Chapter 72: Chapter 70: The Dao Ancestor’s Secret

“Body refining, not even a dog would do it!” — Chu Huaixu.

——

Inside the bamboo house, the young man in a black robe sat on a meditation cushion, his face slightly flushed, his entire body beginning to break out in hot sweat, and his lips couldn’t help but tremble slightly.

“It hurts, it hurts so much!”

Chu Huaixu gritted his teeth, feeling like he was about to be driven insane.

The pain he was experiencing now was vastly different from when he was cultivating the “Refining Sword Formulas.”

“Refining Sword Formulas” involved tempering oneself with the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi, using one’s own body as a sword embryo, enduring the pounding of Spiritual Qi.

This was a pain from the outside in.

The “Dao Scripture” was now giving him an experience where a portion of the spiritual power entered the “Spiritual Embryo Secret Collection,” which was warmly comforting.

Another part of the spiritual power surged into his body, bringing a kind of pain from the inside out!

——Tsk! It was indeed a brand new way to feel pain!

As the spiritual power within him continued to increase, the burden on his body also became larger and larger.

Chu Huaixu, gritting his teeth in hatred, suddenly recalled the words written in the small pamphlet introducing the “Dao Scripture”: Central Justice and Peace.

You call this Central Justice and Peace?

The pain continued to expand, reaching a peak at the moment of realm breakthrough.

Next door, Han Shuangjiang was just about to close her eyes to cultivate when she heard a familiar scream.

She was long used to this and didn’t find it strange anymore.

A playful smile appeared on the young girl’s face as she closed her eyes on the meditation cushion.

But soon, she opened her beautiful eyes and immediately stood up, running out anxiously.

“Didn’t he already fully open the Nine Acupoints, wasn’t he supposed to have the ’Dao Scripture’?”

“Why is this phenomenon still occurring?”

“No, I have to go see what’s happening, he might have fallen into a demon, something unexpected might have happened!”

A deep concern appeared on the Big Ice Cube’s face. She immediately knocked on the door, but there was no response from inside.

Han Shuangjiang didn’t care about the differences between men and women and directly pushed open the bamboo door of Chu Huaixu’s bedroom.

She saw him lying on the meditation cushion, his black robe and inner garment both wet.

There was both sweat and blood.

For some unknown reason, a large number of swellings appeared on his body, and the skin in many places was cracked, his entire body looked as if it had been torn open.

It was as if a force inside his body was trying to burst out.

His body was swelling and even seemed to be… about to burst!

Han Shuangjiang’s eyelashes trembled slightly, and out of concern for him, she momentarily fell into panic.

But she quickly calmed down, and the first person she thought of for help was Steward Niu.

She could feel that Steward Niu was a really good person.

Just as the Big Ice Cube was about to rush over, she suddenly noticed something.

“Is it my illusion?”

“Why does it seem like the wounds aren’t as deep, and the swellings have also diminished a bit?”

She took a closer look and discovered that they were healing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“Just like….”

“Soaking in the Body Tempering Liquid that time!” Han Shuangjiang recalled the pool from that day.

Han Shuangjiang felt somewhat relieved, guessing in her heart, “Did he take some kind of spirit pill?”

Because such recovery speed could not possibly be inherent to the human body.

But the cold-faced girl was still not entirely at ease.

“I have to keep watch here,” she thought to herself.

“If anything else goes wrong, I’ll go find Steward Niu immediately,” the Big Ice Cube decided in her heart.

Han Shuangjiang slowly squatted down beside Chu Huaixu.

Before squatting, she habitually lifted the hem of her clothes up a bit, otherwise, her full hips would become too tightly constrained by her robe when she squatted.

She folded her arms on her knees, then rested her little face on her arms, watching him as she squatted there.

“The wounds on the dead fox should be healed after a while.”

After thinking for a bit, the Big Ice Cube extended her somewhat cold hand, placing it on his forehead to check his temperature.

“His body isn’t so hot anymore.”

