Black Tortoise Breath Concealment Technique

Yang Ning's life settled into a regular rhythm here.

At dawn, he drank in Sun Purple Qi; by day, he caught fish and practiced boxing in the water; at night, he meditated, with the sky as his blanket and the earth as his bed.

In his spare time, he quietly wandered about everywhere. On the surface, he seemed to be searching for Tuo Buchuan, but in truth, he was cataloging plants, animals, insects, and minerals.

He seemed to have become a hermit of Qin Mountain.

He also abandoned his original plan of hiding his abilities, because he discovered that as long as he controlled the speed of his blood flow, his Qi-Blood Field could not be sensed.

In other words, even if he had cultivated qi and blood and advanced to the Body Tempering Triple Layer, he could still disguise himself as a novice at the Second Level of Body Tempering.

How could ordinary cultivators control the speed of their blood flow? Once their bodies grew stronger, their blood naturally flowed faster. Nor did the Twelve Divine Forms contain any related trick.

But what the Calm Lake Lone Boat Meditation Method pursued was stillness of heart, a tranquility of spirit.

Once the heart was calm, the blood naturally flowed more slowly.

But this was merely a low-level Breath Concealment Technique. If someone deliberately enraged him, or if his movements grew too vigorous, the technique would still break.

So Yang Ning thought of another method of concealing his aura.

Since qi and blood formed a field, and fields could overlap, then naturally, they could also cancel each other out.

Conveniently, blood vessels were divided into arteries and veins, while the corresponding Meridians were divided into yin and yang.

The Qi-Blood Fields generated by the Yin-Yang Meridians pointed in opposite directions, but the yang meridians were stronger while the yin meridians were weaker. After all, the heart, that pump, pushed blood outward; its intake speed certainly could not match its output speed.

Though the difference in speed was small, it was still a difference. This caused the qi and blood produced by the yin and yang meridians to differ in magnitude while moving in opposite directions.

If controlled improperly, the two Qi-Blood Fields would not only fail to cancel each other out, but their overlapping fields would instead create interference and disrupt the flow of qi and blood—the so-called Qi-Blood Clash.

If that accidentally triggered Qi-Blood Resonance as well, death and the dissipation of one's Dao would not be impossible.

That was an even more serious case of Qi Deviation.

Yet Yang Ning could use his Spirit Realm perception to control his qi and blood, making the yin and yang Qi-Blood Fields equal in magnitude and opposite in direction, allowing them to cancel each other out perfectly.

Not only would the entire process fail to leak anything outside his body, but the cancellation process itself was also a process of body tempering. It could actually be used for cultivation!

"Since this is an art of using yin and yang Qi-Blood Fields to cancel each other out, I'll call it the Black Tortoise Breath Concealment Technique."

The Black Tortoise took the form of a turtle and snake, one moving and one still, perfectly corresponding to the yin and yang meridians and the arteries and veins.

The core of this technique was control over qi and blood, but it tested one's calculating ability even more. Without sufficient calculating power, it would be impossible to master. But Yang Ning lacked no such ability. After a brief experiment, he had mastered it.

Yang Ning then thought that his qi and blood were only stable for now. If he combined this with the Calm Lake Lone Boat Meditation Method, he could calm even his breathing, heartbeat, and perhaps even his spirit.

Black tortoises lay still year-round, and that matched the meaning of Calm Lake Lone Boat as well.

The Calm Lake Lone Boat Meditation Method was already available to him, but Yang Ning could not achieve Constant Stillness. Once he entered stillness, he could no longer control his qi and blood. In other words, he could not have both the Calm Lake Lone Boat Meditation Method and the Black Tortoise Breath Concealment Technique at once.

But that was only temporary. Yang Ning had practiced the Calm Lake Lone Boat Meditation Method for a long time, and his body had memorized that state. Gradually, he could enter that state even while awake.

That was to say, he advanced from Entering Stillness to Constant Stillness.

