As time was passing, Huang Cixi was getting extremely conflicted during her meditation and her cultivation. It had in fact began after the disappearance of her second brother Lixin. As time went by, her cultivation even suffered a lot and she was delayed. Every time she tried to train, she had her brother's fate in mind. Then, it got worse when Feng Yingyue returned into Yinmen City alive. By this time, even falling asleep had become a problem but she was still able to put those thoughts aside.
She had completely given up on her cultivation at the time. And she even had to be careful of her other brother Huang Longwei. But it wasn't the worst yet. When Huang Longwei died and the poor girl had to hold in her arms the cold body of her own father, her mind suffered a huge blow. At this moment, her desire for revenge was the fuel of her cultivation. She immediately went back to it. But deep within her mind, an inner demon was slowly festering. She had one goal in mind and one goal only! She wanted to kill Cao Yun.
However, everything had changed when she actually got to know him. She realized that he was in fact a lot like her second brother. And the same qualities that made her love her brother, made her like Cao Yun. This feeling was growing more and more every day. Cao Yun was really good with his friends and close ones. However, he had no hesitation when dealing with the people against them. In fact, he was maybe a bit more ruthless against those who were trying to harm his friends than himself.
It was when Luduo Bu tried to kill her that Cao Yun risked his life to take his. Because Ren Chao had been abducted, he had almost killed Lu Meihan in battle, even though he was within the Wubei Sect and risked a lot with the disciplinary pavilion.
What was disturbing Huang Cixi the most was not that she came to care for him. What she hated most of all was that she always compared him to her deceased brother, as though he was some kind of replacement in her heart. Deep down, she knew Cao Yun would never replace Huang Lixin, but her thoughts wandered irrationally. Every time she would start to meditate, her state of mind would suffer a bit. Very soon, she felt the inner demon within her and realized its existence. Thanks to her family, she knew of techniques to suppress it.
However, her state of mind was extremely chaotic and now she realized that she had a time bomb in her. Unlike demonic cultivators, inner demons rarely took over orthodox cultivators as they had no Evil Qi within them to feed off of. However, they could cause many damages and even, in the worst case, kill the cultivator. Unless they were able to get rid of this obsession or this doubt within their heart, they could not advance very far.
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Several days went by. Many changes occurred within the Wubei Sect.
Chief Elder Bian decided to retire into an immortal grotto. There were many caves riddling the Heidai Peak. Some were even there since before the founding of the Wubei Sect. As Xiao Xuefeng had ordered, he would stay there for nine years. This was the amount of time Ancestor Wu had stayed in seclusion before officially founding the sect. He would perform the ritual of the 'Nine Years Staring at the Void'. It simply consisted at looking within oneself for nine years to reflect on one's own mistakes and derive ways to use this experience to improve the entire society.
However, this ritual had a strict condition. The cultivator could neither eat nor drink anything. All of his time had to be used for his meditation. As a Spirit Warrior, he could survive without eating or drinking for nine years, but this would still be a terrible challenge for him. Spirit Warriors could survive in extremely harsh conditions, but their bodies were still made of flesh and blood in the end. A nine year period was really pushing it, especially without drinking. To achieve such a result, he would have to slow down all of his metabolism, staying perfectly still and serene.
But this meant that the disciplinary pavilion had no more chief elder. The Sect Leader decided of a vote by the other chief elders. The result was still unknown.
On the other hand, the Coiling Silk Faction had also lost its leader. Despite the fact that Lu Meihan had confessed to being a demonic cultivator in the final months of her life, not many disciples were condemning her. In fact, some even understood the despair who had pushed her to such extremities. And as such, the Coiling Silk Faction did not suffer from the incident. Moreover, it was clear for everyone that no member was aware of her activities.
Wang Mei was naturally chosen to be the faction leader. She was only a second-year but her cultivation was already on the verge of breaking through to 7th-grade Mortal. People even thought that she could become a Mortal Warrior in her fourth or fifth year. She reluctantly accepted. Indeed, she felt terrible at the idea of replacing her former mistress and friend. Wang Mei could not bring herself to use the same room and thus Lu Meihan's room was sealed off and Wang Mei kept her own. In a matter of days, everything went back to normal.
Finally, some changes occurred among the first-years. Mei Hua broke through to 6th-grade Mortal. Being an alchemist, her fighting prowess was not very high, but she needed to quickly become a Mortal Warrior. Only then could she at last become a 1-star Human alchemist thanks to her control over Qi outside of her body. The 6th-grade would be very fast for her as an alchemist. It mainly consisted in accumulating Qi and unlike Cao Yun, she refused the proposal of Chief Instructor Peng. She did not care about training her lesser meridians. Her main goal was to reach the greatest heights of alchemy.
Sun Liao also broke through to 6th-grade Mortal. Even though he was closer to this than Mei Hua during the entrance examination, they broke through more or less at the same time. In fact, a few months ago, she was only a late 4th-grade whereas he was an early 5th-grade. The real life experience they had received from their attack on the Coiling Silk Faction residence had played a small part.
Sun Liao was not an alchemist but as an array formation master, he could use several array formations to help in his cultivation. He also had a better control his flow of Qi as he was used to manipulating the flow of Qi of the environment. He would probably be a bit slower than Mei Hua, but he would reach the 7th-grade before the end of the year.
The slowest one was Ren Chao. He had just broken through to 5th-grade Mortal. This was already great as he had only been a middle 4th-grade when he had enrolled. Being a blacksmith, his occupation did not give him any advantage in his cultivation. However, Wang Mei did. By listening to her music and watching her dance, he had fortified and calmed down his mind a bit. At first, Ren Chao felt inferior to everyone because he had realized that all the other blacksmiths were better.
