White Yang Diagram

Half a year later, Lin Yun, who had already moved to Mystic Kun Mountain, began practicing the last few of the first twelve human figures in the White Yang Diagram.

The White Yang Diagram had been created by Perfected White Yang, an ancient immortal of the Zu Mountain world. It consisted of three hundred and sixty-four illustrations of different postures, arranged from simple to advanced, imitating the forms of birds, beasts, insects, and fish, and their movements as they flew, dived, stirred, and leaped. Its illustrations depicted bears lumbering and birds stretching, outwardly embodying the forms of myriad creatures while inwardly concealing the endless transformations of the precelestial and postcelestial. It was one of the finest Foundation-Building Profound Arts in the Zu Mountain world.

Lin Yun had started with the very first twelve illustrations of the White Yang Diagram. Of all three hundred and sixty-four illustrations, only these twelve depicted human forms.

Cultivators had to practice these twelve human-form illustrations first to establish the foundation of their dharma bodies before they could continue with the remaining three hundred and fifty-two illustrations depicting myriad other forms.

Through these, they would comprehend the infinite mysteries of precelestial and postcelestial transformations until they discerned the final True-Form Diagram of the Dao body best suited to themselves, evolving their Acquired Dharma Bodies into Innate Dao Bodies. Only then would they have fully mastered the White Yang Diagram.

Of course, comprehending how to evolve the postcelestial into the precelestial naturally required the participation of the world's Primordial Qi. After all, the essence of that evolution still lay in transformations of Primordial Qi.

Another half a year passed. Inside Lin Yun's cave abode on Mystic Kun Mountain.

After finishing his practice of the twelve Human True-Form Diagrams, Lin Yun rolled up his left sleeve to expose his arm, then ran his right index finger across its smooth skin. Looking at his spotless finger, he smiled in satisfaction.

"I've finally mastered these twelve Human True-Form Diagrams!"

Practicing the twelve Human True-Form Diagrams was itself a process of cleansing the meridians and purifying the marrow. By mastering all twelve, Lin Yun had completed that cleansing.

If he now condensed the gaseous true qi in his Cinnabar Field into liquid True Essence, then by the cultivation standards of the Mortal world, he would become a Foundation-Building Stage cultivator.

But Lin Yun clearly had no intention of undertaking Foundation Establishment so lightly.

Merely mastering the twelve Human True-Form Diagrams has already let me cross the threshold of Foundation Establishment with ease. But my goal is to master the entire White Yang Diagram and evolve an Innate Dao Body. I absolutely cannot establish my foundation carelessly, Lin Yun thought.

Then his brows furrowed slightly as he silently considered, It's just that my progress with the White Yang Diagram is far too slow right now...

His actual progress with the White Yang Diagram had been considerably slower than he had originally anticipated. Even accounting for the cultivation time lost because low-ranking disciples of Yellow Maple Valley had to complete an assigned task every month, it was still slower than expected.

Taking half a year to master just the twelve easiest illustrations was simply too slow. Beyond the twelve Human True-Form Diagrams, another three hundred and fifty-two illustrations remained. Mastering them all would take at least another ten years or so, which he plainly could not accept.

In another ten years or so, Yellow Maple Valley might well be fleeing for its life.

After pondering for a moment, a sharp gleam flashed through Lin Yun's eyes. "It seems I'll need something to aid my cultivation," he murmured.

Apart from moving to an environment with more abundant Primordial Qi, the other way to assist his cultivation was to take medicinal pills and use their power to aid his qi refinement.

To speed up his practice of the White Yang Diagram, any environment richer in Primordial Qi would have to be at least a spiritual site suitable for Core Formation.

But given Lin Yun's standing in Yellow Maple Valley, that was clearly impossible.

Thus, taking medicinal pills was now the only path left to him.

At that thought, Lin Yun casually took several hundred-year-old medicinal herbs he had brought from home out of his Storage Bag.

"It's not impossible to refine pills with these herbs, but to aid my practice of the White Yang Diagram, I'd still need some precelestial substance as the main ingredient."

In Lin Yun's eyes, the vital essence contained in these herbs was merely passable. They barely qualified as supplementary ingredients.

But he soon smiled again. "What in this world could compare to precelestial substances like the essences of the sun and moon?"

In the Mortal world, apart from the relatively lively and active five-element Primordial Qi, most other forms of the world's Primordial Qi were comparatively dormant. Yet a few other kinds remained equally lively and active, including the essences of the sun and moon. Moreover, these essences were precelestial qi. Aside from being difficult to collect, they had almost no drawbacks when used to refine pills.

