The Secret of the Small Cauldron

Night had fallen, and Baruch Manor lay quiet.

Lin Yun sat cross-legged on his bed with his eyes closed, but he wasn't asleep. He was trying something important.

Practicing the Qi Cultivation Style during the day had confirmed one thing: cultivating in the Coiling Dragon World really could strengthen his body and perception. But he was even more curious about what kind of connection could be formed between these two worlds.

The Small Bronze Tripod rested quietly against his chest, its bronze surface glimmering faintly in the moonlight.

Lin Yun took a deep breath and focused all his attention on the Small Cauldron against his chest. He tried to "touch" it with his mind, just as he had tried to sense the Gene Energy in the air in the Swallowed Star World.

At first, nothing happened.

The Small Cauldron felt like an ordinary piece of cold bronze. It didn't react at all.

But Lin Yun didn't give up. He adjusted his breathing and slowed his pace, letting himself enter a state of semi-meditation. It was a method he had worked out over the six years he'd spent in the Swallowed Star World. There was no formal meditation technique there, but in his previous life, he had learned that focus itself was a kind of power.

Time passed, second by second.

Just as Lin Yun was about to give up, he suddenly sensed a faint connection.

It was a strange sensation, like an invisible thread extending from the Small Cauldron to some distant place. The thread was barely there, appearing and disappearing, yet it was real.

Lin Yun's heart began to race.

Carefully, he extended his perception along that thread, just as cautiously and intently as he had the first time he tried to touch an external object with his Spiritual Force.

The other end of the thread connected to another body.

He could sense that body's heartbeat, breathing, and warmth. It was his body in the Swallowed Star World, lying asleep on the small bed in his low-rent apartment in Yangzhou City.

Two bodies, one soul.

Lin Yun opened his eyes. They shone more brightly than ever.

He could sense both worlds now—not vaguely or passively, but through a clear, active connection. It was as if the Small Cauldron had built a bridge between his two bodies, allowing his consciousness to switch between the worlds at will.

He tried shifting more of his attention to his body in the Swallowed Star World.

The next moment, he felt slightly dizzy, and the world before his eyes changed in an instant.

Moonlight from Yangzhou City spilled through the shabby window and fell across Lin Yun's face.

He opened his eyes to the peeling ceiling of the low-rent apartment and the spiderweb in the corner, repaired several times over. From the room next door came the steady snores of his grandfather, while an occasional dog bark sounded in the distance.

He sat up and looked down at his hands. They were a little larger than the ones he had in the Coiling Dragon World, with more prominent knuckles and a few extra scars from playing in the ruins.

Lin Yun took a deep breath and assessed his body.

For six years, he had waited for the Small Cauldron to activate again, but he had never stopped training this body. Without a proper cultivation method, he had worked things out for himself. The knowledge he had picked up at the gym in his previous life, combined with his vague understanding of the cultivation system in the Swallowed Star World, had helped him develop a set of basic exercises suited to him.

He ran early every morning, practiced horse stance, did push-ups and pull-ups, and trained his concentration to strengthen his Spiritual Energy. These exercises seemed simple, but after six years of sticking with them, the results were considerable.

Lin Yun clenched his fist, feeling the strength in his arm muscles. He still couldn't match Luo Feng's naturally strong physique, but he was far stronger than an ordinary child his age.

More importantly, he could faintly sense the same "aura" in this body that he felt while practicing the Qi Cultivation Style in the Coiling Dragon World. It was much weaker, but it was definitely there.

What did that mean?

It meant that the results of his cultivation in one world could somehow be reflected in his body in the other!

Lin Yun's heart raced again.

He closed his eyes and shifted his consciousness back to the Coiling Dragon World.

In the room at Baruch Manor, the other Lin Yun opened his eyes.

The moonlight was unchanged. It seemed as if only an instant had passed.

But Lin Yun knew the switch hadn't been an illusion. He had truly transferred his consciousness between the two worlds.

He touched the Small Cauldron against his chest, and a bold idea came to him.

If he could switch his consciousness at will, then what about objects?

The Small Cauldron could carry his soul between the two worlds. Could it carry other things, too?

Lin Yun looked around the room. His gaze fell on a Small Wood Carving on the bedside table. Linley had carved it for him from a piece of wood a few days ago. The workmanship was rough, but Linley had put care into it. It was a little dragon.

