The First 'Dao Fruit'!

Unwilling to be stained by right and wrong, yet who could have expected things to go against his wishes.

The flower in his heart withered, and time, once gone, never returned.

Within the sea of consciousness.

A lotus bloomed in full splendor, dazzling the world.

As radiance surged forth, the events of the past emerged. Everything he had experienced in the Great Yan World flooded into his mind—

He had first entered Great Yan, arrived in Langning Prefecture, and met Lu Peng.

He practiced martial arts and cultivation, earned money, and built his ventures.

He challenged Lingnan's masters, made his name throughout Great Yan, and the name "Chen of the Southern Dynasty" spread far and wide.

The Chen Sect was founded. He scoured the world for martial arts, and the Seventy-Two Chen Sect Arts shook north and south alike.

He cultivated Hidden Force, comprehended internal energy, and ultimately became a martial world legend.

"A lifetime."

"Was over."

Scene after scene from the past flashed by. In the blink of an eye, two hundred years had passed. Chen Jichuan felt as though he had lived another life. When he came back to himself, he could not help but let out a long sigh.

Three days after the battle.

There was the joy of having reached great mastery in Hidden Force, but also the bewilderment of watching his life force drain away bit by bit.

People said that between life and death lay great terror.

That was no lie.

Even though Chen Jichuan knew that death in the Great Yan World was not true death, he still could not suppress the fear rising in his heart.

Unfortunately.

There was no escaping it.

Even if he left the Great Yan World, he would still have to face the final moments of his life when he returned.

Three days.

From sitting motionlessly, to being unable even to sit at the end. In a daze, he lay down, feeling as though all strength had left his body and his essence, vitality, and spirit had been drained clean away.

Later.

He drifted between wakefulness and unconsciousness.

Without realizing it, when he regained awareness once more, he was already within this sea of consciousness.

Before him.

Was a lotus.

"A lotus."

Chen Jichuan steadied himself and looked into the sea of consciousness.

The lotus shone brightly. Then, a lotus pod formed, its seeds within exuding a fragrant aroma.

Streams of information intertwined.

"Dao Fruit."

"Lotus Seeds."

The tempering of life and death gave Chen Jichuan an added measure of calm in the face of change.

He had nearly reached the state he had once described to Chen Shaohe—keeping joy and anger from showing on one's face. He felt delight as he absorbed the information transmitted by the lotus pod, yet he was still able to calm himself and sort through it.

Name: Chen Jichuan [First]

Age: 195

Immortal Tier: None

Official Position: None

Level: 6

Talent: Creation

Spells: Seventy-Two Chen Sect Arts (Sixth Layer), Divine Pounce Blade (Sixth Layer), Flame Control Technique (Fourth Layer), Blood-Burning Art (Fourth Layer); Ghost-Fall Sword (Fourth Layer); Martial Victory Saber (Fourth Layer); Far-Sight (Third Layer); Wind-Hearing (Third Layer)

He gazed at the lotus pod.

Upon it appeared Chen Jichuan's final achievements in the Great Yan World.

Several decades of bitter cultivation.

Nearly two hundred years of time.

Until the battle at Taiqing Mountain's summit.

He had unleashed every scrap of life within him. His internal organs became transparent, his force reached the four extremities—teeth, tongue, nails, and hair—and Hidden Force spread throughout his body.

At last, he reached the peak of Hidden Force.

One step further lay the Transformative Force Realm, where "not a feather could be added, nor could a fly or insect land."

Unfortunately.

Chen Jichuan had clearly seen the realm beyond Hidden Force. At the final moment of his life, he had even hoped to break through that shackle.

Yet heaven's will existed in the unseen—

The heavens and earth of Great Yan could not tolerate a Transformative Force Realm expert!

Hidden Force spreading throughout the body was already the limit of the mortal world.

Beyond that.

There was a road in theory, but in reality, it had long since been severed.

"A Transformative Force Realm expert has clean and orderly internal organs, powerful muscles and bones throughout the body, and abundant marrow. So long as he maintains himself properly, living past one hundred thirty or forty years old is no problem."

"This is already equivalent to the Innate Realm of internal energy."

Chen Jichuan felt some regret.

After comprehending Hidden Force and cultivating internal energy, he had not kept them to himself like a broom cherished by its owner. Instead, leveraging the influence of the Chen Sect, he spread the secrets of Hidden Force and the methods of internal energy far and wide.

Over fifty or sixty years.

After two or three generations of practice and exchange, Hidden Force experts sprang up across the martial world like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

After all, even before Chen Jichuan, there had already been many masters in the martial world who had cultivated Manifest Force to perfection. Once the window paper of Hidden Force was pierced, these masters would always be able to climb a hundred-foot pole and advance another step.

