Controlling the Black Gourd

After every failure, he summed up the experience before returning to his contemplation. Once he comprehended a method he believed held the greatest hope, he would try again brimming with confidence. Yet the Black Gourd before him remained utterly unmoved, the terrifying power contained within effortlessly burning away the force he sent probing inside. Failure after failure—thousands of failures—even Dongbo Xueying's state of mind began to grow restless.

He tried countless methods. He even stopped reviewing his failures and simply comprehended at random—whatever he managed to understand, he used. He comprehended madly, trying to "guess" his way through it. Perhaps he might guess right? In three months, he comprehended over two thousand methods, yet every one of those haphazardly grasped methods failed as well.