A white colt flashed past a crack; floating clouds turned into gray dogs.
Six months passed in the blink of an eye.
Outer Disciple Peak.
Inside his cave abode, worry lingered in Song Yan's eyes.
"Too slow..."
He looked at the pill bottles and the broken, faded Spirit Formation strewn across the cave abode and sighed faintly.
In six months, Song Yan had cultivated his way back to Qi Refining, fourth layer.
The resources consumed in the process were staggering.
Rebuilding his cultivation had been even slower than he had imagined.
And this was the speed Song Yan had obtained by spending cultivation resources without any regard for the cost.
Not only had he used up nearly all his Yellow Sprout Pills, but to improve his cultivation efficiency, Song Yan had also taken a hundred of his hundred and sixty-odd Spirit Stones to the market and exchanged them for two Little Spirit Gathering Formations.
These were no defective goods he had happened to pick up in the rubbish heaps of Fireworker Stockade before.
These were genuinely intact Spirit Gathering Formations that could be used several times, and the expense had made his heart ache for quite a while.
Even so, cultivating with the Sword Dao Seed remained as slow as a tortoise crawling, even slower than his original cultivation speed with three spiritual roots.
Had he not avoided, one by one, the detours he had taken in his previous cultivation, it would probably have taken him two years to enter the Middle Qi Refining Stage this time.
He had yet to reach the final four layers of Qi Refining, where every step would truly be a struggle, and his thoughts were already growing unsettled.
There was nothing he could do about it.
"I have to obtain Supreme Spiritual Objects sooner and strengthen the Sword Dao Seed..."
Song Yan was good at keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
Things like Sword Intent and a Dao heart seemed vague and intangible to him, and he had never given them any thought.
"Ah..."
He let out a soft sigh.
There was still about a year until his arranged outing with the married couple Rong Xiaofeng and Wu Huaguo. The wait was truly rather long.
Not to mention, if that cultivator's cave abode held no Supreme Spiritual Objects, or he failed to obtain them, would the prospect not remain indefinitely out of reach?
He had also gone around asking for news of Supreme Spiritual Objects himself. Unfortunately, it was either groundless rumor or a lion opening its jaws wide, demanding prices far beyond what he could afford.
Song Yan felt a deeply contradictory weariness growing in the depths of his heart.
Having truly experienced the cruelty of the cultivation world firsthand, he urgently wanted to cultivate and grow stronger, yet a helplessness born of having no recourse was spreading through his heart.
Though it was not enough to drive him to despair, it was enough to leave his thoughts tangled and restless.
If this continued, he feared a Heart Demon might arise...
Song Yan took a deep breath and forced himself to settle down.
"Forget it. Since there's no better path available right now, I'll cultivate step by step and properly temper my Divine Sense along the way."
After he broke through to the Middle Qi Refining Stage, the Sword Dao Seed in the Sword Mansion of the Dao-Subduing seemed a little fuller than before.
To Song Yan's surprise, the two-colored Stone Bead he had previously failed to refine with spiritual power could actually be refined with Sword Qi.
After putting considerable effort into refining it, Song Yan could now enter the Two-Pole Realm within the Stone Bead again and see a plump seed slowly floating at the center of this black-and-white world, identical to the one in the Sword Mansion of the Dao-Subduing inside him.
He guessed that this seed probably reflected the state of the Dao seed within his body.
"But I can already look inside myself and observe the state of my Dao seed. Doesn't that make the Two-Pole Realm redundant?"
Song Yan could not figure it out.
If he could not figure something out, he stopped thinking about it. That was how he had always been.
He believed that when his strength and cultivation were insufficient, his knowledge would naturally be limited, and no amount of thinking would do any good.
His grandfather had told him that thinking brought only difficulties; doing brought answers.
There was one other thing, though he did not know whether it counted as good news for him at present.
After he refined the Two-Pole Bead, more ink-black runes condensed within the realm and imprinted themselves in his mind.
They contained the complete cultivation method for the Five-Star Pulse Seizing Art.
As for why this did not count as good news for Song Yan at present...
