Chapter 43: Nine Breaths Serving Qi

Time is forgotten in cultivation; in the blink of an eye, a day and two nights have passed.

Staying on the summit of Fengyi Mountain, Lu Yuan lived in the open, subsisting only on the dry rations and medicinal herbs he carried with him, practicing in a state of self-forgetfulness.

When the morning light of another day broke through the clouds and shone upon the world, he, having exhausted his personal supplies, also ceased his practice of the Guiding Technique.

Opening his eyes, Lu Yuan's expression was quite solemn.

After these day and two nights of Refining Essence into Qi, he had indeed sensed that there was a slightly denser Spiritual Machine of Heaven and Earth on this Fengyi Mountain, yet it remained extremely limited.

To use an analogy, it was the difference between 0.1 and 0.2; although it seemed to have doubled, because the total amount was too low, the help for Refining Essence into Qi remained negligible, and the effect was not even as good as eating a few more mouthfuls of medicinal herbs.

This undoubtedly also showed that both of his previous judgments were correct.

But the primary reason was still that this world itself had a Spiritual Machine so thin it was nearly non-existent, which was why the Guiding Technique could not gather the Spiritual Essence of Heaven and Earth, affecting efficiency and progress.

"No wonder there are no cultivators or Immortals in this world; it turns out it is caused by the environment of Heaven and Earth."

Lu Yuan's brows were tightly locked, and he finally sighed in his heart:

"It seems it will really take decades of time to completely complete Refining Essence into Qi."

Although he could not gather the Spiritual Essence of Heaven and Earth, the Guiding Technique could still operate to refine his own essence to perform Refining Essence into Qi, it was just that the efficiency was relatively lower.

Not to mention the Hundred Days Foundation Establishment and Refining Grain into Essence for building the foundation upon entry, Refining Essence into Qi is actually the first step of immortal cultivation; if this realm alone requires decades, it is indeed enough to make the vast majority of people despair.

However, the Earthly Fiend-Guidance that Lu Yuan obtained is both an Inner Elixir Dao cultivation method and a technique for prolonging life.

It is said therein that those who complete the Hundred Days Foundation Establishment and Refining Grain into Essence can obtain a lifespan of one hundred and fifty years; those who complete Refining Essence into Qi and condense the Pill Embryo can even reach a lifespan of three hundred years.

Although he has just stepped into Refining Essence into Qi now, his lifespan is also over one hundred and fifty years, so even if he spends decades on Refining Essence into Qi, he can fully afford the consumption.

Moreover,

besides the Ingestion Technique, there are several others among the Earthly Fiend Seventy-Two Arts and Heavenly Dipper Thirty-Six Techniques that can assist in cultivation and shorten the time!

Lu Yuan communicated slightly with the Heavenly Book, browsed through all the arts one by one, and then determined a few of them:

One is "Pill Rolling": This art is a pill formula of the Earth Immortal lineage, containing many methods for refining external pills, which can just happen to complement the Guiding Technique of the Inner Elixir Dao.

(Note: There are two theories about Pill Rolling on the internet; one says it is the Great Dao of Golden Core cultivation, and the other says it is the art of external alchemy. These two theories are actually interpretations compiled by netizens themselves. The "Comprehensive Mirror of Successive Generations of Immortals," the source of the Heavenly Dipper and Earthly Fiend methods, does not explicitly state which category this art belongs to. Considering rationality, the author adopts the second one; please do not flame if you dislike it.)

Two is "Boiling Stones": This art is also an art of alchemy, but it is the art of extracting essence from the five metals and eight stones, and refining Golden Core great medicine using gold, lead, beautiful jade, and gemstones as main materials.

Three is "Medicine": This art not only contains various medical arts capable of bringing the dead back to life and regrowing flesh on bones, but it can also be used to harmonize with arts; when preparing medicinal herbs, it can remove their harmful factors and increase their beneficial factors. It can significantly improve the quality and medicinal power of the herbs.

These three Earthly Fiend Arts can all refine external pills or external medicines with powerful effects; if combined with the Ingestion Technique, they will inevitably achieve twice the result with half the effort!

And besides these three Earthly Fiend Arts, there is actually another art on the Heavenly Book that has an extremely powerful effect on assisting cultivation.

That is "Nine Breaths Serving Qi" from the Heavenly Dipper Thirty-Six Techniques.

"Nine Breaths Serving Qi": By breathing and exhaling for nine breaths, one can swallow and spit out the Original Qi of the universe and Heaven and Earth to transform it into True Qi and Dharma Power; it is the supreme Qi Refining method of the Daoist school.

