The Ancient Golden Core Method

Hu Mang stood in his old room, staring at his bare upper body.

He had just taken a shower and given himself a buzz cut while he was at it. He felt ten years younger all at once.

In the mirror, little blood vessels bulged one by one beneath his bronze skin, and bruises resembling those from "domestic violence" appeared, gray and red intertwined. Whenever red blood pressed against a spot, the "gray matter" disappeared, only to squeeze back out once the Blood Qi moved away.

It wasn't all that painful, really. If he had to describe it, it was as though a thick layer of grime coated the inside and outside of his body, especially his internal organs and extraordinary meridians. As soon as he circulated Spiritual Qi to cultivate, it felt like scraping his organs with a steel scouring pad. That was painful.

If pain were all it was, he could have borne it. The problem was that he simply couldn't "scrape it clean," which meant he couldn't even complete one basic cycle of cultivation.

That was the real headache.

Back when he had sneaked off to take the "immortal's legacy," he had been unlucky enough to run into the eruption of Mount Merapi. The "Calamity Ash" had transformed into a tide of turbid Qi. He had barely managed to withstand the first wave, but a large amount of turbid Qi had entered his body. In the end, he had been forced to use the Secret Method he had learned at the academy, the "Dragon-Subduing Pile Method," to drive the turbid Qi into his acupoints. Only then had he avoided dying on the spot.

But the price was severe damage to his meridians and cultivation foundation. Hu Mang seriously doubted that he could continue cultivating with meridians this badly damaged, even if he forced the "turbid Qi" out.

As for how upset he was, he really wasn't all that bothered.

In this peaceful age of cultivation, even cultivators who couldn't reach Foundation Establishment weren't likely to be killed so easily.

Besides, this was a textbook natural disaster. There really was nothing he could say.

"Could this really be retribution for grave robbing? No way. Didn't Mom say she knew the guy pretty well?"

"Hu Xiaoshe, come out and eat!!"

Hu Mang pulled on a short-sleeved shirt and went straight out the door.

He saw that Mama Hu had brought out the eighth, or perhaps the ninth dish. They covered the entire table.

"Seriously, Mom? Are you trying to stuff me to death?" Hu Mang asked in surprise.

Mama Hu rolled her eyes and said bluntly, "Go wash your hands and bring the food over."

Hu Mang smiled and went straight to the bathroom.

"You've lost weight." At the dinner table, Mama Hu examined her precious son from front to back, top to bottom, as though she were inspecting a Heavenly Gate first-class protected Demon Beast. After a long while, she reached her conclusion.

"I'm all right. The food at the state-run sect over there was actually pretty good."

"By the way, did you say hello to your dad?"

"I did. Oh, is Dad not coming to eat?"

"Of course not. He isn't human, so why would he need to eat?" Mama Hu said casually.

Hu Mang gave his mother a peculiar look and lowered his head to shovel down his rice.

"This was your first time seeing your dad too, wasn't it? What did you think?"

"He seemed all right, all right."

"It wasn't easy stealing your dad. I nearly got caught by those spectacled Daoists back then. Those Daoists were fierce."

"Oh, then be more careful next time, Mom. I'll keep watch for you," Hu Mang said casually.

"Bullshit. What next time? You want a few more dads?"

Mama Hu looked at the table full of spirit rice, spirit fish, and Spirit Cuisine and couldn't help sighing.

"This era really is better. Back then, only direct descendants of Aristocratic Clans got to eat rice and vegetables rich in Spiritual Qi like these. Now the supermarkets even put them on sale."

"How many times have you said that, Mom? Why don't you mention how, back in the days of the five dynasties, a dynasty would be blessed to produce even one Golden Core cultivator? What about now? Any respectable spirit enterprise has a few Golden Core cultivators holding down the fort."

"This era really has changed so much that I can't make heads or tails of it," Mama Hu agreed wholeheartedly.

"Just look at the past. Yu, Chen, Liang, Shen, and Yu—the five dynasties lasted over a thousand years, didn't they? And they produced fewer than ten Golden Core cultivators."

"Now there's the Steam Cultivation Era and the Electrical Cultivation Era. One only lasted a little over a hundred years, and the other hasn't even lasted a hundred, but people have broken through to all those once-legendary realms, Nascent Soul and Spirit Transformation, one after another. What are cultivators' brains made of these days?"

Hu Mang shrugged and ladled himself a bowl of fish soup. His mother's cooking was so-so, but her fish soup was an absolute specialty. The soup she made was milky white and mellow, light without being greasy.

On top of that, she used farmed spirit fish. With one mouthful, warmth slowly coursed through his limbs and bones, gently nourishing his meridians and turning his belly into a little furnace.

"How come the higher their cultivation realm gets, the faster they cultivate? I remember it wasn't like that before."

"Tell me, in a few more years, won't they even figure out how to reach the Immortal Realm?" Mama Hu continued to imagine the possibilities.

"I don't know about that. You'll have to ask the Ten Lords of Heavenly Gate. They're the closest to the 'Immortal Realm' in all of Heavenly Gate. I'll ask them for you sometime," Hu Mang said, playing along with the nonsense.

"Nonsense. If you can just break through to Golden Core, I'll have fulfilled all my merits. In ancient times, you'd have been a major figure on the level of an 'imperial preceptor.' Even that boy Xie Xianyu fell just a little short back then."

Mama Hu continued imagining the future, not noticing that Hu Mang had stopped responding.

After mother and son finished lunch, Hu Mang thought about how rarely he came home and offered to wash the dishes.

Mama Hu simply rolled her eyes and pushed him aside.