The general outline explained that this supposedly "complete" cultivation method had actually been derived from another secret manual for cultivating Divine Sense.
However, the original text was profound, complex, obscure, and difficult. Ordinary cultivators with middling comprehension could not grasp its essentials at all.
Moreover, the basic requirement for cultivating the original text was the "Golden Core Realm."
When Song Yan read that part, he had laughed in exasperation.
Ha, the Golden Core Realm...
This Five-Star Pulse Seizing Art was a cultivation method that predecessors had organized and simplified.
Although its effects were inferior to the original, it was at least straightforward and easy to understand, and the threshold for cultivating it had been lowered from the Golden Core Realm to the Foundation Establishment realm.
Even so, Song Yan, currently at Qi Refining, fourth layer, still could not practice it.
He could only continue practicing the original brief mnemonic.
Still, he had gained something.
Song Yan stood up and left his cave abode.
The complete Five-Star Pulse Seizing Art mentioned that certain arts of cultivating the heart could assist in practicing the mnemonic, training and tempering the strength of one's Divine Sense.
"I haven't completed this month's art of cultivating the heart yet."
"My cultivation is slow anyway, and my thoughts are unsettled. If I keep single-mindedly cultivating in seclusion now, problems could easily arise with my state of mind..."
"This is a good chance to go to Wendao Gorge and clear my head."
Leaving Outer Disciple Peak, he walked slowly toward Wendao Gorge, passing the Dao-Entering Terrace along the way.
As it happened, an outer sect deacon senior brother was guiding a newly admitted disciple to Wendao Gorge.
Their conversation reached Song Yan's ears.
"Senior Brother Zhao, what exactly are these 'arts of cultivating the heart'?"
The new disciple asked curiously.
"...That's a long story."
The senior brother surnamed Zhao pondered briefly, then asked in return, "Junior Brother, what do you think immortal cultivation is?"
"Huh? Well... perhaps raising one's spiritual power and cultivation realm, seeking the Dao and longevity."
"Hahahaha, longevity..."
The senior brother surnamed Zhao suddenly laughed.
"Indeed, longevity could be considered the greatest goal of immortal cultivation."
"But how does one attain longevity? By constantly raising one's spiritual power and cultivation realm? By cultivating the Primordial Spirit, or by tempering the body?"
"..."
"All of those are necessary... but even those aren't enough. Longevity also requires cultivating the heart."
"Cultivating the heart?"
"That's right." The senior brother surnamed Zhao nodded.
"Looking across the cultivation world's eternal river of time, heaven's favored geniuses with exceptional aptitude and endless fortuitous encounters have probably been as numerous as the stars in the sky..."
"But those who truly attain longevity are as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns."
"With vast spiritual power, solid bodies, and condensed Primordial Spirits, they nevertheless remain outside the threshold of a realm for decades, centuries, even millennia..."
"There are far, far too many such people. Some fence themselves into their old ways and bind themselves in cocoons of their own making, unable to advance any further, until their lifespans run out and they pass away in seated meditation."
"Some develop a Heart Demon, undergo drastic changes in temperament, and ultimately fall onto the demonic path. Most meet no good end."
"Only the tiny remainder can break through the barriers, advance to the next realm, and seek the Dao and longevity."
"The difference lies in their disposition, or rather, their state of mind."
"I see."
Understanding dawned on the new disciple.
"There are many cultivation methods for spiritual power, and no shortage of methods for tempering the body. Methods for condensing the mind and spirit are rare, but they can still be obtained by paying a price or encountering good fortune. But have you ever heard of a cultivation method that can cultivate one's state of mind?"
"..."
The new disciple shook his head.
"Exactly. These arts of cultivating the heart are actually ways to temper one's state of mind, but they can't be called cultivation methods or secret techniques. They can only be considered... refined pastimes."
"Uh... though in truth, for disciples of low strength like us, these arts of cultivating the heart really aren't much use."
The senior brother surnamed Zhao suddenly lowered his voice.
"Before forming a Golden Core, there aren't really any obstacles of state of mind in our cultivation. But since the sect master established the rule, we should simply follow it."
"Yes, Senior Brother."
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