Azure Mysterious Lineage

"Ever since the Dao Ancestor expounded the Dao and the Three Pure Ones governed the world..."

"Wait, wait," Hu Mang interrupted him.

"Who is the Dao Ancestor? And who are the Three Pure Ones?"

"You don't know the Dao Ancestor?" Chen Sheng looked utterly puzzled, but when he saw Hu Mang's buzz cut, he understood.

"It seems you were raised in a temple from childhood, Master, with little involvement in worldly affairs or contact with the outside world. So you don't know much about common knowledge, especially Daoist common knowledge. But that's not important. Let this old man explain it slowly-"

"The Dao Ancestor was the first 'innately born' being to emerge in our Azure Mysterious Realm. As the saying goes, 'mystery upon mystery, the gateway to all wonders.' Azure governs life, Mysterious governs the Dao, and Azure Mysterious was his venerable Daoist name."

"Rumor has it that the moment he was born, his cultivation was already at the level of an 'Upper Realm Golden Immortal.' Later-"

"Golden Immortal? All right, finish first. I'll ask everything at once."

Seeing the old man's resentful look, Hu Mang promptly shut his mouth.

"Later, once the Dao Ancestor had finished enlightening the innate beings and truly merged with the Dao, the Three Pure Ones came to govern the world."

"The Three Pure Ones were the three saints, the Jade Pure One, the Upper Pure One, and the Grand Pure One. Some say the three venerable saints were reincarnations of the venerable Dao Ancestor; others say they were his avatars. There are even people on the demonic path who recognize the venerable Upper Pure One as their founding master. In short, opinions differ, and all sorts of stories circulate, but none of that matters."

"Because this old man certainly wouldn't know any important information."

"Anyway, aside from the innate methods the Dao Ancestor passed down to the innate beings, ever since the Three Pure Ones governed the world, cultivation has followed the path of turning the acquired into the innate. That's what's meant by Refining Essence into Qi, Refining Qi into Spirit, Refining Spirit to Return to the Void, and Void Refinement to Merge with the Dao."

The old man swayed his head as he spoke, and Hu Mang finally heard what he had wanted to hear.

The Dao Ancestor and the saints were all pretty far-fetched. Talking about cultivation realms was more practical.

"These four major realms may look like just four stages, but each one is a heavenly chasm."

"And at each stage, one must realize the workings and transformations of heaven and earth within oneself."

"Take the realm of 'Refining Essence into Qi.' To reach completion, one must first realize the Three Flowers of 'essence,' 'Qi,' and 'spirit,' then refine the Five Qi corresponding to the 'heart,' 'liver,' 'spleen,' 'lungs,' and 'kidneys.' The Three Flowers are innate, while the Five Qi are acquired. Only when the three and five become one, the acquired turns innate, and life renews itself without end can one step beyond 'Refining Essence into Qi' and enter the realm of 'Refining Qi into Spirit.'"

"Though it sounds simple, for unorthodox rogue cultivators like us, even finding a method capable of cultivating the 'Three Flowers and Five Qi' is fraught with a thousand difficulties and ten thousand hardships, let alone actually succeeding in cultivating them."

"After all, the human body declines. If you can't cultivate the Three Flowers within the first sixty years and the Five Qi within the next sixty, you can only reincarnate and cultivate anew. And in truth, what chance of reincarnation does a rogue cultivator without even a Yin Spirit have?"

At this point, old Chen Sheng's face was full of rueful feeling. Even Xu Qing, who was eavesdropping nearby, shared the same sorrow.

"However, there's no set order for cultivating the Three Flowers and Five Qi. If you can't cultivate the Three Flowers, you can go cultivate the Five Qi. Old Turbid Sha and I both took that route. When we were young, either our talent was limited or our foundations were damaged. In any case, we failed to form the Three Flowers. Once we grew old and gained some insight and experience, cultivating the acquired Five Qi went reasonably well, though he was a bit more ruthless than me."

Hu Mang nodded silently.

