Chapter 297

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In truth, there was another hidden benefit within.

When Zhang Xiaohua had first arrived on the desolate island, he had come to realize the principle of “breaking before building.” The Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart drained all of his True Qi with each practice. From another perspective, this was a way to hone his control over True Qi. Every time he exhausted all of his True Qi, it would inevitably enhance the regeneration of his qi, thus strengthening his cultivation.

After carefully considering the benefits and drawbacks of the technique, Zhang Xiaohua decided that he must succeed in mastering the Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart. He knew that, in a time when all other paths were closed, there was no shortcut left for him. The only way forward was to make his divine sense immeasurably powerful, so that he could control these formations and restrictions.

Zhang Xiaohua once again immersed his divine sense into the jade slip, silently memorizing the thousands of words in the incantation at the back of the slip. Only after that did he withdraw his divine sense, put away the jade slip, and begin to meditate with his eyes closed.

After a long while, his hands began to shift, continually forming different hand seals. As the strange gestures changed, fine beads of sweat gradually appeared on Zhang Xiaohua’s forehead, and his brows furrowed tightly. Eventually, his face grew pale, his teeth clenched, and only then did he relax his expression. The hand seals in his hands slowly came to a halt.

Opening his eyes, he sighed softly, pulling a Yuan Stone from his robes to replenish his True Qi.

After a while, his complexion returned to a healthy flush, and he placed the Yuan Stone back into his robes.

“This Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart method is truly domineering. It forces the True Qi to burn itself, creating true fire, and this true fire refines the divine sense. The sensation is agonizing—my entire meridians are burning, and my mind feels as if it’s being scorched by flames, a pain even worse than being pricked by needles. However, the effects are not without merit. My divine sense has truly strengthened a little, living up to its name. Moreover, once I replenished my True Qi, it seems that my qi has also been slightly enhanced. Truly a case of killing two birds with one stone.”

“Such a pity—this cultivation method always gives me a headache. If I keep practicing it non-stop, I’ll either go mad from the training or be driven mad by the pain. Best to keep it within limits. Three sessions—morning, noon, and night—that’s enough. Any more, and the pain becomes unbearable. What joy is there left in cultivation then?”

Thus, in the days that followed, Zhang Xiaohua limited himself to practicing the Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart Technique three times a day. The rest of his time was spent pondering restrictions and formation arts.

Of course, his nightly cultivation of the Carefree Heart Sutra, and tempering with lightning during thunderstorms, were never neglected. Even the Big Dipper Divine Fist, as always, remained the first thing he practiced upon opening his eyes each morning.

Time flows without a trace in cultivation. Though Zhang Xiaohua’s cultivation base was still shallow, two full years passed in the blink of an eye.

In these two years, no ship ever came by, but Zhang Xiaohua achieved considerable progress in his training. The Carefree Heart Sutra had just broken through to the sixth level, and he was now stabilizing his realm. The Big Dipper Divine Fist had also reached the seventh tier. His bones, once jade-like and lustrous, had now begun turning transparent. His understanding of restrictions and formations had reached a bottleneck—basic restrictions and formations were already second nature to him, and he could lay them down with ease. As for formations, he now thoroughly grasped the workings of simple, small-scale ones. For example, the Three Talents Flag Gate Formation was now trivial in his eyes. However, lacking appropriate formation flags, he couldn’t casually deploy them. Speaking of formation flags—certain simple yet special formations required spiritual tools to set up. These implements needed to be refined to be effective—this was the Path of Artifact Refining in the Immortal Dao tradition. Unfortunately, that was not recorded in the delicate jade slip, and even the plump one mentioned it only briefly. It seemed that True Person Fire Dragon was not particularly skilled in artifact refining, hence the lack of detailed instructions.

Among all his gains, the most remarkable was the growth of his divine sense. Though he only cultivated it three times a day, and each time his divine sense would grow but a fraction, over time, this accumulated progress became astonishing. Now, his divine sense could encompass the entire deserted island. And yet, he was still merely at the peak of the Qi Refining early stage, not even having stepped into the middle stage! According to the records in the Carefree Heart Sutra, one should only be forming divine sense at this point.

That day, near noon, Zhang Xiaohua ceased his study of restrictions, sat cross-legged, and began to change hand seals with both hands. Suddenly, the true qi in his meridians seemed as though it had been ignited—transforming into invisible true fire, surging straight toward his Sea of Consciousness. In his Upper Dantian’s Mud Pellet Palace, the formless void was set ablaze by the boundless true fire, as though the entire space were being scorched. Yet with each drying of the void, a mysterious vitality would drift from the depths of his mind, flying in specks toward his Upper Dantian. As soon as those specks of vitality entered the Mud Pellet Palace, they rained down like spring drizzle, nourishing it and filling the space with life.

But today seemed different than usual. The endless true fire not only wanted to scorch the Mud Pellet Palace, it even seemed intent on melting the very void within the Upper Dantian. Everything in that void began to twist and warp. As a single thread of true fire streaked past, a sharp pain seared through Zhang Xiaohua’s mind.

