Talented Spirit Arts

The Five-Colored Lotus Seed dissolved, and a great amount of pure Five Elements spiritual power erupted. This spiritual power was as warm and gentle as a medicinal pill, yet without the worry of pill toxins. It was a foundation-establishing treasure even better than a Foundation Establishment Pill.

Most importantly, what the lotus seed contained was all Five Elements spiritual power, which suited cultivators like Liang Zhaohuang, who cultivated Five Elements magic power, best of all. His efficiency in absorbing and refining it was extremely high.

The only difference might be that, although the Five-Colored Lotus Seed contained a great deal of spiritual power, it still could not compare to the Foundation Establishment Pill—but that could be made up for with quantity.

Liang Zhaohuang circulated and cultivated the Five Qi Lotus Scripture. Great amounts of Five Elements spiritual power were swiftly gathered and refined, transformed into Five Elements magic power, and poured into his dantian.

One, two, three, four lotus seeds were swallowed and refined by him one after another. A vast ocean of Five Elements spiritual power was refined into magic power and returned to his dantian.

Gradually, Liang Zhaohuang sensed a swelling fullness coming from his dantian. He knew this meant his accumulation of magic power had already reached its limit. Next came opening the sea of consciousness, and the qualitative transformation of magic power from condensed qi into liquid.

Following the method within the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, Liang Zhaohuang circulated his magic power, reversing it straight upward, and charged toward the place between his brows where the sea of consciousness lay.

This step was extremely dangerous. The slightest carelessness could injure the sea of consciousness and damage the spirit; at best, one would be gravely wounded, and at worst, one's soul would scatter and fly apart.

For this step, one had to have sufficient mental power to protect the sea of consciousness and receive the impact of the magic power. Only under the combined effect of mental power and magic power could the sea of consciousness be opened smoothly and spiritual sense be born.

Therefore, before completing the cultivation of visualization and grasping enough mental power, those Foundation Establishment seeds of the Liang Family did not even dare rashly attempt to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Liang Zhaohuang, however, had no such concern. At the same time his magic power charged upward, he immediately circulated the Five-Colored Buddha Light to rush downward, meeting the incoming magic power head-on.

Five Elements magic power and the Five-Colored Buddha Light seemed to meet, collide, and merge within a stretch of chaotic void.

They exploded with a thunderous roar, like heaven and earth first splitting open. Amid this collision, fusion, and explosion, the sea of consciousness was opened.

The Five-Colored Buddha Light bloomed, shining upon the newborn sea of consciousness, gathering the magic power and protecting the expansion of the newly born sea of consciousness.

Everything was so natural, without the slightest accident or twist, extremely smooth.

Within the newborn sea of consciousness, spiritual sense began to form. This spiritual sense had all been transformed from mental power.

However, because Liang Zhaohuang cultivated the Peacock King Mantra, his mental power had already become Five-Colored Buddha Light.

Therefore, his spiritual sense was also formed from Five-Colored Buddha Light. The two were two sides of the same coin: both spiritual sense and Five-Colored Buddha Light.

It was just that, in the past, because he had not opened his sea of consciousness, the Five-Colored Buddha Light could only circulate inside his body—for example, circulating into his eyes to obtain the ability of the Five Elements Dharma Eye.

Now that he had opened his sea of consciousness, the Five-Colored Buddha Light had transformed into spiritual sense and could already spread outside his body to investigate in all directions.

Liang Zhaohuang familiarized himself a little with the changes and use of spiritual sense, then immediately sent his spiritual sense straight into his dantian.

At this point, with the sea of consciousness opened and spiritual sense born, one could say that Foundation Establishment was already half complete.

Next came the other half of the Foundation Establishment process: condensing the magic power within the dantian from qi into liquid, completing its qualitative transformation.

And for this step, the cooperation of spiritual sense was required.

Only by relying on the compression of spiritual sense, and during that compression having the spiritual sense continuously merge with the magic power, could the qualitative transformation of magic power be completed, condensing qi into liquid.

