“There are even talismans? What a fat sheep!”
When the burly man in black saw Fang Qing use a talisman, delight appeared on his face, and he drove his flying shuttle closer and closer.
“Water Arrow Technique!”
Fang Qing raised a hand, sending several water arrows flying out, but the burly man blocked them with ease. “Haha… Your magical power is this feeble? Don’t tell me you entered the Dao with some lower-three-rank miscellaneous qi?”
He had still been somewhat wary before, but now he relaxed considerably. Spreading his large hand, he sent a cloud of black smoke turning into a giant palm, about to seize Fang Qing.
At that moment, a pale golden talisman appeared in Fang Qing’s hand and was fiercely activated.
Hiss!
Golden light flashed in the void, gathering into a golden blade. It was none other than a “Golden Blade Talisman”!
But unlike those on Biyu Island, this golden blade had not only become longer and more slender, its surface even bore ancient, simple patterns, like a blade of heavenly punishment, cleaving down with a sudden slash!
Pfft!
That pitch-black hand was cut open outright.
The blade light did not lose momentum, sweeping past the neck of the burly man in black.
Before he could say anything, his head had already fallen.
“As expected… in this world, metal and fire manifest the Dao, and the offensive power of metal-attribute talismans increases greatly…”
“Wait. So even talismans of the Qi Refining Dao are affected in this Ancient Shu world?”
Fang Qing drove the Azure Leaf Boat forward, grabbed the burly man’s corpse and flying shuttle in one motion, and swiftly left the area.
Not long after, several more streaks of fleeing light arrived. They circled briefly, then pursued in the direction Fang Qing had gone.
Unfortunately, those cultivators were destined to return empty-handed.
……
Biyu Island.
“Rotten place, what a rotten place!”
Fang Qing cursed loudly. If he had not just happened to have a metal-attribute talisman for protection, he would have died this time at the hands of that bandit cultivator.
“In the future, I’d better keep more metal- and fire-attribute talismans on me. Over in Ancient Shu, they have the best cost-effectiveness… Good thing I ran fast. If those cultivators have the guts to chase me here, I’d actually have to admire them.”
Biyu Island was, after all, Bihai Sect territory. No one dared to rob and murder a Bihai Sect disciple on the island.
He caught his breath for a few moments, then began rummaging through the cultivator’s corpse, looting the body.
“This man… was really poor!”
A moment later, Fang Qing’s expression became even gloomier.
The result of searching the corpse was terrible. This bandit cultivator was quite poor; aside from a single flying shuttle, he had no other ritual artifacts on him.
There were no cultivation manuals in his robes either, only one bottle of pills.
After he pulled out the stopper, a bloody stench assaulted his nose.
Fang Qing used his half-baked alchemy skills to appraise them briefly and confirmed that these pills were suitable for early-stage Qi Refining cultivators to increase their magical power, but they had been refined through demonic methods, with who knew how much living human blood essence mixed in.
Naturally, Fang Qing wanted nothing to do with such blood pills. He could only put them away for now and see if he could find a chance to sell them in the future.
“That bandit cultivator still had accomplices. I’ll hide for two days first, then go to Ancient Shu to break through.”
Although Fang Qing already had a cultivation method and a strand of true qi, they were, after all, things of the Qi Ingestion Dao. If he broke through here on Biyu Island, who knew whether there would be trouble?
Thus, he chose to play it safe and break through over in Ancient Shu.
During this waiting period, he could just familiarize himself with the cultivation method first, then read some other miscellaneous books.
Fang Qing first took out the “Book of Contemplating the Black Mound,” the 【Ji Water】 cultivation method, and read it through from beginning to end.
With the foundation he had laid here in the Bihai Sect, along with the cultivation knowledge referenced in the few miscellaneous books he had bought, he finally did not need to ask others for guidance and could understand it on his own.
“So the Qi Ingestion Dao divides the first mouthful of true qi into nine ranks and thirty-six grades, and there is a great deal of deeper meaning to it… It is difficult for cultivators of the Qi Ingestion Dao to change their path, so the first mouthful of true qi is exceptionally important. It directly affects future accomplishments.”
