Moon-Refining Continent

Chapter 8: The Moon-Refining Continent

"My name is Xia Xue. Are you not from around here? How could you not know what place this is?" The young girl looked at Chu Xiaotian, her large eyes blinking with confusion. She couldn't help but furrow her brows as she asked softly. It was inevitable that Xia Xue would find it inconceivable for someone to appear here without knowing where they were.

"I have lived in this forest since I was old enough to remember. I truly do not know what place this is," Chu Xiaotian replied, forced to fabricate a lie in response to Xia Xue's question. In any case, his current appearance did not contradict his words in the slightest.

Xia Xue's pretty face flushed slightly as she scrutinized Chu Xiaotian. After a moment of contemplation, she did not doubt his words. After all, with his current appearance, he really was no different from a savage who had just walked out of the mountains.

"This is the eastern part of the Moon-Refining Continent, belonging to the territory of the Xia Dynasty..." Xia Xue looked at Chu Xiaotian and began to explain the situation of this world to him.

From her words, Chu Xiaotian learned that he was truly no longer on the Earth he was familiar with. The region he was in was called the Moon-Refining Continent, a vast and boundless land. On this continent, there were five great dynasties—Xia, Yan, Chu, Qi, and Xue—along with various smaller nations that existed as vassals to these five. The area they were currently in was an endless dense forest near a small border town in the far east of the Xia Dynasty.

This dense forest was unimaginably vast. Apart from the most powerful individuals on the continent, no one had ever ventured into its depths, for within it resided incomparably powerful demonic beasts. The region they were currently in was merely the outermost fringe of this forest, and the giant wolves they had encountered earlier were just the weakest, common wild beasts of these woods. If they were to run into a true demonic beast—even a low-level, first-rank one—the two of them would have no path to survival; there would be no possibility of staying alive. Demonic beasts and humans were simply not on the same level of existence.

Beyond this, from Xia Xue's words, Chu Xiaotian learned that legendary experts truly existed in this world. This was a world that possessed cultivation techniques. Almost everyone here had their own cultivation methods, and many who had achieved success possessed formidable abilities. Some peak existences could overturn seas and topple mountains, destroying the heavens and the earth with a mere wave of their hands.

Since there were cultivation techniques, there were naturally ranks of cultivation. Across the entire Moon-Refining Continent, the cultivation ranks from low to high were: Body Refining, Meridian Opening, Sea Establishing, Yuan Transforming, Orifice Breaking, Spirit Condensing, Earth Piercing, Heaven Connecting, and Void Breaking—nine great realms in total. Each realm was further divided into smaller stages, generally categorized into early, middle, and late phases. Some major realms were divided into ten stages, such as the lowest, the Body Refining realm, which had ten distinct levels.

The Body Refining realm was easy to understand: it involved absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to temper the physical body, aiming to make it formidable. This realm had ten stages, and the primary indicator of each stage was an increase in strength by one hundred jin. Like Chu Xiaotian, who could lift a two-to-three-hundred-jin object with one hand, he possessed the strength of the third stage of Body Refining. Of course, because everyone's cultivation path differed, the markers for these stages varied as well.

Take Xia Xue, whom Chu Xiaotian was looking at; her cultivation was actually slightly higher than his. She was currently at the sixth stage of Body Refining, though her path of cultivation focused on physical suppleness—what could also be called agility or speed. However, despite her higher cultivation, her lethality in the previous chaotic battle was not as great as Chu Xiaotian's. After all, in a battle against a pack of giant wolves, physical agility played a very limited role. It was Chu Xiaotian's frenzied, brute-force smashing that had dealt such immense damage.

The Meridian Opening realm, which followed Body Refining, occurred once one reached the tenth stage of Body Refining. It involved channeling the spiritual energy of heaven and earth—previously used to temper the body—into the body to force open the meridians, thereby allowing the body to contain spiritual energy. This was a process of turning from the external to the internal. During this process, one's strength would increase significantly, but the agony involved was no laughing matter. If one were careless while forcing open the meridians, one could easily end up a cripple.

The realm after Meridian Opening was Sea Establishing, which was far more powerful than the former. In this realm, the spiritual energy that previously resided in the meridians would find a new storage location: the Sea of Qi, commonly known as the Dantian. The cultivation of this realm was no less painful or dangerous than that of the Meridian Opening realm.

