Zhong Yue came to the medicine valley and received ten Feather Spirit Dan. He then found an upper court steward, and they went to his own courtyard.
"Having this courtyard is equivalent to having three courtyards. The rear yard is the place where I rest, the middle yard is a visitor hall and can also double as a cultivation area, and the front yard is the servant’s dwelling."
The steward led Zhong Yue around as they visited this residence and said smilingly: "Some tribe’s aristocratic disciples have dozen servants accompanying them. They serve the disciple’s needs while the disciple can focus all his attention on cultivation. Those servants can live in the front courtyard. This upper yard token has extraordinary effects, just put it in the recess on the main gate and you can rouse the courtyard’s totem pole, creating an invisible protection barrier sealing the courtyard; n.o.body outside will be able to think about coming in then. To remove the barrier you simply need to take the token out from the recess. This token needs a little moisture from mind and soul, this way no one else can take it out of the recess."
Zhong Yue’s eyes brightened, the upper yard’s token effect was really considerate. Although the upper yard disciples were only beginner disciples, but to singlemindedly focus on cultivation everyday they couldn’t tolerate disturbances, otherwise it’d be easy to deviate from the way and become and demon[1].
With this token, other people can’t come in, and there was no need to worry about being disturbed during critical crucial moments when cultivating.
Moreover, you could put valuable possessions in the residence without worrying about it being stolen away.
"I dare ask, how do the upper yard disciples cultivate?" Zhong Yue asked.
The Steward smiled: "Any disciple who reach the upper yard will be answering to a Qi Refining Warrior of the Sword Sect, those Qi Refining Warriors will come choose disciples, transmit methods, and guide their cultivation. Each Qi Refining Warrior has a dozen to twenty upper disciples under their care. If and when those disciples become Qi Refining Warriors in the future, the master can bask in the glory. Junior apprentice brother be at ease, as long as you pa.s.s through the Blue Sky Hall’s test a Qi Refining Warrior will come to receive you as a hanger-on, in one or two day if everything goes fast and in five to six days at the latest."
"It turns out to be like this." Zhong Yue sighed in relief.
When that steward left Zhong Yue put the token on the front gate. The yard’s divine totem pole vibrated with a humming sound and sealed the residence. Zhong Yue carefully put the medicine basket down and took out that worn out bronze lamp. The lamp’s fire was bright one moment then dim the next, Xin Huo was still sleeping as before and hadn’t woken up.
"How long will Xin Huo be sleeping?"
He thought a moment and took out a delicate jade bottle. Faint herbal fragrance a.s.saulted his nostrils when he opened the bottle and inside were ten pills the size of soybeans, those were precisely the Feather Spirit Pills.
Before he had painstakingly gather the herbs and refined them. He needed several months to gather all the required ingredients and it was still unknown whether he could succeed or fail in refining them.
Now he become an upper yard disciple and they gave him a full ten pills in one go. That’s not all, he would be getting the ten pills every month. For Zhong Yue it was a gigantic fortune!
One Feather Spirit Dan could make an ordinary person lithe as a swallow and strong as an ox. They could survive half a month without food or water. Even for outer sect disciples of the Sword Sect, one Feather Spirit Dan could allow them to continuously cultivate for two or three days straight with no fatigue, nurture the mind, nourish the body, moisten the soul!
Zhong Yue ate a Feather Spirit Dan and suddenly felt the surge of medicinal power become pure energy that diffused into his four limbs and hundred bones. It felt incomparably comfortable. His body was like the land after a long drought and the Feather Spirit Dan’s medicinal power was like a stream of water moistening his arid body, making his dried down muscles slowly swell back to their former size. The effect was simply wonderful.
Not long later Zhong Yue had been restored to his former well built stature with solid muscles, because the body energy that had been worn out by the cultivation of the Fire Era Palace Sovereign Sui Picture obtained replenishment.
He also felt that his mind had also obtained moistening, and waves ripples in great billows within his sea of consciousness.
Not only that, his soul was also moistened by the medicinal power and his whole being felt very comfortable.
"The Feather Spirit Dan is indeed amazing. I heard some disciple from great clans could take this kind of spirit pills everyday, no wonder those people can progress at such amazing speed! I have to take this opportunity and cultivate the Sovereign Sui Picture, let’s see if it can make me progress another step!"
