Chapter 94: Secluded Cultivation 2

As quantity accumulates, it brings about a change in quality. What he needed to do now was keep raising the purity of his true energy, refining and compressing it again and again until the thin mist gradually became solid and substantial.

Sitting cross-legged, he focused his mind upon the ancestral aperture and the elixir field. His whole spirit sank into the process, and before long he had entered a formal state of cultivation. The Return-to-One Mind Art began to circulate on its own, drawing in spiritual energy from the world outside and constantly adding it into the revolving true energy for further refinement. It was an exceptionally dull and monotonous process. The true energy within his body had to be circulated and tempered countless times before it could improve at all.

Yet what he lacked least at the moment was time. His injuries would not heal in a day or two, and he could not train in footwork or technique, so he could only sit in meditation and recover. With all kinds of pills supporting him, he at least did not have to lie in bed for a long stretch.

In less than ten days, the fractured bones had more or less healed. Such speed was far beyond the imagination of ordinary people. As the saying goes, a twisted sinew or broken bone takes a hundred days to recover, yet he had shortened that process by a full tenfold. Of course, the medicinal pills had contributed greatly. If one reckoned the cost, the expense was probably more than ten times that of ordinary hospitalization and recovery.

During these ten days, he had spent nearly all his time in cultivation. He did not need sleep at all, using deep meditation in place of slumber, and his mind only grew sharper. The greatest change, naturally, was in his true energy. He had already reached a highly accomplished stage, and the density of his true energy had long surpassed that of ordinary martial artists. After countless tonics and frenzied cultivation, it had now been transformed completely. If it had once been only a flow of air, it was now like running water, and he could clearly feel the fullness of true energy moving through his meridians.

As the two most important points, the ancestral aperture and the elixir field had been broadened even further. True energy flowed along the perineum, linking the Conception Vessel and the Governing Vessel, cycling and merging without cease, showing more and more signs of becoming viscous.

Joy stirred in his heart. At this pace, in another month he would be able to take the final step: condensing a genuine point within the elixir field and the ancestral aperture. That point would no longer be something illusory, but a real, tangible substance. To compress all true energy into two points was itself an inconceivable feat. From then on, these two points would become the source of strength for his entire body. As the points grew, their volume would expand, and one step further on, when yin and yang joined in perfect harmony, an even higher form of power would emerge... spiritual energy.

Compared with true energy, spiritual energy was vastly more potent. For an alchemist, it was a milestone of monumental significance. Once spiritual energy advanced into spiritual power, the time would be ripe to become a true pill alchemist, and that was precisely the goal he had long yearned for. If even a medicinal refiner could be so monstrously gifted, then what sort of earthshaking being would a pill alchemist be? Just thinking of it sent a thrill through him.

And all of this rested upon strength. If he could not cross this threshold now, then there was no point dreaming of a higher level of power.

Again and again, over and over...

Within the tedium of cultivation, his true energy gradually transformed. The essence distilled from it grew ever smaller in quantity, yet its power seemed only to increase. As it circulated, he could not help but feel light-hearted, almost eager to spring to his feet and find an opponent for a fierce battle. That was the side effect of a sudden surge in strength.

Another forty days passed.

After more than fifty days of arduous seclusion, he finally refined the true energy in his body to its limit. The true energy that had once surged through him like a great river had now shrunk by countless degrees. Wandering through his meridians, it was like a mighty river that had gone dry, leaving only a slender stream stubbornly flowing on.

His true energy had changed from thin to viscous, even lustrous, with threads of faint scarlet within it. By now, the transformation was complete, and it had become the so-called vaporous energy, shimmering with a touch of haze while concealing terrifying power. Compared with the same amount of his former true energy, it was more than twice as strong.

His mind was as still as calm water, unruffled by the slightest wave. Everything proceeded step by step, as naturally as water flowing into a channel. The full transformation of the vaporous energy was only the first step; the final step was to nurture a true core.

This process was somewhat like a martial artist’s breakthrough. There was no fixed time or pattern. If opportunity and strength were both in place, it might be completed in the blink of an eye. But if the heart was burdened with distraction, a breakthrough might remain impossible for ten years.

He felt the elixir field and the ancestral aperture tremble at the same time, followed by a wave of tingling numbness. In an instant, it was as though all thirty-six thousand pores in his body had opened at once, each one delightfully refreshed. A pulsing rhythm arose at the perineum, and his manhood shot upright with a snap, hard as iron, quivering without cease. An unusual, overwhelming pleasure surged in like a tidal sea, wave after wave, as though something were about to break through its barrier and burst forth.

“Condense essence into energy, harmonize yin and yang, let heaven and earth arise, and split the primordial void!”

Seeing that his condition was exactly as described in the book, he knew the final moment had finally arrived. Though there was no extreme danger, this moment concerned the foundation of all his future cultivation.

At that instant, the youth was already close to losing himself in that strange temptation. Yet the steadfast will he had forged over the years took effect at the critical juncture. Gathering his breath, he drew in his perineum, and the refined essence suddenly followed his respiration, shooting up along the Governing Vessel and straight to the crown point atop his head. In that instant, his whole brain seemed to be struck by an electric current. The sensation was numb and nearly rigid, terrifying and yet strangely intoxicating.

But he had no time to think of anything else. His mind was already somewhat hazy, and he was merely following the plan he had made beforehand, carrying out the steps of cultivation by instinct.

At the same time, he guided the energy in his elixir field with intent, sending it upward in reverse along the Conception Vessel before his chest. One in front, one behind, the two streams of true energy were like two divine dragons charging forward with utter resolve, colliding violently at the center of his brow.

Boom!

Though his consciousness felt as though heaven and earth had split apart, there was in truth no sound at all. The two streams of true energy, seemingly the same yet not the same, stirred up a furious storm in the ancestral aperture. Amid the violent collision, they merged into one another and revolved within the ancestral aperture according to the pattern of the Return-to-One Mind Art, just like a taiji diagram.

That spinning motion made his entire brain feel as though it were whirling madly as well. The world tilted and twisted, his thoughts slowed, and he seemed to stiffen into a near-paralyzed state. The sensation was probably a hundred times more intense than a first ride on a roller coaster for an ordinary person. What was even more exasperating was that, although he felt unbearably awful, neither his body nor his consciousness seemed to belong to him anymore. He could not stop it at all.

No one knew how long passed. Perhaps only a few seconds, perhaps several hours, before the dizzying sensation finally began to fade.

His mind was still blank.

He did not know when, but when his awareness at last returned, as though waking from a dreadful nightmare, the transformation of his body had already ended. A pale red vaporous energy was now circulating along the route of the Return-to-One Mind Art within his meridians, moving in orderly fashion without the slightest disorder.