Heaven-Defying Aptitude

Wawawa! My dao-achievement! Wuwuwuwu...

Shen Leling wailed loudly on horse-back, not only spraying tears from her eyes, but also spurting water from all over her body.

Her voice was shrill, limbs flailing wildly, and she cried so sorrowfully that it was simply heartbreaking.

Yan Nu hurriedly coaxed her: "Don't be sad. How do you get that dao-achievement back? I'll help you."

Shen Leling was consumed by grief: "It's gone! Once it's gone, you can only start all over again! You can only accumulate it once a day. Dao-achievement is the progress of accumulating and comprehending the Heavenly Dao day by day. Without dao-achievement, every single realm requires extremely high comprehension and fortuitous encounters to possibly break through..."

She knew some monsters that blindly piled up mana without cultivating dao-achievement, and they remained at the Mystical Stage until death.

Although it was not strictly impossible to break through, those were invariably astonishingly brilliant talents.

Dao-achievement was like a bridge across the Sea of Suffering, taking it step by step to reach the other shore, making it the most solid foundation. Without dao-achievement, it was like trying to swim across the Sea of Suffering, fraught with endless difficulty.

Yan Nu said with half-understanding: "Then start all over again. Just like my blacksmithing, if once isn't enough, I hammer twice. I'll hammer every day, and I won't stop until I've hammered enough!"

"What do you know! I accumulated twenty years of dao-achievement, and just like that, it's gone. Wuwuwu, I'm even in debt for thirty years now!"

...Ah! My Three Flowers Seed, don't disperse! Don't disperse! Shen Leling used her Spiritually Awakened Clear Vision and could see a raging Mortal World Fire burning herself.

This fire had no physical substance, but it was rapidly wiping away her dao-achievement.

Watching her dao-achievement drop by about a year, the Nascent Soul in her niwan pill palace suddenly dissipated from a grain-of-rice radiance, turning into a cluster of golden yet loose spiritual light mist, known as the 'Sea of Consciousness'.

Everyone possessed Nascent Soul true nature, which was the basis for the existence of spiritual consciousness, only that an ordinary person's was not called a Nascent Soul, but rather a soul.

Only upon stepping into the Mystical Stage could a person truly control their own soul in a meaningful sense, subsequently transforming it into a Sea of Consciousness.

And condensing the vast Sea of Consciousness into a single seed would give birth to spiritual sense. In the future, this seed would unfold step by step, transforming into the true Golden Flower Nascent Soul, which was one of the Top Three Flowers of the Heavenly Immortal Dao Fruit.

Similarly, the mana residing in the qi sea of the lower dantian had already formed a Mystic Flower Seed.

When her dao-achievement dropped by a few more years, it also scattered from a condensed particle into a mass of Qi Vortex.

Although the quantity had not changed and could be described as mighty and vast, the quality had greatly faded.

"And my... my Essence-Life Wheel..." Shen Leling looked inward again at her middle dantian. Inside the Vermilion Palace, the Essence Seed representing her dao body also exploded into chaos.

This directly caused her lifespan to drop from two hundred and forty years to one hundred and eighty years.

The Nascent Soul, essential essence, and essential qi respectively represented true nature, true life, and true technique. If the Golden, Silver, and Mystic Flowers were successfully formed, it would be the Heavenly Immortal Dao Fruit.

Yet now, even the seeds were gone, directly collapsing back to the cultivator's initial state.

She had startlingly tumbled all the way from the Spiritual Sense Stage back down to the Mystical Stage.

And the Mortal World Fire was still burning, finally vanishing only after consuming all of her dao-achievement.

From start to finish, Shen Leling had no way out; this was the Heavenly Dao Fire.

"Wuwuwu... I can only live another hundred and fifty years now..." Shen Leling was heartbroken.

Yan Nu was startled: "Ah? You can still live that long? Then what does it matter if you accumulate another twenty years of dao-achievement!"

Shen Leling flew into a rage: "You have it easy to say! Had I known, I would have just absorbed your essence soul, and my twenty years of painstaking effort wouldn't have been squandered!"

She deeply regretted her soft-heartedness. If she had sucked Yan Nu dry to heal her Nascent Soul back then, she, in her peak state relying on the Golden Jade Robe, would certainly have been able to make a clean escape.