"Next is the realm of 'Refining Qi into Spirit.' To achieve this realm, one follows the path of using the innate to form a spirit, first refining the Yin Spirit, then the Yang Spirit."

"A single clear and nimble thought, the soul and consciousness not yet dispersed, like a dream or a shadow, akin to a ghost: this is the Yin Spirit."

"Casting off the old and being reborn, a body beyond the body, taking shape when gathered and becoming Qi when dispersed: this is the Yang Spirit."

"Finally, yin and yang become one, and one steps into the realm of Refining Spirit to Return to the Void!"

Now Hu Mang understood what the other man had meant by "Yin Spirit" just now.

"Are the Yin Spirit and Yang Spirit positions of an Orthodox God?"

Zhou Yu, who had gone to wash the dishes, also came over. He was a rogue cultivator too, and couldn't claim to know much about it either.

Old Chen Sheng slapped his knee and exclaimed:

"They're absolutely positions of an Orthodox God, and positions that don't require an appointment!"

"That is where the heart of us cultivators' pursuit of the Dao lies: harmonize the three treasures, shed the mortal body, and gradually escape the fetters of the mortal world; roam free and unrestrained, at ease to follow one's heart!"

Even Zhou Tong, who had come over later, couldn't help looking full of longing when she heard this.

Only Hu Mang was pondering a question: did the famous mountains and great rivers of this realm have grilled sausages for sale?

"And never mind attaining great freedom in one's state of mind. Just in terms of lifespan, refining a Yin Spirit grants five hundred years, and realizing a Yang Spirit grants a thousand. What a long and enduring life!"

A thousand years for a Yang Spirit?

Back then, the Five Dynasties only lasted a little over a thousand years, didn't they?

Damn, that's a long time to stay alive.

And the three Spiritual Qi revolutions apparently only took five hundred years.

Long-lived cultivators like that are pretty well suited to scientific research.

Another fanciful idea had occurred to Hu Mang.

"However, to explore yin and enter yang, apart from the three schools of Buddhism, Daoism, and the demonic path recognized by this realm, only those who listened to the Upper Pure One, Most Holy Ancient Teacher's lectures back then could have inherited such methods."

"It's said that twenty-three people obtained 'methods of the immortals,' one hundred and sixteen obtained 'methods of cultivating the Dao,' and ten thousand and eight comprehended 'methods of acquired cultivation.'"

"Most of the lineages in this realm today capable of 'exploring yin and entering yang' were passed down from the Upper Pure One's lectures on the Dao."

Old Chen Sheng stroked his beard and continued:

"But as far as this old man knows, those who truly refine a Yin Spirit or Yang Spirit don't actually live that long."

"Then where did they go?" Zhou Tong asked blankly.

"Why, they went to reincarnate and cultivate anew, of course. Those who attain a Yin Spirit can reincarnate, while those who attain a Yang Spirit can preserve the secret within the womb. If such people cultivate the Dao again, naturally they advance a thousand miles in a day, without any fetters."

What is this? No one lifts me toward my lofty ambition, so I tread through snow to the mountaintop myself?

I'll be my own founding master, and speak for myself?

Hu Mang continued to grumble inwardly.

"As for the realm of 'Refining Spirit to Return to the Void' after stepping through yin and entering yang, this old man doesn't know much about it either. I've only heard there are two ways to attain it: the Dharma Body and the Dharma Form."

Old Chen Sheng glanced at Hu Mang.

"And I've heard that Buddhism has another way to attain it."

Hu Mang nodded silently.

Never mind my short hair, I'm really not a monk!

Besides, my Heavenly Gate has Void Refinement too, and ten of them, hehe.

I just don't know whether this 'Void Refinement' and 'Refining Spirit to Reverse the Void' are actually the same thing.

"As for merging with the Dao and ascending in the final realm, whether it concerns those who went up or those who came down, this old man could venture to share a few amusing rumors and wild tales. But you certainly wouldn't believe them, so I won't blow the conch."

Seeing that he had startled everyone, the old man had put on a saintly display before them. Chen Sheng stroked his beard in satisfaction and took a sip of wine while he was at it.

