Night Sky Observation, Killing Star Enters Meridian

Long before arriving, Zhao Cheng had already led three thousand Assault Cavalry to launch a surprise attack on the beacon towers along the way, leaving behind guards to ignite the victory signals at precisely the right moments.

As he stepped into the city gate, three thousand elite Assault Cavalry stood silent in the darkness behind him, like a black torrent draped in a cloak of death, quietly submerged in the deep night.

The night remained dark and the wind high.

The three thousand Assault Cavalry suddenly surged forward, swift as wind and arrows, bearing down directly upon the walls of Chou City!

The thunderous sound of hooves rolled across the plains and echoed through the gatehouse, as if trampling directly upon the heart of Yuan Ming, causing his entire body to shudder violently.

"Hold the gate at all costs!!"

"Stop him! Don't let him open the gate! Everyone, spare no effort, stop him!"

He shrieked his orders at the top of his lungs.

Wave after wave of garrison troops rushed madly behind the gate, only to be decapitated by Zhao Cheng one after another.

Heads flew into the air in succession.

Zhao Cheng slaughtered the enemy frantically, seizing their lifespans.

[You killed an enemy soldier, seizing thirteen years of lifespan]

[You killed an enemy soldier, seizing seventeen years of lifespan]

[You killed an enemy soldier, seizing twenty-three years of lifespan]

[Current remaining lifespan: 45,879 years]

[Current remaining lifespan: 46,154 years]

[Current remaining lifespan: 46,358 years]

In a short span of time, the newly arrived soldiers had been completely wiped out by Zhao Cheng; the soldiers rushing up behind them looked at the mountain of corpses and sea of blood, and dared not step past the gate again.

They could only watch helplessly as Zhao Cheng walked swaggeringly to the front of the gate, lifted the massive bolt with one hand, and threw the gates open with a boom.

Behind the gate, the Assault Cavalry surged in like a flood, crushing everything in their path and cutting through the garrison like a hot knife through butter.

Chaos erupted in the city; Zhao Cheng killed his way up to the ramparts alone, strolled over to stand before Yuan Ming, and flashed a grin at him.

"Still not cautious enough."

Yuan Ming was terrified into a stupor, standing frozen in place as Zhao Cheng decapitated him with a single stroke of his sword.

As his head flew into the air, his deputy general had already stripped off his armor, disguised himself as a commoner, and fled into the city.

The entire Chou City was left completely leaderless; with only ten thousand troops to begin with, they could not even muster thirty percent of their combat effectiveness.

Under the charge of the three thousand Assault Cavalry and the god-of-slaughter-like deterrence of Zhao Cheng, they quickly collapsed.

In the end, only one thousand men remained as prisoners of war; stripped of their armor and weapons, they were bound with ropes and left to perform manual labor.

This time, the Assault Cavalry Battalion had once again had their fill of slaughter; three thousand men had killed nine thousand, each earning distinguished military merit, and they all wished they could tie themselves to Zhao Cheng's legs to follow him into battle forever.

The lifespan Zhao Cheng had seized also surpassed the mark of fifty-two thousand years.

Chou City had fallen, and the three thousand Assault Cavalry occupied every corner of the city, finally giving Zhao Cheng time to rest quietly.

Feng Quan had found a rattan chair from somewhere and placed it on the city wall for Zhao Cheng, allowing him to lie back and overlook the night view below.

Of course, there was no real night view to speak of below, just a pitch-black expanse, but feeling the breeze was pleasant enough.

Now, with his internal energy surging and his stamina inexhaustible, he did not feel overly fatigued despite the several intense battles.

It was quite comfortable to have a moment of leisure.

Feng Quan and Feng Ruo found some wild rabbits in the city's kitchen and, imitating Zhao Cheng, roasted meat for him to eat.

Meng Tian also benefited from Zhao Cheng's presence, sitting to the side and happily eating the roasted meat, improving his own diet.

As Zhao Cheng ate the meat and felt the night breeze, looking at the over fifty thousand years of lifespan in his system, he felt a sense of great abundance.

"Fifty-two thousand years of lifespan—although accumulating one hundred thousand years might unlock new system functions, I don't know if I can reach that amount even after destroying Han."

