Chapter 57: Taibai Baleful Qi

  An Jing’s awakened Spiritual Root quietly resonated with the Sword Baleful Qi of the spiritual energy in his body, greedily dev the purified Five Metals Baleful Qi and verting it for his own use.

  Because the Profound in Qi tained in the Remnant Echo had strengthened him, after pleting a single Great Circuit through his Spiritual Root, An Jing’s trol over the Sword Baleful Qi aal Baleful Qi was enhanced, being mile.

  The instant that silvery?gray Baleful Qi flowed into his dantian, under Fuxie’s prompt, he began maniputing the Baleful Qi within his body together with the spiritual energy from spirit jade, weaving and densing them into a Restri Seed.

  Firands of spiritual energy and Baleful Qi were extracted and iwined in the dantian, f aremely eborate and subtle structure. tained within it was the foundational framework for all the future restraints of the Taibai Diviri.

  It was not a plete system by itself—more like a toolkit. When necessary, An Jing could draw upon specific parts of it to form restris, creating sigil?like rune formations within his body.

  Restri Seed.

  This was the Taibai Restri Seed.

  A plex silvery?gray octahedron now sat at the ter of An Jing’s dantian. Threads of pan to spread throughout his body, following his bloodstream, breath, and sciousness, affeg him from head to toe.

  “It’s actually this effective!”

  An Jing sighed in amazement. He felt all his meridians subtly reinforced from within, making his circution of Internal Energy smoother and giving him greater endurance.

  And this was only the Restri Seed. If he fully mastered it, he could hardly imagine how much stronger his physique would bee!

  “This is the beginning of the Spiritual Root lineage, called Spirit Awakening. It is also known as ‘Dao Entry’ and ‘Meridian Nourishing,’ but they all refer to the same thing.”

  The Sword Spirit spoke softly, “By bining a suitable cultivatiohod, correents, and the proper mental state, then adding high?purity spiritual energy to stimute the Innate One Qi within your body, the inally dormant pradually transforms into vital essence.”

  “In the martial path, that bees ‘Internal Energy,’ the very first step on the road of cultivation.”

  “An Jing, you already practiternal Energy. Awakening your spirit again should bring you unique insights.”

  “Indeed.”

  An Jing slowly opened his eyes. Staring at his hands, he sensed a finer trol over his Internal Energy.

  Not only that, he lifted his brows in slight surprise. “My Internal Energy grew even stronger—another part of my Innate One Qi within me… has been excavated?”

  At Hanging Fate Manor, An Jing’s treatment was first?rate, on par with the core disciples of major martial halls or even the Great Martial Academy. He frequently ate demonic beast meat ara meals, giving him abundant Innate One Qi in his body.

  When he broke through to Internal Energy, he directly reached Internal Breath Like Rivers, illustrating his deep foundation.

  Even with Internal Breath Like Rivers, he had not fully tapped into all of his reserves, which awaited gradual cultivation.

  However, this Spirit Awakening enabled him to vert his Innate One Qi further quickly, unc more of his potential. It nudged his Internal Energy from the level of a small river toward that of mighty rivers and grand waterways.

  Moreover, his Divine Soul grew more stable—his Sea of sciousness expanded, speckled with gleaming motes of light that swirled around the broken sword!

  This was not only due to the Echo, but it also stituted a sed ce at growth after advang in Internal Energy.

  Oh of Qi Refining, nurturing the Divine Soul surpassed what ossible through the martial path.

  “Sure enough.”

  The Sword Spirit Fuxie seemed to have foreseen this. “The martial path itself was inally an offshoot of Qi Refining. Even though it ter developed into its own system, their in is the same.”

  “Vital essend Internal Energy share the same roots; their respective cultivatiohods plement and reinforce each other.”

  “With a Heaven?Ordained Fate in the martial path, plus a Spiritual Root assisting you, An Jing, the speed at which you absorb natural treasures and vert them into potential is twice that of ordinary cultivators. In the past, there were occasionally cultivators who awakened a Heaven?Ordained Fate along the Qi Refining path; they teo advance rapidly, and it seems this was why.”

  At this point, the Sword Spirit spoke didly, “But if that’s so, why did Huaixu not cultivate both the martial path and Qi Refining? Precisely because I suspect there may be hidden reasons, I only taught you this Radiant White Spirit Diviri. It doesn’t require external resources, nor does it demand genuine Qi Refining. If there’s some hidden risk, we simply fo it.”

  “For me, who needs immediate power, this really is well?suited.”

