Overbearing?
Chen Yi nearly laughed.
A bunch of Unorthodox Path scum hiding in the shadows to murder common folk—how could they understand what "overbearing" truly meant?
After all, it still contained the word "Dao."
Yet Chen Yi understood why they had felt that way.
It was because their minds had been awed by the illusory world evolving around them.
The human body possessed three Qi Seas: the Dantian, danzhong, and Yintang.
They all seemed to draw in, gather, and store Qi, yet there were subtle differences between them.
—They corresponded to essence, Qi, and spirit.
The Dantian stored essence, danzhong strengthened Qi, and Yintang nurtured spirit.
The Martial Path followed this order, using True Essence to gradually fill one's essence, Qi, and spirit from the bottom up, until one attained the Dao and reached perfection.
But the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting studied by scholars were not like this. Or rather, when scholars cultivated themselves and nourished their nature, what they nourished was their own "spirit."
This was also why Chen Yi had been able to use the Chess Dao to withstand Du Cang's Kut Secret Art.
Speaking solely of "spirit," once a scholar's zither, chess, calligraphy, or painting reached perfection in the Dao, they could borrow the power of Heaven and Earth Spirit Qi to accomplish things ordinary people, even martial artists, could not.
Just as the Chess Dao could evolve heaven and earth, deducing people or events.
Just as the Dao of Painting could pass falsehood for truth, turning the figures it painted from illusion into solidity, false enough to become real.
Thus, when Chen Yi used the Chess Dao to seize Xue Chong and the others' minds, he was suppressing them with absolute "spirit."
Though the Chess Dao lacked the murderous force of Du Cang's Kut Secret