Chapter 723: Gathering of Three Flowers (II) —Flower of the Body
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
By the time Zhou Bao had fully regained his human form, his body was covered in blood and trembling. This was because his physical instincts were still expanding as they absorbed the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. The intertwining and change of those two completely opposite forces made him feel pretty awful.
He felt as if there was someone with a blunt saber cutting every inch of his flesh, slit after slit. He could feel the pain coming from every cell so clear-unimaginably clear. But he could only bear it.
In the acute pain, he was equally aware of the fantastic changes in his body.
“Gathering the Flower of the Body, in fact, is the process of the body repeatedly undergoing ruptures and recoveries under great pressure. In the process of those recoveries, you can feel your body’s const.i.tution and ultimate mystery, and your bloodline will be refined again and again. Your body will reach its purest state, and the impurities that are hidden in the deepest part of your body, which can’t be purified by the Thunder Tribulation, will be completely cleared out! Sink your spirit into your body and take a closer look inside it!”
Qing Feng’s wave of divine thoughts was transmitted to Zhou Bao’s spirit.
Impurities in the deepest part of his body!
At this time, Zhou Bao’s spirit had fully sunk into his body. He was feeling and observing every change in his own body from the perspective of a bystander.
“Acupoints, those are acupoints! How come there are so many of them?”
After Zhou Bao’s spirit sank into his body, the first thing he saw were innumerable acupoints.
All along, he thought he had a limited number of acupoints inside his body. This included the original Dantian, the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints he detected himself, and the 16 acupoints that he perceived from the Dragon Chimera.
Zhou Bao hadn’t refined the 16 acupoints because it would have taken too much energy, and after they would be refined, they were likely to conflict with his Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints, resulting in his inner Dharma power being in chaos. And that would be terrible. Therefore, Zhou Bao had been practicing the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints.
But now, during his transformation where his spirit had sunk into his body, he found dense and obscure points one after another; they were as endless as the stars in the sky. But unlike the others, the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints were like nine suns in that sky.
“Remember these acupoints. Every creature has 36,500 of them. But no creature’s natural acupoints have been all opened, except the first creatures born from the Primordial Origin. The acupoints’ positions subtly differ between every living being and creature. Therefore, the acupoints’ positions of other living beings or creatures, even of your own kind, can only be taken as a reference. The premise of opening acupoints is to sense them, but this is not necessary for Human Immortals. As you gather the Flower of the Body, you will be able to sense the location of each acupoint. The only thing you have to do then is to refine those acupoints in order to open them.”
Zhou Bao did not say a word. He was completely immersed in the uncountable, star-like acupoints.
Qing Feng did not disturb him. This was the most crucial step for a pract.i.tioner; remembering the location of his 36,500 acupoints was the foundation of his future practice.
After a period of time, Zhou Bao finally let out a long deep breath after having engraved his spirit with the positions of all 36,500 acupoints in his body.
These were all his acupoints.
Although human beings were a group, no one could understand its ethnic origins. In primitive times, the primitive ancestors were the most vulnerable group with wisdom, and humans were their descendants.
Through the course of reproduction, no one knew how many other creatures’ bloodlines had been mixed into the human bloodline. It could be said that every human being had at least dozens of non-human bloodlines. The non-human bloodline of some people, so-called bloodline inheritors, was so dominant that they could exert the characteristics of the bloodline. Meanwhile, some people’s non-human bloodline was recessive so that they could not exert the power of the bloodline hidden in their body.
But now that Zhou Bao saw the acupoints inside his body during the process of gathering the Flower of the Body, he could activate some of his bloodline’s power. However, that power meant nothing to him and could not be put to action because he had refined Zhuyan. Technically speaking, he was no longer a human being, he was a Primordial Demonic Ape hailing from the Fierce Beast Zhuyan. The bloodline of Zhuyan was so overbearing that it would never allow other races’ bloodline to awaken. The bloodline of the Fiery Eyes was a special case because it hailed from the Innate Deities, which were similar to the Primordial Fierce Beasts, so the bloodline of Zhuyan could not completely overwhelm it.
“Don’t think about refining acupoints now. Carefully observe your Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints and take a look at what lies in them!” Qing Feng’s divine thoughts were once again transmitted to Zhou Bao’s spirit.