The great sun purple qi Lin Yun breathed in every morning was one kind of great sun essence. But only a single wisp could condense each day, making it far from sufficient for pill refinement.

A short while later, after working out a way to collect the essences of the sun and moon, Lin Yun immediately rose and left his cave abode.

After making some trades at the Hundred Mechanisms Hall and obtaining a token permitting him to leave, Lin Yun rode his Leaf-Shaped Dharma Artifact down the mountain.

The easiest way to collect the essences of the sun and moon was to gather dew at dawn and dusk each day, when the sun and moon traded places.

Dew at those times contained both solar and lunar essence. Combined in this way, they possessed neither the scorching fierceness of solar essence nor the icy chill of moonlight, while the water qi harmonized yin and yang, making the dew particularly suitable for low-level cultivators.

Such dew had a name: Yin-Yang Dew.

The Yin-Yang Dew of early morning was the purest and suited to pill refinement, while that of dusk had mixed, impure energies and was suited to cleansing and refining flying swords.

Collecting such a wondrous natural treasure was naturally no easy matter. The solar and lunar essences within the dew were extremely light and would disperse at the slightest disturbance, so a special magical treasure was needed to catch it.

The magical treasure used to catch this dew was, naturally, called a Dew-Catching Plate.

Lin Yun had obtained the method for refining a Dew-Catching Plate from an Early Han Daoist Books in his memories. The ancient immortal who had passed down those Daoist Books had originally been an occult practitioner in the Han palace and had once cast a gold-and-bronze immortal's Dew-Catching Plate for Emperor Wu atop Bailiang Terrace. The method of casting that plate had been recorded in the Daoist Books.

According to the Daoist Books, the gold-and-bronze immortal's Dew-Catching Plate could collect the purest essences of the sun and moon and immortal qi from the nine heavens, refining them into Mysterious Yellow Azure Dew, which granted deathlessness when consumed.

Naturally, the Dew-Catching Plate Lin Yun intended to refine could not possibly be a heaven-defying immortal treasure like Emperor Wu's, cast from immortal metals and divine materials such as Solar Gold Essence, supreme yin lunar soul, and Copper of Shou Mountain.

With Lin Yun's resources, he could barely make the most threadbare version of a Dew-Catching Plate. It would only catch Yin-Yang Dew, falling far short of the miraculous effects of Mysterious Yellow Azure Dew.

The Dew-Catching Plate he intended to make would be refined from five metals essence. This referred to five spiritual materials that cultivators produced by extracting and refining the pure metallic vital qi of five common metals: gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin. They were the most common treasure-refining materials in the Zu Mountain world.

The Five-Metal Raw Materials were most commonly found not in the cultivation world, but in the mortal world. Thus, after leaving Yellow Maple Valley, Lin Yun headed straight for the mortal lands of the Yue Kingdom.

Relying on a transmigrator's little money-making tricks and a cultivator's abilities, Lin Yun spent three months earning tens of thousands of taels of gold and over a hundred

thousand taels of silver, then used a portion of that gold and silver to purchase over a thousand jin of raw copper, iron, and tin.

Although Lin Yun now possessed so much Five-Metal Raw Materials, it would yield only a few jin of five metals essence at most.

"These materials should be enough to refine a Dew-Catching Plate."

Lin Yun stood in the middle of a cave, looking at the several crates of Five-Metal Raw Materials laid out inside as he estimated whether he had enough.

This was a barren mountain on the border between the Yue Kingdom and the Yuanwu Kingdom. Lin Yun had carved this cave abode into the mountainside as a temporary shelter and a place to extract five metals essence.

Five metals essence was also an excellent material for refining magical treasures in the Mortal world. For instance, the Formless Needles, the magical treasure belonging to Old Monster Qiong of the Covering Moon Sect, had been refined from five metals essence.

Moreover, extracting five metals essence was extremely difficult in the Mortal world, requiring a Core Formation cultivator's true fire. Han Li's nominal master, Li Huayuan, had spent ten years or so extracting just a single piece of iron essence.

Lin Yun had no desire to extract five metals essence in Yellow Maple Valley. If someone accidentally discovered that he possessed it, they would inevitably try to seize it through trickery or force. With his current strength, he could not withstand the covetous intentions of a Core Formation cultivator.