Qingling Grass Bead

The Qingling Immortal Herb was emerald green from tip to root, as though carved from jade rather than a living thing. It stood a little over a foot tall, with orchid-like leaves and a flower stalk rising from its center, crowned by a grass bead the size of a Long's eye.

The herb rooted deep into the rock, with no soil beneath it and not a speck of dust on its leaves, as though it had just been washed. It swayed gently in the night breeze, giving off wafts of a delicate fragrance.

Besides the grass bead at its tip, where its essence gathered, every part of the Azure Spirit Herb possessed wondrous properties. Shi Feiyang severed it at the base, flush with the ground, and took it away. The remaining roots would spread deeper into the marrow of the stone, and thirty years later, it would grow again, flowering and setting seed anew.

Returning to the lakebed, Shi Feiyang first immobilized Sikong Xuan with his core energy, then settled onto his resting stone and swallowed a grass bead.

Azure Spirit Grass was intensely cold in its medicinal nature, yet within that extreme cold, a trace of pure yang energy was nurtured. Yang within yin was true yang.

His black Long body had been born beneath the water, corresponding to the Kan trigram, and would reach completion in the nine heavens, corresponding to the Qian trigram.

The Book of Changes used Longs to illustrate the Qian hexagram. Its initial nine read, "The hidden Long: do not act." Born within the wholly yin Kun hexagram, it passed through "the Long appearing in the fields," "perhaps leaping in the abyss," and "the flying Long in the heavens" as its yang energy gradually increased, finally reaching "the overreaching Long has cause for regret." Thus it attained the pure yang of Qian, of heaven: strong and valiant, generating life without end.

The black Long's growth and cultivation matched the medicinal nature of Azure Spirit Grass perfectly!

As soon as his stomach juices dissolved the grass bead, it dispersed into a bitterly cold energy that spread throughout his body. A human taking it would only have felt waves of refreshing coolness, for humans were warm-blooded creatures with constant body temperatures. Longs, however, were cold-blooded. Flooded with this icy energy, he felt as though he had plunged into an ice cellar, his entire body frozen stiff!

Shi Feiyang's body, more than a hundred feet long, lay coiled on the resting stone without moving, like a dragon sculpture.

Next, he had to direct the medicinal power into refining an inner core, which required a choice, for he had two:

One was his true water inner core. Ever since the black Long could remember, he had instinctively scoured the waters for spiritual energy belonging to the Kan Palace and condensed it into this core. It was the foundation of his life and existence. If he lost it, death would not be far away, which was why it was also called his life-bound primal core.

The other was his divine fire inner core. Whenever the black Long shed his skin and basked in the sun, he had used his intelligence and magical power to gather true solar fire and condense it into this core. It was the crystallization of three thousand years of cultivation. If it were damaged, he would lose his cultivation and fall back into the ranks of lesser dragon-serpents, never again able to evolve into a true Long. Thus, it was also called his destiny-fulfilling primal core.

Directing the medicinal power into different inner cores would produce different consequences. What those consequences would be, and whether they would be good or bad, was something he had to judge for himself.

Shi Feiyang's knowledge of cultivation came mainly from the black Long's memories, but the black Long was a nonhuman creature who had cultivated almost entirely by instinct, without any systematic knowledge. There was also the Twenty-Eight True Scripture he had heard from Sikong Xuan during the day. Shi Feiyang felt that Sikong Xuan had interpreted it incorrectly. Many of his explanations did not match the scripture, and some even contradicted one another. Whether he had deliberately twisted its meaning or Sikong Hu had misunderstood it from the outset, Shi Feiyang had not yet had time to determine.

At this point, he instead felt that the divination principles of the Book of Changes he had studied in the past were more reliable.

Divine fire corresponded to the Li trigram, whose center was empty: yin arose within yang. True Water corresponded to the Kan trigram, whose center was full: yang arose within yin.

According to the black Long's memories, at his hundredth shedding, he would need to harmonize Kan and Li within his two primal cores, bringing water and fire into balance and finally refining them into a single Dragon Pearl. At the same time, he would have to refine the substance of his body and transform its mortal form before he could attain the body of a true Long. If he failed to form the Dragon Pearl, he would not achieve a Long's body after shedding, but become a monster that resembled a Long without truly being one. His temperament would also grow violent and deranged, even beyond his own control, until he brought about his own destruction.

According to the divination principles of the Book of Changes, harmonizing Kan and Li and achieving Water and Fire in Harmony meant that Li fire received the true yang within water to generate true yin, while Kan water received the true yin within fire to generate true yang. These two things had to entice each other and act simultaneously, yet water and fire had always been incompatible. The moment they touched, they injured each other.