“With lower-three-rank true qi, one has no hope of a Dao Foundation for life, and even ordinary magical battles will be much weaker.”
“With middle-three-rank true qi, there is still hope of forging a Dao Foundation… And only with true qi of the seventh rank or above can one strive for the Purple Palace in the future!”
“Earthspring Tempered True” was only fifth rank, middle grade, representing that he had hope for a Dao Foundation in the future, but could basically forget about the Purple Palace.
Unless his luck was especially good and he found some heavenly and earthly spiritual treasure that could purify his Dao Foundation.
“What a world woven as tightly as a net… But it doesn’t matter to me. In any case, I can dissolve and switch cultivation methods at will.”
“I’ll just make do with 【Ji Water】 for now. In the future, when this lord is done playing around, I’ll directly cultivate Great Sun Purple Qi! Ninth rank, upper grade—wouldn’t that be the pinnacle of foundations?”
Fang Qing thought happily, casually opening a copy of “Plum Blossom Changes.”
A moment later, he put down this book of divination with a grave expression.
Who am I? Where am I? What am I supposed to do?
As a cultivator who had undergone marrow cleansing through the Book of Changes once, Fang Qing had originally thought he could already be considered a genius among mortals.
But reading “Plum Blossom Changes” gave him the experience of returning to university and failing advanced mathematics.
Facts proved that no matter how hard one was forced, if one did not know mathematics, one simply did not know it!
The methods of divination were the same!
Unless one was truly endowed with extraordinary talent, even getting started was difficult!
“Entry is hard, divination is hard… At low levels, it’s practically useless. No wonder hardly anyone cultivates this.”
“If not for the Dao-Birth Pearl’s ‘As If Within the Calculation,’ I wouldn’t want to cultivate divination arts either…”
……
Several days later.
Ba Commandery, inside a mountain cave.
Fang Qing blocked the cave entrance with a massive boulder, then pasted a “Protective Talisman” there. Sitting cross-legged on a stone bed, the mnemonic contents of the “Book of Contemplating the Black Mound” seemed like a clear spring, murmuring through his heart.
Beside his hand was a jade bottle containing “Earthspring Tempered True.”
“Let’s begin.”
Fang Qing picked up the jade bottle, silently circulated the method, and opened his mouth to inhale.
That strand of true qi, like a clear spring from the earth’s veins, immediately turned into a white ribbon and fell between his lips, vanishing from sight.
Splash!
The sound of mountain spring water striking bluestone suddenly arose.
Fang Qing felt as though his body were parched earth, greedily absorbing this strand of true qi.
Whenever he silently circulated the mnemonic, “Earthspring Tempered True” would move along the meridians throughout his body, completing a great heavenly circuit before entering his empty dantian…
Before breaking through, for safety’s sake, he had naturally long since converted all of his Qi Refining Dao black water magical power into “primal qi” and stored it within the Dao-Birth Pearl.
At this moment, he was a mortal.
And as “Earthspring Tempered True” entered his dantian, it abruptly transformed into a strand of 【Ji Water】 magical power.
This wisp of magical power wandered like the shadow of dragons, snakes, and flood dragons. It also faintly manifested a talisman seed, forming a vortex. This was the source of his magical power.
“The first strand of fundamental magical power is formed.”
Fang Qing continued circulating the cultivation method and saw that, under the agitation of this magical power vortex, an endless stream of 【Ji Water】 magical power emerged.
Gurgle!
Inside the mountain cave, beneath the stone bed where he sat cross-legged, the earth suddenly split open and a spring gushed forth…
At some point, a low, whimpering wind had appeared within the cave…
“This is… an anomalous phenomenon?!”
“No, it’s an image-manifestation!”
Fang Qing opened his eyes, sensing the transformation true qi was bringing to his body. Then he looked at the clear spring and faint breeze inside the cave, and a thoughtful look arose in his heart. “Cultivators of the Qi Ingestion Dao have a certain trait within their magical power… I established my foundation with fifth-rank middle-grade true qi, and my current 【Ji Water】 magical power is already quite a bit stronger than ordinary water-element magical power of the Qi Refining Dao… If one established their foundation with true qi of the seventh rank or above, just how profound would the quality of their magical power be?”
