Just as Mu Bai was about to leap onto the golden eagle's broad, feathered back and experience the thrill of racing across the cosmos, waves suddenly surged through his divine sea. Golden light then blazed across its surface, and a great book of gold leaf slowly appeared.
Mu Bai was startled. He had no idea when such a golden book had appeared in his divine sea, or how it had entered it. And what opportunities would its appearance bring him?
Directing his divine sense, Mu Bai saw the writing on the golden book.
"The Flying Immortal Scripture?"
This was the first time Mu Bai had encountered any mention of "immortals" in this world.
"Heaven and earth are as a furnace, refining all things in the desire to form a pill. Who first devised this work?... To wrest power from heaven and soar as an immortal, take the body as a furnace and refine the primal essence of heaven and earth. Refine essence into qi, refine qi into spirit, refine spirit back into the void, refine the void to unite with the Dao, and finally attain Mahayana and ascension."
"This is a cultivation system I've never heard of." Mu Bai read the preface to the Flying Immortal Scripture in one breath. Though some passages were obscure, he had gained a rough understanding of its central meaning. "Heaven and earth themselves are a pill furnace. Humans, beasts, plants, metals, and stones—all of us are ingredients for the pills refined in this furnace. To seize the creative powers of heaven and earth, we must take our own flesh as a pill furnace and compete with heaven and earth for primal essence. Within the body, we pass through qi refining, spirit refining, void refining, and Dao integration, then finally pass through Mahayana to reach the ascension stage, breaking out of this Heaven and Earth Furnace to become an existence like its master."
Mu Bai was aghast. Who first devised this work? What sort of existence could take heaven and earth as a furnace and refine all things into pills? Qi refining, spirit refining, void refining, Dao integration, Mahayana, and ascension—these are clearly the different realms along this path of cultivation. I wonder how their power compares to soul cultivation, spirit cultivation, and Body Refining.
Mu Bai turned to the second sheet of gold leaf, which recorded the cultivation formulas for the qi refining and spirit refining stages. "In serenity and emptiness, true qi follows..."
In other words, one took oneself as a cauldron and breathed in the endless essence qi of heaven and earth. This was qi refining.
Once qi refining had borne fruit, one used essence qi as medicine, guiding it from the tailbone to the Baihui point at the crown, then to the face, the pit of the chest, and the dantian, before passing through the perineum and returning to the tailbone, completing a celestial circuit. By repeating this cycle and gathering enough essence qi, one could refine an inner core. This was spirit refining.
The inner core's wonders lay beyond words, small enough to enter a mote of dust, vast enough to encompass heaven. If a person formed this wondrous medicine, they would become a golden immortal, imperishable for ten thousand years.
"What about void refining, then?"
Mu Bai eagerly tried to read on, only to discover that just two sheets of gold leaf had risen from his divine sea. No matter how hard he tried, he could not turn the remaining sheets even a fraction.
"It looks like my divine sea must grow stronger, or I must refine an inner core, before more gold leaves will emerge. There's no rush. It's in my divine sea, after all. Surely no one can steal it?"
Just reading the cultivation methods for the qi refining and spirit refining stages had filled Mu Bai with longing. He was confident that once he formed an inner core, or his divine sea grew stronger, he would surely be able to see the cultivation methods that followed.
"But this matter is of tremendous importance. I must keep this secret!"
Being an alchemist, yet bringing disaster upon his tribe because of it, had taught Mu Bai a profound lesson: an ordinary man was innocent, but carrying a precious jade made him guilty.
"Little Eagle, let's go!"
Overjoyed at obtaining the new cultivation system in the golden book, Mu Bai leaped onto the golden eagle and shot straight into the clouds.
He believed that a broader world awaited him, one where he could soar and conquer, looking down upon every living creature and all things between heaven and earth like a true sovereign of the skies.
"First, let's collect the Nether Soul Grass!"
