Five Elements Flow

By the time the Shrek group returned to Soto City, the sky had already grown dark.

The trip to Star Dou Great Forest had left everyone utterly exhausted.

Flender stood beneath the academy's broken wooden sign and waved a hand.

"Three days off. Other than eating and sleeping, nobody come bother me. Old Zhao, come have a couple drinks with me to calm our nerves."

Zhao Wuji rubbed his aching shoulders and nodded repeatedly.

The others felt as though they had been granted a pardon.

Tang San looked to be in terrible condition. The clothes on his back were draped over his shoulders, and he walked stiffly. Though his dark-blue scales were hidden beneath his clothes, the violent aura faintly leaking from them could not be suppressed at all.

Without even stopping to catch his breath, Yu Xiaogang grabbed Tang San by the arm.

"Little San, come with me to the secret room. I need to record the data on your bodily mutation immediately."

Yu Xiaogang's voice was tired, but a glimmer of irrepressible excitement hid in his eyes—he had yet to fully get over being left speechless by Chen Xuan, but the new mystery before him had clearly seized his attention even more.

Tang San weakly nodded, then turned to Xiao Wu. "Xiao Wu, go back and rest first."

Xiao Wu obediently agreed.

Yu Xiaogang hurried toward the back mountain, dragging Tang San along.

Standing at the back of the crowd, Chen Xuan watched the master and disciple's retreating figures and curled his lips.

A gambler had met an exception. A perfect match.

Chen Xuan turned and headed straight for his dormitory.

As he passed the training ground, Oscar was sitting dejectedly on the steps, clutching half an uneaten sausage. When he saw Chen Xuan, he weakly raised a hand.

"Chen Xuan, are you okay? You don't look so good."

Chen Xuan did not stop walking. He forced a gentle smile. "I'm fine. Just a little tired."

Oscar sighed. "Tell me about it. We almost left our lives there."

Chen Xuan nodded and continued toward his dormitory.

After taking only two more steps, his chest suddenly clenched. A sweet, metallic taste surged up his throat, and he forcibly swallowed it back down.

Upon returning to his room, he locked the door behind him and drew the curtains.

Once he had done all that, he slumped against the door as if all strength had left him, gasping for air.

"Cough—"

He spat a mouthful of dark-red blood onto the floor.

Bracing himself on his knees, Chen Xuan willed the five Light-Shadow Stones within his body into view.

Five dull gray stones floated in the air.

The one representing the wood attribute was in extremely poor condition.

The moment Chen Xuan saw it, his heart sank.

After spending several days deep within Star Dou Great Forest, where the concentration of wood elements far exceeded that of the outskirts, the Wood Shadow Stone had been passively absorbing them without pause. The crack he had suppressed with the Earth Shadow Stone in Chapter 33 had merely been the beginning. After accumulating energy over the past few days, new cracks had spread across half the stone.

At that moment, green light leaked uncontrollably from the cracks, ready to explode completely at any moment.

An intense tearing pain came from his chest—the direct backlash of damage to his martial soul's origin.

Chen Xuan wiped the blood from his chin and walked over to sit on the bed.

If he could not deal with this excess wood-element energy tonight, the Wood Shadow Stone would definitely shatter on the spot.

If his martial soul shattered, he would either die or be crippled.

It was not as if Chen Xuan had not considered using the method from Chapter 33. But back then, he had had the corpse of an earth-attributed soul beast beside him, with ready-made earth-attributed energy to serve as a medium. Now, he had nothing.

Without a medium, the cracks could not be suppressed. They would only worsen.

He had to find an emergency solution to stabilize the situation before he could consider anything else.

Chen Xuan raised his right hand. Blue light flashed, and the Water Armor Shield covered his forearm.

He opened his left hand. Yellow light surged, and the Earth-Splitting Claws covered his knuckles.

He intended to use the most direct principle of elemental opposition: forcibly draw the rampaging energy from the Wood Shadow Stone, transfer it into the earth-attributed Earth-Splitting Claws, then use the Water Armor Shield to protect his heart meridians.

His spiritual power forcibly entered the Wood Shadow Stone.

The moment the green energy was drawn out even a tiny amount, it became violently unstable.

Bang—

The energy exploded in midair. Chen Xuan grunted and was blasted two steps back, his back slamming into the wall. The blue light of the Water Armor Shield flickered twice and nearly collapsed. A wooden table in the room was blown directly into splinters.

It had failed.

Again.

On the second attempt, the instant the energy touched the Earth-Splitting Claws, the yellow glow of the earth attribute was immediately swallowed by the green light. The two forces tore wildly at each other within his body, churning his organs upside down.