Who could have imagined that due to a moment of hesitation, twenty years of dao-achievement accumulated from daily morning lessons would be entirely wiped out.

Yan Nu opened his mouth wide: "Eh? So you didn't absorb my essence soul? Why didn't you absorb it! Didn't I tell you to absorb it and heal your injuries quickly?"

"You... you..." Seeing him cross-examine her with such righteous confidence, Shen Leling was so angry that her three corpse spirits jumped in rage, and she pointed at him, unable to speak for a long time.

Yan Nu asked with concern: "Is it still not too late to absorb it now? You can absorb me first and get your injuries healed."

"I... I... Wuyiwuwu!" Shen Leling was so angry she genuinely wanted to strangle him to death.

Yet in the end she still gave up; absorbing Yan Nu now wouldn't bring her dao-achievement back.

Shen Leling choked back her tears, feeling that her entire heart was full of grievance.

And because Yan Nu did not know how to ride a horse, her weeping was exceptionally bumpy...

"Dammit, I can't swallow this anger. I must slaughter my way back to the Zhang family!" After crying for a spell, the more Shen Leling thought about it, the angrier she grew, grinding her teeth.

Yan Nu pondered for a moment and said: "Alright, I'll accompany you."

Shen Leling irritably retorted: "What use is your company! Thirty years from now, you might still make a name for yourself in the pugilistic world, but right now you are nothing more than an ant between heaven and earth."

Yan Nu wasn't angry at all from being rebuffed; instead, he advised: "I advise you to look on the bright side... Didn't we kill so many villains? You were so amazing just poofing and wiping them all out."

"What's the use of that! Eating one of those martial artists is only worth half a year of cultivation, but it burns away over a year's worth of dao-achievement. I took a huge loss!" As she spoke, Shen Leling was overcome with sorrow again, leaking water all over her body.

In that situation earlier, she would have died if she hadn't fought back, but as long as she used mana to harm mortals, she would suffer the backlash of the Mortal World Fire.

So she could only eat them all to make up for a fraction of her losses. That way, even if her realm plummeted, she would at least still possess formidable mana.

If the opponent's Mortal World Fire wasn't too excessive, forcefully enduring the backlash would net a profit, but unfortunately these were troops specifically trained to slay demons and carried official military ranks. Their Mortal World Fire was at the very least a year and a half starting bid. Never mind Shen Leling's twenty years of dao-achievement, even fifty years could be burned away.

To the point that she was currently even in debt for thirty years. Of course, this sort of debt didn't need to be repaid day by day; it could be wiped out in one go by ingesting Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.

However, prior to wiping it out, she had no way to cultivate dao-achievement anymore—accumulating for a day meant it would just burn away for a day.

"Why are you able to cry so much..." Yan Nu was soaked all over by her, and muttered: "Are you made of water?"

"I am made of water to begin with!" Shen Leling battered Yan Nu's back furiously in rage.

"Cough cough..." Yan Nu coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Only then did Shen Leling remember that Yan Nu had blocked several palm strikes for her just moments ago.

She hastily pulled back her hand and coldly snorted: "Hmph, your injuries are aggravated upon injury, why aren't you dead yet!"

"Eh? Your injuries from the day before yesterday actually healed this much?"

Inspecting Yan Nu's injuries, she discovered they were already seven or eight parts healed. Only today's new injuries were rather severe, but those Yang Heat Poison spots had also been suppressed by his thick true qi.

"How can you recover so fast? Your Emperor Tai's White Jade Technique... Ah? Since when did your true qi become so thick?"

Shen Leling was given a huge fright. Five days ago Yan Nu's true qi was only comparable to third-rate, yet how little time had passed, and it had actually increased threefold?

Ordinary people needed at least thirty years of training with exquisite cultivation techniques to possibly possess this much true qi.

Yan Nu asked curiously: "Is my cultivation very fast?"

"More than fast! It's simply heaven-defying!" Shen Leling said with mingled shock and suspicion: "I've heard of geniuses achieving an ordinary person's sixty years of mastery in five years, but I've never heard of anyone cultivating twenty years of mastery in five days!"

"Especially Emperor Tai's White Jade Technique, which is famously a cultivation technique that requires piling up resources. I was even planning to find some restorative medicine for you to shore up your root foundation... You... exactly how did you cultivate?"

