Shen Yue closed his eyes and looked within. The third golden page of the Nine Heavens Profound Mirror had lit up completely, and four ancient, unadorned characters appeared on it: All Roads Lead to the Same Destination.
Inside his body, two currents of magical energy surged and converged through his meridians and dantian.
One was the qi-refining spiritual power cultivated through the Geng Metal Art, sharp as a blade.
The other was the breath-cultivation magical power developed through the Star Sand Return-to-Store Technique, heavy as a mountain.
In the past, although these two currents of power had coexisted in his body, they had remained distinct, each traveling through its own meridians, like water from a well never mixing with water from a river.
But the third golden page's All Roads Lead to the Same Destination had opened a passage between the two forces.
The spiritual power and magical power were like two streams flowing into the same lake, settling steadily into his dantian.
"Sixth layer of Qi Refining!"
Shen Yue loosely clenched his five fingers. A faint golden sharpness shimmered along the edge of his palm.
Connecting spiritual power and magical power was only the outward manifestation of All Roads Lead to the Same Destination. The third golden page's true ability was to let the two kinds of power transform into and stack upon one another.
But if that was all it did, then All Roads Lead to the Same Destination seemed nothing special.
After all, even without stacking them, he could still use both kinds of power at once.
With a thought, Shen Yue sent his spiritual power surging again. In an instant, it transformed into dense, heavy magical power.
"Sixth layer of Breath Cultivation!"
The sixth layer of Qi Refining and the sixth layer of Breath Cultivation had the same realm number, but the latter's magical power was far richer than the former's, surpassing that of an ordinary late-stage Qi Refiner by a wide margin!
His divine sense had also improved dramatically along with it.
At that moment, Shen Yue could even hear, through his divine sense, Chen Tong, the steward at Refining Lake, muttering:
"Chen Yunxi and Chen Qiaoqian are nothing special. But I, Chen Tong, am a pillar of the Chen Clan, a future prodigy of the Sword Sect. Reaching Foundation Establishment is only a matter of time...!"
Of course, magical power couldn't appear out of thin air. The reason he could reach the sixth layer of Breath Cultivation was that the Nine Heavens Profound Mirror itself had been absorbing and accumulating energy all along.
But was that really all there was to it?
"The two kinds of magical power can transform into each other whenever I want, without any restrictions. So what if I cultivate both to the perfect tenth layer, then stack them onto my qi-refining spiritual power?"
The two forces, each at the perfect tenth layer, would merge into a power far richer than that of the tenth layer of Qi Refining.
What would happen if he used such abundant spiritual power to break through to Foundation Establishment?
"And, more than that, after reaching Foundation Establishment with this power, what kind of Dao Foundation could I forge by transforming it into breath-cultivation magical power?"
Shen Yue's heart surged with excitement.
In the small courtyard next door, Changqin Wuming and Zhou Chongwen sat facing each other.
Two flasks of spirit wine and a plate of fennel beans sat on the stone table.
Changqin Wuming pinched a fennel bean between his fingers, his gaze drifting now and then toward Shen Yue's courtyard next door.
After a long while, he sighed. "Breaking through to the fifth layer of Qi Refining is hard."
Zhou Chongwen set down his wine cup and sighed too.
"General Shen first tried to learn artifact crafting and failed, then tried to learn arrays but couldn't even get started... If he fails to break through to the fifth layer, I'm afraid it'll damage his Dao Heart."
On the path of cultivation, talent was important, but so was the heart's commitment to seeking the Dao.
Just as he often told his son Zhou Feng: "Your talent is the best in the world. No one can compare."
That was why Zhou Feng had considerable skill in arrays.
Likewise, if one's Dao Heart was damaged, the path of immortal cultivation would become a hard road indeed.
"When General Shen comes out, please help me comfort him, Emperor Wen."
"How should I do that?"
Changqin Wuming thought it over. "Just say... we also failed several times when trying to break through to the fifth layer."
Zhou Chongwen's eyes lit up. "Speaking from experience. That's a good approach."
"How many failures will Emperor Ming say he had?"
Changqin Wuming picked up his wine cup and took a leisurely sip. "Three."
"Really three?" Zhou Chongwen pressed.
"How could that be? With my talent, I naturally succeeded on the first try." Changqin Wuming certainly wasn't going to admit that it had taken him four attempts.
"Then I'll say three, too?"
Zhou Chongwen smiled and took out a voice transmission talisman. "I'll tell that brat Zhou Feng as well. He should be a little nicer to General Shen these next couple of days and stop acting so stern and putting him down."
"Emperor Wen, you've thought of every detail." Changqin Wuming praised him.
Zhou Chongwen waved a hand, composed and graceful.
"Three times? Father, didn't you try five times?" came the reply through the voice transmission talisman.
"Ungrateful brat!" Zhou Chongwen's old face flushed red.
A moment later, Shen Yue gathered his thoughts and closed his eyes again.
