But maybe I don't need to be so pessimistic. What if the Earth I lived on before transmigrating was the Earth of Shrouding the Heavens or Sacred Ruins? In that case, the Eight Extraordinary Skills might qualify as Sage-level inheritances-the equivalent of the Sect Master Level in Perfect World. And if it was Feng Hou from Shrouding the Heavens, he would have to be an ancient sage at the very least, right? After all, he followed the Yellow Emperor, a Ninth-Heaven Quasi-Emperor born when the Void Great Emperor's corpse gained sentience. To play it safe, let's put Feng Hou at the Great Saint level. Chen Yao let his thoughts wander.
By that reckoning, the Eight Extraordinary Skills might all be top-tier Sect Master Level inheritances. Round things up a little, and I could count as a budget first-generation prodigy without Precious Blood or a Treasure Bone. Failing that, perhaps this could still fall within the settings of Nine Times Nine, Eighty-One or Great Love. Those worlds at least have cultivators who can cause earthquakes, create small worlds, and even raze cities and strongholds, not to mention aliens. The ascended beings in settings like those couldn't be so pathetic they'd scrape the bottom of the barrel, could they?
Chen Yao did his best to comfort himself, but this was not sheer fantasy.
Over this time, he had explored the inheritances of the Eight Extraordinary Skills in his mind. By delving into the Inheritance Light Clusters, he could directly perceive the inherited true intent of the Dao arts behind the Eight Extraordinary Skills, then derive various rune combinations compatible with this world's cultivation system. Perhaps this had something to do with how the Thirty-Six Thieves had comprehended their predecessors' Dao arts in the Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley. Besides, the waters ran deep in the Inner Landscape of the Under One Person world, which could encompass even the mysteries of heaven.
What was more, nestled among the light clusters was a strand of Immortal Qi with considerable uses.
Optimistic imagination, pessimistic estimation. Optimistically, they were Sect Master Level First-Generation Precious Techniques; pessimistically, they were divine arts, or even lower.
Yet when he had come into existence, he had clearly watched his own body form out of nothing. Perhaps these Eight Extraordinary Skills differed considerably from the originals.
Still, he could put those matters aside for now. Earlier, he had drunk that entire bottle of secret medicine in the Void God Realm before returning. Taking advantage of the Void God Realm's ability to let him bring back things without physical substance, he had carried the medicinal power straight back into his actual body.
He then activated the Immortal Qi coiled within his sea of consciousness, letting the medicinal power pass through it once. A sudden transformation erupted.
Chen Yao had sealed the courtyard with layer upon layer of Feng Hou's Mystic Gate and the Heaven Communicating Talisman Art. Nothing could be seen from outside, but inside, light blazed in every direction. After being steeped in Immortal Qi, medicinal power equivalent to only a single stalk of Spirit Medicine had surged dramatically in potency, approaching that of Sacred Medicine. Vital essence poured out through his body, illuminating the courtyard.
The blood and qi within Chen Yao thundered, as though mighty rivers were surging through his body, and his essence, qi, and spirit flourished in response. The Bone Text inscribed in each cell and every drop of blood within him shone. Point after point of light appeared, like gods and demons of the heavens dwelling forever within his body, chanting scriptures for him, protecting his form, and nourishing his spirit, remaking him and making him ever stronger.
Chen Yao became like a furnace, radiating light without cease. From within to without, line after line of markings appeared across his skin, crystalline and brilliant.
A long time later, he finished cultivating in the Blood Moving Realm and let out a long breath. His cultivation in the Blood Moving Realm had reached an initial closure; he could advance no further unless he broke through the Extreme Realm, or even transcended it.
He had originally taken form in the Great Wilderness, utterly bewildered. Fortunately, he had not been far from the Stone Kingdom's border. Along the way, he had relied on Qi-State Origin-Flow to rapidly strengthen his essence, qi, and spirit, along with the devouring and conversion abilities of Six Treasury Immortal Thief, and used Immortal Qi to enhance the vital essence he consumed. He had entered the Blood Moving Realm and advanced through it step by step. With the additional aid of medicinal power, he had finally cultivated to its peak.
Over nearly a year of constant travel and hitching rides, he had also begun to adapt to this world. Through the cultivation system he encountered along the way, he had roughly figured out which world he had fallen into. He had reached the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital, found a way to settle in a secluded corner, and investigated the current situation.
