Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art

Xu Yuan might not know much about other cultivation matters, but he did know a little about meridians.

That was because the meridian system was an important feature of Cangyuan.

One that directly affected a player's experience bar.

The more meridians a character had unblocked, the less experience they needed to level up.

In the game, a character with all 127 meridians unblocked needed about twenty times less experience to gain each level than one with not a single meridian unblocked.

In numbers, if someone with all their meridians unblocked needed five experience points to go from level one to level two, someone with all their meridians blocked needed a hundred.

Thus, when all 127 meridians in a character's body were naturally unblocked, they received a special title: Innate Body.

Still, perhaps the developers of Cangyuan wanted to accommodate players who liked to torture themselves.

Even if players started with an Innate Waste Body, they could accumulate Source Qi through cultivation, then circulate it through their techniques to gradually unblock their meridians and improve their cultivation speed.

The process, however, was extremely slow.

It took a character's cultivation to reach the "Qi Reaching Origin Beginning" realm for all 127 meridians to be unblocked. Only then would an Innate Waste Body require as little experience to level up as an Innate Body.

Yet this Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art could apparently ignore all restrictions imposed by meridians, Source Qi, and the like, unblocking all 127 meridians as soon as someone began cultivating!

More importantly, unblocking all 127 meridians was just one of the Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art's effects.

"Body and soul tempered to the utmost."

That description made Xu Yuan think of another physique as renowned as the Innate Body.

The Innate Soul Body.

At that thought, Xu Yuan suddenly felt his mouth go dry.

He remembered that, according to the setting,

if a character possessed both the Innate Body and the Innate Soul Body,

then their special title became the Innate Dao Body.

Back when he played the game, Xu Yuan hadn't cared much about talents and physiques.

As an expert, he always chose the self-torture difficulty.

He wanted a trash start, near-perfect resource efficiency, and the thrill of clearing a boss fight with a sliver of health.

Of course, that was in a game.

In real life, the easier it was, the better.

And this technique before him could give him an Innate Dao Body after birth.

Heh.

Should he say that the Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art lived up to its reputation as one of the only three top-tier, blood-red-ranked techniques in Cangyuan?

Xu Yuan licked his lips, his dark eyes flickering faintly in the weak glow of the night pearl.

The Innate Dao Body in Cangyuan wasn't as absurd as those found in the ancient, primordial cultivation stories.

It didn't grant affinity with the Heavenly Dao, nor let its bearer see and wield the power of laws. It couldn't even allow them to skip cultivation stages.

Essentially, this physique only made cultivation a little faster than it was for ordinary people.

Well, a billion times faster.

But that was more than enough.

After a long silence,

Xu Yuan gradually calmed down from his shock at the technique's power.

To be reborn through death.

The later benefits of mastering the Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art were certainly tempting, but anyone with a brain could tell that those two words, "through death," wouldn't be easy to get past.

Every opportunity came with danger. With such a huge opportunity, just how much risk would he have to take?

The Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art made it perfectly clear.

To master it, one had to be on the verge of death and rely on sheer willpower to stay conscious and circulate the technique.

But could someone really stay conscious while on the verge of death?

Xu Yuan recalled the near-death haze he'd felt from the cold when he first arrived in this world, back in that cave.

In that state, his thoughts had felt as if they were sinking into a mire. The unrelenting chill had made it impossible to think through even the simplest things, let alone circulate a technique.

What was more, according to the Blood Origin Heart-Meteor Art, this near-death process had to be repeated countless times.

Could that even be called a nine-deaths-and-one-life ordeal?

Xu Yuan's eyes lowered slightly, and his thoughts felt doused by a bucket of cold water.

He did enjoy thrills and risks, but that didn't mean he wasn't afraid of dying.

After suddenly crossing over into this world, he'd spent most of his time with no choice.

Whether it was forcing himself to speak to Ran Qingmo despite his fear at first, or jumping with her from Hanging Heaven Cliff into the bottomless abyss, he'd had no choice.

If he didn't choose, he would face certain death.

But now he was safe. Could he, someone accustomed to living in a peaceful era, really put his life on the line and cultivate a technique that could kill him at any moment?

An emotion called hesitation gradually spread through Xu Yuan's heart.

Wait!

As he hesitated, Xu Yuan's breath suddenly caught.

He realized that he still didn't have a choice.

Since no body had been found, his father's original self wouldn't give up.

Unless Xu Yuan could live long enough to see the "protagonist" kill his father.

Otherwise, even if Ran Qingmo could help him escape from the cave for now, Xu Yuan didn't think he could disappear without a trace while being hunted by "superhumans" who could use their Will Souls to lock onto someone's aura.

Besides,

Xu Yuan had no idea which storyline the "protagonist" of this world was following.

Cangyuan had a full twenty-five storylines. If the other man happened to follow one where he never clashed with Xu Yuan's father, then Xu Yuan would face a lifetime of being hunted.

And even if the protagonist did end up on a path opposed to his original father's, once everything became reality, Xu Yuan had no confidence that the scripted deaths from the game would still happen.

After all, Ji Qingyue's case had just unfolded right before his eyes.

A heroine who'd been so beautiful and so important in the story had been killed just like that by the big ice block surnamed Ran beside him.

The protagonist's halo from back then—

Would it really exist?

"."

Silence.

Xu Yuan slowly unclenched his fist, stood, and walked over to stop in front of the woman huddled in the corner.

She was still wearing that tattered black robe.

After a moment of quiet,

"What is it?"

Her clear voice rang through the silent cave.

Xu Yuan lowered his eyes.

"I want you to help me with something."

Ran Qingmo slowly opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Do you want to use that favor?"

Xu Yuan's expression didn't change.

"I want you to teach me some basic cultivation knowledge. I just realized I've forgotten a lot of things, like drawing Qi into the body and the Heart Source and Will Soul."

"."

In the dimness, her clear, quiet eyes flickered with confusion.

Ran Qingmo couldn't understand why someone at the Qi Reaching Origin Beginning stage would forget even the most basic cultivation knowledge. Hadn't such things long since become instincts, engraved in one's Will Soul?

Still, Ran Qingmo didn't refuse. She said seriously,

"For that, you don't need to use your favor. I can teach you."

Xu Yuan slowly sat down across from Ran Qingmo and said softly,

"Can we start now?"

Ran Qingmo closed her eyes and thought for a moment, seemingly checking the state of her body.

When she opened them again, she gave a slight nod.

"All right."

After a pause,

Ran Qingmo's clear, quiet gaze fell on the ornate robe Xu Yuan was wearing.

"Take off your clothes."

A new author here, so I write a little slowly. Thank you for all the recommendation tickets.

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