After she put her hand on him, Han Shuangjiang noticed that Chu Huaixu’s tightly furrowed brow seemed to relax a little.

…

…

After nearly an hour, Chu Huaixu finally woke up slowly.

He curled up on the ground, opened his eyes, and saw Han Shuangjiang sitting on a chair, pretending to pour herself some tea.

“Awake?” Her tone was calm, as always, cool and indifferent, with no trace of concern.

“Yeah.” Chu Huaixu shook his head vigorously to wake himself up a bit more.

He climbed up from the ground and looked at his robe.

“How come there was bleeding!” He was really at a loss.

“I don’t know, when I came in, you had a lot of swellings, and your skin was cracked in many places, but now it’s all healed, not even a scar left.” Han Shuangjiang told him everything she knew.

This made Chu Huaixu frown even more fiercely.

For a moment, he didn’t know whether to call the “Dao Scripture” miraculous or bizarre!

The Big Ice Cube, still in a cold tone, asked, “Weren’t you cultivating the ’Dao Scripture’ in your room? How did you end up like this?”

“Because I seem to have discovered a secret of the Dao Ancestor,” Chu Huaixu said.

“What?” Han Shuangjiang’s curiosity was immediately piqued by this man.

“I suspect that the Dao Ancestor, the venerable old man, was a crude body cultivator!”

The Big Ice Cube’s eyes immediately narrowed, and she said in an unhappy tone, “Don’t joke about this!”

After speaking, she looked around, hinting that he should watch his words.

This is a Daoist Sect! And you’re saying here that the Dao Ancestor was a body refiner?

Utterly ridiculous!

Chu Huaixu restrained his expression, adopting a serious face as he said, “Alright, let me be serious. In fact, I suspect that the Dao Ancestor was in the truest sense… a practitioner of both inner and outer cultivation!”

“Hmm?” Han Shuangjiang was increasingly confused.

At this moment, Chu Huaixu’s eyes also contained a few traces of bewilderment.

During the Acupoint Opening Stage, he claimed he was practicing both inner and outer cultivation, which was completely making himself look good.

The “Refining Sword Formulas” is thoroughly an evil body refining skill, relying entirely on external pounding to stimulate the digestion of the Acupoint Opening Pill.

Others who heard him say he was cultivating both internally and externally would only think that Chu Huaixu was body refining while also taking time to hone his physical body.

Very determined, but that’s all.

In fact, many body refining cultivators use the phrase “inner and outer cultivation” to elevate their status.

However, most people scoff at this.

This involves the body refining cultivation style.

Those who pursue body refining mostly have low Spiritual Embryo Grade, and the mystical aspects of the “Spiritual Embryo Secret Collection” cannot be manifested; it can’t store much spiritual power.

With sparse spiritual power, cultivation remains modest and breaking through realms becomes extremely difficult.

Perhaps, in ancient times, a clever person had a sudden thought—why not store spiritual power in other parts of the body instead of the Spiritual Embryo Secret Collection?

The result for them was undoubtedly exploding and dying.

Later, more clever or rather a group of crazy people may have appeared.

Since exploding and dying was easy, it must mean our bodies were too fragile!

The Body Refining Stream was thus born.

These persevering individuals continually developed and strengthened their bodies, discovering that the physical body indeed could contain spiritual power, but it had to be extremely strong, otherwise, it couldn’t hold it!

The process of progression was incredibly difficult and torturous.

The majority of body refiners claim to practice both inner and outer cultivation because their Spiritual Embryo Secret Collection can store spiritual power, although it’s very sparse, with most of it contained in the physical body!

Generally, it’s an 80-20 or 70-30 split, at worst even a 90-10 split.

However, when upgrading just now, Chu Huaixu felt something peculiar.

He could clearly feel that spiritual power was distributing within his body and distributed… very evenly?

This was truly a 50-50 split, in the genuine sense of both inner and outer cultivation!

