Sky-Net Canopy, Four Symbols Guardians

(I recently started a new book, and quite a few fellow cultivators have sent tips. I've been saving up my thanks, but thanking everyone at once here would run too long and be tedious to read. I'll put up a separate post in the related section... And when the book goes on sale, I'll release extra chapters for everyone who tipped...) Though Lü Yuanhua felt a little regretful just then, he had not given up hope.

As long as Tang Changsheng had not returned to the mountain, there was still a chance he might turn around and join the Primordial Yang Abbey...

Disciples traveling beyond the mountain had yet to be formally admitted, after all. Switching to another sect was hardly a serious matter!

For now, Lü Yuanhua needed to find a way to draw Tang Changsheng closer.

He smiled. "That's right. I had Chengying prepare a Quiet Room for you. You can cultivate there from now on without worrying about outside demons disturbing you!"

Tang Changsheng froze, then felt rather moved. Preparing a Quiet Room like that was no simple matter. Keeping outside demons from invading during cultivation came at a tremendous cost!

Tang Changsheng could not help feeling touched.

Only then did Lü Yuanhua smile in satisfaction and have Xin Chengying take Tang Changsheng to see whether the Quiet Room suited him.

A Sky-Net Canopy had been arranged inside, along with Four Symbols Guardians. A great deal of work had clearly gone into it. Though it could not compare with the Quiet Room at the General's Temple, it was still quite good!

"Fellow Daoist Liu, please use it without hesitation. I have another place for secluded cultivation, so this room will be yours alone. Someone will bring you food, water, pills, and anything else you need each day!"

Tang Changsheng thanked him again. "I'm most grateful!"

He had no idea how green with envy the Daoists of the outer courtyard would be when word spread that he had a Quiet Room all to himself!

As the General's Temple's sole successor and sect master, Tang Changsheng had all the resources it had accumulated over centuries to himself. To him, it seemed only natural.

He had no idea that, in this world, even a first-rate sect would not give a single disciple a Quiet Room of his own.

The Primordial Yang Abbey's treatment of him was almost on par with that of a personal disciple!

In short, the envy and resentment toward Tang Changsheng that had eased somewhat after the last incident now swelled wildly again.

By then, Tang Changsheng had already entered the Quiet Room and begun his secluded cultivation.

Lighting the Heavenly Heart was the most crucial step in beginning cultivation. But the light would not last on its own!

A common oil lamp needed oil. Even an electric lamp needed a power source...

So merely igniting the Heavenly Heart was not enough.

It was like burning a lamp's wick without any oil. It simply could not last.

Someone without proper cultivation might chance to light that lamp, but could not keep it burning for long.

A cultivator like Tang Changsheng was different. Though he had spent more than ten years cultivating without managing to light his Heavenly Heart, he had stored up plenty of lamp oil within his body...

He sat quietly and breathed slowly.

With his Heavenly Heart lit, he could see five-colored light within his organs. The red light of his heart and the black light of his kidneys were particularly strong. Faintly, he could even make out a jewel hidden within each.

These are the Sun-Moon Jewels formed from the Three Lights of the Sun and Moon I've gathered over more than ten years of cultivation...

The thought drifted through Tang Changsheng's mind as gently as flowing water, raising not a speck of dust. The light of his Heavenly Heart did not go out.

He circulated his technique. The white light in his heart and the black light in his kidneys turned toward each other, descended into his dantian, and joined, giving off a bright yet gentle glow.

It flowed like quicksilver, slowly rising along his Governing Vessel until it reached the Sea of Consciousness between his brows.

As the light poured in, his Heavenly Heart was like an oil lamp receiving fresh oil.

Its flame burned ever more steadily. A faint smile appeared on Tang Changsheng's face!

Since climbing the mountain to cultivate at the age of seven, he had practiced Solar Body-Washing and Taiyin Body Refinement every day without fail, gathering the light of the Essence of the Sun and Moon and condensing it into a Sun-Moon Jewel deep in his dantian.

Before his Heavenly Heart was lit, all he had been able to feel was a cool warmth that often lingered in his lower abdomen.

Only when his Heavenly Heart shone down into his dantian could he see that more than a decade of hard cultivation had not been fruitless. It had formed this jewel there.

The essence of sunlight and moonlight Tang Changsheng had gathered through more than a decade of arduous cultivation now served as fuel for his Heavenly Heart. He had more than enough.

Tang Changsheng held that state until he lost all sense of time passing.

Yet simple as this step appeared, it was fraught with danger.

When the Heavenly Heart was first lit, one was most vulnerable to the Demon Spirits wandering the world.

At that moment, a cultivator's Heavenly Heart lay exposed and was at its most fragile.

That was why any properly trained cultivator knew to have someone stand guard, or to arrange magical artifacts in a Quiet Room to drive demons away.

The Quiet Room at the General's Temple had been built entirely from century-old Peach Heartwood, procured by the temple's forebears at enormous expense.

Peachwood was also called Dragon-Subduing Wood and Ghost-Fearing Wood. It was an important material for magical artifacts, capable of warding off evil.

And century-old Peach Heartwood was rarer still!

An ordinary peach tree lived only twenty or thirty years. For one to reach a hundred was difficult enough, let alone yield much Peach Heartwood...

That alone showed how much effort the General's Temple had spent preparing its Quiet Room!

One could cultivate in the General's Temple's Quiet Room without any fear of an outside demon breaking in and disrupting the process.

The Primordial Yang Abbey's Quiet Room was excellently prepared too, but it fell far short of the one the General's Temple had built from century-old Peach Heartwood over its centuries of history.

For all its grandeur and wealth, the Primordial Yang Abbey was still a newcomer, with nowhere near the same depth of resources.

Then, for reasons Tang Changsheng could not explain, something stirred in his heart. The light of his Heavenly Heart shone faintly outward, and he sensed a pale glow bathing his entire body.

A Sky-Net Canopy had been arranged directly above his head.

Talismans had been drawn in cinnabar on the Yellow Cloth, along with patterns of the Eight Trigrams and the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions.

It hung over Tang Changsheng, giving off a faint light that enveloped him completely.

On the walls before and behind him, and to his left and right, were images of the Four Symbols carved from Green Jade, guarding each direction. Their shadows seemed to stir and swim.

Together, they formed a complete defense around Tang Changsheng. Ordinary Demon Spirits could not penetrate the light.

An ordinary person entering the room would not have seen that glow. Only now, with his Heavenly Heart shining faintly outward, could Tang Changsheng see it clearly.

Unlike turning his gaze inward to nourish the light of his Heavenly Heart, shining it outward consumed that light with every passing moment.