After finishing his instructions to He Laohun, Jiang Yi returned to his room, brilliant golden light rising in his eyes.
[Deduction result: You may take a nourishing tonic to make up for the deficiencies in your fleshly body and the loss of vital energy. The prescription is as follows: fifty-year-old “Green Lingzhi” as the principal ingredient, one segment of Purple Cloud Stone Milk, fleeceflower root…]
“Tiger-wolf medicine stimulates the blood and qi, while a nourishing tonic consolidates the foundation and nurtures the origin. They complement each other perfectly.”
Jiang Yi rubbed his hands together. With these two prescriptions, he should be able to greatly shorten the time needed to break through to the third level of Qi Refining.
He committed them to memory, planning to purchase the ingredients tomorrow.
Putting aside all stray thoughts, Jiang Yi then recalled the matter of “sharing the money” that He Laohun had mentioned earlier.
“It’s not that I’m antisocial, insisting that all under heaven is muddy while I alone am pure.
“But if I get mixed up with two jackals who squeeze the people at the bottom dry, how could I possibly cultivate the demonic path properly?”
He could not help shaking his head, not putting Zhang San or Dong Si in his eyes at all.
To put it plainly, how much talisman money could they really earn each month by sucking the blood of mortal drudges?
For that tiny bit of profit, he would also have to sacrifice his own good reputation.
If word of it reached Yang Xun, it would instead make him seem shortsighted and petty, easily lowering his impression score.
Besides, Jiang Yi understood one truth very well.
Putting money into your own pocket felt good, but taking it out of someone else’s purse was very unwelcome.
Originally, Zhang San and Dong Si had been happily enjoying the “filial offerings” from the mortal laborers of three workshops.
Now, if a share were handed to Jiang Yi for no reason, would the two of them be pleased?
“You test me, I scheme against you, and then we match wits and courage… The Outer Peak isn’t some wonderful place. Rather than wasting energy on this, I might as well cultivate diligently.”
Jiang Yi had thought it through. Once he entered the third level of Qi Refining and advanced his cultivation further,
then Zhang San, Dong Si, or whoever else could all be slapped down with a single palm.
Why bother exchanging false courtesies and putting on a friendly face?
White frost condensed into ice, hanging all over the treetops.
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
Taking advantage of everyone in the communal courtyard going to work, Jiang Yi took out the tiger-wolf medicinal paste from the clay jar, as well as the Green Lingzhi pulp held in the jade bottle.
The former was black and glossy like lacquer, fine in texture, and of rather good quality.
As for the latter, it was emerald green, thick as honey, and emitted a clear, refreshing air.
These two items had spent the last bit of his talisman money.
“Everything is ready. All that’s missing is the east wind.”
Jiang Yi summoned the Heavenly Tome and posed a question.
[Humbly requesting the Heavenly Tome to show me the progress of my current cultivation.]
[Deduction time: ten breaths.]
[Deduction result as follows:]
[Heavenly Tome’s fated master: Jiang Yi.]
[Realm: Qi Refining second level (seventy-nine percent).]
[Cultivation arts: Orthodox Meridian Qi Circulation Art (unranked), Minor Origin-Forging Fire-Control Art (ninth rank).]
“As expected! Even with meals of spiritual rice every day nourishing my physique, my cultivation progress is still slow!”
Jiang Yi swept his gaze over “seventy-nine percent” and could not help shaking his head.
“If I don’t rely on tiger-wolf medicine to stimulate a breakthrough, I’m afraid I really would have to hold out until winter begins next month, barely scrape together eighty or ninety percent, and only just touch the threshold of Qi Refining’s third level.”
He had never been one to hesitate and look back and forth. His gaze immediately sharpened, and he reached out to pick up the clay jar.
However, before taking it, he still had to go through the proper procedure.
[Humbly requesting the Heavenly Tome to show me whether taking the tiger-wolf medicine at this day and hour is appropriate. Will any mistakes occur?]
Ripples spread across the golden paper, as though a pebble had fallen into a calm lake.
[Matter investigated: taking medicine.]
[Deduction time: five breaths.]
[Deduction result: success will come naturally; there are no obstructions.]
“Now it’s settled.”
After receiving an affirmative answer, Jiang Yi was finally at ease.
He took two portions of medicinal paste from the clay jar and pasted them respectively over his heart and lower abdomen.
Then he gently rubbed them with his palm, using the heat of his true qi to dissolve them, allowing that fierce medicinal nature to gradually seep through skin and flesh and drill toward his sinews and bones.
“As expected of tiger-wolf medicine!”
Jiang Yi’s brows locked tightly together. In less than half an incense stick’s time, his entire body had already flushed red and hot, like a cooked prawn.
The dissolved medicinal paste was like scalding hot oil poured over his whole body!
In an instant, every inch of his skin flared with burning pain.
Especially the two places at his heart and lower abdomen. The former thudded wildly, like a pounding drum; the latter felt as though it had been branded by a red-hot iron.
“Good thing! It means it’s working!”
Jiang Yi comforted himself, striving to forget the torment suffered by his body, hair, and skin.
The first level of Qi Refining transformed the sinews; the second level transformed the bones.
This third level was the transformation of blood.
