Chapter 26: The Primordial Old Man

  Ye Xuan came alone to the back mountain, still by that small stream, still on the green stone. Ye Xuan sat there, muttering to himself: "Can't get to the Star Profound Realm, Soft Stone Egg will take care of you."

  After taking a small Xuan Dan into his body, the pure Xuan Qi spread throughout his body, and the familiar Soft Stone Egg appeared once again. Ye Xuan's tiny meridians continuously absorbed this gentle energy.

  Before he knew it, the sky had already darkened. Today, the Soft Stone Egg did not disappear for a whole day. Ye Xuan spent the entire day refining ten small Xuan Dan, but the nine cracks on the Xuan Gate didn't have any reaction at all, nor was there even a hint of solidification. The ten small Xuan Dan were like stones sinking into the ocean.

  Ye Xuan had thought that the large amount of spiritual energy required to break through the Star Profound Realm was the reason, so he continued to cultivate for several days. However, as these days passed, the Soft Stone Eggs unexpectedly appeared every day, but he felt that his cultivation had no effect at all, leaving him deep in thought.

  Bored to death, Ye Xuan suddenly remembered a blue scroll given to him by Kong Daoshi. He took it out from his Qiankun bag.

  "Mind-Sealing Technique"

  The four big characters on the blue scroll were simple, yet they looked exceptionally elegant. In Ye Xuan's opinion, things that could be described with the word "secret" were usually rare.

  The first few pages of the scroll introduced the profession of artifact refiner in detail, which Ye Xuan had already understood, but there was a passage that caught his attention.

  Artificer, a profession that cultivates spiritual power. People usually think of artificers as only being able to forge precious artifacts, but this is not the case. The magnitude of spiritual power far exceeds people's imagination. When you one day truly grasp the essence of spiritual power, you will be the ruler of the land. With every move, mountains will crumble and the earth will shatter. You will have the opportunity to see another sky.

  A short sentence that expressed the power of spiritual strength, but in the end it said you will see another sky, which made Ye Xuan feel strange, could he still take a step to reach heaven?

  The brief doubt did not last long, and Ye Xuan continued to read on. The Dantian Palace is located between the eyebrows and the back of the brain, a hollow cavity where the divine spirit resides, giving birth to the divine light gas, with spiritual nature, referring to the spirit. Humans have two hidden bodies, the soul body and the spiritual body, while the Dantian Palace condenses the divine light body, referring to the spiritual body.

  The next scroll is "Condensed Chapter", which only has a few lines of mnemonic verses...

  "When breath meets divine intention, it can give birth or cease, in the realm of spiritual orifices, gathering the heart and spirit..."

  Ye Xuan recited the incantation on the scroll, and his spiritual energy slowly condensed in his brain. During this process, he felt a surge of fluctuations, as if the calm lake surface had stirred up ripples, and in the depths of those ripples, a vague four-square palace grid emerged, with a blurry semi-transparent figure sitting cross-legged inside the grid.

  Ye Xuan's mind stirred, and the semi-transparent body slowly opened its eyes. Ye Xuan's mind changed again, and his shadow slowly closed his eyes once more. He felt a connection between himself and this blurry body in terms of blood and spirit, as if it were another part of him, but he also sensed that this body was independent.

  Just as he was concentrating on condensing his spiritual body, the soft stone egg slowly floated out of the quiet mysterious gate, as if it had seen Ye Xuan's condensed spiritual body in surprise and curiously came out to take a look.

  Ye Xuan's mind wandered, and his spiritual energy flowed into the Mysterious Gate, slowly invading the Soft Stone Egg. As soon as he entered, he felt a chaotic world of white misty fog. His spiritual energy slowly transformed into a physical body. Could it be that this body was his spiritual form? It was unbelievable that he could enter the Soft Stone Egg's interior.

  "Huh? How can I sense the presence of Xuan Qi here?" Ye Xuan suddenly felt a hint of Xuan Qi within the soft stone egg.

  Ye Xuan suddenly thought of a possibility, "Could it be that the spiritual energy I've been refining for the past few days has all been absorbed by this Soft Stone Egg?" Hmm, it must be so. Alas, alas, I've been busy for several days, no wonder my strength hasn't increased at all. It turns out that this Soft Stone Egg has been secretly devouring it.

  "Huh, spirit body?"

  An old voice suddenly sounded in this chaotic world, and Ye Xuan, who was thinking, suddenly heard the voice and immediately shuddered.

  "Who, who's speaking?" Ye Xuan's spiritual body searched around for the source of this voice.

  "Little doll, are you looking for me?"

  A white-robed, hoary figure suddenly appeared in front of Ye Xuan. It was a face that had weathered many storms, with two deep-set eyes that shone brightly.

  As soon as the old man appeared, Ye Xuan was shocked and asked: "Who are you? How did you appear in my Soft Stone Egg?"

  "Soft stone egg? Haha, little doll you are really funny! Haha!" The old man heard Ye Xuan say this and couldn't help but laugh.

  "What are you laughing at?" Ye Xuan was made somewhat uneasy by this inexplicable old man's laughter.

  "This little doll has appeared in my heart, how can I ask you?" The old man chuckled and said.

  "Am I in your heart? Is this chaotic world your heart?" Ye Xuan asked bewilderedly.

  The old man in white robes nodded and smiled at him with a twinkle in his eyes.

  Ye Xuan thought of the stone statue under the cliff at this time, and took a closer look at the old man in front of him. He didn't realize it until he looked again, and was startled. My god, it's so similar, Ye Xuan shook his head, not just similar, but fundamentally the same person as the stone statue.

  "This soft stone egg is actually your heart? Isn't it just a piece of rock?" Ye Xuan asked in doubt.

  "Hehe, little doll, my heart is not made of stone! This is the soul of my heart. Do you see the existence of mysterious energy here?" The old man laughed and looked up at the sky with a smile.

  The old man didn't say anything else, but as soon as he mentioned the Xuanqi Ye Xuan, he became annoyed and said in a gloomy tone: "Have you been absorbing my Xuanqi for the past few days?"

  "You silly child, you don't understand the subtleties of things. If I hadn't absorbed your excess energy these past few days, your body would probably have exploded by now!" The old man said with a teasing smile.

  "What does that mean? I was cultivating just fine, how could I suddenly explode?" Ye Xuan became more and more bewildered by the old man's words.

  "You can truly understand cultivation, cultivation is not just a simple storage of Xuan Qi. You must know that it's not enough to just absorb strong Xuan Qi to break through. The reason why Xuan Qi can be used by us is because we have control over it, which can stimulate the release of enormous energy."

  Ye Xuan seemed to understand and nodded slightly.

  The old man stroked his semi-transparent beard and continued, "Before, you only absorbed the Xuan Qi, but didn't thoroughly control the Xuan Qi storage within your body. Your body has already reached its limit, yet you continue to absorb without stopping. How can your body endure it? If it can't, you'll be controlled by the Xuan Qi instead. In lighter cases, you'll go mad from the energy entering your mind, and in severe cases, your body will explode and die."

  The old man's words made Ye Xuan thoroughly understand his meaning, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. So that was it, he had been blinded by the vast amount of spiritual energy from the dan, and his one-sided absorption had indeed gone against the correct path of cultivation. Thinking about this, he couldn't help but feel grateful to the old man; if not for him, he might have really exploded and died.

  "That thing, I see, I really don't quite understand how to cultivate!" Ye Xuan said awkwardly.