To Master Divine Arts, First Refine Elixirs and Take Medicine; Unite Inner and Outer

"The first method I have only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. It can neither remove the toxins from your body, Senior, nor stop them from accumulating."

"What kind of method is that?" Dugu Bo asked, somewhat puzzled.

"It can only temporarily suppress the toxins, reducing their effect on you and lessening the backlash. Seeing how haggard you look, have you recently suffered a backlash? It must have been quite painful."

"At the very least, this first method can make the backlash milder, slow the accumulation of toxins, reduce and delay the frequency of outbreaks, and slightly extend your lifespan."

"Th-then that's already pretty good." Dugu Bo smacked his lips. In his view, this was a method that treated the symptoms but not the root cause. If he gritted his teeth, it could even be considered both.

"But can you really do this, kid? Have you studied medicine? Who was your medical master? What insights do you have regarding toxins? What medicine should be used, how should it be treated, and what would the cost be?"

Dugu Bo fired off questions like a string of cannonballs.

"I never studied medicine under anyone. I've merely read some medical texts, but I have a photographic memory and can draw inferences from one example, so I understand at least a little about medicine. As for poison, I don't have any particular insights."

"However, this first method requires neither medicine nor injections, nor any outside interference. Senior only needs to adjust yourself."

"???" Dugu Bo felt as though he were a raw recruit.

"Senior, have you ever observed hibernating snakes, turtles, frogs, or bears?"

"Uh... I know a little about them. Why?" Dugu Bo had no background when he was young. When hunting Spirit Beasts, he would sneak in and poison them while they were hibernating or half-asleep, killing them or leaving them half-dead before they could react.

As far as he was concerned, he had observed such creatures before, especially snakes.

"These creatures differ in every way—their forms vary, and their lifespans are worlds apart. Yet when winter came, they all behaved similarly. They reduced their own expenditure and entered a dormant state, resisting changes in the outside environment through hibernation."

"The heartbeat of a hibernating animal drops to an extreme low, and every metabolic process in its body slows down. According to my observations, the slower a creature's metabolism, the higher the upper limit of its lifespan tends to be. More specifically, it isn't that their vitality is stronger, but that they consume less of it."

"You want me to hibernate like those animals?" Dugu Bo thought about it. It did seem feasible. If his heartbeat slowed, the flow of Soul Power within him became sluggish, and everything weakened, then the toxins would not backlash either.

But I'm not truly alone. What if something happened to Yan Yan?

As Dugu Bo thought this, he noticed a disappointed expression on Chen Ming's face, as if he were saying that he was beyond teaching.

"Not actual hibernation. You deal with it by regulating your condition. Whenever there are signs that the toxins are about to run rampant, enter a slowed state. By stretching out the time, you reduce the overall backlash, minimizing the damage and pain—or even preventing the toxins from entering a true backlash state."

"Senior, imagine sitting cross-legged in meditation. Press the tip of your tongue against your upper palate, focus on the tip of your nose, feel your breathing and heartbeat, then sense the Soul Power within your abdomen..."

"Relax your shoulders, keep your head upright, push the back of your head back, and your chin forward... Empty your mind, and sense your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and consciousness."

Chen Ming roughly explained it to Dugu Bo. Just when he thought he had explained enough, Dugu Bo suddenly raised a question.

"I know how to sit cross-legged in meditation, but I don't really understand what you're saying."

"Just... like this..." Chen Ming helplessly slapped his forehead, sat down cross-legged, and explained the posture to Dugu Bo.

In truth, sitting in meditation belonged to Zen Technique, a Buddhist method of self-cultivation. But over the course of its transmission, Buddhism and Daoism had gradually absorbed and incorporated each other, and Zen Technique had also been improved somewhat. What Chen Ming was teaching Dugu Bo this time leaned more toward Buddhism.

Its drawback was that it had no upper limit, since there were no accompanying "mental methods," "inner scriptures," "understanding," or "visualization." But its advantages were a low barrier to entry, quick mastery, no risk of cultivation deviation, and no side effects even if one failed to learn it.

Dugu Bo copied Chen Ming's posture and began regulating his condition under Chen Ming's guidance. After a while, he opened his eyes, a trace of delight between his brows.

"It seems like my condition has stabilized a little? I'm not as irritable anymore?"

"Senior, you haven't even gotten started yet. At most, you've adjusted a breath and made yourself feel a bit better... If you truly want to continue regulating yourself, I'll need to observe your Soul Power flow and have you alter its efficiency and structure... But never mind. Let's move on to the next topic."

What Dugu Bo had learned was not completely useless, but its usefulness was indeed limited. It was fine for adjusting his condition in daily life, but when a backlash truly came, it would hurt just as much as before.

"The second method also treats the symptoms but not the root cause. Find something to drain the poison out of your body. Not continuously, but once every so often, keeping the toxins in a stable state where they will not backlash."

"The advantage is that it takes effect quickly. The disadvantage is that each discharge will likely weaken your condition for a short time. It cannot alter the root of the problem."

"How do I drain it?"

"Use something of the same kind as a bridge. Release a portion of your Soul Power into it, circulate it slowly, then strip the impurities from the Soul Power."

"Something of the same kind?" Dugu Bo froze. Chen Ming continued, "Senior's Martial Soul is the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor. You can find a ten-thousand-year Jade Phosphor Snake. I'll see whether I can make the Jade Phosphor Snake withstand your Soul Power. Then we can directly use a living Spirit Beast to purify its essence. You will lose some of your condition, but it will be quick and straightforward."

"As for the medium of connection, I'll need to think of something. I'll also need to figure out how to keep the Spirit Beast from resisting. But the premise for all of this is that we first catch a ten-thousand-year Jade Phosphor Snake for me to study."

What Chen Ming had introduced earlier was Zen Technique. This time, what he introduced was a modified form of the External Elixir method—not using external forces to strengthen oneself, but transferring the impurities within one's body outward.

In theory, if this method were controlled well enough, it could even appear to treat both the symptoms and the root cause. But if anything went wrong—if the toxins were not discharged on schedule or some accident occurred—death would still be death.

This was fundamentally similar to Tang San's method in the original story of using Spirit Bones to store toxins. However, once Spirit Bones were filled to capacity, they would explode, causing all the accumulated energy to backlash upon the body at once. Unless one severed a limb to survive, escape was nearly impossible. With an External Elixir, however, if one broke, one could simply replace it.