Riding the golden eagle, Mu Bai flew straight to its nest on the cliff and plucked the Nether Soul Grass. The golden eagle had already become his pet beast and naturally dared not stop him.
Even after finding a treasure, he still had that blade of grass on his mind. Mu Bai was a boy who knew how to manage his resources, and he had coveted that Nether Soul Grass for a long time. After all, cultivating immortality and ascending were distant prospects. Refining a Soul-Shaping Pill and reaching level two soul power first would put out the fire singeing his brows.
"Once I refine the Soul-Shaping Pills, I'll give you one. It'll definitely be better than eating the Nether Soul Grass raw."
The golden eagle was delighted. It nodded and cried out repeatedly, rubbing its enormous beak against Mu Bai's arm.
"Look how impatient you are. I'm still missing a Black Python as the main ingredient, and it has to be at least level two..."
Mu Bai rubbed his chin, considering how to slaughter a Black Python. His mental power had already broken through to level two. With a few tricks, it probably would not be too difficult.
Hearing that Mu Bai still needed a Black Python as an ingredient for pill refining, the golden eagle's eyes shone. With a sweep of its wings, it plunged toward the dense forest.
Mu Bai returned straight to his cave abode. Despite its bare walls and the fact that he did not have a single soul crystal on him, he was beside himself with joy. His mental power had broken through to level two, finally fulfilling a wish he had cherished for years. He was no longer at the very bottom among cultivators, and had taken his first step on the road to becoming strong. Once he refined the Soul-Shaping Pills, a breakthrough to level two soul power would also be within reach. With his physical body being quite formidable as well, Mu Bai could imagine how powerful he would soon become. The mere thought filled him with excitement.
All that was well and good, but what sent Mu Bai into even greater ecstasy was the gold-leaf immortal scripture that had emerged in his divine sea. Though he had yet to practice it, his intuition told him that this heaven-sent golden book would surely lead him down a different great path, and that his life would ultimately be unlike any other.
Without all the ingredients, he could not refine pills yet. Mu Bai therefore did his best to calm his excited mind, sat cross-legged in the cave, and followed the instructions in the Flying Immortal Scripture within his divine sea, attempting to draw in the Heaven and Earth Essence Qi and circulate it through a celestial circuit.
The Heaven and Earth Essence Qi was abundant and inexhaustible, deep and still, seeming barely to exist. It was everywhere and present at all times, yet concealed and formless, mysterious beyond mystery.
Normally, only those who had crossed the threshold of qi refining could sense essence qi flowing within their bodies. But Mu Bai's mental power was already at level two, and his divine sense was powerful and agile. He naturally soon detected the rich Heaven and Earth Essence Qi surging toward him through Silver Frost Forest. It poured into his body through his seven orifices and every pore like countless streams returning to the sea, endlessly renewing itself.
Thus, Mu Bai stepped directly past the qi refining stage on the path of immortal cultivation.
Many cultivators in the present-day Origin Realm could also sense the Heaven and Earth Essence Qi, but without a systematically inherited cultivation method or ways to use it, none paid it much attention. In fact, during the Origin Realm's primordial era, heaven and earth had been filled with world force rather than essence qi. Only after the Immortal-Origin War, when the Origin Realm entered the ancient era, had the five elements gradually become distinct, and five elements essence qi gradually appeared between heaven and earth.
Following the operational formulas for spirit refining, Mu Bai used his divine sense to gather the essence qi within his body into a single strand. He guided it from his tailbone to the Baihui point at his crown, through his dantian, and finally completed a full celestial circuit within his meridians. With the celestial circuit complete, a hundred insights arose; the cycle repeated, renewing itself without end.
After a night, Mu Bai ended his practice and roused himself. He felt no fatigue at all, his eyes bright and his spirit and qi abundant.
