The Six Treasury Immortal Thief was "Saint Plunder." Its foundational principle was that until the saints died, great thieves would never cease.
The art emphasized a perfect cycle formed by the body's six hollow organs-the stomach, large intestine, intestine, gallbladder, Triple Burner, and bladder. It could perfectly digest everything one consumed, yielding vast amounts of vitality and Qi. It could even directly extract and store the earth's vitality, just like the practice of Saint Plunder.
Stealing the Heavenly Mechanism. Why steal? What was being stolen? What use was there for what had been stolen?
Chen Yao had some inkling. There was a corresponding story in that oft-discussed book, Journey to the West-a work based on theatrical plays and radically reworked by specialists to conceal a wealth of cultivation principles.
Journey to the West featured a Master Kou, a charitable man who delighted in doing good. To help others, he constantly paid out money in relief, gradually giving away his entire fortune. Then he died.
Viewed purely through human morality, his situation was a classic case of a good man receiving no good reward.
But viewed from the perspective of cultivation, four words could describe his case-death was well deserved.
A person's fortune was like their primordial Qi, especially what they were born with: incomparably precious and, under normal circumstances, impossible to increase. Cultivation could accumulate acquired Qi, but there was only so much primordial Qi. Cultivation meant guarding that primordial Qi against loss.
Because a person only had that little bit of primordial Qi, scattering a little here and a little there would soon leave nothing.
How, then, could Master Kou be saved in the book?
The various manifestations representing Tang Xiong of the Eight Chen Yao Thieves unfolded in vivid visions, as though evolving Divine Abilities and Dao arts,