Closed-Door Cultivation (See Illustration)

Time flew by, and another year slipped away.

Over that year, whenever Long Xuan had free time, he would come stay at the inn across from the Qian Clan's Treasure Pavilion.

Then he would use the Origin Realm's illusion technique to copy the entire Treasure Pavilion into an illusion, cast the technique on himself, and enter the illusion to learn every cultivation method within the pavilion.

He had even inadvertently stolen the Qian Clan's clan-defining cultivation method. It had all been so easy that even he found it unbelievable.

Because his Ten Extremity Physique was special and could not cultivate other methods, he could only gather the strengths of a hundred schools and create a cultivation method unique to himself.

This creation process alone took him an entire year, and even then, he had only studied the surface.

Creating a cultivation method was naturally no simple matter. It took a long time and could never be completed in a short while.

Only because mistakes vanished from the paper whenever Long Xuan wrote them down did he have no cost for trial and error. If anyone else had tried to create one, they could exhaust an entire lifetime and still fail to grasp even the surface—especially for a cultivation method suited to the Ten Extremity Physique, the most difficult kind to devise.

This also narrowed Long Xuan's creative scope. It was a self-created method with a set subject. He directly named it the "Ten Absolutes Scripture," limiting the scope while sending the difficulty soaring without end.

Fortunately, his cheat could point out errors, and he could enter the illusion to conduct human experiments. Even if the experiments left him bleeding from all seven orifices, his body in reality would not suffer the slightest effect.

Anything that could not be accomplished in the illusion certainly could not be accomplished in reality. If something worked in the illusion, then copying it into reality would absolutely work as well.

It was precisely through the combined effects of the illusion and his cheat that Long Xuan managed to create a cultivation method suited to the Ten Extremity Physique. Otherwise, no matter how wild his imagination, he could never have succeeded.

Long Xuan had read too many cultivation novels in his past life and believed in the theory of the Five Elements' mutual generation and mutual restraint. The Five Elements theory had three cycles.

The mutual restraint cycle: fire melted metal, earth blocked water, metal severed wood, water extinguished fire, and wood restrained earth.

The mutual reversal cycle: fire burned wood, wood absorbed water, water eroded metal, metal stirred earth, and earth subdued fire.

The mutual generation cycle: water generated wood, wood generated fire, fire generated earth, earth generated metal, and metal generated water.

Thus, based on this theory, he created a Five-Element Cultivation Method.

The attributes of this body happened to encompass all five elements. In his view, the path of the Five Elements cycle was the most suitable for this body.

Such an idea could absolutely be called a rebellious path in this world.

Like the cultivation novels from his past life, this world also emphasized the pure-path approach.

The more singular one's attribute, the better. Having only one attribute made one a heaven-grade genius, and cultivating a single attribute was extremely fast. The cultivation methods of this world were all single-attribute methods.

Yet Long Xuan deliberately went against convention and created this mixed-attribute cultivation method that was utterly out of place in this world.

The great Five Elements cycle truly possessed astonishing power. Once the five elements formed a cycle, its power was far more than simply adding five ones together.

The Ten Extremity Physique's Spiritual Sea was as solid as a rock, which made breakthroughs exceedingly difficult. Long Xuan intended to use the powerful impact generated by the Five Elements cycle to batter that rock apart and resolve this drawback.

Therefore, the Five Elements concept was indeed suited to cultivation by the Ten Extremity Physique. It was through this concept that he could be said to have successfully created a cultivation method suitable for the Ten Extremity Physique.

Although he had only created the bare surface so far, with the cultivation method's progress at merely 3%, all things were difficult at the beginning. Once he endured the beginning, everything afterward would be smooth sailing.

After forming the concept, he had to complete the three essential elements of a cultivation method. Not one of the three elements of a powerful cultivation method could be missing.

The first step, the circulation route of spiritual power, could be directly borrowed and adapted. It could be painstakingly worked out. Granting spiritual power attributes, however, added some difficulty for him.

The spiritual power attributes he wanted were not the basic attributes of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Since he was creating a cultivation method, he had to create the best one. Otherwise, he would not create one at all.

He had long thought through the ideas for mutated spiritual power. Every day, he entered the illusion to conduct all kinds of spiritual power fusion experiments, often leaving himself with shattered meridians and blood flowing from all seven orifices. There were even several times when he had teetered on the brink of death.