This was called morning drinking.

Hu Mang pondered for a moment and asked:

"Old Chen, have you heard of a 'Golden Core'?"

Chen Sheng stared blankly, then pondered for a moment and said:

"What is a Golden Core?"

"Without knowing reversal within the mystery, how can one know to plant a lotus in the fire? Lead the white tiger home to nurture it, and it will bear a bright pearl, round as the moon."

Hu Mang recited an ancient poem about the Golden Core that he had been required to memorize during his nine years of compulsory education.

Chen Sheng frowned in deep thought.

"When medicine meets its kind of Qi, it takes form; when the Dao joins the elusive and subtle, all comes naturally. Only after swallowing a Golden Core does one know that one's fate is one's own, not heaven's."

Hu Mang recited another.

Chen Sheng's hand trembled, and he pulled out a strand of his beard before coming back to his senses.

"It sounds like the Daoist art of refining pills, but if it has to do with cultivation realms, forgive this old man's poor eyesight. I really haven't heard of it."

"However, Buddhism does speak of forming sariras, which are quite similar to this thing. Could you have misheard, Master?"

"Maybe."

Hu Mang gave no definite answer.

If there's no Golden Core, there's most likely no Nascent Soul either.

Why do the cultivation levels in the two worlds have this subtle sense of being alike, yet not quite the same?

If the immortals of High Antiquity really came from this world, shouldn't the cultivation realms of the two worlds be the same?

Hu Mang sank into troubled thought.

As for the top-tier powers of this realm that Old Chen spoke of afterward, whether the five Buddhist temples, the seven righteous sects, or the five great demonic sects, he only gave them a casual listen.

In short, they were awesome, unbelievably awesome!

The kind that could slaughter him as easily as a chicken.

Oh, sorry, that was an insult to chickens. Put simply, whichever sect it was, squashing him to death would be as easy as squashing an ant.

Going by old Chen Sheng's exaggerated tone,

even the younger-generation disciples of those three schools had at least the ability of someone at "Refining Qi into Spirit."

By the combat-power standard Hu Mang had managed to piece together,

"Refining Qi into Spirit" had to correspond to at least "Nascent Soul," right? After all, it already had "Spirit Transformation" in it.

Or was a "Yin Spirit" equivalent to "Nascent Soul," and a "Yang Spirit" equivalent to "Spirit Transformation"?

By that reckoning, holy shit, the cultivators of this realm really were fierce!

After all, the young people Old Chen spoke of were genuinely young, the kind who were about the same age as Hu Mang.

And cultivators his age in the Heavenly Gate were still mostly in a superposition of awaiting employment and being unemployed.

Without the support of a major private sect, Foundation Establishment was the best they could hope for.

Or are they all old men leveling alts?

Hu Mang touched his conscience and decided to lean toward the second possibility.

"Oh, right. Since we're talking about cultivation methods, let's all have a look. I found these among the spoils."

After thinking it over, Hu Mang pulled a stack of Cultivation Method Secret Manuals from his Storage Bag and slapped them onto the ground under everyone's shocked gazes.

These cultivation methods had all been looted from the bodies of the dead, including Zhang Ping and Min Yao.

But when it came to ancient methods, Hu Mang, who had been burned by them as a child, was still somewhat worried.

Even so, the ancient methods of this realm were certainly much stronger than the Heavenly Gate's ancient cultivation methods.

After all, the most the Heavenly Gate had produced in ancient times were Golden Cores, while this place had produced a Dao Ancestor!

But he still wasn't sure.

So he planned to find a few locals to study them.

To the cultivators present, however, this behavior was hard to understand.

After all, in the Azure Mysterious Realm, where cultivation resources were quite abundant, cultivation methods were even more important than the resources themselves.

This monk was unbelievably generous!

But to Hu Mang, they were just cultivation methods. There were piles of them in the Blessed Land Library.

More than he could ever finish cultivating.

At this very moment, high above Demon-Subduing City, above the thunderclouds, two figures were silently watching this place.