Yan Nu answered honestly: "I just cultivated according to what you said. When I cultivate the true qi away, I eat my fill and then cultivate..."

"Wait a moment..." Shen Leling was bewildered and asked: "Cultivate your true qi away? Cultivation only ever makes it increase the more you practice, how can there be such a thing as cultivating it away!"

"You... you cultivate and show me!"

Yan Nu immediately circulated his qi to transform and merge the hammer true qi into the two qi reserves.

"Your previous true qi is actually still there?" Shen Leling found it somewhat strange. No matter what, Emperor Tai's White Jade Technique had been practiced for five days now; the old true qi should have long since been completely transformed.

Yet she didn't say much more and silently watched Yan Nu cultivate.

About an hour later, Yan Nu had entirely converted the hammer true qi into qi reserves, and the internal injuries he sustained had healed quite a bit more.

"Mn... after the transformation comes the refinement of essence into qi, using the body's acupoints as springs to draw forth human essence—hey, what are you doing?"

Shen Leling was astonished to discover that Yan Nu was not refining essence into qi, but was instead directly consuming the qi reserves to return them to his physical body.

Everyone else refined essence into qi, but here he was reverting qi back to essence instead? Is he out of his mind!

"Although doing this can rapidly heal injuries, the cultivation process of Emperor Tai's White Jade Technique can inherently heal injuries slowly; there's no need to consume... Whatever, I shall just watch how you recover your qi!"

Shen Leling watched in silence, and another hour passed; Yan Nu's qi reserves were already exhausted.

At this point, one had to refine essence into qi to restore the qi reserves.

Yet Yan Nu had no intention of stopping at all, and directly sought to scatter and drain his qi reserves!

"Hey! Stop! Why are you consuming your natal true qi!" Shen Leling immediately interrupted Yan Nu: "Aren't you crippling your cultivation this way!"

Yan Nu uncomprehendingly said: "This is just how I cultivate. After using it up, I re-gather the qi reserves again, and every time they will be even more robust than before."

"Starting over from scratch will indeed make your mastery grow faster, but... isn't this wasting time?" Shen Leling was suspicious and uncertain.

All things possessed a natural Dao of yin and yang arising, perishing, and cycling; things like true qi and mana, through generation and destruction, breaking and establishing, would indeed become even more refined and robust.

However, while the logic was sound, the gains didn't make up for the losses. After all, once twenty years of mastery was scattered, one would have to spend another twenty years cultivating it back. Even if breaking and then establishing made it a tenth faster and more robust, it was completely meaningless. Because with those twenty years of time, wouldn't it be better to cultivate up to forty years of mastery?

There were indeed eccentric people who utilized the principle of breaking and then establishing to create the Bridal Tunic Profound Art, capable of imparting true qi to others through initiation while re-cultivating themselves for faster progress.

Yet the exquisiteness of this martial art lay in that initiation method, ensuring the mastery wasn't wasted. As for the cultivator themselves, it took decades before they could stand out, usually reaching seventy or eighty years of age before their divine skill was considered great completion, allowing them to rapidly re-cultivate their mastery after it had been scattered.

"Could it be that you can already rapidly re-cultivate? Then... cultivate and show me." Seeing Yan Nu's sincere expression, and thinking back to how this fool had increased his mastery so greatly in five days, Shen Leling hesitated for a moment and let him scatter his cultivation.

Yan Nu on the spot exhausted his natal true qi, leaving his body completely hollowed out!

"Go on and cultivate. Now that you've crippled your own cultivation, I'd like to see how you cultivate it back!" Shen Leling urged.

Yan Nu turned his head and held out his hand: "Grab a couple of handfuls of grass for me."

"Ah?" Shen Leling curled her lips, and a large handful of beans materialized in her jade hand: "Hungry? Just eat the beans directly!"

"Eh? Are there any sheep grass seeds?" Yan Nu asked curiously.

Shen Leling was baffled, but she still fished out a handful of grass seeds.

What she mastered were either water-spirit dao techniques or methods of generating wood from water, which resulted in a multitude of seeds and beans stored within her body. Some spells required grass seeds.

Yan Nu stood on no ceremony, rustling down the whole lot. Inside his body, the hammer true qi surged like a fire of essential vigor, filling his entire body's acupoints.