"But if I use it to deduce techniques without a clear direction, I will inevitably take many detours."

"However, there is at least one clear direction now: to continuously refine the internal energy within my meridians. Making the energy more abundant can never be a bad thing."

After the series of battles, the internal energy in his meridians had been partially depleted.

Since he had no time for quiet meditation during this period, he decided to simply invest his lifespan into cultivation.

"System, invest two thousand five hundred years of lifespan into meditative cultivation."

[Beginning to invest lifespan into cultivating the Basic Body Refining Technique...]

[In the first year, your Basic Body Refining Technique has reached perfection, but your internal energy is far from being refined to the extreme. You continue to meditate and absorb the energy of heaven and earth; the energy circulates through your Eight Extraordinary Meridians on its own, constantly refining itself...]

[In the one hundredth year, through a century of meditation, the internal energy in your meridians has been restored to fullness, and at the same time, the energy has been refined by half a percent, and your energy absorption speed has increased by half a percent...]

[Year 500, you feel that letting Qi circulate on its own is too slow, failing to even match the speed at which you absorb it, so you begin attempting to guide the Qi to flow according to specific patterns.]

[Year 1,000, you finally find the sensation and struggle to guide a small amount of Qi, but the Qi remains unruly, and your guidance is intermittent.]

[Year 1,500, you are now able to continuously guide a larger amount of Qi to circulate.]

[Year 1,700, you guide a stream of Qi to circulate along the route of the Conception and Governor Vessels, attempting to actively perform a Microcosmic Orbit. You go astray, and your Qi suffers heavy damage.]

[Year 2,000, you finally heal your injuries and recover your Qi. You guide the Qi from a different direction, through the Conception and Governor Vessels, to perform a Microcosmic Orbit. Your entire body feels feverish, the Qi suddenly accelerates, and it continues to speed up until it spirals out of control, leaving you severely injured.]

[Year 2,300, you have healed your injuries once again. After three hundred years of reflection, you are more confused than ever. Neither forward nor reverse circulation works; even this tiny stream of Qi caused you severe damage. If your entire body's Qi were to circulate at once, wouldn't you be injured to the point of death?]

[Year 2,500, you honestly absorb the Qi of heaven and earth, letting it circulate naturally. Your Qi has condensed by ten percent, and your absorption speed has increased by ten percent.]

The simulation ends, and Zhao Cheng is speechless.

As expected, novels are all lies! They claim circulating the Conception and Governor Vessels forward is a righteous divine technique and reversing them is an evil one. I haven't mastered any divine technique, but I have successfully managed to suffer from Qi deviation.

Trying things at random and suffering severe Qi damage twice—spending six hundred years just healing—is simply absurd.

However, there is a clear benefit to condensing Qi; the more condensed the Qi, the faster the speed of breathing and absorption.

After the Qi condenses, the total volume decreases by ten percent, but because the absorption speed increases, this ten percent is quickly replenished.

The meridians in the body are tangled and complex. Finding a pattern that can rapidly condense Qi is as difficult as ascending to heaven.

Within this, there must be some hidden law of heaven and earth.

Zhao Cheng vaguely senses that the natural circulation of Qi within his body conforms to some law governing his own life.

This law is extremely complex and may be detailed down to the operation of every single cell.

When Qi conforms to the laws of life, it condenses naturally; while the efficiency is slow, it is very stable.

To advance and improve the efficiency of Qi condensation through circulation patterns, one must find a sequence that is both higher-level and in harmony with the laws of life.

This points in one direction: Unity of Heaven and Man.

If the circulation of Qi within the body follows a path that aligns with the laws of heaven and earth, the cultivation speed should increase significantly.

This also explains why Qi Refiners appeared among the Hundred Schools of Thought.

Some individuals with exceptional talent and superior insight, whose meridians were naturally unobstructed, were able to perceive the laws of heaven and earth at the same time they sensed the Qi of heaven and earth.

By aligning their own meridians with the movements of heaven and earth, they naturally drew Qi into their bodies.

Unlike Zhao Cheng, who started with the Basic Body Refining Technique, tempered his physique to the limit, and used the Marrow Cleansing Pill to shed his mortal shell before forcibly drawing the Qi of heaven and earth into his body.

