Chapter 725: Gathering of Three Flowers (IV) —Flower of the Spirit
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The Three Flowers referred to the Flower of the Body, the Qi, and the Spirit.
Zhou Bao’s Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi had been condensed to completeness even though they had just condensed. Although Qing Feng was prepared for Zhou Bao’s success, he could not help cursing him in his heart. After all, everyone would be jealous. And at that moment, he felt admiration, jealousy, and hatred.
But despite all of those negative feelings, he had to continue helping Zhou Bao.
Seeing Zhou Bao opening his eyes, Qing Feng forced a smile and said, “The Flower of the Spirit is the most difficult one to condense because it involves spiritual power. You’re a Human Immortal now. But even though your body, spirit, and inner Dharma powers have all been baptized by the Void Thunder Tribulation and are very pure now, they are still far from perfect.”
To gather the Flower of the Body, one needed to remove numerous protozoa hidden in the body’s acupoints; and to gather the Flower of the Qi, one needed to change the scattered and weak Dharma power and perform a qualitative change. Meanwhile, gathering the Flower of the Spirit is the most troublesome one. The spirit was the source of the consciousness, which was condensed from the soul. If the spirit would be damaged, both the power and the body would be irreparable. For a pract.i.tioner, the spirit was the essence of everything.
Even if someone were to lost one’s body and Dharma powers, as long as the spirit existed, this person could reincarnate, occupy the body of a living being, or even practice the ghost way among the 3,000 Great Ways. Although no one from ancient times till now had ever achieved the Earthly Immortals’ Great Way through practicing the ghost way. But it was famous, and there were many ghost pract.i.tioners that had survived for countless years.
However, once a person lost one’s spirit, everything was over. Even if the one’s body and Dharma powers were intact, that person would only be a living corpse or a puppet.
In addition, the relations.h.i.+p between spirit, body, and Dharma powers was subtle.
The spirit and body were one since birth, meaning that the spirit would die with the death of the body. However, when a pract.i.tioner became an Individual Immortal and condensed a Real Body, the spirit could be completely separated from the body and be reborn by taking over the body of others. In a sense, the Individual Immortal had an eternal life and would not die as long as there was a way to keep the spirit alive.
This was, of course, the ideal situation. To any pract.i.tioner, the ghost way was a long, winding road with no end in sight. The loss of one’s body was equivalent to the loss of dependence. For a very long time, the spirit would be very fragile, and it could even be dispersed by a gust of wind.
Therefore, even if a pract.i.tioner had reached the Realm of Individual Immortal, and the spirit and the body could be completely separated, the pract.i.tioner would not be stupid enough to abandon the body. After all, without nouris.h.i.+ng the body, the spirit would slowly wither.
It was exactly because of that separation between the spirit and the body that those Individual Immortals put more emphasis on tempering the body so that it could provide more nutrients to the spirit.
When one’s cultivation was at the peak of the Individual Immortal Realm, after receiving the baptism of the Thunder Tribulation, that person would become a Genuine Immortal, namely the Ghost Immortal.
The Thunder Tribulation to the Ghost Immortal Realm had two big purposes. One was to temper and purify the pract.i.tioner’s body, Dharma powers, and spirit. And the other was to make a connection between the separated spirit and the body. And this connection was made of Dharma power.
The Dharma power was the result of joining the spirit and Internal Qi on the body.
The same was true for gathering the Three Flowers above the Head. It didn’t matter if one started with the Flower of the Body or the Flower of the Qi, but the Flower of the Spirit was definitely the last one to gather. This was because gathering it required Dharma powers, in other words, the Flower of the Qi. Only in this way could the three be united into one.
Currently, two lotus flowers were circling above Zhou Bao’s head, one sanguine and one golden, being opposite each other. Moreover, as Zhou Bao’s body shook, a faint shadow rose out from between his eyebrows.
It was the primordial spirit of the Primordial Fierce Beast Demonic Ape Zhuyan, which was also Zhou Bao’s spirit, and had its shape. Now, he had to gather his Flower of the Spirit from the primordial spirit.
After Zhuyan’s primordial spirit appeared, it held Zhou Bao’s Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi with its hands, respectively; and sat cross-legged in the air.
Then both the flowers began to turn.
“Great, your primordial spirit has joined your Flower of the Body and Flower of the Qi. Now all you have to do is to try to merge those two flowers with your primordial spirit!”
“That works?!” Zhou Bao’s primordial spirit moved a little, and a ray of red light flashed from between his eyebrows to his primordial spirit, providing his primordial spirit with a steady supply of powerful energy. The energy was pure spirit power without any impurities.
Once again, Qing Feng had an ugly expression of envy, jealousy, and hatred.
