At that moment, when Yajia Luojia’s soul ripple began to rotate and emit a dim blue radiance, Li Xuan immediately thought about that music and manual for opening the ‘mind’s eye’ and instantly began to have a sort of understanding.
“This ability of absorbing other people’s soul energy probably arose after my soul was strangled in the void and recovered. If so, then the more people I kill, the stronger I will be. However, if I continue down this way, the eight elements merged within my dantian will become disorderly once I reach encompa.s.sing dan stage.
For now, I’ll temporarily draw out the elemental energy of the eight elements and form it into a *ma.s.s of cosmic energy. This way, as the revolutions of each element circle around and intermingle, it will begin to form the beginnings of a simple solar system. It’ll basically be like how the nine planets...o...b..t the sun.
As for the ‘sun’ in the center, I’ll just use soul force to condense a *soul current, but it is also necessary under these circ.u.mstances to use spatial magic to expand my dantian.”
(*TL: idk where that came from, but its raws 宇宙气团 has never appeared before, and I’m confused.
As for a soul current, that’s the first time this has been mentioned too.)
The moment these thoughts arose in his mind, an indescribable feeling of antic.i.p.ation had already sprung up in Li Xuan’s heart. This method would basically allow each individual element within him to equal one of him on Earth. With the eight elements within him, that was eight inner jin experts!
And once that sort of strength was united, its killing power…
When he thought up until here, Li Xuan immediately began to cultivate!
He originally already had a fiery and pa.s.sionate personality, and more so concerning cultivation. Once an epiphany arose in his mind and he determined to do it, he would absolutely put forth an insane amount of effort!
Hence, he extinguished the thought of advancing towards 2nd Hui 8th layer and instead began to condense his spirit force (soul force) with his new goal in mind.
(*TL: raws put ‘soul force’ in parentheses after spirit force, so both are the same.)
Gradually pouring inner jin into the area between his eyebrows, Li Xuan once again activated the state of unification. Immediately, a terrifying wave of confidence surged forth, making it seem as though everything had suddenly become easier and simpler.
In this state, Li Xuan began to gradually isolate each individual element’s elemental energy with serious calmness.
Because his cultivation was essentially pure elemental energy, it was very easy when Li Xuan began to divide and isolate each element.
Once each ma.s.s of elemental energy merged into a ma.s.s of spirit force, as expected, a type of attractive force appeared.
Li Xuan then drew out a portion of this spirit force and formed it into a spiralling vortex situated within his dantian. After clearly a.n.a.lyzing the patterns of that attractive force and working according to the *theory of engenderment and restraint among the five elements, he began to organize each element.
(*TL: raws – 五行生克 – refers to Chinese philosophy and theory which basically refers to five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, and that they are the building blocks that construct this universe as well as the foundations that give rise to the phenomenons that happen in the universe. Wood begets fire, fire begets earth, earth begets metal, metal begets water, and water begets wood. Wood restrains earth, earth restrains water, water restrains fire, fire restrains metal, and metal restrains wood)
In this manner, Li Xuan gradually began manipulating each ma.s.s of elemental energy to merge into his dantian.
After that, under his precise and exceedingly powerful control as well as the observation and willpower that arose with the mind’s eye, the eight elements and the spirit attribute formed nine b.a.l.l.s of light.
Merging via a portion of spatial elemental energy, these nine b.a.l.l.s of light interacted with each other like atoms, rejecting and attracting each other. In this way, these nine b.a.l.l.s of light temporarily stabilized and began to revolve.
Because spirit force was a fusion of the soul and s.p.a.ce, it allowed Li Xuan’s dantian to suddenly expand twofold, which was quite strange.
Fortunately, under these circ.u.mstances, while it seemed as though the power of these elements as a whole had dispersed, they had all individually increased.
Like this, the spatial elemental energy that filled Li Xuan’s dantian gradually began to condense. As Li Xuan continued to comprehend and cultivate, that elemental energy soon aggregated into a substantial form.
While Li Xuan was not familiar with spatial magic, he had an enormously deep understanding of s.p.a.ce in his past world. As such, this allowed him to undergo more original experiences.
He then consumed two elemental elixirs and directly began to cultivate spatial magic while drawing a.s.sistance from the effect of the magic formation.
For any *system of magic, the first two realms, which were the Yuan and Hui realms, were both dependent on acc.u.mulation through meditation. There were no special battle magic skills or unique cultivation methods, so these two realms were referred to as the true fundamental realms. As such, there were no special t.i.tles for these realms either.