Examining his body with his divine sense, Mu Bai discovered a small strand of essence qi lingering within his meridians. He thrust out a finger, and the essence qi instantly transformed into a streak of brilliant light that blasted a deep crater into the distant stone wall with a thunderous crash.
"Quick to unleash, and powerful." Mu Bai was delighted. "That was only one strand. If I gathered it into a core and successfully achieved spirit transformation, how powerful would it be?"
Unable to contain his joy, he tried to demonstrate it once more, only to discover that the small strand of essence qi in his body was entirely gone. Indeed, nothing in this world offered the best of both worlds. To use these immortal cultivation methods, he still had to breathe in and stockpile far more Heaven and Earth Essence Qi.
Fortunately, the Heaven and Earth Essence Qi was everywhere, seemingly inexhaustible, and belonged to no one. As long as he cultivated diligently, he would not need to buy it with soul crystals. Otherwise, it really would have stumped this penniless little man.
Mu Bai also realized that he could not neglect cultivating his own three powers. Unless absolutely necessary, he must not use these immortal cultivation methods. For one thing, he could keep them as a trump card to catch others unawares; for another, he would be less likely to attract covetous eyes.
Like someone who had found a soul crystal the moment he stepped outside, Mu Bai suppressed his excitement, but still could not keep a smile from his small face, his eyes glimmering with secret delight.
"Where did Little Eagle go? Off to see its sweetheart again...?"
Just as Mu Bai was about to try sensing the golden eagle with his mind, he saw it returning in the distance, screeching with a thoroughly dead Black Python clutched in its talons. It proudly tossed the python in front of him.
"Good heavens, my precious! You're practically the perfect tool for traveling, escaping for your life, killing, and plundering!"
Mu Bai gently stroked the golden eagle's feathered back, and the pride in its eyes deepened.
"Come on, let's refine pills!"
There was earthfire ready to hand, and his stomach happened to voice its protest just then. Mu Bai skinned and bled the Black Python, deftly set up a roasting rack, and first roasted some python meat for himself and the golden eagle. In no more than an incense stick's worth of time, the enormous python carcass was sizzling with fat, its aroma spreading everywhere. The golden eagle drooled. Had Mu Bai not held it back, it would already have pounced on the meat and feasted.
"Little Eagle, you'll have to give up that bad habit of eating flesh raw and drinking blood. As a future eagle king, you must learn to live a little more elegantly."
Holding the golden eagle back, Mu Bai teased it, then took salt from inside his robe and sprinkled it evenly over the python meat. As the fat met the salt, it sizzled and crackled, and the aroma drifting out grew even richer.
"This is called salt. It's good stuff when you're traveling and sleeping under the open sky. I always carry some when I roam the world..."
Perhaps because he had gone so long without anyone to talk to, Mu Bai actually began to ramble. No wonder the artifact spirit ancestor was such a chatterbox; he had not spoken for thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of years. At this moment, Mu Bai could understand how he felt.
Mu Bai kept rambling until even the golden eagle, that big foolish bird, could no longer bear it. If the python meat before it had not been so tempting, it would long since have flapped away to escape him. Its drool soaked the ground, and at last, the roast python was ready.
"Here, this piece is yours!"
Mu Bai cut off a section of python meat with his soul-weapon shortsword and tossed all the rest to the golden eagle. Seeing the meat flying toward it, the golden eagle hurried forward with quick little steps and caught the python carcass in its beak. "Haha..." Ignoring the scorching heat, the golden eagle feasted, polishing off the enormous portion of python meat in just a few breaths. So satisfying! I've never tasted anything this delicious in my life. I still haven't had enough.
Even after swallowing an enormous python carcass whole, the golden eagle still wanted more, and turned its gaze toward Mu Bai. Mu Bai was considering the next step in refining pills and had no time to pay it any attention. Stretching its neck and craning its head toward him, the golden eagle circled Mu Bai several times. Seeing that he still ignored it, it sighed, then beat its great wings and flew out of the gorge toward the blue sky.
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