A Confused Dao Heart
An Bulang broke down.
He broke down completely.
Looking at his Profound Body Eleventh Layer cultivation, he shed tears of despair.
"Why... why...!!"
"How did I end up at the Profound Body Eleventh Layer?"
"What the hell even is the Profound Body Eleventh Layer?!"
An Bulang clutched his face with both hands and began to doubt his entire cultivation career.
"A dream, right, I must be dreaming!"
An Bulang's eyes lit up. He found a dagger on the table and viciously stabbed it into his arm.
Squelch!
Blood splashed all over his face.
"Ah...!"
"It hurts, it hurts...!!"
The very real pain made him understand that this was no dream. Every damn bit of it was real!
An Bulang truly could not stay calm. Once might have been an accident, but twice in a row could no longer be explained away as mere coincidence.
So... what exactly had happened?
He desperately wanted to look up and ask his father: was the Profound Body Eleventh Layer normal?
This was fucking not normal at all!!
Could it be that his breakthrough posture had been wrong?
That wasn't right! This was how he had broken through before!
Whether in theory or in practice, everything had been correct!!
Where exactly was the problem?
Forcing down his nearly collapsing emotions, An Bulang frowned in thought. Then a possibility suddenly struck him. Could it be because he was recultivating this time, so his body's condition was different?
That was highly possible!
Whether it was his father slapping him all the way back to before liberation, or his cultivation of the Seal God Art, both had caused abnormalities in his path of cultivation.
In short, his cultivation path would most likely have to differ from that of ordinary people.
Then how should he cultivate from now on?
Silence.
A long silence.
An Bulang: "..."
"Dad... you're screwing over your own son!!" An Bulang wailed.
As tears streamed down his face, he absorbed all his remaining spirit stones and stabilized his realm at the Profound Body Eleventh Layer.
There was no helping it. For now, he could only take one step and look one step ahead.
So what if he had no sea of qi? He could still draw spiritual energy into his powerful blood, meridians, and bones!
Some great powers had indeed tried this. They opened one qi acupoint after another within their bodies to store spiritual energy. Whenever they needed to use spiritual energy to cast spells, they unleashed it from those qi acupoints. This was several times more terrifying than using the spiritual energy within a sea of qi.
Others went even further, abandoning their fleshly bodies to cultivate their souls and become soul cultivators. They could transform the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into unique soul power, store it within their souls, and use soul power for both battle and advancement. They had no need whatsoever for the power of a sea of qi...
And there was more, more...
Drawing on the knowledge of the Son of the Immortal Emperor, An Bulang instantly imagined over a hundred solutions.
Then a disturbance suddenly came from his dantian.
Hm?
An Bulang examined himself inwardly, then suddenly saw through his dantian and beheld an endless ocean of spiritual liquid.
"This...!" It was as though thunder had exploded in An Bulang's mind.
This was his sea of qi!
And it was the fully developed sea of qi he had possessed at the Tribulation Crossing Stage!!
An Bulang frantically tried to use the energy of his sea of qi, but it was like a stagnant pool. Forget mobilizing its energy—even his connection to it had been completely severed. It was as though the sea of qi had drifted far away from him, leaving him able to do nothing but watch from afar...
He could only gaze at the ocean and sigh.
"That's it. I've already opened my sea of qi once. Since it's still there, I naturally can't open another one."
"My father slapped me back into a level-zero newbie account, but he didn't erase my sea of qi along with it. He merely used some method to block it off—or perhaps put it to sleep..."
"Since the sea of qi is still here, there are two things I need to do now. First, awaken it. Second, before I awaken it, change my cultivation method and continue growing stronger!"
An Bulang's gaze gradually became resolute. He would not hang himself from a single tree. His father had sealed one path of cultivation, so he would find another.
There were countless paths in this world; how could my Dao have only one?
Just as he thought this, another disturbance suddenly came from the sea of qi in his dantian.
An Bulang was thrilled. Could it be that his sea of qi had been moved by his will to seek the Dao and was finally awakening?
He tried desperately to connect with it, only to discover that it remained unreachable. Instead, a ball of white light shot out of the sea of qi at incredible speed.
"Fuck! What is that?!"
An Bulang leaned backward as the white light flew out from his navel.
With a pop.
"Chirp chirp chirp!"
"Chirp chirp chirp chirp!"
Clear, furious cries rang out. The voice was familiar.
An Bulang looked at the being making those sounds before him. His pupils suddenly contracted, and delight appeared on his face.
Before him floated a spherical creature covered entirely in fluffy white fur.
It was about the size of a human head, with two large, bright pale-blue eyes that occupied nearly a fifth of its body. It had no nose, only a tiny pink cherry mouth, which was furiously chirping at him while baring two crystal-clear little fangs.
"Tuantuan, it's you—it really is you!!" An Bulang yanked the white ball into his arms and wildly kneaded it into all sorts of shapes. Tears of happiness streamed down his face as he said, "You ran into my sea of qi to play, and then my dad wiped out my cultivation without a word. I thought you'd disappeared with it, and I even had a huge fight with him over it. I never expected you to still be alive. That's wonderful..."
The white ball continued crying "chirp chirp chirp," clearly still furious 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 were very close.
Some of Tuantuan's special abilities had even left his father marveling in amazement.
"Right!!" An Bulang gave Tuantuan a hard squeeze, his eyes blazing with light.
Mentioning Tuantuan reminded him of that strange ancient land.
Thinking of that strange ancient land reminded him of a cultivation art he had accidentally discovered there...
The ancient land was called the Back Garden of the Realm King Vera.
It was a secret realm created by an existence on the same level as his father.
The Realm King Vera had vanished without a trace, and the secret realm had long since fallen into ruin.
Yet even his abandoned back garden remained a delectable prize in the eyes of countless great powers. Unfortunately, the restrictions he had set allowed only minor cultivators of the Dao Seeking Stage and Tribulation Crossing Stage to enter. The restrictions were so powerful that even An Bulang's father could not enter.
For the treasures within, countless experts flocked to it like ducks.
An Bulang had also entered once for fun, only to learn after entering just how terrifying and perilous it was. Even An Bulang at the Tribulation Crossing Stage, who could battle Profound Immortals, had faced nine hundred and ninety-nine deaths for every single chance of survival within.
Only after using 999 life-saving trump cards did he successfully clear it and sweep through the entire secret realm.
The final cultivation art in the secret realm was the one he had anticipated most. Its name sounded incredibly badass: the Cosmic Annihilation Creation Art, said to be the Ultimate Body Refining Technique.
But when he learned its cultivation requirements, he nearly coughed up blood.
It stated that one had to begin cultivating it from the Mystic Body Realm. Those with realms too high could not even get started!!
What fucking use was this cultivation art to a Tribulation Crossing Stage cultivator like him?!
Most importantly, when he tried to tell anyone else the contents of the art, he found that he could not express them no matter what. It was clearly bound by a secrecy restriction.
Thus, this cultivation art had lain quietly in his mind like chicken ribs—tasteless to eat, but a pity to throw away.
But now...