Qiankun Jue

His emotions had clearly grown agitated as he quickly examined the mirror in his hand.

The hundred-flower reliefs on the back of the mirror were lifelike, proving that this was indeed the Bronze Mirror Dongguo Haoran had given him. He had taken it out absentmindedly just now, never expecting that the mystery he had been unable to solve would crack open under the moonlight. Previously, in an attempt to unravel the mystery of the Bronze Mirror, he had tried everything—not just moonlight, but even sunlight. Boiling it in water and roasting it over fire went without saying, yet he had failed to spot the slightest clue. Who would have thought that the clue would reveal itself under such unexpected circumstances?

He reached into the cool water in the vat and stirred it again, still muttering, "The moon is yin, the terrain is kun, water gathers yin and reveals it. Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams... How did I not think of this..." After muttering for a while, he fell into a daze again, recalling what had happened before the incident in the ancient tomb. It was precisely because he had deciphered the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams maze in the mountains that he had found the ancient tomb's entrance—and it was because he had touched the ancient Bronze Mirror inside the tomb that disaster had befallen him.

Could this Bronze Mirror really be related to the ancient Bronze Mirror in the tomb? If so, then the purpose of the person who had set up the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams formation around the ancient tomb was probably to lead to this Bronze Mirror. Naturally, anyone capable of breaking the formation would be able to unravel the ancient Bronze Mirror's mystery.

At this thought, he could not help smacking his forehead hard and shaking his head. Because the Bronze Mirror in his hand had been given to him by Dongguo Haoran, it had caused him to overlook something. If he had not met with disaster in the ancient tomb, and had brought the ancient Bronze Mirror back for analysis with scientific instruments, then once he discovered a clue, he would likely have connected breaking the ancient tomb's grand formation with a way to decipher the ancient Bronze Mirror long ago.

The more deeply he considered it, the more astonished and uncertain he became.

Suppressing the doubts in his heart, he returned to reality. He once again held the mirror toward the moon and over the water, and nine hazy points of light reappeared on the gently rippling surface.

Niu Youdao held the Bronze Mirror in one hand and began calculating with his fingers with the other. He slowly circled the water vat, calculating and locating the pattern on the mirror's back.

Once he had a clear idea, he glanced at the angle toward the moon. Then he flipped the mirror in his hand, exposing its back to the moonlight. His fingers tapped the raised flowers in the hundred-flower design one after another as he muttered, "Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Center, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui!"

After confirming the nine flowers, he squatted beside the water vat and placed the Bronze Mirror on the ground. Spreading both palms, he touched his thumbs side by side and joined them together, pressing them onto the largest flower. The other four fingers of each hand pressed onto one flower apiece. The four fingers on each side made eight, and with the joined thumbs in the center, they made nine. The two thumbs could also be spread apart to form the two fish eyes of the Yin-Yang Eight Trigrams. Joined together in this manner, all ten fingers formed the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Finger Technique. He used it to press down on all nine flowers at once, exerting force evenly and pressing them down together.

A soft "click" sounded from inside the Bronze Mirror. Niu Youdao's brows twitched. Just as he had expected, he had to find the correct nine flowers and exert force on them simultaneously to break the Bronze Mirror's seal. Even the slightest disorder would prevent it from opening.

He released both hands. The nine flowers that had previously shown no gaps at all had sprung outward, revealing seams beneath them.

Niu Youdao picked up the Bronze Mirror and held it toward the moon over the water again. The nine points of light had vanished. He looked up at the sky and nodded faintly as he muttered, "That's it! Yin breaks and yang emerges. Looks like I'll have to wait until tomorrow, when the sun comes out!" He glanced around, then hurried into the room. He had no heart for cultivation that night and quietly awaited sunrise...

The next day, when the sun appeared, Xu Yitian had taken over guard duty outside. This man had always disdained to say even one extra word to Niu Youdao. Niu Youdao greeted him, but he was too lazy to exchange pointless words and invite bad luck. Knowing that asking would be futile anyway, he ate the breakfast Xu Yitian had sent and returned to the courtyard.

