This method favored the powerful clans, but for the weaker ones, it was a bitter pill to swallow. It all but cut off any chance of their rise.
Without a doubt, the Human Race was weak—so weak that it could hardly be weaker. Yet when faced with the Blood Refining Ancestral Return Method, the Human Race not only didn't struggle; they found it exceptionally well suited to them.
That was right. The Human Race was the exception among the weak clans, perfectly suited to cultivating the Blood Refining Ancestral Return Method.
First, one thing had to be made clear: the Human Race was weak only in strength. Their bloodline was not weak at all.
The source of the Human Race's bloodline was Lady Nuwa, the Holy Mother, the first Sage after the Dao Ancestor.
The Human Race inherited her bloodline. It could be said that, apart from the Wu Clan, who bore Pangu's blood, no race could surpass the Human Race in bloodline.
Across the vast Primordial World, what other race had the blood of a Sage flowing through its veins?
With such an extraordinary origin, it was no exaggeration to say that, aside from the Wu Clan, the Human Race was the most suited to cultivating the Blood Refining Ancestral Return Method in the Primordial World.
It was just a pity that the Blood Refining Ancestral Return Method was about to be phased out.
Once the Three Pure Ones became Sages, the Qi Refining Method they created would flourish, completely replacing the Blood Refining Ancestral Return Method as the new mainstream.
The Ancestral Return Method had too many drawbacks. It placed bloodline above all else. The Qi Refining Method was different: it didn't care about bloodline, only comprehension and perseverance.
One needed only great wisdom or great perseverance. Even with an ordinary bloodline, one could still become powerful.
Bloodline was innate, but wisdom and perseverance were not. They could be improved after birth. This alone made the Qi Refining Method far superior to the Blood Refining Method.
It could only be said that the Blood Refining Method's replacement by the Qi Refining Method was inevitable.
Fortunately, even with the Qi Refining Method, the Human Race remained the most suited to cultivation. Or, to put it more plainly, Saint Taiqing had observed the Human Race and created the Qi Refining Method because of them.
Whether it was the Blood Refining Method of the present or the Qi Refining Method of the future, the Human Race was best suited to cultivation. What that meant was obvious.
The Human Race's rise was inevitable, and had nothing to do with who supported them. It was the choice of the age. Whether or not anyone helped them, the Human Race would rise—it might simply take longer.
The prerequisite for cultivating the Blood Refining Ancestral Return Method was awakening one's Primordial Bloodline. This wasn't difficult for cultivators in the Pre-Heaven Realm, because their Primordial Bloodline had been awake since birth.
By contrast, for Post-Heaven Realm cultivators like Jiang Yuan, their Primordial Bloodline lay dormant within them. They had to break through to the Pre-Heaven Realm to awaken it.
At that moment, Jiang Yuan was breaking through to the Pre-Heaven Realm.
With the help of the Creation Jade Disk, he had derived a Breathing Method from the Kun Fish, filling the gap left by the lack of a cultivation method in the Post-Heaven Realm.
Then, relying on this method, he began to plunder the Kun Fish's essence. In a very short time, he had completed the accumulation needed to advance from the Post-Heaven Realm to the Pre-Heaven Realm.
Boom!
As the breakthrough began, Jiang Yuan could clearly feel several powerful forces stirring within him.
These were the Primordial Bloodlines sleeping inside him, inherited from his ancestors who had cultivated to become Heavenly Immortals.
Cultivating to become a Heavenly Immortal was enough to imbue one's bloodline with great power and pass it down to one's descendants.
The Human Race was weak, but it still had quite a few Heavenly Immortals. As long as the first nine generations of the Human Race hadn't died and had survived until now, they had basically all become Heavenly Immortals.
The few Human Ancestors in particular had even reached the Primordial Unity Golden Immortal realm. What the Human Race lacked were powerful beings like Daluo Golden Immortals.
"Why are they all ordinary Heavenly Immortal bloodlines?"
"The Holy Mother Bloodline, the Ancestral Dragon Bloodline, the Creation Bloodline, the Starlight Bloodline—why can't I sense any of these powerful Primordial Bloodlines?"
