Cultivation Methods, Dual Metal and Lightning Attributes!

That night, after seeing Xiao Yan off.

Zhou Changqing locked the front door and hurried back to his bedroom.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he took the two cultivation scrolls from his robes and placed them before him.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

As he gazed at the two jade scrolls, one gold and one silver, Zhou Changqing's eyes burned with desire, and his excitement was almost impossible to contain.

Although he had acted quite composed in front of Xiao Yan earlier, he could not calm himself down now.

Only someone who lived in this world, had been born into a commoner's family, and had tasted the hardships of life at the bottom could understand how precious these cultivation methods were, despite seeming a dime a dozen in the novel!

How many ordinary people had risked everything for a single scroll containing even the lowest-grade cultivation method, only to lose their lives?

There were far too many such examples!

His adoptive parents had been one of them!

Fifteen years ago, Zhou Cai, whose family had worked as blacksmiths for generations, and his wife, Yu Li, had found a baby outside their door on a night filled with lightning and thunder.

For the childless couple, both over fifty, this was a child sent to them by heaven.

And so the kindhearted couple adopted the baby who had fallen from the sky and named him Zhou Changqing.

The name expressed their wish that he would remain evergreen throughout his life, free from calamity and illness.

His adoptive parents treated him as their own flesh and blood, wishing they could give him every good thing in the world.

Having lived two lives, Zhou Changqing was also well-behaved and never gave his adoptive parents cause to worry, which only made them cherish him more.

And so, under their care, Zhou Changqing grew day by day.

Until disaster struck when he was nine.

To obtain a better cultivation method that also suited Zhou Changqing's attributes.

His adoptive parents, who could have enjoyed their twilight years in peace, suddenly joined a mercenary company and entered the Magical Beast Mountain Range to hunt magical beasts and quickly save up money.

Both were Dou Zhe. His adoptive father, Zhou Cai, was a Five-Star Dou Zhe, while his adoptive mother, Yu Li, was a Two-Star Dou Zhe.

Although neither was particularly powerful, they were still considered average among ordinary mercenaries.

But being a mercenary was hardly easy. A single careless moment could leave someone dead in a magical beast's jaws.

Zhou Changqing had known nothing about this at the time, until one day a mercenary came to his home and delivered some terrible news.

His adoptive parents had encountered two third-rank magical beasts fighting in the Magical Beast Mountain Range. They had been caught in the battle and killed on the spot, with not even their bones left behind.

When Zhou Changqing heard the devastating news, he fainted on the spot.

Afterward, he remained despondent for more than half a year.

If his adoptive parents had not left some savings behind, he probably would have starved to death.

From then on, Zhou Changqing had been an orphan, living alone in Wutan City right up to the present.

At the thought, Zhou Changqing's eyes reddened despite himself, a faint glimmer of tears shining in them.

After steadying his emotions, Zhou Changqing's gaze turned resolute.

"Rest assured. I'll avenge you both, even if I have to turn the entire Magical Beast Mountain Range upside down!"

Without further delay, Zhou Changqing picked up the silver scroll before him and began reading.

This cultivation method was called the Dormant Thunder Method.

The Dormant Thunder Method was a Yellow Tier High Grade lightning-attribute cultivation method. As its name suggested, the Dou Qi cultivated through it resembled a lurking beast, held in check during ordinary times, but once battle began, it surged like racing thunder, swift and unmatched!

Moreover, the lightning attribute Dou Qi converted through this method was considerable in both quantity and quality. Although it fell short of the Black Tier, it was among the finest in the Yellow Tier.

Thanks to the powerful soul he possessed from living two lives, Zhou Changqing soon committed the entire method to memory.

Then Zhou Changqing opened the final cultivation scroll, the gold one.

Steel-Condensing Force was a Yellow Tier High Grade metal-attribute cultivation method. When cultivated, it made one's Dou Qi resemble Hundred-Forged Fine Steel, granting exceptionally powerful offense and defense.

This method was likewise among the finest in the Yellow Tier, and the quantity and quality of its Dou Qi were no less than those of the Dormant Thunder Method.

"Whew..."

After memorizing both cultivation methods, Zhou Changqing let out a long breath. There was not a trace of fatigue in his eyes; instead, he was itching to begin.

Whatever else might be said, these two methods would probably cost at least two hundred thousand Gold Coins on the open market. (Don't get hung up on the price. Chapter 371 of the original novel mentions the price of Yellow Tier High Grade cultivation methods.)

That was comparable to two years of the Xiao Clan's net profits!

It showed that Xiao Yan truly regarded him as a brother.

Even Xiao Yan's own father, Xiao Zhan, did not receive such treatment.

Granted, that was partly because Xiao Zhan did not need them, the Xiao Clan already had a Black Tier Mid Grade cultivation method, Xiao Yan did not want to expose Yao Lao, and the Xiao Clan could not safely hold on to an Earth Tier Cultivation Method.

He carefully put away the two scrolls.

Zhou Changqing returned to the bed and sat cross-legged, closing his eyes and concentrating as his awareness steadily sank toward the dantian in his lower abdomen.