Watching the rising sun, Niu Youdao went back to Peach Blossom Hall to retrieve the Bronze Mirror he had hidden away. He then found a room with a window facing the sun and pushed it open. When he held the mirror's back toward the sunlight, a hazy golden halo immediately appeared across the clean mirror surface. Dense lines of golden characters emerged on it, accompanied by three golden opening characters at the side: Qiankun Jue!

Those three characters alone filled Niu Youdao with energy. Looking more closely at the smaller writing, he quickly confirmed that it was undoubtedly a cultivation technique!

However, there were not many characters visible from this side alone. He flipped the Bronze Mirror over and studied the pattern on its back. Now that he knew how to break the mirror's secret, the remaining designs were no longer difficult for him. After a little calculation, he pinched one flower and gently turned it. He stopped when he heard a faint click, then turned the mirror's back toward the sunlight again. The writing on the mirror had changed to another section, continuing from the previous passage. He could not help smiling softly. Just as he had expected.

For the entire day, he was practically entranced as he held the Bronze Mirror and stared at it. In pursuit of the sunlight, he constantly changed rooms, and at noon he even climbed onto the roof beam and poked a tile loose to let in the light.

Only when the sunlight completely vanished from the sky did Niu Youdao, hiding in the west side room, close the window. He restored the raised patterns on the back of the Bronze Mirror to their original positions and flicked the mirror with a finger. Once again, it gave a sound as though it were a single solid piece. Who could have imagined that such profound secrets were hidden inside it?

After spending the whole day at it, he had roughly skimmed through the contents hidden inside the mirror in a swallow-it-whole fashion. It was truly a feast of both illustrations and text, unmistakably a complete cultivation method—not something his incomplete "Supreme Unity" could compare with.

The sheer amount of content hidden inside a single mirror was not actually excessive. As the mechanisms of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams formation within the mirror shifted and changed, the images inside could transform endlessly and turn pages without stop. There was more than enough room to contain all this content.

What truly left him stroking the mirror and sighing in amazement was the complexity and precision of its internal construction. Even the technology of his previous life would have struggled to create it, and duplicating it would probably have been just as difficult. The forging techniques of this world had far surpassed his imagination!

That was precisely why he had enough confidence to believe that the cultivation method hidden inside could not be simple. No wonder Dongguo Haoran had said that he had lost his life over this thing.

The mystery of the Bronze Mirror had been solved, and what lay inside filled Niu Youdao with eager anticipation.

Over the days that followed, he devoted considerable thought to studying the "Qiankun Jue." Once he had grasped its principles, he officially began cultivating it.

A little under half a month later, he felt the power of the "Qiankun Jue." His cultivation progress could not compare with that of the "Shangqing Heart Sutra"; it was even considerably faster than the progress he had made cultivating "Supreme Unity." Whenever he circulated his energy, the strand of Taiyi True Qi was stirred into frantic motion. This was unlike cultivating the "Shangqing Heart Sutra," which had barely been able to budge that strand of Taiyi True Qi. His confidence in continuing his cultivation grew stronger.

The only thing he regretted was that if he had known what the Bronze Mirror was all along, he would have stayed in Xiaomiao Village and dragged it out there. Why had he come here to be placed under house arrest?

Then again, if he had stayed in Xiaomiao Village, he would probably have been troubled by the need to fill his stomach. For cultivators, how could they lack even one of wealth, companions, cultivation methods, or a suitable place? At least here, it seemed that his food and clothing were guaranteed for now. He could only console himself this way.

Several more days later, Niu Youdao clearly sensed that the True Qi within his body, previously fused into one seamless whole, had taken on the aura of Heaven and Earth Qiankun and developed a division of yin and yang. One stream of True Qi in his body was hot, while another was cold.

Several more days after that, the floating Taiyi True Qi seemed exceptionally fragile under the tempering of the hot and cold True Qi. At last, it could hold on no longer. It snapped and contracted into four clusters—two faintly suffused with golden light and two faintly suffused with silver light.

