The thought had only just arisen when Ye Qin dismissed it. Cultivation required steady progress, one solid step at a time, and although he could feel that he had made tremendous strides,
his White Bone Contemplation had yet to reach perfection.
Since that was the case, contemplating something else would inevitably cause some distraction. No matter how gifted he was, it was impossible to advance on all fronts at once. Instead, rushing for quick gains would only leave him worse off.
He might as well wait until his White Bone Contemplation reached perfection before taking the next step.
What he needed to do now was consolidate his cultivation and maintain his realm before he left this state.
Contemplating the natural world might bring him immense benefits, but cultivation required gradual progress, and there was still plenty of time. He was in no hurry.
"In this state, my comprehension has increased significantly. Perhaps I can try deducing some of the cultivation paths and methods that come later..."
Ye Qin muttered to himself. Once he had an idea, he began trying to deduce his own cultivation method!
By the time Ye Qin opened his eyes again, more than ten minutes seemed to have passed.
One had to understand that when the ancients were fortunate enough to enter sudden enlightenment and meditation, they could comprehend monumental works of thought in only a few minutes. Yet he had entered meditation for more than ten minutes in a single sitting, which was already extraordinary—credit for that went to Snake Spirit Human Wisdom.
This extraordinary enlightenment had given him a great deal of information. Ye Qin organized and categorized it, constantly reflecting and pondering over it.
"Based on my insights while in meditation, along with my summary and analysis of the cultivation path ahead, I can provisionally divide the early cultivation realms into three stages: Free Contemplation, Creation Body Tempering, and Heaven and Earth Qi Refining."
"I am currently in the Free Contemplation realm. The core of this realm is to contemplate any object and make it my 'sole origin contemplation object.'"
"When I can imagine the object of contemplation without the slightest discrepancy, with such lifelike detail that I can no longer distinguish reality from illusion, that will count as mastering the Contemplation realm. Then I can advance to the second realm!"
"As for the two realms after that, I only have some ideas for now. I will have to reach them before I can understand and put them into practice, so I won't consider them yet..."
Of course, cultivation certainly did not stop at these three realms. This was what Ye Qin had deduced based on his current situation. There might be many more realms afterward, but he knew nothing about them for the time being.
He also did not know what specific effects each realm possessed. He would have to explore further.
Perhaps he would only be able to find out once he had reached all three of these realms.
"I have to say, entering a state of meditation brings great benefits every time. The first time, I found the opportunity to begin cultivating. This time, I deduced the direction of my early cultivation. I wonder when I will next have such an opportunity and experience the state of meditation again."
After sighing with emotion and sorting everything out, Ye Qin finally had a firm grasp of things. He was no longer like before, when everything had been shrouded in darkness and he knew nothing.
He now also had a rough direction and scope for his cultivation.
In terms of time and comprehension, Ye Qin was now only one step away from the second realm. As long as he pierced through that layer of window paper, advancing further would naturally be no difficult matter.
Recalling the scene he had contemplated earlier, Ye Qin felt that although it had been realistic, something was still missing.
"What exactly is missing?"
Ye Qin racked his brains, while the earlier scene repeatedly surfaced in his mind. He glanced at the white bones beside the cave and carefully compared the two.
A faint ripple arose in his snake pupils, and a seemingly absent gleam flashed through them. At last, he found the difference.
The white bones he had contemplated were too perfect. That perfection had instead become their greatest flaw.
The white bones in the cave had already decayed for a hundred years. Although they had not endured much wind or sun, the bone quality had deteriorated, inevitably leaving some places yellowed or blackened.
In addition, countless snakes, insects, rats, and ants had crawled over them, leaving behind tiny wormholes. They would be difficult to spot without close observation.
The real skeleton could not be called perfect. It failed to be truly white as jade, yet that only added several strokes of reality.
Ye Qin nodded in sudden realization. "So that's how it is. The white bones I contemplated had no flaws whatsoever, lacking the things that should exist in reality. That's why they were still lacking something."
"Because my origin contemplation object is too divorced from reality! I need to return to simplicity and truth!"
