Cultivation Arts Instruction

"Huo Yuhao! You can't kill me!!"

Dai Huabin clutched the healing wound in his chest, looking like a madman. The Soul Ring beneath his feet lit up, and he lunged forward in a blur of dark gold, his claws shrieking as they tore through the air.

The corner of Huo Yuhao's eye twitched sharply.

Watching Dai Huabin's wounds close no matter how hard he was hit, Huo Yuhao suddenly saw the shadow of a certain Stellaron Hunter...

Even Dan Heng flashed through his mind.

Ridiculous. This was too ridiculous.

"Whew..." He let out a long breath and set his fingers on the bowstring again, without a trace of panic on his face.

One thing was certain now: Yaoshi, the Aeon of Abundance, had indeed cast a glance at Dai Huabin. His body had gained formidable regenerative power, but his mind had not improved at all. He was still the same fool, his head clouded by spite.

When it came to mental power, Huo Yuhao could grind Dai Huabin into the floor.

The only trouble was that death-defying body, clinging on like a stubborn plaster. Huo Yuhao had the means to kill Dai Huabin, but now was not the time.

Killing a fellow student in full view of everyone at Shrek Academy would cause enough trouble on its own.

"Listen to me. You're already... unconscious."

Golden light flared in Huo Yuhao's eyes. He focused the full force of his Divine Ability, Illusory Sea Dream, into a single point and drove it straight into Dai Huabin's Sea of Consciousness through their locked gazes.

This was a single-target mental control technique he had extracted from Illusory Sea Dream. He called it Word Spirit Art!

With mental power as its guide and speech as its incantation, it issued a direct command to the target's consciousness.

"I'm... unconscious... I..."

Dai Huabin had just reached Huo Yuhao when his raised tiger claw froze in midair. His green-gold pupils instantly lost focus, his gaze turning dull and vacant. He muttered to himself and swayed, on the verge of collapsing.

"Down you go."

Huo Yuhao lifted his foot and kicked Dai Huabin squarely in the chest.

Bang! The level-forty-three Soul Ancestor flew straight off the Soul Fighting platform like a torn sack and slammed into the floor in front of the stands.

There was no helping it. Dai Huabin was hard to kill, and even if Huo Yuhao could kill him, he could not do it now. Kicking him off the platform would have to do.

"Huo Yuhao!!!"

The instant he landed, Dai Huabin jolted awake. Dust covered his face, and his venomous glare looked ready to bleed.

He had barely started to get up and charge back onto the platform when the referee reached out to stop him.

"Dai Huabin, you've fallen out of the ring. Huo Yuhao wins." The referee's voice was grave; clearly, Dai Huabin's bizarre healing ability had startled him too.

Silver-blue starlight flashed across Huo Yuhao's body as his Martial Soul Possession slowly faded. His dazzling white hair turned black again, and the holy radiance and battle suit vanished. Once more, he looked like the gentle young man he usually was.

But the gaze he turned on Dai Huabin below the platform was cold and calm, with a trace of killing intent still lurking beneath it.

"We'll settle our score bit by bit."

Leaving those words behind, he leaped down from the Soul Fighting platform and walked toward Ning Tian and Gu Yue, who were waiting at the exit.

For now, the priority was to warn the Lionheart Club members and find a way to deal with Dai Huabin, an Abomination of Abundance.

"Yuhao, what exactly happened to Dai Huabin's Martial Soul? That was too strange." On the way, Ning Tian could not help asking.

A week ago, Cao Jinxuan had been beating him down. Now he was a Soul Ancestor who seemed impossible to kill. Anyone would have questions.

"Nothing strange about it. Like me, he caught the eye of a supreme being." Huo Yuhao gave her a vague answer.

It was not exactly a lie. The Hunt and Abundance were both supreme Aeons. Which way Ning Tian took it was up to her.

"A supreme being..." Ning Tian repeated softly, lost in thought.

Gu Yue, beside them, gave Huo Yuhao a long look. Understanding flickered through her violet eyes, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.

She could sense the ancient power in Huo Yuhao, a power that did not belong to Douluo's system. She simply never asked about it.

Lionheart Club Headquarters, private Medical Room.

Huo Yuhao had specifically arranged for it to be built. He had already seen how absurdly lacking Shrek Academy's medical resources were. The vast outer academy did not even have a proper medical department; a handful of healing-type Soul Masters handled everything.

So he had set up a Medical Room within the club and found a promising recruit.

Ye Qingwu possessed the Nine-Star Begonia Martial Soul and was a gifted healer. A little girl with shoulder-length blue hair and cool, reserved eyes, she rarely spoke, but her medical skills were remarkably solid.

Incidentally, Zhou Sichen had recently been throwing all his energy into pursuing her, running to the Medical Room every day. Everyone in the leadership knew what he was up to.

Huo Yuhao had only one thing to say about that: That's you, all right, lolicon. First to the moon because you live by the water, huh?

"Qingwu, how are the injured members?" Huo Yuhao asked as he entered the Medical Room and saw the blue-haired girl changing a patient's bandages.

"Boss." Ye Qingwu looked up, a hint of respect in her cool voice. "They've all been treated. Their bones are back in place. They'll recover after half a month's rest, with no lasting damage."

"Thanks for the effort." Huo Yuhao nodded, took three small jade bottles from his Storage Soul Tool, and handed them over. "These are Qi-Blood Pills I refined. They quickly replenish qi and blood, ease cultivation fatigue, and strengthen muscles and meridians. There are no side effects. Give one to each of the injured members."

Ye Qingwu accepted a bottle, tipped a reddish-brown pill into her hand, and held it beneath her nose. Surprise immediately crossed her face.