“There will be something in them? Isn’t that the Mysterious Divine Light?” Zhou Bao was puzzled for a moment and then observed the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints.
In the past, he had observed the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints but not as carefully as he did now. In fact, at that time, all he felt was the Dharma power flowing through the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints.
But this time, when his spirit focused on the Real Dragon’s Nine Acupoints, he found something bad.
“What are these?!”
For the first time, he saw something other than Dharma power in his acupoints: tiny, filament-like worms.
There were a lot of worms living in his acupoints. The worms were all dark, covered with fine black hair, and were creeping slowly in his acupoints. Even Zhou Bao, who had powerful strength, a superior statue, and a high state, felt a little creeped out at the sight of these things in his acupoints.
“They’re protozoa, which are sitting in the acupoints of living creatures. They do no harm to ordinary people because ordinary people have reached the end of their lives before they are fully grown. Generally speaking, it takes at least two hundred to three hundred years for these worms to be fully grown, and they need to be nourished by Internal Qi and Dharma powers to grow. Although you’re young, you should have practiced in the Azure Big World for a long time, coupled with the incomparable Dharma power of your Mysterious Icy Divine Light, they are fattened up by you. To gather your Flower of the Body, you must first remove the protozoa from these acupoints that have been refined open.”
“How can I remove them?!” Zhou Bao had no concerns about the physical pain; he only wanted to remove these disgusting things from his body.
“With your willpower. These protozoa are generated by the fusion of the dirtiest part of your spirit and your Dharma powers, which are manifestations of your willpower. Remove them with your willpower!” Then an incantation appeared in Zhou Bao’s spirit.
“d.a.m.n, it sounds very mysterious yet it is so easy!” Zhou Bao cursed in his heart. Then he closed his eyes and began to clear the protozoa according to the incantation Qing Feng gave him.
The incantation was simple, but Zhou Bao found cleaning up the worms not that simple—it was a lot more complicated than he had expected. He had condensed his spirit into a point to clear the acupoints. It reminded Zhou Bao of his previous life when his hands were full of grease as he washed greasy dishes at home with cold water and without dishwas.h.i.+ng liquid, but he couldn’t make them clean. It felt really awful.
To make matters worse, what he cleaned this time were his acupoints and his tool was his own spirit, and every time the hairy, disgusting protozoa were squeezed out of the acupoints, they would slip back due to their extremely greasy body. Even if they didn’t slip back, they swam like fishes through his blood, contaminating it. It was so disgusting.
In addition, Zhou Bao also needed to be distracted to suppress the intense pain and suppress his body that was about to turn into a Fierce Beast while constantly absorbing the Mysterious Icy Divine Light. How could he bear to do three things at once?
“Calm down, young man. If you can’t bear the pain, you won’t go far even if you gather the Three Flowers above the Head!” Seeing Zhou Bao’s changing expression, Qing Feng reminded him.
Zhou Bao took a long breath and closed his eyes tightly, but he was rolling his eyes. At the same time there was a red flash across the spot between his eyebrows, and then he was covered by a bright red light.
He used his Heavenly Magic Eye, which was very favorable for the spirit. The soul-summoning and the spirit attack were only part of its functions. Now, this red light was calming Zhou Bao’s restless spirit, slowly strengthening its power. Miraculously, the red light flashed and gradually merged into his spirit. Then, he obviously felt that the speed of clearing the protozoa had increased several times than before, without having to feel the previous greasy feeling.
“Wow, this is a super-effective dishwas.h.i.+ng liquid! I should have used it earlier!” Feeling the power and function of the Heavenly Magic Eye, Zhou Bao was greatly pleased and secretly called himself stupid. He knew clearly that the Heavenly Magic Eye had a strengthening effect on the spirit, but he did not use it and did things only by brute force. How could he get twice the result with half the effort in that way?
As the speed increased, the protozoa in the nine acupoints were all cleaned out in less than an hour. And almost as soon as the clearing of the protozoa was over, all of his Dharma powers were absorbed by his body.
A feeling of mystery rushed into his mind. With all the protozoa removed, he felt that his body seemed to be much lighter as if it had been released from a bondage. Besides, with his Dharma power consumed, he felt as if his body had undergone a purgatory. Afterward, a flash of insight crossed his mind. As he exhaled a long breath, a sanguine lotus appeared above his head.
The Flower of the Body was successfully gathered!