Zhou Bao had completely exceeded Qing Feng’s expectations. His Heavenly Magic Eye had helped him eliminating all the protozoa in his acupoints, which was the most difficult step to gather the Flower of the Body. And the leaf of the Seven Wonderful Techniques in his Dantian had a.s.sisted him to successfully condense the Flower of the Qi. In addition, when the two flowers had gathered, they were in a perfect state. Now, he was gathering the Flower of the Spirit, and his Heavenly Magic Eye would help him again. It could be said that the Heavenly Magic Eye gave him inexhaustible spirit power. Driven by the inexhaustible spirit power, his primordial spirit could almost merge the two flowers freely, turning what had been the most difficult step into the simplest one. Once the two flowers would be merged successfully, under the joint action of them, his primordial spirit would be extremely stable, and it would also move toward materialization and become the Flower of the Spirit. And finally, the Three Flowers would gather above his head, giving him a skyrocketing rise.
Sure enough, everything was as Qing Feng predicted it. Under the usage of infinite spirit power, the two flowers began to merge; and in this process, Zhou Bao fell into a wonderful state of apperception with his body and Qi in harmony. While Zhou Bao’s primordial spirit controlled the golden red lotus consisting of the two flowers, he felt the connection between his spirit, body, and Dharma powers. And gradually, his primordial spirit changed.
Under the feet of the primordial spirit of Zhuyan, an invisible, obscure, and mysterious force began to condense. In the end, it formed into a black lotus as dark as ink without a l.u.s.ter.
The black lotus, at first, was only about the size of a fingernail, but it began to grow under the influence of the Heavenly Magic Eye’s unceasing supply of spirit power. In the end, it was as big as the golden red lotus in the hand of Zhuyan’s primordial spirit.
Now, the primordial spirit of Zhuyan still sat cross-legged and motionless with the black lotus under his feet and the golden red lotus above its head.
It slowly put down its hand that held the golden red lotus, and then the golden red lotus trembled violently and momentarily split into a golden lotus and a sanguine lotus, forming a tripart.i.te confrontation with the black lotus under its feet.
The primordial spirit of Zhuyan coordinated from the center of this formation, and suddenly, it seemed to feel something and became a white light, going into hiding in the spot between Zhou Bao’s eyebrows.
The three loti of respectively sanguine, golden, and black color circled slowly above Zhou Bao’s head. Zhou Bao half-opened his eyes, and suddenly his mouth opened. The golden lotus shot into his mouth and appeared above the four-leaved sapling in the center of his Dantian. With that, the black one pierced the spot between his eyebrows and entered his Sea of Consciousness.
In the Sea of Consciousness, Zhuyan’s primordial spirit sat cross-legged on the black lotus while above his head was now only the Flower of the Body, the sanguine lotus.
The sanguine lotus slowly circled above its head and descended, finally stopping between its eyebrows. Then it changed into two blood-red lights and shot into Zhou Bao’s eyes. When Zhou Bao fully opened his eyes, they were red and the Thorn Wheels around his eyeb.a.l.l.s were flas.h.i.+ng. And in the center of the Thorn Wheels was a sanguine lotus.
“The Three Flowers have all been gathered! Congratulations, King Wuyang!” When Qing Feng saw that Zhou Bao had recovered, the envy on his face turned into a kind smile.
“Thank you for your help!” With the Three Flowers, Zhou Bao felt as if he had been reborn. As the saying goes, a joyful occasion boosts one’s spirit. He grinned and said, “Could you please tell me what medicine you used to help me gathering the Three Flowers so smoothly?” Zhou Bao referred to the three drops of transparent liquid that Qing Feng dripped on him. He certainly knew it wasn’t ordinary water. Without the three drops of liquid, he would have needed more time.
“Haha, it’s not because of my liquid, it’s because of your Heavenly Magic Eye. If it weren’t for your miraculous Heavenly Magic Eye, how could you have gathered the Three Flowers so smoothly? You’ve only spent a total of seven days; three days less than I antic.i.p.ated!” Qing Feng smiled, took out a little porcelain vial, and continued saying, “The three drops were spiritual sap from a ginseng fruit. The ginseng fruit was the treasure of Fifth Manor. Unfortunately, since the Necromancer’s Tribulation of 810,000 years ago, the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth has been reduced sharply. The ginseng fruit tree here has been fruitless for exactly 810,000 years. This is the only bottle of spiritual sap. It will probably be used up before long!”
“Ginseng fruit tree, the ginseng fruit tree!” Zhou Bao heard nothing after that, only the words ‘ginseng fruit tree’ stayed in his mind. After all, it was a Spiritual Root from the beginning of chaos. But soon he was calm and collected. “There is such a strange fruit tree in the world! Would you mind showing me the tree?”