The Sea of Qi was ultimately limited and could not hold an infinite amount of spiritual energy. To advance further once the Dantian was saturated, one had to refine higher-quality spiritual energy, which led to the Yuan Transforming realm. In this realm, the spiritual energy that filled the meridians and the Dantian was compressed and liquefied into "Yuan Spirit," freeing up space to accommodate even more spiritual energy.

Finally, once the spiritual energy had transformed into Yuan and the Dantian was full again, one had to develop toward a new frontier: the Orifice Breaking realm. Using the spiritual energy within the body, one would break open other acupoints to store even more energy.

Once all the openable acupoints in the body were breached and capable of storing spiritual energy, one had to begin developing in another direction: the spiritual aspect. This was the Spirit Condensing realm, where the intangible spiritual power inherent in a person was fused and condensed to form a tangible spiritual entity. Those who reached this realm possessed incredibly powerful spirits and could manipulate the spiritual energy of heaven and earth within a radius of thousands or even tens of thousands of miles at will. A single thought from them was enough to overturn rivers and seas.

As for the three realms beyond Spirit Condensing—Earth Piercing, Heaven Connecting, and Void Breaking—Chu Xiaotian did not receive much explanation from Xia Xue. These three realms were too far removed from their current level; in their eyes, they were essentially legendary existences, so Xia Xue did not know the specifics. The only thing Xia Xue knew was that the five great dynasties of the Moon-Refining Continent maintained their long-lasting stability because each had a Heaven Connecting expert presiding over it. As for the Void Breaking experts, they were no longer figures of this world; it was rumored that they had already left this world for a higher one. But what the truth was, no one knew.

Learning all this from Xia Xue, Chu Xiaotian felt stirred and excited. To overturn seas and topple mountains with a wave of one's hand—what a magnificent sight! It made his blood boil uncontrollably. These were the terrifying abilities that only the gods of mythology possessed. As a man, who wouldn't want to possess such formidable power upon seeing those scenes from myth?

However, there was no spiritual energy on Earth, so such terrifying abilities could only exist in legends. Of course, from the Maoshan talisman arts Chu Xiaotian had mastered, one could speculate that in the extremely distant ancient past, perhaps there really were people who possessed such terrifying power, but in the present day, such abilities were fundamentally impossible.

But the situation now was different. In the world he currently inhabited, there were powerful figures who possessed such terrifying abilities. This meant that in this world, he had the potential to become one of those legendary figures. Thinking that he might one day possess the power to destroy the heavens and the earth with a wave of his hand, Chu Xiaotian could not suppress the excitement in his heart.

"Beauty, look, I also want to cultivate that kind of technique that can destroy the heavens and the earth with a wave of the hand. I wonder if you could teach me a cultivation method?" After being excited for a long time, Chu Xiaotian turned to look at Xia Xue and asked with a fawning grin. He wanted to possess the power to destroy the heavens and the earth, and the most basic requirement was to have a cultivation technique. He didn't have one, so he could only see if the beautiful young girl—the only person he knew—had one.

"Ah, don't you already have the strength of the third stage of Body Refining? How can you not have a cultivation technique?" Xia Xue was somewhat puzzled by Chu Xiaotian's words. From the previous fight, where Chu Xiaotian had wielded a two-to-three-hundred-jin giant wolf as a weapon, it was clear that his cultivation should be at least at the third stage of Body Refining. For someone with such cultivation to tell her he had no technique was something she truly couldn't fathom.

"Hehe, I've never cultivated before; I'm just naturally strong," Chu Xiaotian said with a laugh, scratching the back of his head. His immense strength was naturally not innate, but in front of this beautiful girl, he couldn't very well tell her that he turned into a zombie at night and devoured the blood and essence of living creatures to increase his strength.

Xia Xue did not have many doubts about Chu Xiaotian's words. However, after a moment of contemplation, she shook her head and said, "I only have one cultivation technique, and my master told me before leaving that I must not pass it on to others. Furthermore, this technique is not suitable for you; it is only suitable for us alchemists to practice. Therefore, if you want a cultivation technique, you will have to go elsewhere in the Great Xia Dynasty. There, you can join some sects or academies established by the dynasty to learn the cultivation method most suitable for yourself."