  An Jing gave a slight nod. After sensing himself, he hat the vital essence geed by his Spiritual Root was identical to the Internal Energy he created using the Yin?Yang Motion and Stillness* Method. “This vital essend Internal Energy…”

  “For you, they’re essentially the same.”

  Fuxie tinued, “The first step in cultivation is the same overall, whether it’s vital essence or Internal Energy—there are three phases.”

  “Like threads, like rivers, like tides.”

  “Innate One Qi is the seed of cultivation; only by expanding it you vert vital essence or Internal Energy and move on to the stages. That is Vital Essence Like Threads—at that point, it’s hard to apply in bat, and mostly just fortifies the body.”

  “Only upon reag Vital Essence Like Rivers do you reap feedback from it, unleashing divine power. As you are now, you burst forth with several hundred or even over a thousand jin of force, and project your Internal Energy outward to perform air?cleaving sword strikes.”

  “Only upon reag Vital Essence Like Tides, fully inundating your body, you refine esseo qi—using your inner vital essence as the source to transform the various wondrous Baleful Qi of Heaven ah, thus truly beginning Qi Refining.”

  Hearing this, An Jing asked curiously, “So you only truly do Qi Refining at Vital Essence Like Tides? Yet I just refined your Sword Baleful Qi, Fuxie?”

  He quickly realized something: “The Radiant White Spirit Diviri requires refined iron and gathers the Five Metals Baleful Qi… so it bypasses vital essence buildup and goes straight to Qi Refining?”

  “Yes,” said the Sword Spirit Fuxie with a smile. “This method uses external objects te vital esseh Heaven ah Qi directly, letting you skip the Rivers and Tides stages of vital essend begin Qi Refining at once.”

  “Because this cultivatiohod was devised by a Sword Immortals who had already reached great heights, it allows them to enhaheir physical bodies quickly. It’s extremely plex and hard to initiate, but it doesn’t rely heavily on the cultivator’s initial foundation. For someone like you, who possesses i wisdom, it’s the perfect fit to gee quibat power.”

  “As soon as you cultivate the first strand of Taibai Baleful Qi, you’ll have power on par with martial masters at the Internal Fortification stage.”

  “Still, building vital essence is essential. It’s the basis of all cultivatiohods. Even the Radiant White Spirit Diviri normally requires reag Vital Essence Like Tides before starting Qi Refining. But since you and I urgently need battle strength, we ’t worry so much about that, and we’ll have to force yrowth a bit.”

  “I uand.” An Jing closed his eyes and again sehe Taibai Restri Seed inside him.

  As the root of An Jing’s cultivation, it wove together with his Spiritual Root, gradually releasing strands of vital essehat formed a ttice?like framework within his body.

  Its growth was slow, though—even weaving oion of that mesh would take ten days or half a month, as it used only fihreads of vital essence.

  densing a single wisp of Taibai Baleful Qi would require at least several months of dedicated training.

  But if there was aernal supply of Five Metals Qi, it could be catalyzed to speed things up!

  “So this is the Taibai Gold?Dev Diviri… it really is like a beast that devours metal!”

  Feeling the might of the Radiant White Spirit’s Diviri, An Jing couldn’t help smiling—cultivating vital essence was a slow process. Even with his talents, he still had to painstakingly polish his foundation aen his Innate One Qi, gradually verting it into vital essend Internal Energy.

  To perfectly reach Vital Essence Like Tides, he would need about a year of steady adva.

  Yet by practig both Qi Refining and the martial Path, he could double the speed of verting his inner reserves, requiring only half a year to achieve Internal Breath Like Tides. The Taibai Diviri would also let him access part of an Internal Fortifiartial expert’s bat power early!

  All it would cost him was the extra effort of trag down more of the Five Metals.

  “This is what a superior cultivatiohod is.”

  An Jing then recalled his “Imperial Heavehod,” as well as the “Later Earth Method” that he had not yet obtained. “In parison, Hanging Fate Manor’s methods are inferior by more than one grade, and my family’s martial scriptures are even more ordinary.”

  “They might do for now, but ter they probably won’t keep pace with the Radiant White Spirit Diviri.”

  “I guess I’ll o search for better?quality martial cultivatiohods…”

  —It’s just that I’m not sure how advahe Son of Heavehod of the Heavenly Will Divi might be… I do find it flows quite smoothly for me. I don’t expect it to rival the Radiant White Spirit Diviri, but I hope it’s still detly high?level.

  Lost in these musings, An Jing temporarily set aside his worries for the future.

  For the moment, though, no matter hoy he was, he couldn’t tinue cultivating any further.

  Because he was hungry.

  (End of Chapter)

  *Previously transted as dynamid static.