After sensing the origins of the bloodlines within him, Jiang Yuan couldn't help frowning. Reality was far from what he had imagined.
He had thought that the moment he broke through, he would awaken the Holy Mother Bloodline, then charge ahead all the way, crush every foe, and attain Sagehood.
But in reality, he couldn't sense the Holy Mother Bloodline, or even a lesser bloodline. As far as he could tell, only ordinary Heavenly Immortal bloodlines lay dormant within him.
That was perfectly reasonable. Jiang Yuan was a thirty-sixth-generation member of the Human Race. By the time the bloodline had passed down to his generation, even the Human Ancestors' Innate Gods and Devils bloodline had grown thin, let alone the even more powerful Holy Mother Bloodline.
The normal process would be to awaken the Heavenly Immortal bloodline first, then gradually return to one's ancestors and become a Heavenly Immortal. After that would come a second awakening, reviving the Human Ancestors' bloodline.
Once he had returned to his Human Ancestor roots, he could undergo a third awakening to revive the Holy Mother Bloodline.
Everyone else followed this gradual process. For someone like Jiang Yuan to skip the first two steps and awaken the Holy Mother Bloodline directly would be as difficult as ascending to heaven in a single bound. How could he possibly succeed?
"I've gone to all this trouble. If I still have to start at the same point as everyone else, wasn't it all for nothing?"
"Creation Jade Disk, give me a boost!"
Jiang Yuan was thoroughly dissatisfied with this result, so he continued to urge the Creation Jade Disk.
He refused to believe that with his peerless wisdom, the aid of the Creation Jade Disk, and the support of the Kun Fish's essence, he couldn't create a miracle.
Hum, hum, hum...
The Creation Jade Disk trembled even more violently. A tremendous suction force surged from it, passing through Jiang Yuan to gulp down the Kun Fish's essence.
In an instant, the Creation Jade Disk's power surged, and the profound aura it released grew even denser. In Jiang Yuan's perception, it was as if heaven and earth had opened their arms to him, letting him roam freely and draw in all kinds of mysteries.
At the same time, outside, the Kun Fish let out a scream and thrashed wildly, trying to spit Jiang Yuan out of its belly.
No matter how desperately Jiang Yuan absorbed, his cultivation was so low that, to the Kun Fish, it amounted to no more than a drop in the ocean. It had no effect at all.
But the Creation Jade Disk was another matter. With a single light suck, it had taken more than half the Kun Fish's life. How could it stand for that?
The Kun Fish lacked intelligence, but it still felt pain. Sensing danger, it naturally reacted, doing everything it could to expel the harmful thing from its body.
Unfortunately, Jiang Yuan had already taken root inside it. He couldn't be spat out just because it wanted to.
If the Kun Fish had intelligence, it would have had all sorts of ways to handle Jiang Yuan.
But it was a Fierce Beast, without intelligence and guided only by instinct. So it could do nothing about Jiang Yuan in its belly.
With the Creation Jade Disk's help, Jiang Yuan gradually found inspiration. Then, suddenly, he withdrew the divine light protecting his body and let the Kun Fish's gastric juices corrode him.
The Kun Fish's gastric juices were so powerful they could corrode even Heavenly Immortals. Jiang Yuan was only a Post-Heaven Realm cultivator. Without the divine light protecting him, he couldn't last even one breath.
In the blink of an eye, his flesh was dissolved, leaving only a skeleton. The next moment, even the bones that remained were about to be dissolved.
At that instant, a sudden change occurred. Wisps of the Kun Fish's essence surged over, enveloping Jiang Yuan's skeleton and quickly restoring the flesh that had been dissolved.
The gastric juices corroded him, and the essence repaired him. Through this endless cycle of destruction and rebirth, Jiang Yuan's body grew stronger and stronger. At the same time, the potential hidden within him was gradually unlocked.
At a certain moment, there came a boom, as if some kind of shackle had broken. Jiang Yuan suddenly felt new powers surging within him.
A far more powerful Primordial Bloodline, hidden deep within his body, had awakened.