The black Long had tried countless times to bring his two inner cores together and force them to merge. Not only had he failed, he had severely depleted his vital energy.

On his final attempt, sensing that his tribulation was approaching, the black Long had forcibly poured the fire energy from his divine fire inner core into his true water inner core, nearly bursting the water core. Since it was his life-bound primal core, the damage had injured his Essence Qi and Primordial Spirit as well.

Unaware of the danger, the black Long had foolishly endured it and continued drawing fire into water. At the very last moment, the water and fire energies had slipped out of control and surged backward into his brain, burning his Primordial Spirit away. Only then had Shi Feiyang crossed over and possessed his body.

Shi Feiyang first sorted out the trigram correspondences, then directed all the Qingling Grass Bead's medicinal power into his True Water primal core. The water core was cold by nature. Nourished by the medicinal power, it immediately condensed from water into ice, releasing cold energy that swept through every corner of his body like a cold tide.

Had it been the original black Long, he would certainly have used his divine fire primal core to resist under such circumstances, or at least warmed his organs with fire. That would have wasted eighty or ninety percent of the medicinal effect and damaged the fire core's vital energy as well.

Shi Feiyang concealed his divine fire primal core within his heart aperture, tightly guarding his mind and gathering all his consciousness there. He ignored everything else, keeping the fire energy drawn inward without allowing the slightest trace to escape, leaving only the True Water primal core in his dantian to absorb the medicinal power.

Every time the True Water primal core absorbed a surge of medicinal power, it completed one revolution and released a cold tide. As it absorbed more and more, its core energy grew stronger, and the cold tides it released grew fiercer, truly freezing him to the marrow. Every second was an agonizing ordeal.

Shi Feiyang forced himself to endure it, never releasing his heart fire to warm his body. He kept his mind gathered within his heart palace and treated this Long body as though it were not his own.

Whenever he was about to give in, he told himself: Wait a little longer, a little longer, a little longer... Only stir the heart fire when I truly cannot go on. I can still endure this. I am not about to freeze to death yet... Once I release the fire, all my efforts will go to waste, and my vital energy will suffer terribly... If I cannot bear even this little hardship, Wei Fengniang will hack me to pieces someday...

He endured this torment for three days. Just as he drifted into a hazy, fathomless stupor, a trace of pure yang energy finally arose within the True Water primal core! Though faint, it was forceful and domineering. It shot out of his dantian and traveled along his meridians throughout his body. Broad stretches of his frozen body warmed again, as though a spring breeze were sweeping across the earth, or boiling water were being poured over ice. Every frozen region crumbled and fell apart.

At last, this pure yang energy reached his chest and burrowed into the divine fire primal core!

The moment his heart palace received this trace of true yang energy, his consciousness jolted awake. His Primordial Spirit felt clear and luminous, his mind refreshed and his energy invigorated!

Realizing that his cultivation had succeeded, Shi Feiyang was overjoyed. This method had come neither from Long's memories nor from the Twenty-Eight True Scripture. He had devised it himself from his past studies. Though it made sense in theory, he had possessed little real confidence in it. Looking inward, he saw true yang born within the Kan Palace enter the Li Palace—precisely the configuration of harmonizing Kan and Li and bringing water and fire into balance!

As the saying went, "To learn and practice what one has learned from time to time—is that not a joy?"

Being able to use what he had learned to overcome real difficulties, and to succeed, brought a joy that was incomparably genuine and fulfilling.

He moved his head and tail, and his entire body, inside and out, felt as though tens of millions of needles were stabbing it. He activated his divine fire primal core. It began to revolve, sending out streams of heat, and within moments his whole body had warmed, all pain vanishing.

The fire core descended back into his dantian and rested beside the water core, the two spinning and winding around each other. Before, water and fire had been incompatible, repelling each other. Now, however, there was a faint sense of closeness and attraction between them, as though each were intimately connected to the other.

This success greatly bolstered Shi Feiyang's confidence. Believing that he had formally stepped onto the path of cultivation, he refined the remaining four Qingling Grass Beads one after another.

Nourished by the medicinal power, the water core nurtured a total of five streams of true yang energy, which entered the fire core.

The total energy contained within the two inner cores had not increased, but its quality had changed. This was especially true of the divine fire primal core. The core fire it had produced before had been orange-red and very impure. Now it was much purer and paler in color, yet its temperature had risen considerably.