“Looking at it this way, Qi Ingestion realm cultivators are probably generally a cut above Qi Refining realm cultivators… Dao Foundation cultivators have their own Dao Foundation, so perhaps they’re much stronger than Foundation Establishment cultivators as well… As for Purple Palace and Core Formation? The gap may only grow even wider…”
He stood up and casually formed a hand seal.
Whoosh!
A cyan wind blade appeared. This was the “Wind Blade Technique” he had been painstakingly cultivating all along, yet had never managed to enter the threshold of.
“【Ji Water】 favors wind, so it is quite helpful for me in cultivating wind-attribute spells…”
“The traits of magical power don’t seem to be that simple…”
Fang Qing suddenly rubbed his chin.
After advancing to the first layer of Qi Ingestion, he suddenly gained all sorts of vague understandings in the depths of his mind: his words could now make others trust him more easily.
“This… even comes with an innate spell? This ability could be called ‘Silver Tongue’!”
“【Ji Water】 magical power truly is astonishing.”
Fang Qing pondered to himself. “Of course, this ability can make my words more convincing, but if the enemy doesn’t listen to me, then naturally it’s useless… Moreover, as my cultivation grows, its persuasiveness will naturally become stronger… If I can forge a Dao Foundation, perhaps I could persuade an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator to commit suicide?”
He formed another hand seal, and 【Ji Water】 magical power transformed into water arrows.
Inside the mountain cave, the sound of howling wind abruptly appeared.
“With the aid of wind, the power of Water Arrow Technique has increased by at least thirty percent…”
Pap! Pap!
The water arrows struck the rock wall, sending shattered stones flying. Mixed among them were faint traces of moisture.
Fang Qing went over to inspect and saw that the cracked rock wall seemed to have been eroded by some kind of cold spring, with damp marks surfacing across it.
“So it also has the characteristic of ‘water erosion’?”
“However, the most crucial thing isn’t this!”
“It’s time to witness a miracle!”
He took a deep breath and connected with the Dao-Birth Pearl!
In an instant, his black water magical power, which had originally been converted into “primal qi,” came pouring down and was easily transformed into 【Ji Water】 magical power.
Crackle! Pop!
Within Fang Qing’s body, 【Ji Water】 magical power circulated, manifesting images of clear springs and gentle winds. In the blink of an eye, it broke through two barriers in succession, reaching the third layer of Qi Ingestion!
“This strength… If I ran into that bandit cultivator again… uh, the other party seemed to cultivate an earth-attribute method… I have nothing to say.”
After making that quip, he dissolved all of his 【Ji Water】 magical power and converted it back into black water magical power.
Rumble!
In an instant, within Fang Qing’s dantian, black water magical power overflowed. Although it did not have the image-manifestations of 【Ji Water】 magical power, it surged violently, directly reaching the perfected third layer of Qi Refining!
Not only that, even more primal qi converted, causing the black water magical power to surge ever more fiercely as it launched an assault on the meridians for the fourth layer of the “Commentary on the Water Classic.”
With such vast magical power assisting him, that tiny bottleneck was practically broken in the blink of an eye.
Boom!
In an instant, Fang Qing broke through to the fourth layer of Qi Refining!
Not only that, the magical power of the fourth layer of Qi Refining continued to gather, only slowly stopping after filling more than half of this layer’s cultivation.
“The middle stage of Qi Refining, finally achieved!”
Fang Qing smiled and clenched his fist, sensing the black water magical power within his body. “Stacking two cultivation methods… is practically unstoppable. It’s just that the total amount of primal qi is only so much. After conversion, one is only at the third layer, while the other is at the fourth… This represents a terrifying difference in the quality of magical power.”
Although his 【Ji Water】 magical power was only at the third layer of Qi Ingestion, Fang Qing somehow felt that if they truly fought, not counting external objects, his own fourth-layer black water magical power might not necessarily be able to beat it…