His original intention had been to pursue perfection and make everything flawless, but he had not realized that sometimes, that one imperfection was precisely what was needed.
It was just like how the world needed gaps. Only when there were cracks could light shine through.
Of the fifty principles of the Great Dao, Heaven derives forty-nine.
Even Heaven's law could not achieve absolute perfection, let alone him.
Once he understood the principle, Ye Qin felt his mind suddenly clear. He had awakened as though enlightened, and the hazy white mist before him was finally scattered by a great wind, leaving his spirit platform utterly lucid.
Ye Qin crawled to the white bones, as though he had made an important decision in his heart.
If he wanted to reach perfection, he had to do everything himself. Looking alone would not be enough.
Earlier, he had been blinded by a single leaf and misled by the literal meaning. White Bone Contemplation did not cultivate merely the eyes.
The so-called contemplation involved more than sight. Touch was also important. More accurately, he had to mobilize all five senses.
He had to look with his eyes, touch with his body, and feel with his heart. None of these could be omitted.
Earlier, he had feared offending the white bones, so he had always observed them from afar. But now that he understood the principle, everything was different.
"Sorry for the disturbance. I hope you won't blame me, miss. If your spirit still lingers in Heaven, and you can help me reach perfection, then I believe you would understand my actions and be willing to help me."
Ye Qin raised his body upright, then bowed toward the white bones.
He looked just like a person giving a respectful bow.
Afterward, he crawled onto the white bones and coiled around them, loop after loop.
A black serpentine body threaded through the white bones. The two starkly contrasting colors formed a powerful visual clash.
It was like yin and yang, constantly evolving and transforming, faintly forming the pattern of the taiji and the Eight Trigrams.
The white bones represented death and embodied yin, while Ye Qin represented new life and embodied yang.
Black and white changed places, as though life and death had been reversed. Even the magnetic field within the cave subtly began to change.
Feeling the cold sensation coming from beneath him, Ye Qin felt as though a string in his heart had been plucked. His serpentine body continued circling around the white bones, exploring back and forth.
Even the tiny wormholes between the bones and the nearly imperceptible cracks were all visible to him. He gained a far more direct sense and experience of them.
At last, Ye Qin stopped. At the abdomen of the white bones, where the dantian was located, he coiled himself into a circle.
The dantian was where the elixir formed through Internal Alchemy.
The ancients called essence, qi, and spirit the Three Treasures. They regarded the dantian as the place where essence, qi, and spirit were stored, and thus attached great importance to it, treating it as "the foundation of one's nature and life."
That was why Ye Qin ultimately chose to remain here and enter meditation.
The white bones and the black snake looked so harmonious.
"One yin and one yang—this is the Dao."
Ye Qin contemplated the white bones again. This time, he was within the white bones. Natural deductions unfolded in his mind, and 206 scattered bones appeared before his eyes, following the black-and-white pattern as they continuously moved and transformed.
With the taiji and Eight Trigrams as their foundation, countless bones, drawn by the pull within Ye Qin's sea of consciousness, flew into place in orderly fashion. First came the toe bones, then the leg bones, followed by the rib cage, and then the skull.
A complete skeleton appeared before his eyes. It was even more realistic than the white bones he had contemplated before.
It seemed to have endured countless vicissitudes. The black and yellow hues within its bones and joints told of its past, while the tiny wormholes and cracks in the finer details were all present without the slightest omission.
Even if one picked bones from an egg, one would not find a single flaw.
This was nothing less than a materialization of the white bones in the cave. Perhaps even the original owner herself had personally arrived.
Ye Qin could no longer distinguish reality from illusion. Was he in the cave now, or was he in a state of meditation?
When truth becomes false, falsehood becomes truth; where nonbeing is, being exists, and where being is, nonbeing returns.
Or was everything merely a dream of his?
Whether it was real or false no longer mattered. Ye Qin only felt the scene before him suddenly open up, as though the stone that had long blocked his heart had finally been moved aside.
He looked at the white bones, and the white bones looked back at him. The two remained silent as time flowed away, drop by drop.
(End of Chapter)