There are too many meridians in the body. Trying different sequences offers billions of possibilities; it is better not to act recklessly.

At this moment, the clouds above clear, and moonlight spills down.

Zhao Cheng looks up at the stars and moon, seeing the vast expanse of stars twinkling in the distance, seemingly conforming to some hidden pattern.

The moonlight pours down, its brilliance flowing across the plains, while the distant mountains and rivers wind like dragons, seemingly containing some ultimate truth.

The mountain winds and the great marshes, the turning of the four seasons—all are manifestations of a pattern.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard Zhao Cheng racks his brain, he cannot figure out how to map his internal meridians to the stars and geography.

As he watches, Zhao Cheng suddenly remembers that he can condense an Insight Pill.

Although an Insight Pill takes one thousand years to condense, its effect lasts for ten years. If he consumes one before simulating, perhaps he can deduce a direction.

He acts on the thought immediately, spending one thousand years of his lifespan to exchange for an Insight Pill.

He then swallows it.

In an instant, the many complex thoughts in his mind become many times clearer, as if a large, tangled ball of yarn had suddenly been combed into distinct, orderly strands.

The patterns of the stars and the veins of the mountains and earth all seem to transform into visible laws, falling into Zhao Cheng's heart.

He immediately invests his lifespan to begin the simulation.

"System, invest ten years of lifespan to deduce the Qi circulation route."

[Beginning to invest lifespan for deduction.]

[Year 1: After swallowing the Insight Pill, your insight increases greatly. From all your past experiences, you can now comprehend many truths. The arrangement of the stars and the veins of the mountains and earth all reveal clear patterns to your eyes. You sit and contemplate, mesmerized.]

[Year 5: You contemplate day and night, feeling more and more that the laws of heaven and earth are vast and complex. They are implicitly linked to the circulation of your meridians, yet you cannot grasp that single point of connection, so you dare not act rashly.]

[Year 9: Years pass in a flash. You observe the celestial phenomena at night and suddenly see a star flickering with a baleful light; looking closely, it even reveals a bloody hue. You become immersed in it, and many scenes of slaughter, mountains of corpses, and seas of blood emerge in your heart. The Sha Qi of countless battles surges from within your spirit, and the Qi in your Thoroughfare Vessel suddenly begins to circulate on its own, rushing into the Great Collateral of Shaoyin, then circulating through four of the other Twelve Standard Meridians before returning to the Thoroughfare Vessel...]

[The tenth year, you observed the Killing Star Orion and grasped the method of circulating the Thoroughfare Vessel. The condensation speed of your Thoroughfare Vessel's primordial energy increased significantly; one cycle of the Thoroughfare Vessel now equals dozens of cycles of your body's natural circulation. However, with every rotation, you find it difficult to suppress the killing intent in your heart, and the Sha Qi upon your body grows increasingly intense...]

Outside, Zhao Cheng snapped his eyes open, a faint, scarlet blood-light shimmering within his pupils. The intensity of his killing intent caused the soldiers within a ten-meter radius to shiver involuntarily!

They shrank their heads and looked around in confusion, feeling as if they had been locked onto by a ferocious tiger, facing the threat of death at any moment.

This sensation was so vivid that it left them deeply unsettled, their hair standing on end.

Zhao Cheng closed his eyes once more to calm his mind while introspecting his Thoroughfare Vessel.

He saw the primordial energy within the Thoroughfare Vessel acting like a blade, constantly surging into the other four regular meridians. It would circulate through a portion of the regular meridians before returning to the Thoroughfare Vessel at another junction, forming a loop.

Yet, within the movement of this primordial energy, one could discern a tyrannical and murderous aura—it was truly bizarre.

"How did I come to comprehend such a path?"

Zhao Cheng shook his head and turned to look at Meng Tian, "Brother, when shall we storm Wan City?"

Meng Tian turned to meet his gaze, and a sudden chill washed over him.

Within those eyes, there seemed to be a sea of killing intent, enough to make even him tremble with fear.

Has his bloodlust flared up again?

He had just finished slaughtering his way through Chou City less than two hours ago, and he already wanted to kill again!

Your bloodlust is getting a bit out of hand!