The Confused Dao Heart

Chapter 48: A Confused Dao Heart

An Bulang was broken.

Completely and utterly broken.

He looked at his cultivation at the eleventh level of the Mystic Body and shed tears of despair.

"Why... why!?"

"How did I even reach the eleventh level of the Mystic Body?"

"What the hell even is the eleventh level of the Mystic Body?!"

An Bulang clutched his face, his entire cultivation journey suddenly cast into doubt.

"A dream, right? This must be a dream!"

An Bulang's eyes lit up. He found a dagger on the table and plunged it fiercely into his arm.

Slash!

Blood splattered across his face.

"Ah...!"

"Ouch, ouch, ouch...!"

The real pain made him realize this wasn't a dream. This was all real, damn it!

An Bulang truly couldn't remain calm. A single instance might be an accident, but a second consecutive time couldn't be explained away by mere chance.

So... what had happened?

He desperately wanted to look up at his father and ask, "Dad, is the eleventh level of the Mystic Body normal?"

This was definitely not normal!

Could it be that his breakthrough posture was wrong?

No! He had always broken through like this before!

Both the theory and practice were perfectly correct!

Where was the problem?

An Bulang forcefully suppressed his near-collapsing emotions and frowned in thought. Suddenly, he considered a possibility: could it be because he was cultivating again, his body's state was different this time?

Highly likely!

Whether it was his father slapping him back to square one or cultivating the Seal God Art, both had caused his cultivation path to deviate.

In short, his cultivation path was likely to be vastly different from ordinary people.

So, how should he continue cultivating?

Silence.

A long, drawn-out silence.

An Bulang: "..."

"Dad... you're screwing your son over!!" An Bulang wailed.

Tears streaming down his face, he absorbed the remaining Spirit Stones, stabilizing his realm at the eleventh level of the Mystic Body.

There was no other way; he'd have to take it one step at a time.

Even if he didn't have a Qi Sea, he could still store spiritual energy within his powerful blood, meridians, and bones!

Some powerful cultivators had indeed tried this. They opened up Qi acupoints within their bodies to store spiritual energy. When they wanted to use spiritual energy to cast Sorcery, they would unleash it from these Qi acupoints, which was several times more terrifying than using spiritual energy from a Qi Sea.

Even more extreme were those who abandoned their physical bodies and cultivated their divine souls, becoming Soul Cultivators. They could convert the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into a unique soul force, storing it within their souls. They fought and leveled up using soul force, completely negating the need for a Qi Sea...

And there were others...

With the knowledge of an Immortal Emperor's son, An Bulang instantly conjured up hundreds of solutions in his mind.

Then, a sudden anomaly occurred in his Dantian.

Huh?

An Bulang looked inward, and suddenly his gaze pierced through his Dantian, revealing a boundless ocean of spiritual liquid.

"This...!" A thunderclap seemed to erupt in An Bulang's mind.

This was his Qi Sea!

And it was the Qi Sea he had fully developed during his Tribulation Crossing stage!

An Bulang desperately tried to mobilize the energy of his Qi Sea, but it was like a stagnant pool. Not only could he not use its energy, but he had also completely lost his connection to it. It was as if the Qi Sea had drifted away from him, and all he could do was gaze at it from afar...

Sighing in vain.

"That's right. I've already opened a Qi Sea once before. Since the Qi Sea still exists, I naturally cannot open another one."

"My father knocked me back to level zero, but he didn't take my Qi Sea with him. He merely used some method to block it, or perhaps put it to sleep..."

"Since the Qi Sea is still here, then there are two things I need to do now: first, awaken the Qi Sea, and second, find an alternative cultivation method to continue getting stronger while I haven't awakened it!"

An Bulang's gaze gradually became firm. He wouldn't hang himself on one tree. If his father blocked one path of cultivation for him, then he would find another.

There are thousands of paths in the world, and mine is not just one!

Just as he was thinking this, a sudden disturbance came from his dantian's sea of qi.

An Bulang was very excited. Could it be that his sea of qi had been moved by his will to seek the Dao, and had finally awakened?

He tried hard to connect with his sea of qi, but found that he still couldn't connect. Instead, a ball of white light shot out from his sea of qi at an extremely fast speed.

"Holy crap! What is that?!"

An Bulang leaned back, and the white light flew out from his navel.

With a "pop."

"Chirp chirp chirp!"

"Chirp chirp chirp chirp!"

A crisp and angry sound came, a sound that was very familiar.

An Bulang looked at the creature making the sound in front of him, his pupils contracting sharply, and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

Before him, a spherical creature covered in fluffy white fur was floating in the air.

It was about the size of a human head, with large, bright, light-blue eyes that took up almost a fifth of its body. It had no nose, only a small, tender cherry mouth, which was angrily chirping at him, revealing two crystal-clear little fangs.

"Tuantuan, it's you, it's really you!!" An Bulang pulled the white ball into his arms, frantically rubbing it into various shapes, tears of happiness streaming down his face. "You ran into my sea of qi to play, and then my dad took away my cultivation out of nowhere. I thought you were gone too, and I even had a huge argument with my dad about it. I didn't expect you to still be alive, that's great..."

The white ball was still chirping angrily, clearly still upset about what had happened before.

Tuantuan was a pet An Bulang had found in a strange ancient land at the edge of the starfield. Its origins were unknown, but they had a very good relationship.

Some of its special abilities even made his father sigh in amazement.

"That's right!!" An Bulang squeezed Tuantuan hard, his eyes shining brightly.

Speaking of Tuantuan reminded him of that strange ancient land.

And thinking of that strange ancient land reminded him of a cultivation technique he had accidentally discovered there...

The ancient land was called the backyard of the Vera Realm King.

It was a secret realm created by a being on the same level as his father.

The Vera Realm King had disappeared, and the secret realm had been abandoned for a long time.

However, his abandoned backyard was still a coveted treasure in the eyes of countless powerful beings. Unfortunately, the restrictions he had set only allowed cultivators at the Seeking the Dao stage and Tribulation Crossing stage to enter. The restrictions were so powerful that even his father couldn't get in.

Countless experts flocked there for the good things inside.

An Bulang had also gone in to play and explore once. After entering, he realized how terrifying and dangerous it truly was. Even for An Bulang, who was at the Tribulation Crossing stage and could fight against Mystic Immortals, it was a ninety-nine percent chance of death.

After spending 999 life-saving trump cards, he finally managed to clear the entire secret realm.

The last cultivation technique in the secret realm was the one he looked forward to the most. Its name was impressive: the Cosmic Annihilation Creation Art, hailed as the ultimate body-refining technique.

But when he learned the cultivation requirements, he almost spat out blood.

Because the cultivation requirements stated that one had to start cultivating from the Mystic Body stage. Higher realms could not begin!

What use was this cultivation technique to him, a Tribulation Crossing stage cultivator?

The most crucial point was that when he tried to tell others the content of the cultivation technique, he found that he couldn't express it no matter what, clearly because of a confidentiality restriction.

And so, this cultivation technique lay dormant in his mind like a useless piece of chicken rib.

But now