Zhong Yue immediately visualized the Fire Era Palace and Sovereign Sui, great waves rolling through his sea of consciousness as he constructed Sovereign Sui, the Fire Era Palace and fire tree. His mind power was being consumed at a flying pace, but because he had taken the Feather Spirit Dan, the mind power that was being consumed was also being filled nonstop by the growth.
After an unknown amount of time, the Feather Spirit Dan’s medicinal power dissipated. Zhong Yue swallowed another spirit pill, continuing to cultivate. His sea of consciousness never stopped to enlarge, and newly grown mind power came to him as soon as it was being consumed. The soul also became stronger and stronger, growing in tandem with the sea of consciousness.
Without realizing it the Feather Spirit Dan’s medicinal power was exhausted once more. Zhong Yue took the third pill.
One pill after another were ingested. Zhong Yue was silently lost in the wonders of visualization, and it seemed to him that for the first time cultivation wasn’t such a dull and dry process but so interesting instead, filled with such sense of expectation.
"Huh? No Feather Spirit Dan left?"
Zhong Yue suddenly woke up and was astonished at the emptiness of the jade bottle. Ten Feather Spirit Dan, it would last normal upper yard disciples a full month usually, but this time he had exhausted all his stock of Feather Spirit Dan without even realizing it during this single cultivation session!
"Only four days have gone by probably, four days and I used up my whole stock of Feather Spirit Dan…"
Zhong Yue was feeling a headache, cultivating this Fire Era Palace Sovereign Sui Picture was simply a bottomless pit, without sufficient resources you just had no way to continue!
"No wonder Xin Huo told me I could only eat spirit dan and wonder herbs, my body would be dug empty and starved to death if I ate grains instead."
Zhong Yue took in a deep breath and stood up. He went out of the cultivtion room and walked to the garden in the rear courtyard. He stretched his bones and muscles and felt his body filled with explosive power. He thought: "After ten Feather Spirit Dan and nonstop cultivation for four days, I wonder if I could achieve soul infusion right now?"
His heart was faintly inspired. His soul broke out of his body and attached itself in a split second to a stone pillar in front weighing a hundred pounds or so.
"Hu-"
The stone pillar suddenly flew in the air, hanging in front of Zhong Yue. His soul was infused to the stone pillar, and the pillar followed suit and flew up when he guided his soul to fly up. This was also a mean of fight for upper yard disciples, the stronger the soul the heavier the objects that could be moved.
In theory, if your soul were sufficiently powerful you could even lift a big mountain and fly it everywhere under the sky, you could even use it to stomp a city to wrecks!
However that was only in theory.
Among upper yard disciples, someone who could move something a thousand pounds was already a well-known figure, and using heavy objects to attack was only the most superficial of methods. Upper yard disciples’ soul infusion was generally used to attach the soul to a weapon with totem patterns drawn on them. Then once infused with the soul the weapon would be fast as lightning, cut iron as if it were mud; nothing could stop its extreme might!
Hu, hu, hu-
Inside the garden Zhong Yue manipulated the stone pillar as it danced to and fro in the air, coming and going like the wind, swaying up and down. But suddenly he lost control of the pillar and it violently pounded on the garden rock. That rock thirty to forty high was smashed squarely in the middle and snapped in two, half of it falling in the water in an incomparably shocking scene.
"The Sword Sect has some unique Soul Infusion methods, infuse the soul and control the sword, they each have their own profoundness and art of the sword. By cultivating those methods you manifest the full might of soul infusion, it wouldn’t be randomly hitting things like I was doing and you wouldn’t lose control either.
Zhong Yue thought for a moment, saying in his heart: "You need someone to teach you before you can master marvelous uses of soul infusion. That upper yard steward said that disciples entering the upper yard would have the personal guidance of a Qi Refining Warrior who would receive them under his care. How come no one’s come to find me these days?"
He didn’t dwell too much on it. He immediately shouted quietly and visualized the Jiao Dragon Body Coiling Secrets. His mind power gushed out and transformed into dragon claws and dragon scales, gradually shaping into an increasingly distinct dragon that coiled around his body!
An incomparably ominous Jiao’s head lifted from behind his back, fiercely staring forward. Its two dragon claws rested on Zhong Yue’s shoulders!
Zhong Yue felt as if boundless strength permeated inside his own arms! The Jiao Dragon’s rear claws also locked onto his legs, giving him the illusion he had obtained the Jiao Dragon’s explosive power and speed!