But when he received Cao Yun's guidance, he regained some self-esteem and realized that his hard work was effective. They all had a higher starting point than him. However, this didn't mean he could not beat them anyway.
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Cao Yun resumed his training. He did heed Xiao Xuefeng's warning and decided to lay low. He had several things to train once more: his Qi cultivation, his mind cultivation, his martial arts, his alchemy and his array formations.
With all these, his days were already excessively busy. But he had to become stronger as soon as he could. Next year, he would be able to leave the Wubei Sect and he was going to do so. He had some vague leads, but leads nonetheless. Investigating the Imperial City was out of the picture for now, but he could maybe go back to Baziyun City. Also, this Wolf Head Sect was an interesting lead. Some of them had survived in the Lunar Marsh, maybe others had too. If he could find surviving members of this demonic sect, he could maybe discover some elements of truth.
But leaving the Wubei Sect also meant becoming a target. Luduo Bu was supposed to kill him next year after all. But he wasn't ready to wait any longer. As such, he needed to be strong enough before the end of this year.
Array formations were essential as they were able to both enhance his cultivation and increase his fighting abilities. He had seen how Sun Liao used them to contain many cultivators. If he could reach a comparable level, he could maybe use them to deal with Mortal Warriors. Cao Yun loved being prepared before engaging in anything. He loved having plans and array formations were perfect for that.
Alchemy was a no-brainer as it could help him cultivate and heal his injuries. If he was to go into the wild, knowing the different medicinal herbs around him was essential. And it also was a kind of link with Feng Yingyue after all. He had sent other letters to her since he woke up, but the distance between them was difficult for epistolary exchanges. Every letter could take weeks before being read.
His mind cultivation's importance was also self-evident. And with his newfound understanding of the Drop of Wrath and the fact that it had considerably calmed down, it was the best time to cultivate the 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks'.
He kept training his Po character in the evening and he was advancing very fast. In fact, the only thing that was slowing him down that the Drop of Wrath acting up, but it was very docile, for now. As such, in less than two weeks, he achieved Perfection in the Po character.
In his sea of consciousness, the fourth character was now similar to a perfect ivory sculpture. It was shining like a polished mirror. The four characters were rotating around the Drop of Wrath, with Shen a bit higher than the others. The fiery energy radiating from it was encompassing all four of the characters, as if to unify them under its command. It really felt like a general organizing its troops.
There was only one character left and Cao Yun would have completed the first layer of 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks'. After that, there were three more layers and he was really excited to discover them later. Cao Yun opened the manual and read the last page of the first layer. The character on this page was green emerald.
When Cao Yun started to circulate the character he realized that he needed all four of the other ones under the command of Shen to even manage one drawing of it. This character was extremely taxing on his mind. And deep within him, he felt a profound energy being awaken, his Jing. Jing, the essence, was the energy that was the foundation of all life. It was given by the parents during the conception and by the mother during the entire gestation. This was the Yuan Jing, the original essence. This Yuan Jing would then be used to produce Qi and animate the body. Without Yuan Jing or if its quality was lacking, Qi would be depleted and life would cease. Protecting this Yuan Jing was essential for cultivators.
The Yuan Jing was believed to be stored in the kidneys and was used in the Lower Dantian. As such, strengthening this Lower Dantian and nourishing it with a lot of Qi was also meant to replenish this Yuan Jing. But there also existed more direct approaches to enhance the Yuan Jing. Many thought this was also the basis of longevity, so there was a lot of pills dedicated to increasing the quantity and quality of someone's Yuan jing.
But this energy was more difficult to manipulate, compared to Qi. This character seemed connected to it. Cao Yun was barely able to complete only one drawing of it. But it was enough for him to be able to understand it. It was Hun, the Wood Ethereal Soul. Contrary to Po, Hun was a kind of soul who would survive the death of the body. It was precisely the soul that people believed was responsible for reincarnation.
The Hun was manifested thanks to Jing and was linked to life. As soon as the Jing would be depleted, the Hun would cease to be attached to the body and would leave to be reincarnated in another life form. Training the Hun allowed someone to better control his Jing, increasing its quantity and even improving its quality. With a more powerful Jing, it was then possible to produce a better Qi. Even the Qi absorbed would be transformed as well. But it was the most difficult character to train. Just as a tree, you had to have a lot of patience before seeing its fruits.
Cao Yun also trained his Qi cultivation of course. But he had decided not to ask Huang Cixi for her help to guard his Seamless Qi Vortex array formation. She still helped him with the Contrived Shell Balm to perform 'The Turtle Swims Through the Canals' and temper his lesser meridians. However, he got an idea for guarding his array formation. He was also a alchemist with a good reputation within the outer disciples. As such, he simply paid 9th-grade Mortals with True Essence pills to guard his array formation during his training. It wasn't very expensive for him and it put his mind at ease.
Finally, Cao Yun wanted to train his 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars'. There were many array formations he wanted to go back to, but this wasn't the first thing he did. He rested a few days and calmly observed the Horn Star, the Neck Star and the Root Star. Using his 'Shen Visualization', he remembered the use of all the moves and variations from his martial art.
He was trying to imagine the same moves with the stars manifested before him, as if he had reached the Mortal Warrior realm. He even tried to imagine the moves of the real dragon.
The third star was still a bit unstable as he had understood it too quickly. He had discovered its move and its first variation during fights. But he still needed a bit of time to really let it sink in. Afterwards, the fourth star would be the last one that was easy to grasp. He could probably forge it and understand it before the end of the year. However, the other three would be more difficult.