As the saying went, the sinews were the garments of the bones, and the bones were the roots of blood.
Only when the sinews, flesh, skin, and membranes were firm and tough could they wrap the bones like well-fitted robes, preventing them from being shaken by tremendous force.
Likewise, only when the bones were hard and the body sturdy could new blood be produced without end, causing the vitality of a mortal physique to flourish.
In the realm of Qi Refining, the changes of each level all echoed and complemented one another.
“At the third level of Qi Refining, qi boils like fire, washing through the hundred bones; marrow gives birth to new blood, and a hundred illnesses cannot invade… Once I reach the fourth level, it will be the transformation of the organs and refinement of the viscera.
“When the fourth level is perfected, I’ll be able to open the inner mansion of the Primordial Gate and gather and refine the spiritual essence of heaven and earth.”
Jiang Yi sat in meditation and circulated his art, guiding it through the heavenly circuit as he absorbed and digested the tiger-wolf medicinal paste.
As the medicinal power dispersed and became increasingly obvious, he gradually felt that his true qi, thick as a hemp rope, had turned scalding hot, like a steel needle heated red.
Every time he pushed it forward and circulated it by a fraction, he was stabbed with piercing pain!
Sending it through the hundred bones and circulating it through the heavenly circuit had actually become torture akin to cruel punishment!
“Huff!”
Jiang Yi endured that sharp, sour thrill of steel needles piercing through him and breathed in and out without stopping.
Within his mouth and nose, two streams of white smoke sprayed out violently, like long snakes extending and retracting unsteadily.
On the surface of his skin, all one hundred and eight thousand pores opened, steaming with clouds of hot vapor.
Each time Jiang Yi completed a great heavenly circuit, his true qi grew by ten percent.
By the time the thirtieth major circulation ended, his body seemed to have a stone roller grinding within it, rumbling loudly with an extraordinary momentum.
“It has indeed improved!”
The light in Jiang Yi’s eyes grew ever stronger, almost like blazing flames, and his youthful face flushed with the redness of excitement.
Clearly, the tiger-wolf medicinal nature had been urged to its limit, stimulating his entire being into an excellent state.
When his physique had swelled to the point where it could swell no further, as though pent up to the utmost limit, he abruptly drew in a great breath. A wild wind surged through the cramped little room, blowing the door plank until it clattered and shook.
“My power has advanced greatly! The tiger-wolf medicinal paste is extraordinary!”
Another quarter of an hour passed before Jiang Yi slowly ended his exercise.
The qi and blood released from within his body were like the roars of dragons and tigers, exploding into layer after layer of atmospheric ripples, nearly shaking apart the shed he had rented for five hundred talisman coins!
Crack. Crack.
The two portions of medicinal paste stuck to his flesh had already been baked dry and hard.
Affected by the shock, they snapped with a crackle, turned into crumbs, and fell off on their own.
Bang!
The tottering door plank crashed to the ground. Wind and snow howled as they poured in, only to be swept by his blazing, masculine qi and blood and vanish without a trace.
Jiang Yi carefully sensed his mortal body after the transformation of blood. Faintly, there was a feeling like a young sprout putting forth shoots, as though everything had been renewed.
Moved by the sensation, he softly chanted:
“Only when form and frame are shed does truth appear; within the furnace is refined a self set free.
“A thousand hardships become stepping stones; one inch of numinous light breaks through the dust of delusion… I can somewhat understand the state of mind of my old leader when he liked to play at refined elegance.”
Jiang Yi laughed at himself and stepped outside the room. Snowflakes like cotton wadding drifted down in profusion, only to be completely melted away by his vigorous qi and blood, blazing like a furnace.
He pinched the jade bottle in his right hand, tilted his head back, and drank the prepared “Green Lingzhi pulp.”
It was cool as it entered his throat, tasting rather like tortoise jelly: faintly bitter, yet with a sweet aftertaste.
Once the sticky, pulp-like foundation-nurturing tonic had all entered his stomach, the stifling dryness that had originally filled his hundred bones was swept away in an instant.
Jiang Yi suddenly became calm.
His virile, blazing, surging qi and blood were like a furnace with its lid closed; that scalding, boiling sensation was gradually drawn back in.
The true qi strengthened by taking the tiger-wolf medicinal paste and forcibly squeezing his sinews, bones, blood, and marrow was like a red-hot blade plunged into water. With a hiss, it underwent a tempering.
From its previous loose and unstable state, it gradually became condensed, rounded, and solid instead.
Such domineering medicine that ravaged the body had actually not harmed his foundation or damaged his path in the slightest.
“I’ve taken another step on the long road to becoming proper talent.”
Jiang Yi resolved the karma and erased the tadpole-like small characters, then immediately asked another question.
[Humbly requesting the Heavenly Tome to show me the progress of my cultivation in the first realm of Qi Refining.]
[Deduction result: Qi Refining third level (eleven percent).]
PS: Thanks to [Xingzhen] for the 1,900-point tip, [You’re Forcing Me to Eat Bugs] for the 1,600-point tip, [Nanfeng Number One in the World] for the 1,200-point tip, and [Unnamed Macaque] and [Flickering Speckle] for the 1,000-point tips. Heart~