Three Arts United, Ills Yet Unborn Removed

Once his mind was made up.

Liu Dongqing no longer harbored the slightest hesitation regarding how to cultivate the <Little Thought Primordial Furnace Fire-Nurturing Art>.

Whether surviving in the Holy Cult or cultivating the Immortal Dao, the greatest taboo was failing to cut when one should cut, wavering and hesitating.

All his earlier tangled thoughts dispersed like smoke in the wind.

Within a few breaths, he steadied his mind and swiftly entered the true cultivation state of the <Little Thought Primordial Furnace Fire-Nurturing Art>.

Strangely enough.

This was not Liu Dongqing's first encounter with an unfamiliar art.

Whether it was the Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation, the Pill-Descending Art, or even the <Branch-Splitting Myriad Transformations Origin-Seizing Art>, Liu Dongqing had displayed the appropriate unfamiliarity before.

Yet with the <Little Thought Primordial Furnace Fire-Nurturing Art> alone, Liu Dongqing entered the state with extraordinary speed.

Perhaps it was because this art fit the Seven-Light Incantation Method too perfectly, or perhaps because Zhang Qiwei had created it, and despite an inner disciple's foundation, it was ultimately somewhat rough-hewn.

In any case.

Drawing upon his experience of holding the candle flame within himself over the past several years, as well as his experience in meditation, Liu Dongqing quickly found the state of "holding fast to righteous thought" described in the Fire-Nurturing Art.

In an instant.

While inwardly observing himself in meditation, he entered a "perspective" he had never experienced before.

In the past, when he meditated and looked inward, he could discern the inner circuit formed by the meridians and major apertures throughout his body—the circulation system centered upon the qi sea and dantian, with the Governing and Conception Vessels as its core.

But now, this unprecedented and unique "perspective" brought Liu Dongqing to the true dwelling place of his divine soul, into the upper dantian, where the legendary Mud Pill Purple Mansion lay.

The "field of vision" of his inward observation had expanded to an entirely new level in that moment.

This change alone was already an unimaginable gain.

This is not an inward-observation ability an ordinary Qi Refining art could possess.

Looking at it this way... the concept behind the art Senior Sister Zhang created is remarkably lofty!

The instant that thought flashed past.

As Liu Dongqing held fast to righteous thought, his mind's entire attention was drawn to the unique perspective and scene within the Mud Pill Palace.

According to Daoist scriptures.

When one held fast to righteous thought, all that surrounded it was one's own Seven Emotions and Miscellaneous Thoughts.

As Liu Dongqing turned his gaze about, he immediately felt that within this bizarre and kaleidoscopic world of the Mud Pill Purple Mansion, his Seven Emotions and Miscellaneous Thoughts spread out like ranks of stars and constellations, like a vast and boundless sea of stars.

It was a dreamlike scene no words of reality could describe.

They were both real and illusory, both abstract and tangible.

Then, guided by the art of the <Little Thought Primordial Furnace Fire-Nurturing Art>, they acquired the quality of being understandable at a glance.

Though Liu Dongqing had never explored or understood these metaphysical things, when he looked upon them now, he could effortlessly distinguish which of the Seven Emotions each stray thought belonged to.

A great many stray thoughts, in the truest sense, did not purely belong to any single one of the Seven Emotions. Rather, they were a tangled mess formed from the compound intermingling of many emotions.

This suited Liu Dongqing's cautious and suspicious temperament.

Every matter consumed much of his mental energy, and he always tried to consider it from every possible angle.

This was the normal state of stray thoughts born through ordinary patterns of thinking.

But.

Within Liu Dongqing's surveying gaze, these stray thoughts formed from the normal mingling of the Seven Emotions occupied only a relatively small part of that boundless sea of stars.

What filled more of Liu Dongqing's vision were thoughts truly condensed from a single pure emotion—

Anger! Fury! Boundless rage without cause!

As expected, my judgment was completely correct. I chose to sever the Angry thought, one of the Seven Emotions, to use as lamp oil!