Zhong Yue looked incredulously at his own hands and feet. The Jiao Dragon that wrapped around his arms, body, and legs seemed to have gained substance and was even slowly moving. On the dragon head behind his back the dragon beard dropped down and floated in front of him!
He seemed to have been covered by a real ominous Jiao, while the Jiao dragon’s might merged with his own strength, both combining into one!
"Cultivating the Jiao Dragon Body Coiling secrets to this degree, I’m afraid I’ve already reach its limits right?"
"You’re still far away from that."
Suddenly little Xin Huo’s voice came and Zhong Yue felt delighted. A small fire lazily floated out within the cultivtion room, small arms small legs and a big head that wasn’t proportional to the rest of the body, covered in fiery red hair. It was precisely the bronze lamp’s little child Xin Huo!
"Your Jiao Dragon totem is still far too lacking, you only obtained the dragon’s skin and didn’t obtain its body nor did you obtain its essence."
Xin Huo jumped on Zhong Yue’s body, and went inside the mouth of the Jiao Dragon Zhong Yue had visualized. He walked inside along the Jiao’s body: "Look, your Jiao only has skin, it doesn’t have nerves or bones nor does it have muscles and blood, it only has his hollow appearance but not its flesh and bones. You can only borrow a small amount from the Jiao’s genuine strength this way. Your Jiao totem doesn’t have the evil Jiao’s genuine bearing either, you’re still far far away. If you want to cultivate this body cultivation to the limits, you need to catch a living evil Jiao, slowly study it and clearly understand the structure of its muscles, bones, nerves and bones as well as its bearing."
Zhong Yue laughed: "If I could catch a living evil Jiao, would I still need to visualize it?"
"I guess that’s true."
Xin Huo reflected a little and approved: "But if you were a pure-blood of the f.u.xi G.o.d race, then you won’t even need to catch the Jiao. Just sending out your lofty aura would be enough to make it surrender and you could study it to your heart’s content. Huh? There’s the smell of many people of the f.u.xi G.o.d race! Go, go, quickly carry me out!"
Zhong Yue dispersed his mind power and little Xin Huo immediately drilled inside the sea of consciousness between his eyebrows while urging him: " I’m afraid I’ll soon be extinguished if I still can’t find a pure-blood of a sovereign race and completely pa.s.s the Soul Fire on. There’s a lot of people here, maybe I can find a pure-blooded f.u.xi G.o.d race!"
Many disciples were separately going towards the upper court’s teaching Pavilion when Zhong Yue carried Xin Huo out of the courtyard. Some Qi Refining Warriors must have gone down the mountain to teach and pa.s.s on cultivation methods.
"Why did no Qi Refining Warrior come to receive me as a student so far?" Zhong Yue saw several disciples who had pa.s.sed the Blue Sky Hall’s test together with him go straight to the Teaching Pavilion, and he was even more bewildered.
Little Xin Huo borrowed his eyes to peer outside, his mouth apprehensively muttering: "Not a pure blood, not a pure blood, not a pure blood either… What happened to the f.u.xi G.o.d race? Among a thousand persons I unexpectedly can’t even find one pure blood, they’re even worse than you! Go, go, go there, there’s a lot of people there, maybe I can find a pure blood!"
Zhong Yue also wanted to take a trip to the Teaching Pavilion and ask the stewards why no Qi Refining Warrior came to find him, but when he came close to the Teaching Pavilion, two arc lights suddenly flashed in his direction. There were two "Duo Duo" sounds as two totem poles dropped near his body, one in front of the other!
Suddenly severe pressure came from the two totem poles, pressing down hard on him and nailing him in place!
"Zhong Mountain clan’s Zhong Yue? Looks like you got a lot fatter, I almost couldn’t recognize you."
An upper yard disciple strode forward and looked up and down over Zhong Yue. He suddenly lifted his leg and swept it towards Zhong Yue’s knees as he smiled: "Junior apprentice Zhong, we’ve never met and we have no grievance nor hatred. However you injured my master’s face and my master asked to teach you a lesson. Right, my master is named Tian. You just kneel outside the Teaching Pavilion, kneel for a few hours!"
Translator notes:
[1] 走火入魔: Tbh it only means to deviate from the “genuine” orthodox qigong practices.