Spirit Marks
Early the next morning, a young apprentice from the Luo Pill Pavilion knocked on the door of the dilapidated thatched cottage in Bluestone Village, a heavy wooden box in his arms.
"Mr. Xiao, Elder Qin sent me to deliver this." The apprentice respectfully presented the box, then pulled a letter from his robe. "Elder Qin said these are all the most basic materials. If there's anything you don't understand, Mr. Xiao, you can come to the Luo Pill Pavilion and ask him at any time."
Xiao Yan accepted the box and letter, thanked him, and gave him two drops of spiritual liquid as a reward. The apprentice was overwhelmed by the favor and thanked him repeatedly before jogging away.
A Heng's grandfather stood nearby, watching the apprentice depart. He looked at the exquisite wooden box in Xiao Yan's hands, his mouth hanging open for a long while before he managed to say, "Young man, you... you're a young master from a wealthy family in the city, aren't you?"
Xiao Yan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He could only give a few vague replies before taking the box back inside.
Seven or eight jade slips and several thread-bound books lay neatly arranged in the box. Xiao Yan took them out one by one, covering the three-legged wooden table.
On the Origin of Spiritual Energy dealt with the nature of Spiritual Energy and the foundations of cultivation.
A Brief Introduction to the Nine Realms described the stages of cultivation from the Sensing Realm to the Supreme Realm.
An Introduction to the Spirit Mark Pill Dao, A Record of the Spiritual Nature of a Hundred Herbs, Thirty-Six Forms of Pill Pattern...
Xiao Yan's gaze slowly swept over the books. Finally, he reached out, picked up On the Origin of Spiritual Energy, and turned to the first page.
He read for an entire day.
A Heng came in several times. At first, she brought him meals, but later she moved a little stool to the doorway and sat there with her chin in her hands, watching him read. Before long, she couldn't resist coming closer and pointing at the characters in the book, recognizing them one by one. Xiao Yan casually explained a few things to her, such as what the Sensing Realm was and what it meant to draw Qi into the body. The girl listened with shining eyes, looking as though she wished she could start cultivating immediately.
That afternoon, A Heng's grandfather returned from the mountain with news. Someone in the village had seen several strangers in red robes wandering around the mountain behind the village for most of the day, though no one knew what they were looking for.
Xiao Yan's hand paused slightly as he turned a page. Then he nodded as though nothing were amiss, merely telling the old man to stay away from the mountain behind the village for the next few days.
The old man readily agreed and thought no more of it.
Xiao Yan, however, set himself another deadline in his heart.
He needed to move faster.
From dawn until dusk, Xiao Yan scarcely moved. The meals A Heng brought sat beside him, cooling and being reheated, only to cool again. He remained entirely unaware, turning page after page, now frowning deeply, now lost in thought, and now closing his eyes, seemingly working something out in his mind.
His comprehension had always far surpassed that of ordinary people. Back on the Dou Qi Continent, when Yao Lao taught him alchemy, a single pointer was often enough for him to grasp three things from one. Now, faced with a cultivation system utterly different from that of his own world, his hunger and thirst for knowledge had been thoroughly awakened.
Gradually, he came to understand many things.
The Spiritual Energy of this world assimilated Dou Qi because Spiritual Energy itself was the most direct manifestation of the origin of heaven and earth. It was more "pure" than Dou Qi, and more "overbearing" as well. Any foreign energy before it would instinctively be treated as an impurity, then washed away and absorbed.
The cultivators of this world relied on two things to control such overbearing power.
The first was Spiritual Arts. A Spiritual Art determined the route Spiritual Energy took through the body, as well as its final "amplitude." A good Spiritual Art could make Spiritual Energy build upon itself in layers like ocean waves when unleashed, multiplying its power.
The second was Spirit Marks.
Spirit Marks were the foundation of all techniques in this world. Formations were constructed with Spirit Marks, and pills used Spirit Marks to seal in their medicinal properties. Even some of the finest Spiritual Arts used Spiritual Energy to inscribe special patterns in a cultivator's meridians, restricting and guiding the flow of Spiritual Energy.
"Inscribing marks in the meridians with Spiritual Energy..."
Xiao Yan's finger stopped on a page of On the Origin of Spiritual Energy. A light suddenly sparked in his eyes.
The page described a basic Spirit Mark called the Spirit-Guiding Mark. It had no particular power of its own and served only one purpose: to open a specific channel within a meridian, allowing Spiritual Energy to flow along it rather than crash about and damage the meridian.
The book said that cultivators whose Spiritual Energy was excessively violent used it to guide and regulate their own Spiritual Energy.