Basically, every time he entered the illusion, he would leave himself crippled. But because his experiences in the illusion were unreal and his body in reality would not be affected, he did not fear the consequences of experimental failure at all.

Under such insane experimentation, how could he possibly fail to develop mutated spiritual power? His success had become inevitable.

Wood generated fire. The more wood there was, the fiercer the fire became. Because of wood, fire transformed into powerful fire. Long Xuan called this powerful fire "blazing," and thus Blazing Spiritual Power, formed from the fusion of fire and wood, was born through his mad research.

By the same logic.

Fire generated earth. When fire and earth merged, they could form powerful earth. Thus Jade Spiritual Power, as he named it, was born.

Earth generated metal. When earth and metal merged, they could form powerful metal. Thus Tri-Metal Spiritual Power, as he named it, was born.

Metal generated water. When metal and water merged, they could form powerful water. Thus Twin-Water Spiritual Power, as he named it, was born.

Water generated wood. When water and wood merged, they could form powerful wood. Thus Forest Spiritual Power, as he named it, was born.

Therefore, what cycled through his Five Elements were not metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, but Tri-Metal, Forest, Twin-Water, Blazing, and Jade.

He did not know exactly how strong the mutated spiritual power he had developed was, nor how it compared to other mutated spiritual powers, but his mutated spiritual power could grow even stronger.

This was only the fusion of two attributes. He had already devised the outline for the entire cultivation method.

The first layer of the cultivation method fused two attributes to cultivate Tri-Metal Spiritual Power, Forest Spiritual Power, Twin-Water Spiritual Power, Blazing Spiritual Power, and Jade Spiritual Power.

The second layer of the cultivation method fused three attributes to cultivate Golden Spiritual Power, Deep-Forest Spiritual Power, Triple-Water Spiritual Power, Flame Spiritual Power, and Mountain-Earth Spiritual Power.

The third layer of the cultivation method fused four attributes to cultivate spiritual power, spiritual power, spiritual power, Fury-Flame Spiritual Power, and spiritual power.

It was not that he did not want to achieve it all in one step. On one hand, his strength did not permit it; for now, he simply could not research it.

On the other hand, a novice who had only just begun cultivating could not possibly start by cultivating the most supreme cultivation method in this world.

There were many reasons for this.

The greatest reason was that the Spiritual Sea could not be opened in the early stages.

For Gu cultivators, the Spirit Gathering Stage was for accumulating spiritual power. The Marrow Cleansing Stage was for cleansing the marrow, reforging the bones, and laying a firm foundation. Only the Spiritual Sea Stage was for opening the Spiritual Sea.

As for the Spirit Severing Stage, its purpose was to strengthen the soul until it could accomplish soul separation. The soul was incorporeal and could ignore the vast majority of attacks.

Thus, even if a Spirit Severing Stage Gu cultivator had his physical body destroyed, he could let his soul escape and flee with ease. Experts of this realm were extremely difficult to kill. Even after their bodies were destroyed, they might have a chance to start over through possession. Of course, for various reasons, every person only had one opportunity for rebirth through possession.

Therefore, a Gu cultivator could only open a Spiritual Sea upon reaching the third realm. Before possessing a Spiritual Sea, all spiritual power was stored within the body's meridians, and fragile meridians simply could not withstand excessively violent spiritual power.

Moreover, even after reaching the Spiritual Sea Stage, every person's Spiritual Sea differed. Not every Spiritual Sea could easily contain top-tier mutated spiritual power.

The highest-grade cultivation methods were destined not to be cultivable by everyone. The most powerful cultivation methods would forever be held in the hands of a small number of people. This was the difference between geniuses and mediocrities.

Otherwise, where would the Ten Extremity Physique's advantage lie? The Ten Extremity Physique was powerful because its Spiritual Sea was as solid as a rock and could bear any violent power.

If others cultivated his five mutated spiritual powers—Tri-Metal, Forest, Twin-Water, Blazing, and Jade—their Spiritual Seas would explode from the strain, much less containing all five at once.

Only the powerful Ten Extremity Physique could contain all five kinds of spiritual power.

Only someone inhuman could create such a suicidal cultivation method.