Lin Yun picked up the carving and held it in his palm. Then he closed his eyes and focused on the Small Cauldron.

Take it over. he silently told himself. Bring this carving to the other world.

The Small Cauldron grew slightly warm, but nothing else happened.

Lin Yun frowned and tried several more times, but still failed.

He thought it over and tried a different approach. Maybe he couldn't "take it over." Maybe he had to put it inside the Small Cauldron first?

Focusing again, he tried to "store" the carving in the Small Cauldron, just as it had once taken in his soul.

The ancient patterns on the Small Cauldron's surface suddenly lit up.

The light was very faint, almost impossible to see in the moonlight, but Lin Yun felt it clearly. The carving trembled slightly in his hand, and then it vanished.

It hadn't fallen or moved somewhere else. It had truly disappeared.

Lin Yun's eyes flew open as he looked down at the Small Cauldron in his hand.

The ancient patterns on its surface seemed to flow faintly, as if digesting something. At their center, he could just make out a tiny speck of light shaped like... a wood carving.

Lin Yun's heart nearly leaped out of his chest.

He shifted his consciousness to the Swallowed Star World—

In the room in Yangzhou City, he looked down at his hand.

His palm was empty.

But just as disappointment set in, the Small Bronze Tripod against his chest glimmered faintly. A small object appeared at its mouth and dropped lightly into his hand.

It was the carving.

Lin Yun stared at it, too stunned to react for a long moment.

The Small Cauldron could transport objects.

He understood better than anyone what that meant.

The resources of the two worlds—the magical materials and Battle Qi techniques of the Coiling Dragon World, the Gene Energy potions and technological products of the Swallowed Star World—could all be exchanged through the Small Cauldron!

He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

This discovery was so important it could change the course of his cultivation in both worlds. But now wasn't the time to get excited. He needed to test the Small Cauldron's abilities more systematically.

Were there limits on the size, weight, or distance of the objects it could transport? Did transportation consume anything? Was there a limit to how many times he could use it?

He would have to verify each question one by one.

Lin Yun set the carving beside the bed in the Swallowed Star World, then shifted his consciousness back to the Coiling Dragon World.

He decided to start testing with the smallest objects.

A pebble.

He took a small pebble from the flowerpot on the windowsill, held it in his palm, and tried to store it in the Small Cauldron.

It worked.

The pebble vanished from his hand and appeared among the patterns on the Small Cauldron. He switched to the Swallowed Star World and took it out.

Then he tried a second pebble, then a third...

Next came a coin, a leaf, and a cup of water...

Every attempt worked, but Lin Yun noticed a pattern: the larger and heavier the object, the slower the Small Cauldron reacted and the dimmer its light became. When he tried to transport a fist-sized rock, its light weakened noticeably, and the process took nearly three seconds instead of happening instantly.

There was a cost.

Lin Yun made a mental note of the observation. The Small Cauldron wasn't all-powerful. Its energy seemed limited, and the larger the object, the more energy it consumed.

Then... how could he restore its energy?

He thought it over. It probably had something to do with the strength of his soul. The Small Cauldron was bound to his soul, so its energy most likely came from being nourished by it. If he practiced meditation and strengthened his soul, the Small Cauldron could recover its energy.

It was a positive cycle.

Lin Yun's lips curled slightly, and his eyes grew brighter.

Over the next few days, he practiced the Qi Cultivation Style alongside Linley under Hillman's instruction during the day. At night, he used the Small Cauldron to travel freely between the two worlds and continued testing the limits of its abilities.

He discovered several important things:

First, transporting objects consumed energy, and the rate at which that energy recovered was tied to the progress of his cultivation in both bodies. The longer he meditated in the Coiling Dragon World and the harder he trained in the Swallowed Star World, the faster the Small Cauldron recovered.

Second, there was a limit on the distance objects could be transported—at least for now. He had tried sending objects to locations farther away in the Swallowed Star World, but the Small Cauldron could only send them within one meter of his other body. This meant it was more like a "personal transport device" than a long-distance transporter.

Third, transporting living things... He had tried putting an ant inside the Small Cauldron. It survived for about ten seconds before dying. This meant that the space inside the Small Cauldron wasn't suitable for storing living things yet. Or perhaps he simply hadn't figured out how to store them properly.

