Chen Mo looked at the Five Elements Yuan Nurturing Skill in his hands, and his brows faintly furrowed.
No wonder there were so few practitioners of internal martial arts techniques in the jianghu. Just trying to understand this internal technique was probably no easy task.
Putting aside the abstruse words and phrases themselves, he had his adoptive father's annotations to help with that. Everything had been explained in great detail, allowing him to understand it without the slightest effort.
But he had to learn everything recorded in the annotations, and even thoroughly integrate it all.
The dantian, meridians, and acupoints all existed within the body's internal qi. Although martial artists could achieve inner vision after cultivating internal qi, the meridians and acupoints certainly would not have their names written on them.
To open up the meridians and acupoints, a martial artist had to possess a certain understanding of the human body.
This was precisely why medicine and martial arts were said to be inseparable.
Internal martial artists had to study medicine to some extent for the sake of cultivation. Otherwise, if something went wrong while opening their meridians, having their cultivation stagnate would be the least of their worries.
If they forcibly opened their meridians and suffered internal injuries as a result, that would be the true disaster.
These were precisely the things Chen Mo had to learn now. He had to memorize and study them from this moment onward; he could not wait until he was about to break through before trying to learn them.
His adoptive father had given him not only the method of the Five Elements Yuan Nurturing Skill, but also a diagram of the human body's meridians.
If he wanted to draw upon the internal qi in his dantian and put it to use, he had to memorize all these things.
Only then could he guide the internal qi in his dantian through his meridians and acupoints, allowing it to display its true function.
Most of the human body's meridians and acupoints were unobstructed, with only a small number sealed.
If someone had all one hundred meridians blocked, then even if they managed to be born, they would inevitably die young.
By contrast, someone with all one hundred meridians open had meridians that were naturally broader and tougher than those of ordinary people.
The Vein Opening Realm was meant to make the meridians even more open, allowing them to withstand the circulation and transmission of sufficient internal qi.
Otherwise, no matter how much internal qi one had in the dantian, only a tiny fraction of it could be brought into play.
If an ordinary person's meridians were like a muddy country path that could at most let people walk through,
then the Vein Opening Realm was about building an official road three zhang and three chi wide, broad enough for three horse-drawn carriages to race side by side.
To achieve this, without more than a decade of hard work, it was difficult to see any results.
Chen Mo carefully read through the Five Elements Yuan Nurturing Skill word by word, consulting his adoptive father's annotations and the diagram of the human body's meridians. Before he realized it, night had already deepened outside.
When he came back to himself, he felt his stomach rumbling with hunger. Chen Mo rose and hurried straight to the cookhouse.
"Mo-ge, why did you only come today?" The cook soldier in charge of serving the meals sounded slightly surprised.
Usually, before they had even finished ladling the dishes out of the pots at mealtime, Chen Mo would already be waiting in the cookhouse. Why had he come so late today?
"I went to take care of some idle matters. Is there any food left?" Chen Mo did not elaborate. Right now, he only cared whether there was anything left to eat.
"Of course. When I saw you hadn't come, I prepared some for you first thing!" The cook soldier smiled when he heard this.
This kind of treatment was not something every personal guard could enjoy. If anyone else missed mealtime, they could only go hungry.
But Chen Mo was General Sun's adoptive son, and he now belonged to the faction of new recruits that remained neutral. Most of them essentially looked to him as their leader.
Thus, in this military camp, he enjoyed quite a few privileges that ordinary personal guards did not, to one extent or another.
"Bring it up quickly." Chen Mo sat at the table and urged him on.
The cook soldier quickly brought over two large sea bowls of pork-and-tofu meatball stew, half a steamer basket of mantou, and a plate of stir-fried spinach.
Chen Mo picked up three mantou in one hand, grabbed several pieces of fatty pork, and wolfed them down without a care.
Before long, all the food on the table had been swept clean.
The cook soldier beside him was not surprised by his speed. Seeing such a thing for the first time truly left people dumbstruck, but after seeing it often enough, they gradually got used to it.