At that point, the two techniques could be used simultaneously. Since the Black Tortoise already embodied the meaning of a calm lake and lone boat, Yang Ning did not give it a new name. The combined technique was still called the Black Tortoise Breath Concealment Technique.

Once he activated the Black Tortoise Breath Concealment Technique, Yang Ning's entire bearing immediately drew inward. Aside from the heroic physique and tall, dignified posture forged through martial practice, not a trace of sharpness could be seen.

Summoning a Water Mirror, Yang Ning studied himself for a long while. He felt that he looked like a dancer who had practiced Latin dance for years, or a scholar who exercised a little but still lacked the strength to truss a chicken.

The only thing he did not resemble was a martial artist or cultivator.

"This technique suits me far too well!" Yang Ning rubbed his nose. That was right—he was just such a gentle, modest, harmless person!

Still, his temperament was right, but his appearance needed a little work.

Yang Ning came from a farming family. All the beauties had been married off to landlords; none would have been available for his father.

Yet he had gathered the strengths of his parents' ordinary looks. His thick brows were well-shaped, his features square and proper, and he looked handsome, spirited, and outstanding among the crowd.

That was also why he had won the affection and recommendations of so many people. The ancients valued appearances greatly as well.

If he had looked utterly unremarkable, perhaps the inventor of the Curved Shaft Plow would have become the county magistrate's son instead.

But his eye sockets were slightly sunken, and his brows and eyes were narrow and long, giving him a somewhat gloomy air. Paired with those resolute eyes, he always gave people a strongly aggressive impression.

With this face, he would not even need special makeup in the entertainment industry—he could play Ying Zheng directly.

It was not really his fault. He was a transmigrator, came with his own cheat, and had even served as an official for four years, including two years as Minister of Works.

With great power in hand, countless lives and deaths resting in his palm, and a single word enough to decide the rise and fall of a nation—if it were you, you would be aggressive too.

Such a face was no problem in a feudal dynasty. After all, you were above other men.

But the moment he arrived in a cultivation world, he became a nobody. So why did he have to be so handsome, so aggressive-looking?

Maybe someone would come after him just because he was too handsome, or because he glanced at them one time too many.

"To alter my appearance, I'll need the Eighth Level of Body Refinement. Besides, one's bone structure is bestowed by heaven; changing it could affect luck and cultivation." This was not his previous life, where plastic surgery could be done casually.

Here, taking a knife to his face might damage the integrity of his Meridians and blood vessels, which could in turn affect his Dao Path.

"Glasses?" That was a good idea. Cultivators were not nearsighted, but they had even more eccentric habits and played with all sorts of things.

Especially artifact refiners. They could refine every kind of bizarre object. If I wore glasses, it would be perfectly ordinary!

But that was for the future. He had not yet truly come into contact with artifact refinement.

So before he could wear glasses, he could first narrow his eyes.

Yang Ning caught a little land turtle and studied its eyes.

That was right. This was exactly the kind of gaze he needed.

Narrowing one's eyes was not squinting. It should be called half-open and half-closed, like the eyes of Buddha statues, Bodhisattvas, divine idols, or turtles.

Moreover, Yang Ning discovered that there was a reason for this kind of gaze.

The eyes were windows that received information from the outside world. Closing them halfway halved the information one could observe, naturally reducing the information the brain had to process. The surplus calculating power could be used for rest, or for meditation.

There might be no difference from others after one or two days, but after one or two years, after ten or twenty years of accumulation, the gap would become astonishingly considerable.

Was cultivation not precisely about accumulating bit by bit, until one surpassed others?

Of course, closing them completely would work even better. In environments where he needed to keep watch, he could leave them half-open and half-closed; when cultivating with his whole heart, he could close his eyes. The two did not conflict.

"Exhale, inhale!"

He swallowed a mouthful of purple qi into his belly. It was another brand-new day.

Yang Ning checked the time. It had already been twenty-five days since he disembarked from the ship.