At this moment, Han Shuangjiang looked at him and inquired, “Wasn’t the peculiarity in your body earlier due to taking some elixir, thus recovering so quickly?”

He winked at her, saying, “Well! This is my big secret, and I’m only telling you, don’t spill the beans.”

“Alright.”

He shook his head to the Big Ice Cube, “I only took a Realm Enhancement Pill from the Treasure Pavilion, no healing elixirs.”

“This situation was unexpected, and I’m still exploring why this phenomenon occurs.” He admitted honestly.

Han Shuangjiang was greatly astonished upon hearing this, puzzled: “But the rumors about the ’Dao Scripture’ are all known worldwide, even in the mortal world it’s said that no one has yet achieved divine skill Great Success.”

“Yet, it was never heard that cultivating the ’Dao Scripture’ resulted in something like you.” She said.

“Tch, indicates they’ve been practicing it wrong!” Chu Huaixu began to smirk again.

But in reality, his heart was filled with suspicions.

Because Big Ice Cube was right; in over a thousand years, with so many people cultivating the ’Dao Scripture’, such a synergy of inner and outer effects hadn’t been seen.

“Even among the players… none!” This was what surprised Chu Huaixu the most.

Many high-level players love taking the “evaluation stream” route, the ’Dao Scripture’ is such a good material for evaluation, how could they not post some evaluation threads on the forum?

He was certain in his heart that no player shared his current situation.

“Is it because our physical constitutions were different in the early stage of cultivation?” He mused. “I’ve been tempered by the ’Refining Sword Formulas’, meeting the true requirements of the ’Dao Scripture’?”

He was not sure about this.

He only knew ’Refining Sword Formulas’ was also very uncanny, no other Acupoint Opening Stage body refining technique could achieve this strength.

Especially after his Eighth Acupoint ascended to the Ninth Acupoint, the boost was immense, Chu Huaixu suspected that even new First Realm body refining cultivators hadn’t as robust a physique as him!

“Rumor has it that the Dao Ancestor stumbled upon a Nameless Technique, beginning his cultivation journey then.”

“So, was he also grinding his body fervently when he was just a little Daoist, obsessed with ’self-abuse’, and achieving a level comparable to the Great Success of ’Refining Sword Formulas’?”

“Then what was he practicing before cultivating the ’Dao Scripture’?”

Chu Huaixu became even more puzzled.

Because from the timeline, the formula for the Acupoint Opening Pill was created by the Dao Ancestor in the Ninth Realm, and only afterwards did matching Acupoint Opening Stage techniques gradually appear.

A thousand years ago, even the concept of the “acupoint opening preparatory realm” didn’t exist, everyone started their cultivation from the First Realm, cultivators were very few at that time.

Thus, all techniques from that period started from the First Realm, there simply weren’t techniques for laying the foundation before the First Realm.

He thought this figure who pressed down on the world for a millennium had too many mysteries about him.

Chu Huaixu opened his Character Panel and had a careful look.

In the Character Panel, the Spiritual Power Value inside the Spiritual Embryo Secret Collection showed: 86.

This value did not surprise him, as he remembered clearly those ’Dao Scripture’ evaluation posts provided data seemingly around 80, though he couldn’t recall the exact numbers.

“No wonder lots of people say the ’Dao Scripture’ is only equivalent to an Earth Level technique, being listed under Celestial Level is merely out of respect for the Dao Ancestor.”

“Because for First Realm Earth Level techniques, the range for spiritual power values when first achieved is 80-100, making this post-data Earth Level technique’s standard.” Chu Huaixu thought.

“As for Celestial Level, it ranges from 100-120.”

In cultivation paths, differences only grow more significant in later stages.

So it seems, the ’Dao Scripture’ can indeed only be considered passable within Earth Level.

“But the issue lies in…” Chu Huaixu lowered his eyelids slightly.

“The spiritual power contained within my body is also 86!”

…

(ps: Second update, asking for monthly votes! Holding onto sixth place! Only a few hundred to break into the top five!

More updates are coming today.)

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