Inside his dantian, a palm-sized milky-white Dou Qi Vortex slowly revolved, surrounded by a layer of milky-white gaseous energy resembling a nebula.

As the information from the Dormant Thunder Method surfaced in his mind, Zhou Changqing began using his awareness to guide the Dou Qi within the Dou Qi Vortex.

A stream of milky-white Dou Qi was drawn out of the Dou Qi Vortex, passed from his dantian into his meridians, and began circulating along a particular route.

As it continued circulating, the white Dou Qi gradually turned silver before returning to the Dou Qi Vortex.

As a fellow transmigrator who had also lived two lives, Zhou Changqing naturally possessed considerable talent. In fact, his talent could even be said to surpass Xiao Yan's.

He had begun training his Qi at four and reached the Ninth Stage of Dou Qi shortly after turning nine.

That same year, without the aid of any Pills or treasures, he had compressed his Dou Qi into a Dou Qi Vortex by himself and advanced to Dou Zhe.

A nine-year-old Dou Zhe!

Two years earlier than even Xiao Yan!

One could easily imagine how shocked Zhou Changqing's adoptive parents had been!

Furthermore, perhaps because he had lived two lives, or perhaps because of the thunderbolt from a clear sky that had caused his transmigration, Zhou Changqing possessed the rare dual attributes of metal and lightning.

The value of having dual attributes in Battle Through the Heavens needed no explanation.

After all, the most prestigious profession on the Dou Qi Continent—Alchemist—required dual attributes: fire with a trace of wood mixed into it.

But once Zhou Changqing's attributes had been tested, his adoptive parents found themselves in a bind.

One of them had the earth attribute, and the other had the water attribute. Neither of their cultivation methods suited Zhou Changqing.

Having witnessed Zhou Changqing's talent firsthand, his adoptive parents naturally did not want it to go to waste.

It was precisely for this reason that they had decided to risk hunting magical beasts, earning money to buy him suitable cultivation methods.

Who could have imagined that once they left, they would never return?

And because he had no cultivation method, Zhou Changqing had remained stuck at the very threshold of Dou Zhe for six whole years!

As a result, he still could not even be considered a One-Star Dou Zhe!

Since this was his first time converting his Dou Qi, Zhou Changqing soon transformed half of the Dou Qi Vortex within him into the lightning attribute.

Then he began cultivating Steel-Condensing Force.

A little over two hours later.

The Dou Qi Vortex within Zhou Changqing's dantian had undergone a tremendous change.

The Dou Qi Vortex was no longer milky white, but gold and silver, resembling a taiji diagram, the two colors sharply divided yet blending into one another!

The nebula surrounding the Dou Qi Vortex looked all the more dazzling and wondrous against those two colors!

"Thanks for the big gift package, my buddy Flame Emperor! Otherwise, who knows how long I'd have had to wait to take this step!"

As he examined his Dou Qi Vortex internally, Zhou Changqing grew happier the longer he looked, and his face was covered in smiles.

The bottleneck that had trapped him for six years had finally broken today. How could he not be happy?

Not jumping up and roaring with laughter already showed considerable restraint.

Only after a full hour or so of excitement did Zhou Changqing gradually calm down.

Examining the Dou Qi Vortex in his dantian once more, his eyes flickered, and he murmured to himself:

"Now that I've successfully switched cultivation methods, it's time to test those ideas I had before. If they work, perhaps I can forge a different path..."

It's fine if some readers don't read carefully, but could you please not come charging in, running your mouths and accusing me of sucking up to Xiao Yan?

I already said that the protagonist's adoptive parents became mercenaries to get him better cultivation methods, then died on their very first hunt. And you still ask why they didn't sell their own methods for Yellow Tier Low Grade ones? Are you sick in the head? Do you understand what "better cultivation methods" means? Can you trade two low-grade methods for a mid-grade one?

And why didn't they first exchange them for two Yellow Tier Low Grade methods with suitable attributes, then buy better ones and switch over once they had the money?

Please, the protagonist was only nine then. What decisions could he make? He didn't even know his adoptive parents had become mercenaries, okay? By the time he found out, they were already dead, okay?

And who decided cultivation methods must come on scrolls? Can't an ancestral method be memorized? Is there anything wrong with not immediately teaching it to the protagonist so he wouldn't get impatient and cultivate an unsuitable method? Were his adoptive parents immortals who knew they would die on their first outing as mercenaries?

And who said a Dou Zhe must have a Dou Technique? Even their cultivation methods were inherited. Could his adoptive parents afford Dou Techniques? A single Yellow Tier Low Grade Dou Technique costs at least a thousand Gold Coins, okay?

Why didn't they have ancestral Dou Techniques? Their family had already burned through generations of savings just buying cultivation methods, okay?

As for why he didn't go to Jia Nan Academy, that will be explained when the story gets to Jia Nan Academy, okay?

And this is Battle Through the Heavens, not Douluo! If you want to see Xiao Yan tortured, please delete this book! You're brimming with hostility every single day. What, stealing the heroines isn't enough? You won't be happy unless Xiao Yan gets killed too?

(End of chapter)