Precisely because of this.

With the imperial court and Prince Ji behind her, Princess Nanping held power and could easily recruit many Hidden Force experts.

One had to know.

Although Great Yan was visibly approaching the western hills, it was still a scorching prize for martial wanderers. Serving under Princess Nanping, if they could obtain even a minor official post, it would bring glory to their ancestors.

Take "Wind Chaser" Yang Qing of Langning Prefecture in those days. With his abilities, he stood among the finest in the martial world. Yet for the sake of a mere Ninth Rank prison warden post, he willingly served diligently as a constable in Langning City for ten years.

Though these martial world figures called court officials "hawks and hounds" and "running dogs" whenever they met them, as if they disdained them utterly.

If they were truly given an official post, every last one of them would beam with joy.

Martial world masters.

Were also commoners.

Their desire to become officials was no less than that of ordinary people.

Perhaps it was a case of sowing good causes and reaping good fruits.

Chen Jichuan had spread the methods of Hidden Force and internal energy, causing experts to emerge in great numbers throughout Great Yan, and many of them had been recruited by the court.

And through fighting these experts to the death, he had broken through in one stroke just as he was about to begin declining.

If the Great Yan World had not rejected it, then through that final battle, he would already have pushed his physical body into the Transformative Force Realm and even raised his internal energy to the Innate Realm.

"Transformative Force."

"Innate."

"They could only wait a little longer."

Though regretful, Chen Jichuan was not anxious.

By the time that had passed in reality, it had been less than half a year since he first came into contact with cultivation and reached great mastery in Hidden Force. So long as he advanced another step, he could live to one hundred thirty or forty years old, perhaps even longer.

Those one hundred thirty or forty years would all be real.

There was still plenty of time.

There was no need to be impatient.

Besides.

The Hidden Force ceiling of the Great Yan World was, from another perspective, a good thing as well.

At the very least, it had met the requirements for condensing a Dao Fruit.

Everything from the Great Yan World had transformed into a lotus pod, condensing into the first "Dao Fruit."

"The Dao Fruit is wondrous."

"It contains everything I learned in the Great Yan World. Each Lotus Seed it bears can be manifested and filled with my martial arts insights. If others obtain them and study them carefully, the effect will be more than ten times better than if I taught them personally!"

Chen Jichuan could not help but smile.

Back in Black Prison, he often told Chen Shaohe, "When one person attains the Dao, even the chickens and dogs ascend to heaven."

But only after truly escaping Black Prison and beginning cultivation did he discover that achieving this was genuinely difficult.

Cultivation.

Was the most personal of pursuits.

Others could help, but only to a limited extent.

He taught Chen Shaohe martial arts and frequently offered guidance. But in martial arts, especially in matters of internal energy, many things could only be understood through intuition and could not be put into words.

Chen Shaohe's progress in cultivation so far had been fairly good.

But compared with Chen Jichuan, he was still far behind. It was foreseeable that with the Dao Fruit, the gap between Chen Jichuan and Chen Shaohe would only grow wider and wider.

He who has no long-term worries must have near-term troubles.

Chen Jichuan had developed many worries over this.

However.

Now, things were different.

"With the help of Dao Fruit Lotus Seeds, it will be much easier for Shao He to thoroughly grasp the first six layers of the Divine Pounce Blade."

Chen Jichuan looked forward to it.

Still.

The exact effects of the Lotus Seeds would only be known after they were truly tested.

"No rush."

"Let Shao He cultivate on his own first. Once his foundation is solid and he has gained his own insights, I'll give him the Lotus Seeds then. Drawing from them and verifying his understanding against them will surely produce even better results."

To learn without thinking is to be lost; to think without learning is to be in peril.

The Lotus Seeds could serve as assistance.

But they could not be relied upon completely, lest they foster a lazy nature that neither thought nor reflected.

Chen Jichuan made his calculations inwardly.

Then he turned back.

And looked once more at the "lotus pod."

"Besides the Lotus Seeds."

"With this Lotus-Pod Dao Fruit, I can repeatedly observe and experience all the years I spent in Great Yan."

As the saying went, reviewing the old allowed one to know the new.

This way.

Not only could Chen Jichuan constantly revisit what he had learned, he could also view from a third-person perspective the many issues he had overlooked while caught within them.

Thereby allowing himself to advance further.

And with this Lotus-Pod Dao Fruit, he could also condense a body as before and enter the Great Yan World whenever he wished.

Thus.

He could think and summarize on one side, while recultivating and verifying on the other. There was no better way to learn in the world.

The four-hundredfold difference in time was an even greater trump card!

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