The previous Jiang Chen had started training his body from the age of six. Seeing as he was fifteen this year, he had spent seven or eight years clearing three acupoints, and coalescing three meridians true qi.
Achieving three meridians true qi would have been quite an accomplishment if he had been a child of any other ordinary family.
But he was the son of a duke, and had been born with a golden spoon in his mouth. His bloodlines were good, resources abundant, and potential excellent. To achieve only three meridians true qi after that many years of training was quite the failure amongst failures.
“To be honest, the duke of Jiang Han is a father who unconditionally takes his son’s side, and is quite forgiving.” Jiang Chen sighed lightly amongst laughter, but was not depressed.
“Twelve levels of true qi. Heh, if I remember correctly, these is a type of foundational training, merely a minor cycle of the path of cultivation. It is the lowest level of existence amongst all types of training. In my past life, I was the caretaker of the Tianlang Library, and was well versed in all aspects of divine and common knowledge. Now that I have reincarnated, how can I train in such an inconsequential path?”
Although he thought this way, reality was cruel and hash. Despite being full of wisdom and theories, he could only resign himself to walking these negligible paths of cultivation with the current condition of his body.
With his current body, he would probably train to death and still have nothing to show for it if he started off immediately practicing numerous grand methods.
Jiang Chen was a bit depressed. This was like sitting down to a spread of delicacies from land and sea, but he was limited to pairing only pickled roots with his rice.
However, Jiang Chen was not overly downcast as he knew —
“The path of cultivation is the same for all. Many geniuses have emerged from ordinary commoners to ascend to legendary positions. But did not they all start with practicing the same minor methods of martial dao? I will observe the customs of this place and shall even improve on these minor methods.”
Jiang Chen was quite confident.
Once he had thought through this point, his entire being became spontaneously happy.
“Haha, I was thinking too much just now. Isn’t it such a huge joke that I want to upend the laws of cultivation as soon as I’ve arrived in this world? Although I can’t practice the numerous grand methods, don’t I have numerous ways to hasten my progress in this paltry true qi realm, and catch up to the greats?”
Jiang Chen was really fresh out of ideas if he’d wanted to use this body to practice grand methods. But practicing the minor methods in the realm of true qi — he had ideas aplenty then.
“This idiot, no wonder his true qi is so frail. How is his true qi supposed to improve when he fishes for three days and casts nets for two?”
“And, the way he’s using to circulate qi is completely incorrect. This method of breathing is complete nonsense.”
“My dear heavens, did this brat even spend an ounce of effort on training? How could he even get the order of true qi circulation wrong? What a character!”
“This is laughable. One needs to clear the twelve acupoints, but the practitioners of this world have no method of mapping their acupoints. Exploration is even needed?”
Jiang Chen discovered quite a few issues after a few random circulations of qi.
The most hysterical thing was that it was an exceedingly arduous trial each time a practitioner cleared an acupoint. A great deal of trial and error was involved.
It was apparent to see that acupoints were scattered randomly in each practitioner’s body, with no rhyme or reason.
But, didn’t this world have a method to locate acupoints?
Jiang Chen identified a handful of methods to locate acupoints just by randomly searching through his memories. But what he didn’t know was that if these methods he’d randomly plucked from memories were disseminated into the world, they would cause great fever and upheaval.
“Ai, it would seem that the ordinary circumstances I’ve reincarnated into are quite weak indeed, weak to the point of being in the bottom of the ranks.” Jiang Chen had gained a further understanding of the specifics of his current life.
At least, it was exceedingly poor in the area of training methods.
“Maybe, Eastern Kingdom lacks resources merely in the realm of training? Are they stronger in other fields?” Jiang Chen had no intention of discounting anyone. He had no right to look down on even Eastern Kingdom.
After all, although he was full of the universe’s secrets, with his current level of training, any random practitioner on the capital’s streets could crush him as easily as stepping on an ant.
Jiang Chen corrected and improved on each of the problems he had found earlier. He tapped into his three meridians and started circulating three meridians qi in his body.
In the beginning, due to his inexperience, Jiang Chen found controlling qi to be a bit difficult.
He became much more adept, and controlling the three meridians qi was more effortless after a few cycles.
At first, the qi movement was exceedingly slow, as if worms moving through dirt. Its movement became faster and faster over the course of the few hours. Suddenly, the three meridians qi thundered towards some part within the body.
They were like three floodwaters flooding the plains, utterly collapsing and submerging a dam.
A feeling of comfort that almost made one wish to cry out in satisfaction saturated Jiang Chen’s body, and a rush of blood went straight to his brain.
His entire being felt incredibly comfortable, as if it was about to take flight.
That rush of feeling formed a hot air current and flowed down a meridian like the gentle spring rains, spontaneously creating a new pathway within his body.
Fourth qi acupoint, cleared!
Four meridians true qi!
One had to say, this body possessed good potential to begin with. Jiang Chen had summarized the salient points of training from his memories and had corrected the mistakes of his past self. The results were instantaneous.
The original pathetic three meridians true qi had immediately ascended to four meridians true qi!
