Self-Created Cultivation Method

After listening to Old Long's words, Long Xuan felt a faint surge of excitement. Creating a cultivation method from scratch was as difficult as ascending to heaven for others, but for him, it was entirely achievable. The method behind the Liver Gu Formula could likewise be applied to developing cultivation methods.

The Ten Extremity Physique appearing in someone else would be a fatal disaster, but on him, it had instead become an opportunity. In his hands, the Ten Extremity Physique might shine brilliantly in this world and become the foundation of his invincibility. He clenched his fist.

His most urgent task now was to create a cultivation method suitable for the Ten Extremity Physique as quickly as possible. With a cultivation method, his cultivation speed could rise even further.

Nothing was more important than this. Long Xuan immediately decided that creating a cultivation method would be his next project. He was determined to create a peerless cultivation method, so that his journey to this world would not have been in vain.

Though that was what he thought, Long Xuan put on an utterly dejected expression. After bidding Old Long farewell, he left in a daze, looking as though his soul had departed him.

Upon returning to his residence, Long Xuan sat down in a chair, spread a sheet of white paper across the table, and began to ponder deeply with a pen in hand, his brows tightly furrowed.

According to his understanding of this world's cultivation methods, a complete cultivation method had three components: the spiritual power circulation route, the method's divine abilities, and its accompanying spirit arts. These three components were also called the Three Essentials of Cultivation Methods.

Naturally, Long Xuan's Scripture of Longevity was a health-preserving method rather than a cultivation method, so it did not belong to this system.

If one were creating a cultivation method from scratch, then for a trash-tier method, only the spiritual power circulation route needed consideration. The other two parts could be ignored.

But if one wanted to create a powerful cultivation method, none of the Three Essentials of Cultivation Methods could be missing.

The spiritual power circulation route determined the speed of cultivation, as well as the attribute and strength of one's spiritual power.

Even with the same attribute, spiritual power could vary in strength depending on the cultivation method.

Different attributes also had their own hierarchy. Mutated spiritual power was always stronger than basic spiritual power, and even among different types of mutated spiritual power, there could be a difference as vast as heaven and earth.

Poison Spiritual Power, Star Spiritual Power, Dragon Spiritual Power, Earth Spiritual Power... all attributes beyond the seven systems of metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, and lightning were considered mutated spiritual power.

How one cultivated mutated spiritual power was likewise determined by the first part of a cultivation method.

Divine abilities were the special traits of cultivation methods. Some methods produced spiritual power purer than that of other methods. Some cultivated a larger spirit sea, granting spiritual power reserves far beyond those of others at the same rank.

Still other methods could cultivate five spirit seas, rendering their user invincible among those of the same rank. Such special traits were the divine abilities of cultivation methods.

Even the life-extending trait of the Scripture of Longevity counted as a divine ability.

Accompanying spirit arts were the attack methods of a cultivation method. A method's accompanying spirit arts differed from the general spirit arts that anyone could learn.

The spiritual power cultivated by every cultivation method was unique. Even methods cultivating spiritual power of the same attribute could differ as greatly as heaven and earth.

The diversity of spiritual power naturally affected how well it suited spirit arts. When the same spirit art was used by people cultivating different methods, its power would be completely different. Thus, spirit arts had differing degrees of compatibility with different cultivation methods.

And it was extremely difficult for compatibility to reach one hundred percent, unless the accompanying spirit art had been tailor-made by the same creator for that cultivation method.

Precisely because accompanying spirit arts generally had one hundred percent compatibility with their paired cultivation methods, they were bound to be stronger than general spirit arts.

That was why a powerful cultivation method had to have accompanying spirit arts. Otherwise, no matter how powerful the method was, it would merely be a paper tiger with strength it could not fully wield.

Of course, the attack methods of spirit arts were vastly different from the abilities of Gu insects.

Spirit arts were offensive abilities unleashed by driving spiritual power, whereas Gu insect abilities were innate talents. Innate talents could not be imitated in the form of spirit arts.

For instance, a Gu insect's mind-reading technique, spatial teleportation technique, precognition technique, or time-reversal technique...