One golden cluster and one silver cluster paired up and spiraled endlessly around each other, forming two pairs. When they each charged toward the Conception and Governing Vessels, they once again encountered the obstacles Dongguo Haoran had left inside his body. Thirty-three Protective Talismans were strung together like a spiderweb, anchoring blood qi in thirty-three acupoints!

There had originally been thirty-six. One had been used when he killed that monster at the mountain wilderness temple, another when he had nearly frozen to death drifting down the river on a bamboo raft, and another had been wasted resisting Tang Susu's fatal palm strike. That left thirty-three!

When the Taiyi True Qi collided with the spiderweb, it was knocked back. Niu Youdao wanted to test the reaction of the Qiankun True Qi, so he deliberately circulated his energy and drove it into the collision.

As before, the Protective Talismans rebounded with force. The paired golden and silver clusters were knocked away, but they did not fly far. The golden and silver clusters spun rapidly, shedding most of the impact's force. Seeing this, Niu Youdao seemed to realize something. He immediately drove the golden and silver clusters forward against the difficulty. Rather than clash head-on, they separated after drawing close and began circling the threads of the blood-red spiderweb, just as they had refined the Taiyi True Qi before, winding around and refining it with Qiankun True Qi of differing temperatures.

Sure enough, blood mist gradually emerged from the sections of the blood-red spiderweb's threads being tempered. This was not his blood, but the blood Dongguo Haoran had driven into his body when he had cast the technique.

What shocked and delighted Niu Youdao was that the Qiankun True Qi not only refined the foreign blood qi within the Protective Talismans, but also gradually refined the foreign True Qi. After being refined, it was absorbed and merged into the Qiankun True Qi under the Qiankun Rotation of the Qiankun True Qi.

The Protective Talismans had been formed when Dongguo Haoran, on the verge of death, used the cultivation he had left in his entire life to implant them inside Niu Youdao's body. Such powerful foreign True Qi could actually be refined and absorbed by the Qiankun True Qi, making it his own. Did that not mean he could receive Dongguo Haoran's cultivation?

After confirming that this was indeed the case, Niu Youdao was practically wild with joy. How formidable was Dongguo Haoran's cultivation to him!

He could clearly feel that absorbing Dongguo Haoran's True Qi to improve his cultivation progress far surpassed cultivating on his own. The difference in progress could probably be described as a hundredfold or even a thousandfold.

Using his True Qi to look inward and sense himself, he found that compared with the entrenched Protective Talismans, the Qiankun True Qi he had cultivated was like an ant compared to a tree. Refining even one Protective Talisman would probably not be something he could accomplish in the short term.

Yet precisely because of this, one could imagine how much cultivation the thirty-three Protective Talismans contained.

Niu Youdao had never imagined that such an unexpected delight would come his way. He also failed to notice the faint blood mist slowly drifting from the pores of his body. It was the result of refining and clearing away the blood Dongguo Haoran had left inside him, causing the faint scent of blood to float through the room once again...

"Elder! I heard Senior Sister is going to marry Niu Youdao?"

Tang Susu was offering incense before the seated statue of the Patriarch when Song Yanqing charged into the hall, looking as if he were about to lose his mind. He rushed behind her and demanded loudly.

Tang Susu abruptly turned around after inserting the incense sticks. Murderous intent flickered in her eyes as she stared coldly at the frantic Song Yanqing and said harshly, "Have you forgotten all propriety? What are you trying to do? Do you think the rules of the Shangqing Sect can no longer discipline you?"

It was like a basin of cold water being dumped over him. Song Yanqing jumped in fright, and the frenzy on his face quickly receded as he calmed down. It was true that the Shangqing Sect feared the Song Family's influence, but if he truly enraged them, killing him would be as easy as crushing an ant.

After properly performing the formal salute, Song Yanqing asked with a conflicted expression, "Elder, is it true?"

Tang Susu slowly turned around and calmly said, "What if it is?"

Song Yanqing immediately revealed an aggrieved expression. "Elder, you promised to marry Senior Sister to me. Why have you gone back on your word?"