But as Xiao Yan looked at the page, something else came to mind.
If he could use this Spirit Mark to open a channel in his meridians for the Spiritual Energy surging into him, letting it bypass the origin of his Dou Qi and wash over only the parts that could be washed away...
Wouldn't that let him control the direction of the assimilation to some extent?
Once the idea appeared, it grew wildly in Xiao Yan's heart like weeds. He could almost make out the end of that road: perhaps the Flame Mantra and the Spiritual Energy of this world did not have to be a choice of one or the other, but could somehow merge into one.
He took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed his excitement. After studying the page carefully more than a dozen times, engraving every stroke of the Spirit-Guiding Mark deep in his mind, he closed the book and sat cross-legged on the bed.
Outside the window, dusk deepened.
Xiao Yan closed his eyes and sank his awareness into his body.
Inside his meridians, Dou Qi and Spiritual Energy were still entangled in battle. Xiao Yan ignored them and condensed his soul power into an extremely fine needle, carefully extending it into a meridian in his left arm.
He wanted to see whether he could use his soul power to inscribe a Spirit-Guiding Mark inside the meridian.
It was an exceedingly delicate task. Meridians were fragile to begin with, and his were now covered in cracks. The slightest mistake could cause them to rupture completely. But Xiao Yan's soul power was at the Emperor Realm, and its precision was far beyond that of ordinary Spirit Mark masters in this world.
The first stroke fell.
It was a curve as fine as a strand of hair. A faint light of the soul slowly solidified on the inner wall of the meridian.
The second stroke, the third...
Sweat gradually beaded on Xiao Yan's forehead. Inscribing a mark inside his own body felt like carving flowers into his own flesh with a knife. Every stroke brought a piercing pain that bored into his heart.
But his hand was steady.
Back on the Dou Qi Continent, when he refined Ninth-grade Pills, he had to control several kinds of Heavenly Flames at once, inscribing layer upon layer of flame patterns inside the pill furnace. That task had demanded no less precision than this one, and he had long since grown accustomed to remaining absolutely calm amid pain.
After the time it took an incense stick to burn, a complete Spirit-Guiding Mark finally took shape in the meridian of his left arm.
Xiao Yan slowly eased his resistance to the Spiritual Energy outside, allowing a wisp of it to surge through his pores and into the meridian.
Once inside, the wisp of Spiritual Energy instinctively moved to attack the Dou Qi there. But just as it was about to strike, the Spirit-Guiding Mark glimmered faintly.
As though gently nudged by an invisible hand, the wisp of Spiritual Energy obediently flowed along the channel opened by the Spirit-Guiding Mark. It brushed past the Dou Qi without colliding with it.
It worked!
Xiao Yan's eyes snapped open, filled with wild joy.
But before that joy could fully bloom on his face, a sudden change occurred.
After flowing through the channel, the wisp of Spiritual Energy abruptly swerved and plunged into another meridian, one unprotected by a Spirit Mark. The balance between Dou Qi and Spiritual Energy in that meridian had already been fragile to the extreme. The impact was like throwing a spark into a powder keg that was already on the verge of collapse.
Boom!
Xiao Yan's body jolted violently as a savage shock burst through him. In that instant, he seemed to hear countless meridians rupture at once.
"Pff!"
A great mouthful of blood sprayed onto the floor in front of the bed. Faint, tiny flecks of flame were mixed within it.
Xiao Yan's vision went black, and he fell limply backward, his consciousness rapidly fading amid the agonizing pain.
In the final moment before he lost consciousness, he faintly heard someone kick open the cottage's wooden door, followed by a familiar voice tinged with panic.
"Xiao Yan! Xiao Yan, what happened to you?!"
It was Luo Lan.
After returning to his clan the previous night, the richly dressed young man had tossed and turned, unable to sleep, his mind filled with Xiao Yan's seemingly effortless flick. Early that morning, he had sneaked out of the inner city and asked his way to Bluestone Village, intending to pester Xiao Yan into teaching him that move. He had never expected to push open the door and find such a scene.
Amid the blood covering the floor, the young man who had been chatting and laughing with him at the roast meat stall only yesterday now lay with a face as pale as gold paper, his breathing so faint it was almost imperceptible. Tiny sparks danced in the blood that had fallen to the ground, scorching little black spots into the floor.
Luo Lan turned pale with fright. He rushed over and checked Xiao Yan's breathing, then gritted his teeth and hoisted him onto his back. Shouting "I'm taking him to a physician in my clan!" to A Heng and her grandfather, who had come running at the noise, he charged out of the cottage without looking back and sprinted toward Luo Shen City.