No spirit art could possibly imitate such abilities through written instructions. They had already transcended the scope of spiritual power. No matter how spiritual power was altered, it could never achieve those effects.

One could understand it this way: spirit arts were martial arts moves, while Gu insect abilities were fantasy moves. One was a low-end version, the other a high-end version.

However, Gu cultivators were limited in the number of Gu insects they could possess at once. Though spirit arts were weaker, they were still something Gu cultivators had to learn.

Naturally, spirit arts in this world were exceedingly rare. Even a small Gu cultivator lineage would treat a single spirit art as its clan-suppressing treasure and an unpassed secret.

In a sense, learning one more spirit art was equivalent to gaining one more Gu insect slot. Its strategic value went without saying.

Long Xuan already had countless wild ideas about how to create spirit arts from scratch, and he had also drafted a preliminary plan in his mind for designing mutated spiritual power for his cultivation method.

For example, anime from his previous life had mentioned that the fusion of multiple attributes could form a Bloodline Limit. Could spiritual power likewise form mutated spiritual power through the fusion of multiple attributes?

He did not know how mutated spiritual power was formed in this world, but he felt it was entirely possible to research mutated spiritual power through the fusion of multiple types of spiritual power.

Yet although his mind was now bursting with ideas and countless miraculous concepts, he had no idea where to begin. He did not even know what the first word should be. He had no clue at all.

Ideas alone were not enough. He also had to know how to put them into practice. Anyone could indulge in empty fantasies, but when it came to the specifics, he was completely at a loss.

Creating a cultivation method was different from creating a Gu formula. Creating Gu formulas involved a great deal of luck; one could simply guess, and as long as one worked one's liver to the breaking point, one would eventually produce something.

A cultivation method, however, could never be created through luck alone. One had to read ten thousand books, understand many things, and learn many things.

Long Xuan was merely a small Rogue Cultivator who had never even seen a cultivation method. He had not even figured out the fundamentals, so how could he possibly possess the ability to create one from scratch?

To create a cultivation method, he had to draw upon a great number of existing methods. Shutting himself in a room and building a cart behind closed doors would never produce a good cultivation method. Even working his liver to the breaking point would be useless.

Thus, Long Xuan was stumped. In this world, people cherished their brooms as if they were treasures. How could cultivation methods be something he could easily obtain?

Cultivation methods did occasionally appear on the street stalls of Rogue Cultivators, but none of them displayed progress.

That meant those cultivation methods were riddled with errors and loopholes. His golden finger had not even recognized them as cultivation methods. How could he dare use such junk as reference?

So Long Xuan sat there for ages, trying to create a cultivation method, yet failed to squeeze out even a single word. He was stuck on the very first word, as though suffering writer's block, and he was nearly worried into growing white hair.

Finally, inspiration flashed through his mind. He thought of the illusion technique he had never once used: Origin Realm.

His first thought was whether he could cast the illusion technique on someone and deceive them into revealing their cultivation method.

But then he recalled that Origin Realm perfectly replicated scenes from the real world into an illusion. Everything within the illusion was exactly the same as reality, and those trapped within could not discover they had fallen under an illusion by finding differences from the real world. At that moment, Long Xuan had another idea.

The more deeply he considered the characteristics of this illusion technique, the more he felt that it was far from simple. How could an illusion produced by an Eye Gu so expensive to create possibly be ordinary?

Come to think of it, he had forgotten to deeply develop Origin Realm. On the surface, Origin Realm seemed to be merely a perfect illusion that left its victims unable to find any flaw. But once he let his imagination run wild, he increasingly felt that this illusion technique could be developed into many more abilities.

For example, illusion techniques were normally used on enemies. But could he think outside the box, break convention, and use an illusion technique on himself instead? Long Xuan felt as though casting an illusion on himself had opened the door to a new world.

What if he placed himself within the library of a great power? Since the illusion was one hundred percent real, would the books within it also be real? Could he freeload and read them within the illusion while the guardians of the real library remained completely unaware?

Long Xuan sucked in a cold breath. He felt as though he had found a bug. Could an ability that allowed him to effortlessly steal the unpassed secrets of great powers truly exist?

Did the Heavenly Dao know that this ability could be used this way?

Had it overlooked something again...