"Wash what dishes? Is that something you should be doing? Go into seclusion in the quiet room and digest the Spirit Cuisine you ate. Refine a little more Spiritual Qi. There were never such good opportunities before, with Spiritual Qi just there for you boys to squander!"

Hu Mang scratched his head, at a loss for what to say.

He sauntered into the quiet room, the little Spiritual Qi cubicle, and stared blankly at the Spiritual Qi pipe.

Cultivation was out of the question. His foundation was already damaged; cultivating recklessly now would be asking for Qi Deviation.

He didn't intend to hide it from his mother for the rest of his life. He just hadn't figured out how to tell her yet.

He couldn't very well say as soon as they met, "Mom, I might be about to croak. Pick out a nicer grave for me later."

What a jinx!

Besides, he still had some confidence in Heavenly Gate's current medical system.

At the very least, he had to book an appointment with a Nascent Soul-level doctor. He didn't know whether to register with Sha injury surgery or meridian internal medicine, though. He'd look it up online later.

Hu Mang thought for a while, then let out a loud burp.

"I ate too much."

His mother had made so much food that he'd eaten a little too much, and the fullness was uncomfortable.

Besides, Spirit Cuisine really wasn't easy to digest without Qi Training.

"What should I practice?"

Hu Mang muttered to himself and began recalling the Cultivation Methods he had practiced throughout his life, wondering whether any could bypass the restrictions on his acupoints.

Back at the academy, in his "spirit construction engineering" major, the Foundation Establishment method that had been both compulsory and his main course of study was the "Nine Revolutions Foundation Establishment: Formation Foundation Chapter." There were also the core subjects of his major, the "Earth Vein Dragon Lock Art" and the "Spirit Construction: Immovable Bedrock Heart Method," as well as the "Spirit Machinery Symbiosis: Puppet Control Instruction," which he had studied on the side—a way to manipulate large-scale Daoist machinery through Divine Sense.

Later, because he was born with a holy physique for pouring concrete, a civil engineering expert had passed on to him the civil engineering Secret Method "Dragon-Subduing Pile Method," from the "Nine Earths Dragon-Subduing Scripture."

The "Nine Earths Dragon-Subduing Scripture" had been the method used by Lin Feng, the first Earth Lord among the Ten Lords, to survey the world's dragon veins.

It was a genuine advanced civil engineering Cultivation Method, dealing with how to drive pile foundations into the nodes of dragon veins.

If Hu Mang hadn't used the "Dragon-Subduing Pile Method" to drive the turbid Qi of the calamity into his acupoints at that critical moment, grass would probably be growing on his grave by now.

Of course, that move had damaged his own foundation and knocked him straight back from Foundation Establishment Perfection to the nine-year compulsory education stage.

It was miserable.

Hmm?

Hu Mang really did remember something. Besides the "Heavenly Gate General Qi Refining Instruction," there was something else he'd practiced during his nine years of compulsory education, though he hadn't done it in many years-

"The fifth set of Spiritual Power Radio Calisthenics: Heavenly Gate Is Calling."

"How did this go again-"

Hu Mang began marching in place. In standard terminology, this was called the "Star-Stepping Step."

Arms raised to the sides... "Open Heavenly Gate."

Expand the chest and swing the arms... "Take in the Hundred Rivers."

"Slay the Heart Devil."

"Measure Spiritual Pressure."

"Turn the Heavenly Cycle."

"Build the Dao Foundation."

"Answer the Call."

"Return to Heavenly Gate."

After he finished the set, the Spiritual Qi in his stomach spread to his limbs and bones as expected. He no longer felt bloated, but his stomach hurt a little.

"Damn, I got a stitch. You really shouldn't exercise strenuously after a meal."

"What are you doing? Why is there so much noise in the cultivation room?"

Mama Hu's puzzled voice came from outside the door.

"Nothing. Just practicing a little."

Hu Mang rubbed his stomach for quite a while. Figuring enough time had passed, he finally came out.

"How did you work up a sweat?"

Mama Hu poked her head out of the kitchen, glanced at him, and asked in puzzlement.

"Mom, your cooking was so good that I'm having a little trouble digesting it."

"Hey, you little rascal."

After Mama Hu had tidied the kitchen, she wiped her hands and came into the living room. Seeing Hu Mang sprawled on the sofa, staring into space with nothing to do, she suddenly cleared her throat. Her eyes gleaming, she sidled over, narrowed them, and the lines at her cheekbones deepened into almost the same creases as Hu Mang's.

"Good son, did you get it?"

Hu Mang pointed at his luggage bag, his expression peculiar.

"I did get it. Mom, you really weren't lying to me. Shen Kaidao, the famous Daoist of the Liang dynasty, really did fake his death to escape back then, and then went overseas to seek immortality and the Dao."

"Of course. I might lie to anyone, but would I lie to my own son? I saw all of that with my own eyes. Quite a few people knew old Daoist Shen had faked his death back then, but only I and that boy Xie Xianyu knew what really happened."

"Almost nobody knows now that old Daoist Shen reached Golden Core during the Liang dynasty not because he was so gifted, but because he was a descendant of Shen Yan, one of the Ten Immortals of High Antiquity. He said he was going to seek immortality and the Dao, but he was actually looking for the legacy of his Shen ancestor. Before he sailed away, the old Daoist gave Xie Xianyu an overseas map passed down in the Shen family. After Xie Xianyu died, I found it while sorting through his belongings, and later gave it to you..."

"Our family doesn't have any inherited treasures or Spirit Vein assets, but old Daoist Shen was a Golden Core cultivator, whatever else you might say. You dug up his grave, so get an ancient Golden Core method and practice it. You'll definitely be able to break through to Golden Core too..."