"Is this ?" After taking a bath at the inn, Liu Qi looked at his "dust-washed" reflection in the mirror, suddenly overwheld by a strong feeling of unfamiliarity.
Although the nose and face were still the sa, they looked utterly different now.
"It’s only been five days!" Liu Qi, in disbelief, pinched his own face. After performing a slew of exaggerated, cartoon-level expressions, he finally confird that he indeed looked drastically different from before.
Perhaps it was due to so stubble on his chin, but he preferred to attribute it to a change in "temperant."
"My choice was not wrong!" Liu Qi rejoiced internally, yet unexpectedly found that he was not as ecstatic as he had imagined. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy with the changes, but rather that he no longer exhibited his previous restlessness.
"Is this what cultivating the heart is? I’ve just been hurrying along the road, after all." Liu Qi didn’t quite understand this change in his ntal state and decided not to overthink it. Returning to the bed, he had thought that after a long absence from a proper bed he would fall asleep imdiately, but once lying down, he felt there was still sothing left undone.
Monts later, sowhat helplessly, he sat up and adopted a ditation pose with his palms facing upward, silently ditating and cultivating his True Qi.
The cultivation technique he was practicing now was the unadorned "Basic Inner Power." According to his master, it was a very simple technique for condensing Inner Qi. If the Small Heavenly Circuit technique was about acquiring a sense of Qi, then Basic Inner Power was the essential step of transforming that trace of Qi sense into True Qi.
He had asked why not learn more advanced techniques right away, but after his master threw a secret manual titled "Innate Qiankun Technique" to him, he understood why.
He couldn’t understand a thing!
Unfamiliar with the I Ching and the Eight Trigrams, unaware of the River Diagram and the Luo Book, not comprehending the Yin Yang changes, nor understanding the Five Elents rotation, he simply couldn’t grasp such advanced knowledge.
However, his inquiry wasn’t fruitless—
From then on, he had an additional two hours of cultural lessons every day.
The chaos of thoughts slowly quieted down as he sat in ditation, focusing his mind. Although Liu Qi wasn’t able to achieve true ditation yet, during those five days of braving the elents, he had gradually learned how to dispel distracting thoughts.
Just as he was getting into a better state and began to cultivate his Qi sense and condense True Qi, a strong unease halted his actions.
"What’s going on? Did I ss up the practice?" A glint of worry appeared on Liu Qi’s face. He quickly abandoned the idea of continuing to ditate and was about to get up to find his master when he was suddenly overwheld by a strong sense of fear—
"Die!"
A crimson character, as if it occupied the entire world and shot into his mind like a teor, froze Liu Qi’s thoughts at that mont. Every single cell in his body began to tremble. That terrifying feeling inundated his entire thought process, leaving his consciousness utterly blank.
His brain completely shut down, and even his vision and hearing vanished without a trace, leaving only the intense "blood character" that made his body stiffen.
However, the feeling arrived quickly and departed just as swiftly. The suffocating sensation, like a bug trapped in amber, faded after a brief pause. His consciousness slowly resurrected from every part of his body, and this sense of rebirth moved Liu Qi inexplicably—
He had realized the beauty of life.
This might be a breakthrough in ntal state, or perhaps a sublimation of self-awareness; he did not fully understand, but as a writer who had read countless stories, he naturally linked this mont of insight with the epiphanies of protagonists.
Aware of how rare such insights were, he imdiately sat cross-legged and re-entered cultivation, and this ti, his thoughts were unusually calm...
"Success! My idea was indeed correct! The Tidal Power of the Orca Pillow truly is a special kind of fluctuation!" Next door, Feng Xue sat on the sofa with a smile on her face, though in front of her on the table there rested a shattered teacup and tea almost entirely spilled over the table.
These days of fishing by the river and practicing swordplay had given her a considerable understanding of the Tidal Power of the Orca Pillow, especially that kind of Sword Qi, which was not solid, and even loosely structured, yet could separate river water and had beco the focus of her research.
After continuous trial and error, she finally had a breakthrough in understanding the nature of fluctuations while bathing, thanks to the collision of countless water droplets and their ripples, which had significantly advanced her research.
"Using fluctuations to maintain a loose Inner Strength in a specific form allows it to carry more intent, and as long as it is vibrated at a specific frequency, its power won’t be inferior to the condensed True Qi of No-thought Divine Power. However, this makes it difficult for spirit intelligence to be born, ultimately confining it to just carrying intent, unable to reach the state of Primordial Spirit..."
Feng Xue recorded her insights in a small notebook she carried, feeling the difference between "No-thought Divine Power" and "Killing Intent Fluctuation."
Yes, Killing Intent Fluctuation. For Feng Xue, Killing Intent was her most refined and intense intent, and only Killing Intent could be so easily imbued into other objects.
Though this was fundantally also a decent form of Martial Arts, what Feng Xue sought—to carry personal intent—was rely a stage of achievent; after all, Killing Intent was extre enough to be sufficiently refined, and embedding complete self-awareness within was demanding far more.
Stretching her hand lightly over the coffee table, ripples began undulating across the splattered water, then against all physical common sense, they moved towards Feng Xue’s fingertips, no, it wasn’t really moving but more like being pushed over.
The faint ripples caused small streams to form "waves," with droplets flowing atop this shifting liquid surface, ultimately converging around Feng Xue’s fingertip to less than a tenth of the teacup’s volu, but this tea, like sli, gradually coalesced into a thumb-sized water ball.
The water ball continuously rippled, pushing water upwards, keeping it always in a spherical form.
Feng Xue extended her finger, and the water ball rolled upwards along her fingertip like a living creature, yet no matter how refined her control, water kept escaping throughout the process.
And when Feng Xue narrowed her eyes and infused her Killing Intent into it, the water ball burst with a "pop" into countless droplets.
"The fluctuation is not delicate enough; it can’t be smoothly outputted, and the strength is also not sufficient. Even using water as a dium, it’s hard to stabilize. Although it’s a decent offensive move, I don’t lack such level of killing moves..."
Feng Xue kept playing with the water in the pot in various ways, but ultimately she shook her head—
"The water quantity is too small; indeed, it’s more convenient to experint by the river..."
At this thought, Feng Xue was about to get up, only to montarily look towards the neighboring area with a hint of surprise—
"He has entered ditation? I’ll give you a day off then..."
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