The road ahead was long, and there was another matter to attend to for now.
He maintained his magical power at the sixth layer of Breath Cultivation and slowly flushed the fire poison from his meridians.
The magical power of the sixth layer of Breath Cultivation was rich enough to completely purge the fire poison.
As his magical power continued circulating, the fire poison was forced out thread by thread.
Before long,
Shen Yue held out his palm. A dark-red flame seed floated above it, flickering.
The seed was red shot through with gold, its surface rippling with fine, flowing patterns, like a lotus seed bathed in fire.
"The Heavenly Cauldron True Fire Hundred Refinement Scripture is truly profound..." Shen Yue murmured.
The scripture contained several unorthodox refining techniques. The Green Fire Cauldron from before and the Xin-Si Fire Seed before him had both come from it.
The Xin-Si Fire Seed used fire poison as its catalyst, blood essence as its pact, and magical power as its nourishment. It could unleash flames of tremendous heat, comparable to powerful fire-type techniques.
Moreover, the flame seed could grow stronger. By absorbing fire energy, it would continue to grow.
Even more wondrously, because the seed had been refined from Shen Yue's own fire poison, it was naturally connected to his mind, its spiritual nature blending with his.
In someone else's hands, the most it could do was serve as a spirit artifact. They'd be lucky to bring out five or six tenths of its power.
But in Shen Yue's hands, it was like a part of his own body, responding as effortlessly as his arm. Its power was increased by three tenths.
"Sixth layer of Breath Cultivation, and the Xin-Si Fire Seed..."
"With my current strength, I should be able to fight someone like Chen Tong, a late-stage Qi Refiner, right?"
But thinking like a lower-stage cultivator was no way to go.
If he was going to fight across a major realm, it was far more satisfying to fight upward and crush those above him.
"Strength doesn't lie in cultivation alone. It also comes from spirit artifacts, talismans, techniques, and the like. My methods are still too limited."
"I should go to Ancient Wei again and learn a couple of powerful techniques."
Shen Yue quickly tidied up, shifted his cultivation back to the fifth layer of Qi Refining, and got up to leave the room.
"Failure is common in our cultivation journey."
Changqin Wuming walked up to him and said earnestly,
"Back in my day, it took me three tries to reach the fifth layer! The first time, I nearly sent my meridians into disarray. The second was even worse: my magical power dispersed just as it was halfway condensed."
Zhou Chongwen nodded beside him. "As it happens, it took me three tries, too. Cultivation demands perseverance. As long as your Dao Heart doesn't falter, a brighter path will always open up... Hmm?"
Before Zhou Chongwen could finish, his expression suddenly changed.
"You did it?!"
The Mystic Array Pavilion.
"Look here." Xia Qingqing tapped the lines Shen Yue had drawn with a jade tally, then shook her head with the solemn air of a little adult.
"The spiritual power breaks off when it reaches this corner. Why? Because your turn is too sharp. The spiritual power can't make the turn."
"The right way is like this: when it reaches this spot, the lines should narrow slightly, letting the spiritual power speed up naturally..."
"Master's back." Zhou Feng walked over, his expression mild. "He wants you to come over. He's going to test how much you've learned about arrays."
"All right." Shen Yue stood up.
Xia Qingqing lifted her little face to look at Shen Yue. "Good luck!"
Shen Yue nodded.
Zhou Feng remembered his father saying Shen Yue was no good at artifact crafting or cultivation, and hadn't gotten anywhere with arrays either. It was indeed a sorry state. After thinking for a moment, he said,
"Master is very strict. My junior sister and I didn't satisfy him at first, either, and we got scolded. You... just do your best. Don't put too much pressure on yourself."
"Right. I remember when Senior Brother took his first test, Master asked him how many variations the simplest Spirit Gathering Array pattern had. He couldn't name a single one, and Master smacked his palm with a ruler. It made such a loud crack!"
Zhou Feng: "..."
Inside the room,
Xuanzhenzi's hair was white, and his face was lean.
He sat behind a desk, holding a fine-tipped talisman brush as he slowly drew on an array diagram.
Shen Yue knocked and entered. Xuanzhenzi didn't even lift his eyelids; he only pointed to an array diagram hanging on the wall.
"How many kinds of array patterns are on it?"
Shen Yue turned to look.
It was a three-foot-square array diagram drawn on pale yellow silk. Its dense, overlapping lines looked like a tangled mess at first glance.
He steadied himself and began identifying them one by one from the upper-left corner.
"Three variations of the Spirit Gathering Array pattern. Two variations of the Qi Guiding Array pattern. One basic type of Stabilizing Array pattern, and two variations. Also..."
Xuanzhenzi looked up, surprised.
Zhou Feng had clearly told him the newcomer only studied arrays for two hours a day and still hadn't grasped the patterns.
"Come over and look at this one." Xuanzhenzi picked up the array diagram he had just designed.
Shen Yue stepped closer and glanced at the diagram. His eyes lit up.
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