This location was already over a hundred zhang high from the ground; looking out, the sky was high and the clouds were wide, and all the other mountains looked small.

The vegetation on the mountaintop was still dense. He searched for a while and found a quiet place sheltered from the wind and rain, then sat down on the ground and began the cultivation of the Guiding Technique.

The reason he traveled a hundred miles to this desolate peak was naturally to test whether he could sense a more concentrated Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism while being on such a famous mountain, far from human habitation and with a temple of flourishing incense?

(End of chapter)