The Heavenly Dipper Thirty-Six Techniques are genuine Great Supernatural Powers.

According to the annotations of the Heavenly Book, this Supernatural Power can ignore the environment of Heaven and Earth, directly extracting Original Qi from the depths of the void to nourish oneself, recovering and strengthening Dharma Power; it can be called becoming stronger just by breathing!

If he mastered this Great Supernatural Power, Lu Yuan believed that continuing to perform Refining Essence into Qi and even subsequent cultivation in realms like Refining Qi into Spirit would absolutely be easy.

However, it is a pity that the Heavenly Book fed back that this method is ranked in the middle among the Heavenly Dipper Thirty-Six Supernatural Powers, and to light it up, it actually requires a full one hundred thousand units of Qi Luck!

This is undoubtedly an astronomical figure.

Unless one changes a dynasty and establishes a new one by one's own strength, accomplishing such a world-shaking feat of changing Heaven and Earth, otherwise one would not be able to accumulate so much Qi Luck until death.

"Changing a dynasty..."

Lu Yuan's gaze was deep as he looked toward the vast mountains and rivers, not knowing what he was thinking in his heart.

In the blink of an eye, three days later.

After confirming his guesses and judgments on Fengyi Mountain, Lu Yuan did not rush to light up the Earthly Fiend Arts, nor did he immediately return to Fengyang Prefecture, but instead really made a trip to Liujiang County.

After all, before the original owner died, his only wish was to one day be able to erect a grave and a monument for his parents who had no remains left.

He inherited the original owner's body, and now that he has the ability, fulfilling such a small wish is also a matter of course.

Returning to Liujiang County.

More than half a year has passed, and that flood left indelible traces; although some fields around the county town have begun to be replanted, the population of the entire Liujiang County has decreased by nearly half, and both inside and outside the city appear unusually desolate and bleak.

The original owner's home had long been washed away by the flood and was gone; the original site was already a desolate wasteland overgrown with weeds. Lu Yuan did not linger too long, only erecting a grave and a monument for the original body's parents at this location. After satisfying the obsession before the original body's death, he once again stepped on the road back to Fengyang Prefecture.

However.

Compared to the smoothness of his arrival, an accident occurred on this return trip to Fengyang Prefecture.

It was noon, and the breeze was mild.

Lu Yuan was galloping on horseback along the dilapidated official road, but when passing through a depression, more than ten mounted figures suddenly emerged from the yellow earth slopes on both sides.

"Stop for me!"

This group of people swooped down while screaming fiercely; the leader even held a Firearm in his hand, raising his hand to shoot at Lu Yuan, his momentum fierce and rugged.

Nowadays, the rule of the Jin Dynasty is on the verge of collapse, and horse bandits are rampant in various states and regions, robbing passing merchants; this group of people who appeared suddenly was clearly of this type.

And the moment this group of people appeared and there was the sound of gunfire and the flash of fire, although he was not hit by the Firearm, Lu Yuan's expression turned cold, and almost in an instant, he activated the Invisibility Technique, and his whole person disappeared directly on the horse's back.

At this moment, the eight horse bandits had just rushed down the slope while howling like ghosts and wolves; they hadn't even seen clearly what Lu Yuan on the horse's back looked like when they lost their target in their line of sight.

"What!?"

Lu Yuan's horse stopped suddenly in place, but the person on the horse's back was eerily nowhere to be seen. The fierce horse-faced bandit leader holding the Firearm looked as if he had seen a ghost, and could not help but be shocked:

"Where is the person?"

The other seven horse bandits had already surrounded Lu Yuan's horse from front and back, all blinking hard, suspecting that something was wrong with their eyes:

"This, what is going on?"

"I clearly saw a kid on the horse's back just now, how did he disappear!?"

"It's evil! We wouldn't have run into something evil, would we!?"

This group of horse bandits had been doing this for so long and had never encountered such a bizarre situation. Although the leader holding the gun had a fierce look, a chill inexplicably surged in his heart at this moment, so he hurriedly pulled the reins and shouted:

"Damn it, this situation is not right, take this horse, let's retreat quickly..."

Bang!

Before the word "retreat" had even finished echoing, the horse ridden by the lead bandit suddenly had its front legs buckle for no apparent reason, and in an instant, it collapsed to the ground with a painful whinny, pinning the caught-off-guard spear-wielding bandit on its back underneath it!

(End of this chapter)