Liquefied magic power not only contained greater might, but because spiritual sense had merged into it, it was also filled with spirituality.

The magic power of the Foundation Establishment Realm, compared with that of the Qi Refining Realm, was a complete sublimation and transformation in both quality and spirituality.

Only magic power filled with such might and spirituality could support the cultivation of Foundation Establishment Realm spiritual arts.

Liang Zhaohuang followed the method recorded in the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, circulating his spiritual sense and magic power, continuously using spiritual sense to compress the magic power in his dantian, and in the process of compression, completing the merging of spiritual sense and magic power.

When this compression and fusion gradually reached their limit, a qualitative transformation finally began to occur.

The misty, qi-like magic power in his dantian began to condense into liquid.

One drop, two drops, three drops...

It was like clouds and mist turning into rain, dripping down and gathering within the dantian.

The speed grew faster and faster, from a drizzle into moderate rain, heavy rain, and even a torrential downpour.

Finally, all the gaseous magic power in his dantian had transformed into liquid magic power, spreading across the bottom of the dantian in a shallow layer, like a lake in the dry season, occupying less than one-tenth of the entire dantian's volume.

Above this shallow layer of liquid magic power floated five illusory lotus flowers, colored gold, green, black, red, and yellow—the five lotus flowers belonging to the Five Elements.

Metal lotus, wood lotus, water lotus, fire lotus, earth lotus!

This was the innate spiritual art born after establishing the foundation through cultivating the Five Qi Lotus Scripture: Five-Colored Lotus Flower.

According to the records within the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, not all Foundation Establishment inheritances could give birth to an innate spiritual art. However, high-grade Foundation Establishment inheritances would inevitably produce an innate spiritual art during Foundation Establishment.

It was said that this innate spiritual art was extremely important in later cultivation advancement.

The innate spiritual art nurtured by the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, the Five Qi Lotus Flower, gave birth to five illusory lotus flowers belonging to the Five Elements. These five lotus flowers possessed both offense and defense, and their effects were very comprehensive.

But precisely because of this comprehensiveness, these lotus flowers could not reach the extreme in either offense or defense. They could only be considered balanced.

However, as the saying went, "There are no high or low spells, only high or low cultivators."

Although this set of innate spiritual arts, the Five-Colored Lotus Flower, was somewhat balanced, to what extent it could be brought out still depended on Liang Zhaohuang's own ability.

Moreover, while observing the liquid magic power in his dantian and those five illusory lotus flowers, Liang Zhaohuang discovered that both the magic power and the lotus flowers emitted a halo of Five-Colored Buddha Light.

It seemed that because the spiritual sense had not been cultivated through the visualization method within the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, but had instead completed the transformation of magic power through the Five-Colored Buddha Light, the Foundation Establishment Realm magic power he had cultivated, as well as his innate spiritual art, had both undergone some inexplicable changes.

And the most direct point was that he discovered that beyond the Five-Colored Lotus Flower, he had gained another innate spiritual art: Five Elements Restriction-Breaking Spiritual Light.

This had nothing to do with the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, but had been born from the fusion of Five-Colored Buddha Light and magic power.

Two innate spiritual arts!

There was no record of this in the Five Qi Lotus Scripture either, and Liang Zhaohuang's experience was shallow; he did not know whether similar situations existed in the cultivation world, or whether this was ultimately good or bad.

Still, at least for him right now, gaining an extra innate spiritual art was undoubtedly a good thing.

He rose and came out of the secret chamber. The defensive formation he had set up was still in operation.

It was a Water-Wood Pure Aura Formation, capable of conjuring an expanse of water forest to isolate inside from outside. It was not an orthodox defensive formation, leaning more toward an illusion formation.

However, Liang Zhaohuang had no other formations on hand. Even this one had been something he had previously picked up as a bargain in the county market, then slowly restored through observation and study with the Five Elements Dharma Eye—and even then, he had only restored less than sixty percent of the original formation's power.