And him, Jiang Chen, had taken the step out of the realm of initial qi and joined the ranks of the intermediate realm of true qi!
“Hahaha, who would’ve thought training is such a wonderful feeling!” Jiang Chen’s mind was full of various thoughts at the successful completion of him taking this step. They all poured out and came to a head, momentarily overwhelming him with emotion.
It had not been an easy path. He was the exalted son of the Celestial Emperor in his past life, but was unable to train due to his yin constitution. He had waited millions of years; he’d waited until the cataclysm arrived and obtained the right to train due to his reincarnation.
How could Jiang Chen not have mixed feelings when thinking of all that had transpired before?
The Jiang Chen of now was like a ravenous glutton from ancient times: full of hunger and greed towards cultivation.
Once he had stabilized the fourth meridian true qi, he chose a “True Acupoint Resonance” method and easily pinpointed the location of the fifth acupoint.
Of course, Jiang Chen knew that it was an easy thing to find the fifth acupoint. But to clear this acupoint and receive a fifth level of true qi was not that simple.
True qi would not be pure if the foundations were not firm. He had just cleared the fourth meridian and had not yet built it up. There was no way it could withstand a strong impact. All would be for naught if he was impatient for progress and harmed his meridians.
Therefore, the next step was to temper the four meridians he already controlled, and make appropriate use of the four meridians true qi.
As for ways to temper meridians, he had an abundance of those, whether it was training methods or refining medicines. He would be able to proceed at ten or a hundred times the pace of others.
This was his advantage, an advantage that no genius could match!
Genius?
In this world, what genius could be more brilliant than the son of the Celestial Emperor?
“It looks like the “True Acupoint Resonance” method does actually locate the acupoints. I was worried that due to varying circumstances, this method may not be effective. It would seem that the path of martial dao all leads to the same result, despite the plethora of different ways.”
Jiang Chen was a bit self satisfied, as he knew that just the use of the “True Acupoint Resonance” method was enough to put him ahead of other young geniuses.
After all, the genius practitioners of this world needed to meditate, explore and reflect in order to find an acupoint and clear a meridian.
But he, he could directly locate an acupoint through a method that did not belong in his class. This meant that he could save quite a bit of time compared to others.
“Indeed, the deficiencies of training methods can directly restrict the progress of a region’s practitioners.” Jiang Chen lamented a bit.
In actuality, geniuses were not separated by class. But, there were different rankings of one’s potential to train.
How much time could be saved by the best resources and knowledge? How many windings paths could geniuses avoid as a result?
Jiang Chen had increased confidence in his future in martial dao thanks to these thoughts.
It was almost dusk when he left the training room. He had been in there for a full ten hours. This would undoubtedly become prime gossip in the duke’s manor if word got out. One had to know that the most the previous Jiang Chen would train for was four hours.
“Eh? Jiang Zheng? What are you doing here?”
Upon pushing the door open, Jiang Chen was a bit surprised to see Jiang Zheng sitting at the doorstep.
“Young duke, joyous tidings!” Jiang Zheng wasn’t the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he had been sitting here since early afternoon. It was now dusk; he had a belly full of good news but no one to share it with. He’d finally awaited the end of Jiang Chen’s training, and was naturally overjoyed.
“Don’t get worked up Jiang Zheng. So much excitement over such a little matter?” Jiang Chen chuckled knowingly. It looked like Jiang Chen had had a successful trip to the Hall of Healing.
“Young duke’s plans were spot on. The Hall’s people were first arrogant, but then respectful. They ended up begging me in the end! And…” Jiang Zheng’s features were quite animated as he was extremely excited.
“Jiang Zheng, let’s talk about these small matters later. What about the ingredients I wanted?”
“Here, they’re all here!” Jiang Zheng’s respect for his master grew even further. You’ve got to hand it to the young master. He sees such a large business deal as a “small matter”.
“Go see to it that the servants prepare a large wooden tub, and bring some additional vats of clear water to this secret room.” Jiang Chen commanded.
“Your wish is my command.”
One had to say, Jiang Zheng was a commendable steward. He had fulfilled Jiang Chen’s orders in less than an hour.
“Alright, Jiang Zheng, why don’t you go home. Come here and await my orders early next morning. Give me a report on the pill recipe then.”
To be honest, the Heavenly Karma pill was just a means to an end in Jiang Chen’s eyes. It was just a way to resolve the immediate economic crisis in front of him.
Frankly speaking, he had absolutely no interest in either the Heavenly Karma pill or its resulting economic effects. His attention was not on these matters.
Things would be much easier now that he had these ingredients.
He would be able to mostly recover from the caning injuries after just a night’s healing.
These spirit level herbs were all basic ingredients for the Heavenly Karma pill. Although Jiang Chen was unable to actually refine the pill with his current foundations, he would be able to achieve around thirty to forty percent of the pill’s healing properties through the use of certain techniques to combine the ingredients.
That night, Jiang Chen seeped his body in the pill ingredients, and directed four meridians true qi to continuously repair internal damage.
Thus, a night quietly passed by…