Marrow Cleansing and Bone Tempering (Revised Version)

Marrow Cleansing and Bone Tempering (Revised Version)

When Zhang He returned home, his mother had already woken. Her whole body felt awful, and she was curled up in bed, trembling violently. Zhang Yu watched her mother suffer with tears in her eyes, but had no idea what to do. The moment she saw Zhang He come back, she burst into tears.

Hearing that Zhang He had returned, Mother Zhang struggled to open her eyes and forced out a faint smile to comfort him. "I... feel much better. I just need to... sweat a little, and I'll be fine. Don't... worry."

Even at a time like this, Mother Zhang was still comforting her children, telling them not to worry about her. But saying those few words seemed to drain the last of her strength. Her eyes rolled back, and she looked ready to faint again.

Seeing this, Zhang He's heart tightened. He hurried over and told his mother not to speak for now. Then he took the Five Poison Beads he had refined from his basket.

After testing the medicine on the young man earlier, Zhang He was sure the Five Poison Beads could counteract the poison from the venomous insects.

But his mother was already drifting into a faint and couldn't open her mouth on her own. Zhang He had no choice but to pry her mouth open and slip the Five Poison Beads inside. Then he lightly tapped her throat with a finger. The muscles there contracted sharply, and the beads went down smoothly.

Only then did Zhang He breathe a sigh of relief.

Once he had finished, he saw his little sister clutching her rumbling stomach and remembered that the family hadn't eaten in two meals. Night had fallen, so he hurried out to make dinner.

Looking at the food they had left, Zhang He felt a pang of sadness. All that remained was a little coarse-flour flatbread and a few shriveled potatoes.

Even the cleverest housewife couldn't cook without rice. Zhang He was at a loss, not knowing what to make, when Zhang Yu said sensibly, "How about we just boil the potatoes, brother?"

Her big eyes glimmered with the light of hunger.

Zhang He filled the pot with water, washed the potatoes, put them in, and set them to boil.

As he tended the fire, he looked around at the bare walls, the broken cabinet and bowls, and the poverty-stricken state of the house. His feelings were a jumble.

A thought suddenly came to him: I need to find a way to make money and improve our lives!

By the time they ate, Mother Zhang had fully woken up. She had a bout of diarrhea, expelling the poison that had accumulated in her body, and seemed much better afterward. Still, she was far too weak. With Zhang He's help, she ate half a potato, then soon drifted off to sleep.

After making the bed and settling his little sister down, Zhang He returned to his own room.

There, he set to work preparing the medicine for marrow cleansing and bone tempering. He had gathered many medicinal herbs on his way down the mountain.

"Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi is used to cleanse the marrow and temper the bones, stimulating the body and producing a powerful sense of qi."

"True Qi Condensing Liquid can help that sense of qi condense into true qi!"

A pile of earthenware jars stood before Zhang He, filled with herbs he had already processed on the mountain. There were more than thirty varieties in all. His hands were nimble as he took herbs from the jars one after another.

A small charcoal brazier sat before him. The medicine in the white porcelain cup atop it bubbled and steamed. Zhang He added the herbs he had taken out.

Without proper equipment for refining medicine, Zhang He made do with what he had, fashioning crude tools from the things around him.

"First, prepare the True Qi Condensing Liquid. One portion of Luo Vine Seed, two portions of Blood Burial Flower, one portion of Snake Saliva Grass..."

Large amounts of poisonous ingredients went into the white porcelain cup in carefully measured portions and in a precise order. The medicine turned a muddy red, then purple, and, with the addition of several more herbs, green.

"It's done!"

Once he added the final ingredient, powdered Sawtooth Vine, the medicine in the cup seemed to have been enchanted. Its color faded, and in the space of a breath it turned crystal clear.

The True Qi Condensing Liquid was ready.

Zhang He immediately lifted the white porcelain cup from the brazier. A basin of cool water, drawn from the well earlier, was waiting beside him.

He set the cup in the basin, letting the cool well water rapidly chill the medicine.

Then Zhang He placed another pot, made of black clay, on the brazier. He had prepared the herbs inside it already; all that remained was to heat them.

The brazier's intense heat soon set the herbs reacting.

A pungent smell drifted out. Zhang He's expression grew grave.

Bubbles began to rise in the black clay pot, and the pungent smell grew stronger.

"Why is the smell still getting stronger? That clearly means I used too much Fu Gui Seed. How strange—I measured it out precisely."

To prepare Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi, the effects of its main ingredients had to be balanced. Too much of any main ingredient would throw off that balance and alter the medicine's effects.

Zhang He had been ready for this. He immediately took several other herbs from a nearby jar and slowly added them. His eyes never left the medicine as he watched it change.

The pungent smell from the black clay pot quickly faded.

Suddenly, the medicine in the pot boiled. A glint flashed in Zhang He's eyes. The boiling lasted only three or four seconds before it settled down.

Three or four seconds later, it boiled again. This happened three times in all, then the medicine in the black clay pot grew still. The brazier continued to heat the pot, but the medicine inside showed no sign of warming.

"Three boils! The Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi is ready!"

Zhang He immediately took off his clothes.

He lifted the black clay pot and heated it over the brazier, but the pot itself was only lukewarm. Zhang He knew the heat from beneath had all been absorbed by the medicine.

He hesitated briefly, then gritted his teeth, tipped back his head, and gulped down the medicine in a few swallows.

This time, I'll have to rely on this stuff to purge my body.

After drinking the Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi, Zhang He's body turned bright red, like a crab steamed in its shell. Yet every pore on his body tightened, and not a drop of sweat appeared.