The corners of his mouth twitched upward as he thought: So grass seeds work too.

On the other side, Shen Leling was struck dumb with astonishment: "What!"

She personally sensed Yan Nu's true qi rising from nothingness and instantly refreshing. This bizarre scene caused her to lose her mental composure, coupled with the fact that she was already heavily injured to begin with, leading her mouth to leak water in a rustling sound.

"Why can you recover your true qi just by eating some seeds?"

Yan Nu answered as a matter of course: "Can't true qi be replenished just by eating things? Can't you?"

"I..." Shen Leling was dumbstruck, her mind a chaotic mess.

Eating things could of course replenish true qi, but those were all without exception miraculous elixirs!

The grass seeds Yan Nu ate were given by her; how could she not know? These were simply ordinary grass seeds.

"Could it be that the grass seeds I harvested at random are Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures?" She grabbed another handful from her body and studied them carefully.

Her understanding of vegetation far surpassed ordinary people's. Yet at this moment, try as she might, she couldn't tell what was so wondrous about this grass!

By the time she snapped out of her daze, she saw that Yan Nu had already resumed normal cultivation, re-gathering his qi reserves.

Since he inherently possessed a deep foundation of true qi and merely needed to undergo a simple transformation, of course his cultivation progressed rapidly.

No wonder Yan Nu hadn't bothered to shore up his root foundation, and his entire mastery advanced at lightning speed—it was sheer nonsense! As long as he ate grass he could replenish his exhausted true qi; anyone would be able to cultivate this fast!

"You can replenish true qi by eating anything?"

"No, only by eating grass and steamed buns, oh, and bone-growing powder and blood-melting powder."

"Steamed... steamed buns?" Shen Leling's expression was dazed. What on earth are all these?

Grass, steamed buns, bone-growing powder, and blood-melting powder—these, these, these... none of them had anything to do with each other!

"What is this kind of true qi of yours called?" Shen Leling's heart was in turmoil, not knowing if this was a problem with Yan Nu's physique or a problem with the true qi itself.

Yan Nu grinned broadly: "Hammer True Qi!"

"Ha?" Shen Leling was taken aback, then said: "I'm asking you how you cultivated it!"

Yan Nu answered honestly: "I just swung a hammer until I swung it out."

"I..." Shen Leling had not only suffered injuries to her Nascent Soul, but her physical body had also been injured just now, coupled with forcibly casting spells, suffering the backlash of the Mortal World Fire, and tumbling realms. Under the successive blows, she genuinely nearly fainted from anger at Yan Nu.

It took her a long while to calm her mind before she said: "No... this true qi of yours is refined; at the very least it's a supreme martial art!"

Martial arts in the world were generally divided into basic, exquisite, supreme, sect-founding, peerless, and the legendary 'Heaven-Bestowed Immortal Scriptures'.

Emperor Tai's White Jade Technique belonged to supreme immortal cultivation texts, but even just the minor chapters concerning body refining alone would count as a peerless divine skill in the secular world.

Although Shen Leling couldn't recognize which sect or faction this hammer true qi belonged to, she could still tell it belonged to the supreme tier of martial arts.

"This kind of supreme true qi is definitely not something your blacksmith Uncle Hong could teach you. He himself only understands some basic stuff."

Yan Nu scratched his head and said: "Then I don't know. Anyway, once I learned how to circulate qi, I had plenty of true qi usable within my body."

"What! It's like that?" Shen Leling widened her eyes: "Did someone perform an initiation on you?"

"What's an initiation?" Yan Nu also looked curious.

Seeing him act like this, Shen Leling knew nothing useful could be asked out of him.

Yet even if the person who performed the initiation was some mighty figure roaming the mortal world who had laid down some bizarre array within Yan Nu's body, it was still impossible to make true qi regenerate like this.

Steamed buns? Grass seeds? What kind of ghosts are these! Who replenishes true qi by eating those!

Moreover, it was far too fast. It was practically an instant refresh, as if the Heavenly Dao was performing an initiation for him right then and there!

Eh? This sort of characteristic instead looked even more like the legendary...

"Heaven-defying aptitude? Slurp..." Shen Leling stared fixedly at Yan Nu, the corners of her mouth leaking water once more. This time, she was drooling!

p.s: Sorry.