Earlier, he had been very curious whether Shi Hao had been born yet. Had he arrived before or after him? If Shi Hao had already been born, had his bone been dug out yet? And how long had it been since he lost his Supreme Bone?
Judging by the situation in the Void God Realm, Shi Hao had not entered it at all yet. Shi Yi, who was about two and a half years older than Shi Hao, was currently eight and a half. That meant Shi Hao should now be six, having only just learned the truth of his origins. There were still two and a half years before he entered the Void God Realm.
Chen Yao looked over his current body. He was about eight years old, half a year younger than Shi Yi...
"A heavy burden and a long road ahead. The real challenge starts now." Sensing the immense medicinal power still not fully absorbed within him because his cultivation had reached its limit, Chen Yao prepared to attempt a breakthrough into the Extreme Realm, seeking to transcend it within the Blood Moving Realm.
He chose to use Twin Hands to complete his path to Extreme Realm transcendence.
Although the manga in his memories had never explained Twin Hands in detail, Chen Yao could still understand its essence through other things he remembered learning.
Strictly speaking, Twin Hands combined two components: the innate and the acquired. The innate component was the Soul-Clarity Art, an innate ability born from a congenital mutation of the soul. The acquired component was the Soul-Refining Hand, which had to be obtained through personal cultivation. Together, they formed Twin Hands.
Twin Hands involved the principle of cultivating both inner nature and life. Inner nature meant the spirit, primarily the soul; life meant the flesh, primarily the physique. Cultivating both meant cultivating the souls-the spiritual and the physical, the Three Souls and Seven Corporeal Souls.
In cultivation, the emphasis was on mastering one's Three Souls, then using them to restrain the Seven Corporeal Souls and thus control the flesh influenced by the Seven Corporeal Souls. The souls bound the po; the Three Souls refined the Seven Corporeal Souls. First cultivate the souls, then refine the po.
Thus, Twin Hands first manifested as the Soul-Clarity Art, or the soul hand. Only after truly attaining soul clarity and mastering the Three Souls could one use the soul hand to begin cultivating the po hand and achieve true Twin Hands.
In theory, mastering the Seven Corporeal Souls allowed one to control internal organ functions, regenerate the body, alter one's appearance, imitate meridian-based cultivation methods, and so on. In an ideal state, one could even transform the flesh into an immortal body, a golden treasure: blood turning to white balm, casting no shadow at noon, unharmed by water or fire.
Thus, the path of cultivating both inner nature and life-nurturing one's nature and refining one's life-could make the spirit powerful and steadfast, while granting the body boundless strength and tough skin and flesh even without magical power to sustain it.
Twin Hands was an ultimate technique born from this very system, developed through deeper exploration of its derivative ability to perfectly control the soul and flesh.
For instance, the Golden Light Mantra was meant to continually strengthen one's cultivation of inner nature and life. Golden light would arise in that state, and this light, capable of protecting the body and even attacking, was a derivative product. Twin Hands worked the same way.
Twin Hands had another wondrous use: mastering the Three Corpses. The Three Corpses arose when the Seven Corporeal Souls disturbed the secluded essence of the Three Souls. They represented the collective desires of a person and were likewise derivatives of the souls, so Twin Hands could control them as well.
The reason the Three Corpses commanded by Lü Liang in the story differed so greatly from those of the Corpse Demon, Tu Junfang, might have been that he controlled them through Twin Hands. That was why even the Corpse Demon marveled that their structures were unlike anything he had ever seen, truly opening his eyes. Moreover, Lü Liang had no Lower Corpse. Most likely, he had used Twin Hands to sever the Three Corpses and cut away the Lower Corpse, the easiest to remove. This showed that Twin Hands was an exceptionally strong counter to the Three Corpses!
That was precisely Chen Yao's goal. Beyond using Twin Hands' ability to nurture inner nature and refine life to break through the Blood Moving Extreme Realm, he also intended to use Twin Hands to master the Three Corpses. He would merge the Three Corpses into his blood and qi, fuse them into his Divine Radiance, transcend the Extreme Realm, and forge an unprecedented new path within the Blood Moving Realm! Nourish demon gods with blood and qi!
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