As its name suggested, Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi was an extremely potent medicine. Every ingredient in it could violently stimulate the flow of qi and blood. After taking it, a person's qi and blood would surge for a short time, producing a sense of qi. But if that surge wasn't promptly brought under control, the body would suffer harm of varying severity.

At best, blood vessels would burst and the body would bleed. At worst, the meridians would be ruined, making cultivation impossible forever.

The blood vessels beneath the skin of Zhang He's forehead bulged like earthworms, twisting downward. Those on his neck, body, and arms all stood out.

They looked ready to burst.

Beneath his skin, it felt as if little mice were darting around. That was the sense of qi forming inside his body.

This was the terrifying potency of Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi. After it was taken, it could wildly stimulate the body and produce a tremendous amount of qi.

Zhang He felt as if countless ants were biting him from the inside. A mix of aching, numbness, and swelling slammed into his nerves. An invisible hand seemed to twist and knead his bowels over and over, and wave after wave of intense pain crashed over him.

Anyone else would probably have been unable to endure such terrifying pain. They would have either passed out or given up halfway through.

Zhang He forced himself to remain still. He gathered every ounce of his focus and began drawing the qi coursing through his body, thread by thread, into his dantian.

If he could just get through this, everything would fall into place. If he failed and had to start over, the next attempt would be even more brutal! Back then, he had endured this agony three times before he completed the initial marrow cleansing and bone tempering.

Qi flowed ceaselessly beneath his skin. Zhang He suddenly opened his eyes and flicked his fingers, rapidly tapping several major acupoints on his body.

The Pulse-Severing Technique could make the sense of qi inside the body flow in a specific direction.

"With my will, I guide the qi and gather it!"

His powerful will forced the sense of qi to gather and flow into his meridians. One little mouse after another seemed to burrow in from all over his body.

His meridians were immediately filled with a vast amount of qi. A sense of qi was like water vapor, while true qi was like mist. It took some effort to condense water vapor into mist.

Zhang He held his breath, picked up the white porcelain cup, and poured its contents into his mouth. The clear medicine flowed straight into his body.

As soon as the True Qi Condensing Liquid entered him, Zhang He felt a trace of coolness in his burning body. That cool sensation raced through him and, in moments, spread across his meridians.

When water vapor cooled, it naturally condensed. Under the influence of that coolness, the sparse qi in Zhang He's meridians began to condense rapidly.

At last, a short strand of pale white true qi formed inside his body.

A layer of grayish oil, mixed with blood, covered Zhang He's skin. It smelled rank. The substance was impurities that had built up in his meridians, now forced out by the qi surging through his body.

Zhang He had no time to worry about it. He formed a hand seal and focused his will on his dantian. The short strand of true qi slowly circulated inside him.

The big fish ate the small fish, and the small fish ate the shrimp. The short strand of true qi was the big fish inside his body, swimming forward and devouring the qi in his meridians.

Gradually, the strand of true qi grew stronger.

Second by second, time passed. Zhang He clenched his teeth as the true qi circulated through his body, finally absorbing all the sense of qi produced by the medicine.

The strand of true qi grew even stronger.

Because he had used the Pulse-Severing Technique to seal off some of his meridians, the true qi he formed circulated only through certain meridians.

When the true qi passed a branching point in the meridians above his dantian, it split in two, like a river dividing into separate streams. One stream flowed down into his dantian, while the other followed a different meridian. Guided by the Pulse-Severing Technique, it entered the Guanyuan Acupoint below his dantian, curled into a ball, and lay dormant.

In this way, it was as if he had two dantians. The true qi in the acupoint was Rejuvenation True Qi, while the true qi in his dantian was ordinary true qi.

"To reach the first level of Rejuvenation True Explanation, I need to fill the eight acupoints above and below my dantian with eight different kinds of true qi. For now, I've only just crossed the threshold. I still have a long way to go before I reach the first level."

Zhang He let out a long breath and slowly opened his eyes.

The Rejuvenation True Explanation he cultivated was a profound art he had realized from the Tang Sect's Myriad Poison True Scripture. In other words, this cultivation method was his own creation. Using the Book of Changes as his basis, he had so far deduced three major levels of the Rejuvenation True Explanation.

The first level opened eight acupoints around the dantian.

The second level opened eighteen acupoints.

The third level opened thirty-six acupoints.

Each acupoint was a dantian. The Rejuvenation True Explanation treated acupoints as dantians for cultivation. Everyone had only one dantian, but cultivating the Rejuvenation True Explanation could give him countless dantians!

With this method, when Zhang He reached the second level in his former life on resource-poor Earth, he had cultivated all the way to the realm of a sanctified body and ascended by day.

"The Force Martial Realm, the True Martial Realm... I was too arrogant. The sanctified-body realm I've always been proud of is only the peak of the True Martial Realm here. Hah, what realm comes after the True Martial Realm? It really makes me wonder."

Zhang He was filled with longing for the realms that lay ahead. It was a wish he had failed to fulfill in his previous life, and this time, he was going to see it through.

He had every confidence. The Rejuvenation True Explanation could still be refined. When he reached its third level, he would surely break through his limits and easily step into a higher realm.

Zhang He let out a breath, and a foul smell suddenly reached his nose, making him want to retch. He furrowed his brow and only then noticed the layer of blackish grime covering his body. It reeked of blood, and was clearly the source of the stench. Zhang He couldn't help giving a wry smile. Ten-Perfect Dominant Qi had a marrow-cleansing and bone-tempering effect, and many impurities had now been purged from his body. He looked out the window and saw the sky beginning to brighten. He had somehow spent the whole night at it.

He was full of energy, so he decided not to sleep. He got up and headed into the courtyard to draw water and take a good bath before anyone else woke up.