Fourth, he had tried practicing the Qi Cultivation Style in the Swallowed Star World. It wasn't as effective as it was in the Coiling Dragon World, but he discovered that the results of his cultivation in the two worlds could somehow be "combined" to a certain extent.

Specifically, the "sense of qi" he built up by practicing the Qi Cultivation Style in the Coiling Dragon World seemed to strengthen his physique in the Swallowed Star World. And the physical strength he gained through basic training in the Swallowed Star World made it easier to practice the Qi Cultivation Style in the Coiling Dragon World.

The two worlds and two bodies were connected through the Small Cauldron, forming a perfect cultivation loop.

Lin Yun even came up with a bold theory: if he developed Battle Qi or learned magic in the Coiling Dragon World, could those abilities be "transferred" through the Small Cauldron to his body in the Swallowed Star World?

If that theory proved true, his strength in the two worlds wouldn't simply add up. It would multiply.

The thought excited Lin Yun so much that he almost didn't sleep all night.

But he soon calmed down.

He was still too weak. In the Coiling Dragon World, he was just a six-year-old who had only begun practicing the Qi Cultivation Style. In the Swallowed Star World, he was an ordinary person who didn't even qualify as a Quasi-Warrior. Any top fighter from either world could crush him with ease.

What he needed now wasn't to reach too far ahead, but to keep his feet on the ground.

He needed to build a solid foundation, master the Qi Cultivation Style, and bring the basic cultivation methods of both worlds together.

Then he could think about everything else.

On the seventh night, Lin Yun conducted another test.

This time, he tried something different: he sent a level-three Magical Beast Crystal Core from the Coiling Dragon World to the Swallowed Star World. Hillman had given it to him for his birthday. It was a small piece left over from a low-level magical beast Hillman had hunted several years earlier.

When the fingernail-sized crystal core appeared on the small bed in the low-rent apartment in Yangzhou City, Lin Yun could feel the Small Cauldron's light dim considerably. It had consumed several times more energy than it had to transport a rock.

But the crystal core had made it through.

Lin Yun picked it up and sensed the energy it contained. In the Coiling Dragon World, low-level Magical Beast Crystal Cores like this could only be used to make simple magical items or sold to merchants for money. But in the Swallowed Star World...

He tried to sense the structure of the energy within the crystal core.

Then he froze.

The energy structure inside the Magical Beast Crystal Core was, to a certain extent, similar to the Gene Energy that permeated the air in the Swallowed Star World!

Both were "source energy" that the human body could absorb and use. They simply existed in different forms and at different densities.

What did that mean?

It meant he might be able to use Magical Beast Crystal Cores from the Coiling Dragon World to cultivate in the Swallowed Star World!

Lin Yun forced himself to calm down.

This discovery was enormous, and he would have to handle it with extreme caution. He was still young, and he barely understood either world's cultivation system. Conducting cross-world energy experiments recklessly would be too dangerous.

He needed time—to learn more, gain more experience, and explore things slowly.

The Small Cauldron had given him limitless possibilities, but using them well would take wisdom and patience.

Lin Yun carefully put the crystal core away, closed his eyes, and shifted his consciousness back to the Coiling Dragon World.

Outside, the moonlight flowed like water.

In the courtyard of Baruch Manor, the Dragon Stone Sculpture cast a long shadow in the moonlight.

Lin Yun lay in bed, gazing at the ceiling with the faintest smile on his lips.

Two worlds, two bodies, and one Small Cauldron.

He already possessed the greatest trump card for rising to prominence in this universe.

All that remained was time and effort.

And patience was something he had in abundance.

The next morning, Lin Yun went to the courtyard for training with Linley as usual.

Hillman was already waiting, and the other children gradually arrived.

"Today, we'll keep practicing the Qi Cultivation Style." Hillman's gaze swept over the children. "Remember, there are no shortcuts in cultivation. It takes day after day of effort. If anyone thinks they can become an expert after only a few days of practice, they might as well go home now."

The children answered in unison.

Hillman's voice rang out again. "Everyone, begin!"

The children immediately spread out and began the day's training.

Lin Yun stood with the others, adjusted his breathing, and settled into the exercise.

His mind was perfectly calm.

He wouldn't tell anyone the secret of the Small Cauldron—not yet, at least. This world was dangerous, and he was still too weak. Keeping the secret meant protecting himself.

But he knew that from this day on, everything had changed.

With both worlds at his disposal, his path was broader than anyone else's.