"Thanks." After eating everything clean, Chen Mo offered his thanks and hurried back to his room once more.
He was still living alone, precisely so that no one would disturb his cultivation.
After returning to his room and shutting the doors and windows tightly, Chen Mo lit the oil lamp and turned up the flame.
Although he could afford candles now, there was no need for them. He could bring back some lamp oil from the cookhouse, whereas buying candles would require him to pay out of pocket.
A single candle cost at least a dozen copper coins. With that money, he might as well buy half a jin of pork.
If he bought spareribs, he could even get nearly two jin, since spareribs were not fatty and included bones, making them relatively cheaper.
Chen Mo sat cross-legged, with a three-chi-square diagram of the human body's meridians spread out on the ground.
He took a deep breath and sensed the internal qi in his dantian. During this period, he had been diligently cultivating the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist. Following his previous breakthrough, the speed at which he accumulated internal qi during his daily cultivation had visibly increased.
If the dantian were compared to a clay jar, then this jar now contained half a tenth of water.
To enter the Vein Opening Realm, however, the dantian had to accumulate seven-tenths of its internal qi before one could attempt the breakthrough.
In the Vein Opening Realm, internal qi circulated through the meridians, nourishing and expanding them so that they could withstand more internal qi.
To break through this realm, it was not necessary to fill the dantian completely with internal qi. With seven or eight tenths of its capacity filled, one could begin attempting it.
One did not necessarily have to wait until the internal qi was completely full before trying to break through. If one's meridians were naturally sturdier than those of ordinary people, there was no need to waste too much time floundering in this realm.
Chen Mo guided threads of internal qi out of his dantian and into the Guanyuan Acupoint, one of the acupoints closest to the dantian.
Following the Guanyuan Acupoint upward, Chen Mo was rather satisfied with the meridians and acupoints within his body.
After undergoing Mortal Transformation twice, the strength of his meridians far surpassed that of ordinary people. Even if all his internal qi surged out of his dantian now, it moved without the slightest obstruction or difficulty.
Chen Mo split off a thread of internal qi and sent it into the Mortal Transformation Pearl. The result was exactly the same as in the many tests he had conducted before.
The internal qi passed straight through the Mortal Transformation Pearl, as though it had not sensed its existence at all.
It seemed that the internal qi he currently controlled was too weak, unable even to provoke the slightest reaction from the Mortal Transformation Pearl.
Without pausing, he continued controlling the internal qi as it traveled through his body. But when it passed his heart, Chen Mo suddenly sensed that his internal qi seemed to be drawn somewhere.
The feeling was extremely faint, yet it had remained constant.
When he moved the internal qi to another area, he immediately stopped sensing that pull.
Chen Mo slowly opened his eyes and took a flat pouch from his robes.
Inside were several talismans he had obtained from members of the Du Tian Dao Sect, the Crimson Bloodstone he had acquired when he hunted the Blood Monkey, a five-tael banknote, and a small piece of gold.
These were the most important and valuable things on him. Under ordinary circumstances, he carried them with him at all times.
As for the All-Heaven Grand Dao Scripture, it was too large to carry easily, and contact with it also carried a certain degree of risk, so he kept it sealed away securely.
He took the items from the pouch one by one, then began testing them individually.
The gold, banknote, and several talismans did not react to his internal qi in the slightest.
Only the Crimson Bloodstone he had obtained from hunting the Blood Monkey reacted to his internal qi.
Chen Mo gripped the Crimson Bloodstone tightly, pondering inwardly whether he should use his internal qi to activate it.
He could now guide his internal qi through his meridians. Although he could not release it outside his body, circulating it within his body posed no problem at all.
As long as he could touch the Crimson Bloodstone, he could send his internal qi into it.
After pondering briefly, he did not hesitate for long. Chen Mo decided then and there to give it a try.
He had possessed this Crimson Bloodstone for quite some time, yet he had still not discovered any use for it.
Now that it was actually reacting to his internal qi, of course he had to try and see exactly what effect it had.
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