Zhang Xiaohua seemed to sense that something was different today. The hand seals in his hands changed even more rapidly, urging the true fire to burn even fiercer. Then, at a certain moment, the entire void of his Upper Dantian suddenly collapsed inward. Several points of vitality flew in, and right at the point where the void had collapsed, a single drop of spherical liquid emerged. It absorbed the incoming vitality precisely. In that instant, a flash of seven-colored radiance shimmered and vanished, and the entire void returned to its previous state. All the true fire disappeared without a trace, leaving only that droplet of liquid, slowly rotating, gently pulsing—it was truly like a Pill Heart.

At that moment in the mountain cave, with the appearance of the liquid, Zhang Xiaohua’s entire head felt as though it had been split open by an axe. Were it not for two years of constant tempering and endurance, he might well have fainted on the spot. Yet as that pain split his mind apart, a brilliant light seemed to flash through his consciousness, and it felt as though all of heaven and earth had undergone a fundamental transformation. His divine sense expanded by a full measure, nearly doubling its previous range. What followed was an overwhelming sense of comfort—the pain in his head vanished without a trace, and a profound joy arose in the Upper Dantian, flooding his entire being in an instant.

One could not help but praise Zhang Xiaohua’s luck. This Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart was precisely meant to cultivate such a Pill Heart. Yet at the beginning, there is no Pill Heart within the Upper Dantian to refine—it can only be forged by igniting true fire from true qi and using it to scorch the void. This refining process was the most perilous of all. While it could indeed strengthen divine sense, it also bore the great risk of destroying the Mud Pellet Palace entirely. Zhang Xiaohua was only at the early stage of Qi Refining, far from the Foundation Establishment realm. His control over true fire was vastly inferior to that of True Person Fire Dragon. If not for the mysterious specks of vitality, most likely, the very first time he attempted this technique, his Mud Pellet Palace would have been destroyed—leaving him a fool.

What was most perilous—and most unlikely—was precisely the birth of the Pill Heart. It was a transformation from nothingness to existence, something long beyond the ability of True Person Fire Dragon to foresee. The technique he created was merely theoretical, inherently incomplete—a castle in the sky, built from imagination. In fact, the jade slip made it quite clear: he had never actually cultivated the technique himself. He had merely attempted its beginning stages and had a feeling that it could succeed.

Yet it was this very feeling that misled Zhang Xiaohua. A Foundation Establishment True Person—such a figure was far beyond Zhang Xiaohua’s understanding. In his world, there were only eighteen levels of Qi Refining. Since Foundation Establishment stood above Qi Refining, Zhang Xiaohua could only prostrate in reverence. How could he possibly question it?

Even this so-called feeling, Zhang Xiaohua only assumed that the exalted expert hadn’t cultivated the technique because of a lack of sufficient Yuan Qi of Heaven and Earth. He would never have imagined it was just an illusion—a mirage drawn on parchment.

Yet he mistook this path to ruin for a smooth and open road, and step by step, he walked toward the edge of this painted cliff.

And in that moment of dire peril, the vitality he had gathered over the years during lightning tempering—the starlight that had separated and refined itself—became his saving grace. Drop by drop, it nourished the Mud Pellet Palace, condensed the foundation of divine sense in the Upper Dantian, and, more importantly, provided the vitality necessary for the formation of the Pill Heart! In the face of certain doom, against all odds, Zhang Xiaohua succeeded in cultivating the Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart, taking a critical step on the path of Upper Dantian cultivation.

Who could say what lay behind each sip and each peck, each cause and each effect?

Zhang Xiaohua had no way of knowing all the twists and turns, all the causes and consequences behind this. He only felt that cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage truly possessed unfathomable divine powers. That True Person Fire Dragon was undoubtedly a peerless genius, and he himself must have had dogshit luck.

Once he finished replenishing his true qi using Yuan Stones, a thought finally occurred to him:

“My divine sense is now more than twice as powerful as it was before, and I feel clear-headed, refreshed, with incredible mental clarity. I’ve gained quite a few insights—could this be a sign that I’ve reached Small Success in the Jade Blood Refines the Pill Heart technique? But this technique doesn’t have a continuation, should I still cultivate it this way in the future?”

“Forget it. No need to overthink it. This technique seems to be like the Big Dipper Divine Fist—there’s no need for deliberate cultivation. Just practicing it routinely is enough. I’ll just keep training this way from now on.”

That afternoon, while studying restrictions and formations, Zhang Xiaohua was pleasantly surprised to find that many things he hadn’t understood before now became clear after a bit of careful thought. Even some bottlenecks that had plagued him had vanished. It seemed he had reached yet another level in his formation cultivation.

Several more days passed. Zhang Xiaohua’s ease with formations gave him time to turn his attention to the other jade slips. At the same time, he gained the confidence to try unlocking the restrictions on one more jade slip.

This time, he picked up the slender, slightly narrow jade slip. First, he sent his divine sense sweeping around its surface. Then he probed from various points, cautiously testing the waters. Before long, the corners of his mouth curled into a faint smile. With full confidence, he formed a few extremely complex and unusual hand seals and struck them into the jade slip. The jade slip first flared with a crimson radiance, then turned a pristine white—before vanishing entirely. By the time Zhang Xiaohua sent his divine sense in, there was not the slightest obstruction left.

However, when the characters within the jade slip appeared in his consciousness, an inscrutable expression flickered across Zhang Xiaohua’s face!