Chen Xuan gritted his teeth and forcibly severed the connection.

A third attempt.

A fourth.

A fifth.

He tried more than a dozen times in succession. There was no longer a single intact piece of furniture in the room. Half the bedframe had collapsed, the cabinet had split into pieces, and broken wood and shards of porcelain covered the floor.

The cracks on the Wood Shadow Stone grew larger and larger, making a teeth-grating cracking sound.

Chen Xuan slid down the wall and sat on the floor, his chest heaving violently as sweat dripped from his chin.

Forcibly suppressing it would not work.

This was just a repeat of Yu Xiaogang's soul power suppression logic. It was useless against the Light-Shadow Stones.

Chen Xuan stared at the Wood Shadow Stone hovering in the air, on the verge of shattering, while his mind raced.

The Five Elements.

Metal, wood, water, fire, earth.

The essence of Daoism had never been "suppression." Suppression was merely the surface; the true core was circulation.

Water produced wood, wood produced fire, fire produced earth, earth produced metal, metal produced water.

Endless generation, linked from beginning to end.

He had seen the five-colored light ever since the day he awakened, yet for the past three years, he had been using Douluo Continent's cultivation mindset to control the Light-Shadow Stones. Soul rings, soul power, suppression, cleansing—a completely wrong solution.

To save the Wood Shadow Stone, he could not use the logic of "suppression." He had to use the logic of "flow."

He had to set the excess energy in motion.

Chen Xuan let out a long breath, raised both hands, and moved his thoughts.

The Water Armor Shield and Earth-Splitting Claws dissolved into motes of light.

He removed all weaponry and defenses, completely abandoning the protection of his body.

Having lost all external suppression, the Wood Shadow Stone's green glow swelled instantly, and the cracks spread toward the other half at a visible rate.

Chen Xuan ignored it.

He focused all his spiritual power on the stone representing the water attribute.

"Water produces wood."

Guided by his spiritual power, the Water Shadow Stone lit up with a faint blue glow. Rather than suppressing the Wood Shadow Stone, the blue light slowly flowed into its base along a strange trajectory.

Water nourished wood.

The Wood Shadow Stone's violent green light paused for a moment upon touching the blue glow.

Chen Xuan seized the opportunity and immediately redirected his spiritual power toward the Wood Shadow Stone.

"Wood produces fire."

The excess green energy within the Wood Shadow Stone, which had nearly burst it apart, was forcibly drawn out and connected to the stone representing the fire attribute.

The Fire Shadow Stone trembled slightly and radiated a layer of red light.

Green light flowed into red light, and the flames gradually grew stronger.

The pressure within the Wood Shadow Stone dropped sharply.

Water flowed to wood. Wood flowed to fire.

A most basic, incomplete Five Elements Flow circuit was barely established under the forced maintenance of Chen Xuan's spiritual power.

Chen Xuan's forehead was covered in sweat. He did not even dare blink.

He did not know how long he maintained that posture. His arms had gone numb, and his consciousness hovered on the edge of fading.

But he could feel that the Wood Shadow Stone's green glow was no longer leaking outward.

The cracks stopped spreading.

After an unknown amount of time, faint light finally began to emerge along the edges of those cracks, slowly drawing inward bit by bit.

The violent wood elements in the room gradually calmed.

The five stones rotated slowly in midair. Green, blue, and red light intertwined, forming a faint yet stable halo.

The last crack on the Wood Shadow Stone closed.

Though it was dimmer than before, it had at least stabilized.

Chen Xuan let out a long breath of turbid air. As the tension in his nerves loosened, he slumped straight to the floor.

Tired.

He did not even have the strength to move a finger.

He looked at the five stabilized stones floating in the air and grinned.

This path worked.

Just as he was about to close his eyes and catch his breath, the distant sound of a church bell striking midnight reached him.

Dong—dong—dong—

Midnight had arrived.

A new day.

Chen Xuan had just prepared to habitually bring up the system panel for his daily draw when an exceptionally crisp notification suddenly exploded in his mind.

[Prototype of Five Elements Flow detected.]

[Host's comprehension has broken through. Light-Shadow Stone origin resonance has increased.]

[Special draw pool unlocked.]

[Begin today's draw?]

Chen Xuan froze.

For three years, this damned system had given him nothing but socks and pebbles every day. Occasionally, it would mercifully give him a weapon, but it had never changed things up.

The worldline correction from Chapter 34 had only just been triggered, and now there was a special draw pool—the rhythm of this damned system made it seem as though it were chasing after something.

Supporting himself against the wall, Chen Xuan stood up and stared at the system panel floating in the air.

"Begin."

Revision notes