But some things could not be accomplished simply by enduring pain and working many times harder than ordinary people. Those Heaven chose to favor were still the exceptionally gifted.
Xu Taiping was a case in point.
He had tried six times in all, yet even though he had endured the pain, he still failed to break through.
Even Fairy Lingyue beside him could not help wondering now—could those with mortal bones truly cultivate in this world of True Cultivation?
In her original world of True Cultivation, those with mortal bones could indeed cultivate with the aid of medicinal pills. But on this continent of True Cultivation, not only was spiritual energy scarce, the laws of Heaven were far stronger than those on her original continent.
"It's going to rain..."
Fairy Lingyue's expression was deeply grave as she glanced at Xu Taiping, lying on the bed drenched in sweat from head to toe, then at the lightning flashing incessantly outside the nearby window.
At this moment, she even felt some regret-regret that she had given Xu Taiping hope in the first place, regret that she had not met this little fellow while she was at her peak.
Xu Taiping, on the other hand, was not thinking so much.
These repeated failures had not discouraged him. After all, this was how he had lived since childhood.
When he was hungry, he found food himself. When he fell, he got back up himself. When he was sick, he crawled up the mountain to gather medicinal herbs.
The Qi-Gathering Pill's medicinal potency seems to have weakened a lot. Again... one more time...
Somewhat numb from the pain, Xu Taiping told himself this, then unhesitatingly opened every aperture in his body once more and circulated the Setting Sun Glow Art at full strength.
"Ugh..."
When he marshaled all his true qi to batter his minor dantian again, the fierce pain still forced a tortured groan from him.
And just as his consciousness began to blur, two voices, one after the other, suddenly exploded across the lake of his mind-
"No matter how clear a pond's water is, it can nurture only fish and turtles. Only rivers and seas can nurture flood dragons. Thus, the first realm of cultivation, the Gate Opening Realm, is also called opening the gate to the sea. As you cultivate, would you be fish and turtles in that pond, or flood dragons in the sea?"
"Taiping, make us proud. Make all those with mortal bones under Heaven proud!"
Those two voices were like rolling spring thunder, exploding again and again across the lake of Xu Taiping's mind, echoing the thunder outside the window.
"Grandpa, I... I... I refuse to accept this!"
Xu Taiping, who had kept his eyes closed in concentration, suddenly snapped them open and shouted in something close to a roar, his face as ferocious as a lion defending its territory.
Fairy Lingyue beside him jumped in fright.
She thought something had gone wrong with Xu Taiping's true qi circulation and sent him into cultivation deviation, but the anxiety on her face soon gave way to astonishment.
Xu Taiping's eyes were wide open, his head raised as though he were staring something down. The Crimson Dawn True Qi coiling around him suddenly began spinning violently, then, like an enormous whirlpool, frantically drew the Heavens Spiritual Energy into his body.
Fairy Lingyue could sense the Heavens Spiritual Energy throughout the Mountain Forest for several miles around being swallowed into Xu Taiping's body through the Setting Sun Glow Art like water into a whale.
"Linking to the Heavens Spiritual Energy with spiritual sense... This... this should... should be an ability gained only after comprehending the second stage of the Setting Sun Glow Art, shouldn't it? But the little fellow... he isn't even qualified to practice its second stage. How on earth did he comprehend it?"
Fairy Lingyue's face was filled with shock.
She did not know much about the Setting Sun Glow Art, but the second stage of most internal qi-refining cultivation methods taught the knack of linking to the Heavens Spiritual Energy with spiritual sense-exactly what Xu Taiping was doing now.
No one taught him, yet he mastered it without a teacher. Could he be relying on... instinct? An instinct for cultivation? Wouldn't that mean he possesses the legendary illuminated Dao heart?
An astonishing thought surfaced in Fairy Lingyue's mind.
On her original continent of True Cultivation, gifted prodigies with the Cultivation Aptitude to cultivate were as numerous as hairs on an ox, but a cultivator possessing an illuminated Dao heart might appear only once in several thousand years.
Giving a mere mortal bone an illuminated Dao heart-Heaven, you old bastard, how cruel you are, how insidious, how laughable!
Fairy Lingyue could not help unleashing a torrent of curses in her mind.
An illuminated Dao heart was indeed an enviable gift, one in ten thousand. Many of the legendary Daoist Origin Techniques could be inherited only by those who possessed one.
But it was also the constitution most prone to attracting Otherworldly Sky Demons, particularly during breakthroughs. Ordinary cultivators would attract Otherworldly Sky Demons only after becoming high-level cultivators at the earliest, but those possessing a spiritually attuned Dao heart were extremely likely to attract them while breaking through the very first realm. One careless move could allow a Sky Demon into their body, ultimately plunging them into the Demonic Path, beyond redemption through ten thousand tribulations.
It would have been better if Xu Taiping had possessed a spirit bone of decent quality, but he was, unfortunately, a mere mortal bone. His path of cultivation was already fraught with peril. Now, with the backlash of an illuminated Dao heart added to it, saying that he would face nine deaths for every chance of survival was no exaggeration.
If she could choose, Fairy Lingyue would rather Xu Taiping have dull cultivation aptitude than this illuminated Dao heart.
Boom!
Just then, the Crimson Dawn True Qi whirling around Xu Taiping suddenly contracted into his body, and a ripple of power formed from Pure Essence Spiritual Power spread outward from within him.
"He's about to break through?"
Seeing this, Fairy Lingyue knitted her brows.
Had she seen Xu Taiping on the verge of a breakthrough just moments earlier, she would have been overjoyed. But after discovering that he very likely possessed an illuminated Dao heart, she could not help feeling worried.
Boom!
Suddenly, another ripple of Spiritual Power surged around Xu Taiping.
Above his head, three masses of qi gathered, each a different color: leaden, gray, and white.
This was precisely the sign that a cultivator was about to break through a realm.
There's no other choice. If an Otherworldly Heavenly Demon really comes, I can only use this last Oblivion Karmic Flame Curse I borrowed from Buddhism. At worst, I'll sleep for another few decades.
Fairy Lingyue silently stepped in front of Xu Taiping. Her lovely, slender hands swiftly formed a peculiar seal, and an intimidating divine light shone in her eyes as she stared straight out the window into the thunderstorm and said coldly:
"If I, Chu Lingyue, choose to protect someone, even a Demon Venerable can forget about harming a hair on his head."
Boom!
At that very moment, the thunder outside the window and the sound of Spiritual Power surging within Xu Taiping rang out together. Immediately afterward, the entire world sank into deathly stillness at a visibly perceptible speed. Thunder, wind, and falling rain all fell silent at once.
Xu Taiping's breakthrough into the Gate Opening Realm naturally could not summon such a phenomenon. There was only one being that could-an Otherworldly Heavenly Demon.
Never mind a small sect like the Azure Profound Sect-even the barriers of the first-rate sects on Chu Lingyue's original cultivation continent could not completely prevent Otherworldly Heavenly Demons from descending.
"So it really came."
The corners of Chu Lingyue's lips rose.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
Bang!
A gust of chilling, sinister wind suddenly burst through the courtyard window, and an enormous pitch-black hand slowly reached in from outside.
The hand looked as though it had been formed from gathered pools of thick ink. As it reached through the window, it also devoured, little by little, the light cast by the lamps inside the room.
Before an Otherworldly Heavenly Demon, the barrier outside the entrance to the Green Bamboo Abode was nothing more than decoration.
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