His progress during these twenty-five days had been extremely fast.

Once the Qi-Blood Field appeared, it began actively tempering the body, and its efficiency was far higher than simply eating and practicing boxing.

That was why the Stance Realm and the Body Tempering Realm were two separate realms. Once qi and blood were born, stances were no longer so important.

If the rate of progress at the Second Level of Body Tempering was one, then at the Body Tempering Triple Layer it was five. For those with superior talent, it might even be ten!

Thus, Yang Ning had cultivated for nearly a month before qi and blood emerged, yet after merely twenty-five days, the strength of his qi and blood had increased by nearly a hundredfold. Starting from his heart, it spread toward his limbs and bones; Qi-Blood Fields had already formed in both his arteries and veins.

In a wuxia novel, that would mean opening two Meridians and becoming a newly initiated martial expert.

This speed was actually still slow, because Qin Mountain was an ordinary mountain range with insufficient spiritual qi. Although the fish in the river were large, the quality of their qi and blood was poor, far inferior to the meat he had eaten aboard the ship.

If he had been on the ship, Yang Ning was confident that he could have gone a step further and entered the next realm!

"Lin Tianheng, you deserve to die!" Yang Ning cursed inwardly, then turned to glance at the distant waterfall. This had already become his habit every morning after waking.

He had thought there would be nothing there as usual, when he suddenly seemed to see a faint glow.

"Hm?" Yang Ning immediately activated the Deep Blue Eye and looked over. Only then did he realize that it was not fluorescent light, but a gray-robed youth leaping over from afar.

"Who is this person?" Yang Ning asked.

He was only a bookboy, so it was not convenient for him to make friends everywhere. But during their days aboard the ship, Deep Blue had already recorded everyone's name, appearance, background, relationships, and other information.

So if he did not know the person, Deep Blue should.

"Xia Yi, a prince from a small nation in Western Splendor. He is a formal disciple!" Deep Blue said.

"Oh." Yang Ning did not know him. If he had been from the Northern Plains, Yang Ning might have recognized him. But that was unimportant. What mattered was whether he could discover Tuo Buchuan behind the waterfall.

Xia Yi naturally had no idea that someone three hundred and thirty kilometers away was watching him. He had diligently searched for Tuo Buchuan for more than twenty days, until he seemed to have become a wild man. Even the white robes on his body had turned gray!

When he saw the waterfall and pool before him, he immediately leaped into them in excitement.

But he did not dare wash for too long. Perhaps if he delayed even a little, he might miss Tuo Buchuan!

"Hm? What's this?" Xia Yi also spotted a Seven-Colored Rainbow Silver Fish.

Tuo Buchuan had killed all the Seven-Colored Rainbow Silver Fish within the waterfall, but he had not dealt with those that had swum out beforehand. A few still remained.

But Xia Yi had no time to read, so he did not recognize this fish. He only thought it was beautiful. If he could not find Tuo Buchuan, offering a beautiful fish to Lord Lin Tianheng would not be bad either!

He simply dove down and reached out to catch it.

The fish here had originally been dull and foolish, not knowing to flee even when they saw people. But after watching so many of their companions get killed in recent days, the Seven-Colored Rainbow Silver Fish naturally knew to run.

And the direction in which it fled was naturally the place it considered safe, the place that had granted it evolution.

Thus, Yang Ning watched Xia Yi dive underwater, surface again, and then crawl toward the rear of the waterfall.

"My hermit life is about to end." Yang Ning sighed. Though the conditions here were not as good as on the ship, living and cultivating alone without comparisons, pressure, or conflict had actually been quite nice.

He withdrew his gaze. After all, Lin Tianheng would soon arrive.

He climbed down from the tree, then pretended to search for things, bustling about for over half an hour, until his chest suddenly grew warm.

Pulling out the Communication Talisman, Yang Ning saw a line of words appear on it.

"Mission complete. Go to the highest point in your current location. A ship will come to pick you up!"