Yet another surprised thought arose alongside it.

I've actually accumulated this much anger in my thoughts?

I thought I was usually rather calm...

Liu Dongqing had known that he possessed much Angry thought, but he had never expected there to be so much.

Not only did a large portion of the Angry thoughts float through the sea of stars like mist, winding around those normal stray thoughts and even faintly affecting the righteous thought he held within himself.

This was the source of part of Liu Dongqing's restless agitation.

Yet beneath all this, especially beneath those normal stray thoughts, there were even more Angry thoughts, sedimented at the bottom of the vast ocean like rotting sludge.

Their number was so great that Liu Dongqing found the sight horrifying.

So all those times I cultivated the Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation, I thought the nameless rage merely flared for an instant, and that once my state of mind calmed, it would no longer affect my mind.

But I was wrong.

The accumulation of anger is like boiling a frog in warm water. It did not truly vanish—it was merely covered over by my more vivid thoughts.

Had I not realized this today, had I not obtained this art, then perhaps one day, when the Angry thoughts in my heart completely erupted and my mind spun out of control, I would either make one wrong move after another at a crucial choice, undergo a drastic change in temperament and no longer be myself, or suffer deviation in cultivation...

Not even mentioning its method of inner refinement.

Senior Sister's art first opened for me the ability to observe within the Mud Pill Palace. Looking at it now, it is also the unrivaled method for me to constantly examine myself and preserve my own heart!

Only after these two benefits comes, perhaps, its method of refining Angry thoughts.

With that thought.

Gazing at the sea of anger within his Mud Pill Palace, Liu Dongqing could no longer wait. He circulated the subsequent art of the <Little Thought Primordial Furnace Fire-Nurturing Art>, using righteous thought as a blade and inward observation as an anchor, and severed one pure Angry thought from afar.

There was no sound of air being torn, nor did he feel as though his mind had been struck by a blade, as Liu Dongqing had once imagined.

From beginning to end, Liu Dongqing felt nothing at all.

Had he not kept his eyes fixed upon it, he would never have noticed that the mist formed from that Angry thought was, with the circulation of the art, leaving the Mud Pill star sea and departing the upper dantian.

Then.

Like sweet rain descending from heaven.

Within the inner circuit, that Angry thought plunged from above into the qi sea and dantian. Formless yet substantial, it finally transformed into a streak of spiritual light and flashed into Liu Dongqing's Primordial Candle Flame.

It even skipped the process of refinement.

After all, the severed Angry thought had originally been part of Liu Dongqing's body and soul, while the Primordial Candle Flame was the Daoist foundation forged from the combined refinement of Liu Dongqing's body and soul.

The two could almost be regarded as things of the same origin.

Boom—

Accompanied by a smooth, seamless fusion.

As the lamp oil transformed from anger-flame further swelled the Primordial Candle Flame.

Along with the thunderous crackle of flames surging within the inner circuit.

What greatly surprised Liu Dongqing was the hoarse yet shrill cry of a crow that rang out with it.

At that moment.

Within Liu Dongqing's perfectly rounded candle flame, unprecedented lively radiance surged from the spiritual form of that fully formed Fire Crow.

As though it were Heaven's will.

Liu Dongqing's Angry thoughts had arisen from the baleful qi of demon blood. Now, as they merged into the candle flame, they strengthened his origin and simultaneously stirred the savage demonic nature contained within the Fire Crow Spirit Form.

That trace of savage demonic nature erupted completely at this moment.

Yet it did not run out of control. Instead, it actively fused with Liu Dongqing's Angry thoughts.

Using Mystic Sect Daoist seals to command the origin of the bloodline.

Using the thoughts of the heart to command beastly nature.

What I have done actually accords with the cultivation essence of the Demon Refining Mystic Sect!

This is not merely the union of the Fire-Nurturing Art and the Little Azure Light Incantation—it also has the response of the Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation.

These three arts have been linked together and thoroughly connected as one!