Thunder Arts

After an unknown number of days, Mo Lin woke up.

"Kid, you're finally awake."

The moment he woke, Dugu Bo's voice reached him. Mo Lin turned his head and saw him sitting cross-legged nearby. His complexion was completely different from before; he looked exceptionally healthy.

Mo Lin got to his feet.

"Old Grandpa, how long was I asleep?"

"Not long, just two days and one night." Dugu Bo walked over to Mo Lin, smiling as he bent down and patted him on the shoulder. "Honestly, I'm quite surprised that you, a little brat, actually drew all the toxins causing the backlash out of my body. And I don't like owing people favors. Go on, tell me what you need. Whether it's something you want or obtaining a spirit ring, I can help you."

Mo Lin pretended to think for a moment.

"Old Grandpa, how about letting me stay in this secret realm for a while longer? I think this place is very suitable for my cultivation."

Dugu Bo said, "Indeed, this place is exceptionally suitable for cultivation. Now that I've resolved the backlash issue, I need to visit my family and let them know I'm safe. After that, I have some other matters to handle. I'll return here in two months. Until then, you can stay as long as you want and do whatever you like. What do you think?"

Mo Lin cupped his fists.

"Thank you, Old Grandpa."

Dugu Bo laughed a few times. "Hahaha! Don't call me Old Grandpa from now on. My name is Dugu Bo. You should know my identity from that name alone. You can call me Grandpa Dugu or Senior Dugu from now on. I'm leaving, so focus on your cultivation!"

Dugu Bo turned around and leaped away.

Once Mo Lin watched Dugu Bo disappear into the distance, he immediately took two puppets from his storage ring. Since they were intended as disposable tools, they looked like nothing more than two racks—ugly as hell.

Mo Lin stepped onto a protruding rock, right on the boundary line of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. The two puppets then headed separately toward the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and the Blazing Apricot Delicate.

Mo Lin had forged these two puppets from high-temperature-resistant metal and low-temperature-resistant metal respectively, specifically for retrieving these two immortal herbs.

However, the power of the two immortal herbs slightly exceeded what Mo Lin's puppets could endure. One began to gradually redden, while the other became coated in a thick layer of ice. The same thing happened to both: they slowed down.

Mo Lin frowned deeply. He had worked so hard to make these puppets; they couldn't fail to even touch the leaves of the immortal herbs in the end.

As the puppets drew closer and closer to the immortal herbs, their movements became slower and slower, making Mo Lin increasingly anxious.

"Please, succeed!"

One second passed, then two...

The two puppets finally reached the immortal herbs. They stretched out their hands, snapped the plants from their roots, and threw them toward Mo Lin at the same time. Once they completed this sequence of actions, the soul power Mo Lin had infused into them was also exhausted. Their bodies had already suffered tremendous damage, and without soul power as both energy and protection, the puppets instantly collapsed. One melted outright, while the other shattered into countless icy fragments.

The Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and Blazing Apricot Delicate met before Mo Lin. With swift hands, he plucked a small leaf from each and swallowed them. The two immortal herbs then directly merged into his body.

Before the medicinal effects and toxicity could take hold, Mo Lin leaped straight into the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and began circulating the technique he intended to cultivate.

"Crimson Palace! Water Viscera!"

This was the technique Mo Lin wanted to cultivate. On Douluo Continent, perhaps only cultivation within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well could defy convention: using the extreme yin and yang forces of the outside world to act upon his body, while using the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and Blazing Apricot Delicate to forcibly stir the qi of heart fire and kidney water within him, allowing him to cultivate both the Yang Five Thunders and Yin Five Thunders simultaneously.

The process was incomparably difficult. To activate both heart fire and kidney water at once, Mo Lin had to ensure that the two immortal herbs remained in a berserk state until both thunder arts had initially taken shape inside his body. In other words, he could not wait until the herbs had fully merged with his body before cultivating; he had to begin immediately after ingesting them, before their toxicity had been neutralized.

Furthermore, he had to ensure that the cultivation progress of the two thunder arts remained completely identical at all times, maintaining the balance of yin and yang. Once that balance was disrupted and one exceeded the other, it would inevitably force the other back into either the heart or the kidneys. This would cause enormous damage to his internal organs and could be fatal in severe cases.

Since cultivating both at once carried such immense risk, why did Mo Lin still choose to do it? Perhaps it was because, deep down, he had already become someone accustomed to gambling with his life.

Everything Mo Lin had done so far—absorbing spirit rings beyond his limit, scheming against the Elders' Hall, and even pretending to encounter Dugu Bo by chance—could have ended in death at worst. He firmly believed that the greater the stakes he put up, the greater the returns he could gain. And the greatest stake he could offer now was his life.

Thus, he once again put his life on the line, anticipating just how astonishing the rewards would be if he mastered the upper halves of both thunder arts at the same time before going on to cultivate the complete thunder art.

Three days later, Mo Lin leaped out of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and gulped down oxygen. During those three days, he had entered a mysterious state. Within the Yin Yang Well, all eight of his orifices had been sealed, and the energy maintaining his bodily functions had come entirely from the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and Blazing Apricot Delicate. His heart fire and kidney water circulated wildly, completing one cycle in only one-fifth of the usual time.

Mo Lin raised both hands and looked at the yang lightning in his left hand and the yin lightning in his right. He withdrew them, then released them again. This time, yang lightning appeared in his right hand and yin lightning in his left, confirming the principle of the Taoist yin-yang bagua diagram: yin and yang were always changing, with no fixed positions.

"There's less than two months left. I need to hurry."

After spending three days soaking in the Yin Yang Well for the first time to stabilize the two thunder arts within his body, Mo Lin cultivated in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well for sixteen hours every day. Within two months, he needed to at least bring both thunder arts to the minor mastery stage. After that, he would no longer need the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well as assistance when cultivating the thunder arts; the "miniature Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well" formed within his body by the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and Blazing Apricot Delicate would be enough.

On the final day of the two-month deadline, Dugu Bo arrived as promised. The moment he reached the cave entrance, black-and-white lightning shot out from the cave and soared into the sky.

"What's going on? Could someone have discovered this place?"

He hurried inside, but there was no one there. Only a line of words had been carved into a stone.

"Senior Dugu, thank you for providing such a treasured place. This junior is deeply grateful."

Dugu Bo let out a sigh of relief.

"So this kid left long ago. But that lightning just now was..."

At that moment, Mo Lin was standing outside the cave. He had just used his thunder arts to draw Dugu Bo's attention, then covered his entire body in lightning and passed by Dugu Bo at his fastest speed. He had never expected Dugu Bo not to notice him at all.

"I didn't expect him to care so much about me! Good thing I didn't take all the immortal herbs, or I'd have been far too unfair to him."

Mo Lin only needed to think for a moment to understand. Dugu Bo must have been worried that something had happened to him, which was why he had neglected his surroundings. After all, in Dugu Bo's eyes, Mo Lin was also a poison user.

Although Mo Lin had deceived Dugu Bo in the beginning for his own benefit, and Dugu Bo still remained part of Mo Lin's plans for the future, Mo Lin truly wanted to befriend Dugu Bo sincerely. People like him—neither wholly righteous nor wholly evil, acting according to their own preferences—were the most trustworthy when life and death hung in the balance.