(*TL: to make it easier, ‘system’ will be somewhat of a measure word for the elements just to make it easier. So.. whenever you see system, it’s basically a synonym for element unless I point out otherwise)
However, based on Li Xuan’s innate comprehension of the Dao and nature’s true acknowledgement, he understood that the concept of heavenly law being ruthless was only a particular sort of att.i.tude. One could only truly pursue after further realms by rejecting a mult.i.tude of hindrances and maintaining a singular character. However, desires that ran amuck could be totally forgotten during cultivation by attaining a state where one’s heart is perfectly empty. In that situation, nothing would be able to shake a determined mind.
These were the results of Li Xuan’s flashes of realization as well as his experiences. As such, when he was cultivating spatial magic, he had already reached the level of 2nd Hui 7th layer as smoothly as if he was *splitting bamboo in less than three days.
(*TL: It’s an idiom, I’m sure you guys realized.)
In this manner, the earth (also called dirt), fire, wind, lightning, water, wood, light, darkness, and spatial elements conveniently formed into something like a solar system.
As for the powerful sun in the center—it was Li Xuan’s abnormally strong soul. In other words, it was spirit elemental energy of his spirit attribute!
Like this, Li Xuan finally completed the formation of the universe system structure within his dantian!
This success had cleared the uncertain nature of that sudden flash of insight, so Li Xuan’s heart was exceedingly pleased.
Having bitterly cultivated for three days, despite not having reached the next realm and experiencing a bit of restriction on a portion of his soul, which consequently weakened him a bit, Li Xuan’s future prospects had grown extremely terrifying.
Standing up and exhaling a turbid breath, he once again went through a set of twelve stances of Xing Yi Quan in repet.i.tion.
In a spurt of energy, he did it from beginning to end.
After having done so, Li Xuan felt as though his heart had become light-hearted yet enthusiastic.
Just this instance had unexpectedly allowed him to reach the intermediate stage of manifest jin, and the final and perfect stages weren’t far. At that time, he could once again charge towards the encompa.s.sing dan realm, and by then, he would be able to attempt to tear s.p.a.ce apart once more…
Tearing through s.p.a.ce… Although the power of his fists and feet in the past world could not match up to this world, the strength of his soul was sufficient to crush all 5th Xing experts!
As for the 6th He realm, Li Xuan could not make any judgments for now. After all, the cultivation system of this world was highly complicated, and strength distinctions were quite clear-cut. One layer was significantly stronger than the previous and the gaps in between each layer were very wide.
Under these circ.u.mstances, Li Xuan did not have any thoughts of comparing. After reaching this level, all he felt was that his heart had become much lighter.
Whenever he trained in Xing Yi Quan in this world, Li Xuan’s body would always feel remarkably comfortable. Hence, he determined that from now on, he would train his Xing Yi Quan arts three times a day, doing three full run-throughs each time!
Xing Yi Dragon Form, Dragon Lightning Evasion, Dragon Dance Tribute.
Xing Yi Chicken Form, Phoenix Nirvana, Ninth Fiery Berserk Firmament.
Xing Yi Tiger Form, Dawn Wind Sky Stele, Thundercloud Moving Wild Intent.
How grand and elegant these were! From when he had first begun with these three forms to when he had completed running through them, Li Xuan would feel as though his soul was jolted every single time he practiced.
This was an indescribable realization and enlightenment. For every single period of training, Li Xuan would feel like his soul was being cleansed. It was as if the twelve forms of Xing Yi Quan connected succinctly with his nine, or even ten elemental systems!
Under the effect of the mind’s eye, Li Xuan once again ran through the stances of Xing Yi Quan in detail. After doing so, he had arrived at a fuzzy but extremely startling answer – the twelve forms of Xing Yi Quan corresponded with the main systems of magic in this world!
Dragon – Lightning
Tiger – Wind
Chicken – Fire
Horse – Darkness
Eagle – Light
Bear – Earth
Swallow – Water
Hawk – Wood
Monkey – s.p.a.ce
*Alligator – Time
(*TL: more accurately, the Chinese alligator, but to make it easier, it’ll just be alligator)
Snake – Fate
*Tai Bird – Dimension
(*TL: supposedly a legendary or mythical bird or something. No English translation, nor do I find anything solid when I search in Chinese, so that’s what it’ll be called)
……
This… was simply terrifying!
As for how he had experienced the subtleties of this mystery, Li Xuan suddenly felt as though he again did not understand the twelve forms of Xing Yi Quan.