Pills were not unknown on the Douluo Continent. The Sun Moon Empire even had a well-developed pill-making tradition. But most pills had side effects and left medicinal toxins behind. Those without side effects, such as the Mystic Water Pill and Black Tortoise Divine Pill, were priceless treasures.

Yet the Qi-Blood Pill Huo Yuhao had given her had a gentle, pure medicinal power. Even smelling it made her feel a faint stirring in her blood. There was clearly not a trace of medicinal toxin in it.

"Boss, where did you get this pill?" Ye Qingwu could not help asking. "Even my family can't make a Qi-Blood Pill of this grade with zero side effects. This one's at least three times as effective."

"I refined it myself." Huo Yuhao paused, bewildered.

He had thought it was a crude beginner's pill. He had blown up the furnace more than a dozen times before producing a finished batch. And it was better than the Nine-Star Begonia Family's pills?

Just how far behind was pill-making on the Douluo Continent...?

He fell silent for two seconds, then smiled at the girl's shining eyes. "Want to learn? I'll teach you when I have time."

"Really? Thank you, Boss!" A small smile finally appeared on Ye Qingwu's cool face, like the first thaw of snow.

Huo Yuhao turned to Ning Tian and handed her another jade bottle. "Ning Tian, Gu Yue, tell everyone to gather in the meeting room. This is Foundation-Building Spiritual Liquid. Hand it out to the core members later. It's quite effective for aiding cultivation."

He needed to use the trouble Dai Huabin had caused as a chance to raise the core members' strength across the board. The Aeon of Abundance had appeared. Cultivating at their usual measured pace would be far too slow.

"Okay." Ning Tian accepted the bottle.

The Lionheart Club meeting room.

The eleven core members sat in neat rows. Seeing Huo Yuhao's solemn expression at the head of the room, they all realized that what he had to say today was no small matter.

"I called you here for one reason: I'm going to teach you two cultivation arts," Huo Yuhao said steadily. "But before I do, you must swear on your own Martial Souls that you'll cultivate these arts yourselves, never pass them on, and never use them to do evil."

The meeting room fell silent at once.

Everyone's expression tightened.

A Martial Soul Oath was the harshest vow on the Douluo Continent.

Breaking it could, at best, destroy one's cultivation and halt all future progress. At worst, one's Martial Soul would shatter, leaving one an ordinary person. There was no escaping the consequences.

"I won't force anyone. If you don't want to do this, you can leave now. I won't object."

"I, Ning Tian, swear on my Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda Martial Soul: I will never pass on these cultivation arts or use their power for evil. If I break this oath, may my Martial Soul shatter and may I never advance again!"

Ning Tian was the first to stand. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda lit up in her palm, and the golden glow of the oath circled her body. She had not hesitated for an instant.

She trusted Huo Yuhao without reservation.

With her leading the way, the others set aside their hesitation.

Cao Jinxuan, Wu Feng, Xie Huanyue... All eleven stood in turn and swore their Martial Soul Oaths. They might not yet know the value of the cultivation arts, but they trusted Huo Yuhao's character. They trusted that he would not harm them.

The oaths were sealed, and the glow settled.

Only then did Huo Yuhao slowly begin. "There are two cultivation arts. Both are foundational methods, but remember this: they're unlike any meditation technique you've encountered."

"The first is the Qi-Absorbing Formula. Using a specific rhythm of breathing, it draws Spiritual Aura from heaven and earth into the body, settles it in the dantian, and tempers your foundation. What it gathers isn't intangible Soul Power, but Spiritual Power: denser and purer. At the same level, its quality and staying power are several times greater than Soul Power's."

"The second is the Body-Tempering Art. It's designed to temper the body, repeatedly washing Spiritual Aura through the muscles, bones, skin, and flesh to forge a solid foundation. The stronger your body, the greater the age of the Soul Ring it can withstand."

Cao Jinxuan and the others exchanged puzzled looks.

Breathing methods and body-tempering techniques existed on the Douluo Continent. Noble families even had secret arts of their own, such as the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect's Heart Separation Control and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon family's Dragon Transformation technique from ten thousand years ago.

But from the way Huo Yuhao described them, these two cultivation arts seemed completely different from anything they knew.

Huo Yuhao saw their confusion and smiled, offering no further explanation.

Words would do no good. Putting it into practice was worth a thousand of them.

"Sit cross-legged and follow my guidance. Try the Qi-Absorbing Formula first. Once you've tried it, you'll understand."

He pointed a finger, sending a gentle wave of Spiritual Power through the room. It slowly traveled along everyone's meridians, guiding their breathing according to the Qi-Absorbing Formula.

A moment later, everyone's expression changed.

The Spiritual Aura of heaven and earth, normally so placid, surged into their bodies with each breath like a rising tide. It became cool, silken threads of energy that settled in their dantians. Their cultivation efficiency had more than tripled!

When they looked at Huo Yuhao again, the confusion in their eyes had turned to shock.

At last, they understood why they had needed to swear Martial Soul Oaths.

These were no ordinary cultivation arts. They were divine foundational methods capable of overturning the entire Douluo cultivation system!

----Bonus Chapter----

According to the Lionheart Archives and the History of the Cultivation Arts Pavilion, these cultivation arts began with Heavenly Sovereign Huo Yuhao. Later creators of cultivation arts therefore called him the "Ancestor of All Arts." Yet his first works, the Body-Tempering Art and the Qi-Absorbing Formula, were the most basic cultivation arts of the Douluo Xianzhou Empire: the opening works in the creation of cultivation arts.

----Douluo Xianzhou Empire · Cultivation Arts Pavilion · Pavilion Keeper: Mu En

P.S. Speak up, everyone!