South Sand Bay.
With his saddle removed, Erhei swished his thick tail and wandered leisurely through the wooded hills, occasionally nibbling the tenderest leaves from the shrubs.
Behind him, Yang Ge sat cross-legged on a rocky slope, cultivating. Visible torrents of Heaven and Earth Origin Qi converged on him from every direction, refined into the purest Five-Element True Qi as his true qi circulated.
The Five Directions Five Emperors Deity-Transforming Art, which Yang Ge had created using Five Elements Returning to Origin Qi as its foundation, had undergone another sweeping, radical overhaul after his climactic battle on the Bian River in Huai'an. Compared with its rigorous, orderly progression when first created, the art had now changed beyond recognition.
Its cultivation method had shifted from a single core that spread its influence from one point to the whole, to five resonating cores that swallowed all Heaven and Earth Origin Qi like a whale. And that was merely the outward change.
The true, fundamental change lay in its visualization method: lofty imaginings of Five-Element Essence had come down to earth, becoming the Investigative Observation Method, which began with reality in all things.
In short, he no longer needed to visualize individual elemental qi to deepen his understanding of the five elements and his ability to attract them. He only needed to keep deepening his understanding of the phenomena of mutual generation and restraint among the five elements in the real world, and he could continually enrich the art's foundations and raise its upper limit.
Put plainly, he no longer needed to deliberately visualize wondrous elemental phenomena. His surroundings, even the very earth beneath his backside... were all part of his visualization method!
The difference was like someone standing alone in a crowd, working desperately to draw customers: "Two coins, two coins! Everything