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“Can’t remember?” The drunken haze vanished from Zhou Chen’s eyes in an instant. In a low murmur, he said, “Someone used some kind of memory-interference skill on the Third Young Master?”
That Marquis Wucheng was a staunch imperial loyalist. He had never seen eye to eye with the Chancellor in court. After something like this, it would only take a little provocation for the conflict between them to grow even sharper.
But the moment the words left his mouth, Zhou Chen suddenly turned back to look at Si Ziyu, his gaze strange and full of surprise. “No, that’s not right. Didn’t you just say you were the one responsible for the Third Young Master’s safety back then? If he doesn’t remember, fine, but you’re a Grandmaster. How could you not remember either?”
A bleak wind blew across the sky, setting their robes flapping loudly.
Si Ziyu met Zhou Chen’s eyes in silence for two seconds, then gently shook his head. “That’s right. I don’t remember either.”
“Someone in the Source Awakener Realm?”
“I’m not sure. I heard the Chancellor already had the shadow guards investigating for over a year, but they still haven’t found anything.”
Zhou Chen fell silent for a long while. Then he tipped back his head and gulped down a huge mouthful of fiery liquor before letting out a long breath.
“Tch. What a troublesome time. Good thing I got transferred to Stillwater to protect the Third Young Master...”
“Don’t forget the task the Eldest Young Master gave us,” Si Ziyu said.
At that, Zhou Chen lazily ruffled his fluffy hair, waved a hand, and replied casually, “Isn’t it just teaching the Third Young Master how to cultivate? I know, I know. Don’t worry.”
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Inside the main bedroom of the flying pavilion, Xu Yuan was gasping for breath in great heaves. By now, he had already torn apart every piece of expensive furniture in the room. Well, except for the bed he had woken up in. After all, if he dismantled that too, he would be sleeping on the floor.
Still, the fact that wrecking a room could tire him out this badly meant his stamina was probably worse than the husky he used to keep in his previous life. This frail body of his had not undergone any dramatic transformation just because he had obtained an Innate Dao Physique. He was still the same old kidney-deficient wreck as ever.
Cultivating through breathing exercises and building up source qi did gradually improve and strengthen the body, yes, but Xu Yuan had only just stepped onto the path of cultivation. The changes were still too slight to be obvious.
Taking two deep breaths where he stood, Xu Yuan climbed back onto the bed and sat down cross-legged to regulate his breathing.
As the Blood Origin Heartfall Art began to circulate, his ragged breathing quickly steadied.
Now that he had officially stepped into cultivation, Xu Yuan had actually discovered quite a few interesting things. For example, a properly developed cultivation art usually contained many different meridian-circulation routes within it, each suited for a different situation.
There was one set for healing injuries, one set for cultivation, another for combat, and so on. These different circulation routes complemented one another, yet each was clearly distinct. And there was something else. In truth, every cultivator’s strength could be divided into two phases.
The first was the normal state. Put simply, it was when a cultivator was not actively circulating their cultivation art. In that phase, everything depended purely on the hard power they had accumulated through past training.
For example, when Ran Qingmo had gone to tame that big white tiger earlier, the few strikes she made with her sheath were, in Xu Yuan’s estimation, done purely with the strength she had built up through cultivation, without any boost from an active cultivation art.
The second phase began when the cultivation art inside a cultivator’s body started running. Once it was in motion, their strength would rise dramatically. And the degree of that increase would continue to grow depending on how efficiently the cultivator could circulate it.
Just like when Xu Yuan had been facing the vine whip Xu Changge used on him. For the first two lashes, partial circulation had been enough for him to dodge them. But for the third, he had needed to run it at full force just to take it head-on.
And on top of that, Xu Yuan judged that different kinds of cultivation arts produced different levels of enhancement. The stronger the cultivation art, the greater the boost it provided.
Since transmigrating here, Xu Yuan had cultivated exactly two arts, so he had a basis for comparison. One was the Lotus Sword Manual that Ran Qingmo had taught him. The other was the Blood-tier Blood Origin Heartfall Art he was now practicing.
The enhancement the two provided was not even in the same league. With the Blood Origin Heartfall Art supporting him, Xu Yuan’s endurance, reaction speed, and even strength had already begun to edge beyond the bounds of an ordinary person.
Of course, that was far from the full extent of what a cultivation art could do. There were also the skills attached to it, like Xu Yuan’s blood-colored flames or Ran Qingmo’s Ice Cloud Steps.
The more he cultivated, the more Xu Yuan found himself marveling at the cultivation system of this world. As for why cultivators could not simply keep their arts running at all times and remain at peak combat strength in case of an ambush, there were two reasons.
First, meridians were actually quite fragile. Unless someone had a special physique, a cultivator could not keep a cultivation art running at full capacity for long. Prolonged high-load circulation would damage the meridians. Second, the meridian route used in combat mode constantly consumed the source qi within the body.
Once he had adjusted his body to its best state, Xu Yuan took out two bottles of medicinal pills from his Sumeru Ring. He took out one pill from each bottle, one Green Forest Pill and one Meridian Guarding Pill, tossed back his head, swallowed them, then closed his eyes and entered a cultivation state.
Two waves of medicinal power spread through his body at once. A thin medicinal film soon formed along the inner walls of his meridians. At the same time, Xu Yuan felt as though his soul sense had been stimulated somehow, becoming far sharper and clearer.
The effects were obvious enough that the pills more than lived up to their reputation. No wonder they were early-game miracle medicines, the kind even Xu Yuan had only used a handful of times in Azure Point.
Not wasting another moment, he extended his soul sense and immediately felt the surrounding source qi, already thick enough to have condensed into liquid.
A flicker of surprise rose in his heart. Back then, even in that cave dwelling with its spirit pool, he had never felt source qi this dense.
The giant black eagle was Xu Changge’s personal means of travel, so naturally it was covered in all kinds of formations. Among them, of course, was a spirit-gathering formation that aided cultivation.
A spirit-gathering formation also had some of the effects of a spirit-locking formation, but the two were used in very different ways.
A spirit-locking formation was more concealed. It prevented the source qi inside a given space from leaking out, and was mostly used around spirit springs and spirit veins.
A spirit-gathering formation, on the other hand, pulled in the surrounding source qi. It was mostly used in wide open areas, and once established, the fluctuations caused by gathering qi could easily be detected by another cultivator’s soul sense.
But looking at source qi that had already liquefied, there was no way a spirit-gathering formation alone could produce this effect.
As Xu Yuan pondered this inwardly, he did not begin cultivating right away. Instead, he let his awareness drift through the sea of liquid source qi, searching for its source. He judged that there had to be some kind of treasure hidden in his big brother’s room.
The talent of his Innate Dao Physique showed itself once again. Following the faint, subtle currents of the source qi, Xu Yuan finally managed to track down where it was coming from.
Opening his eyes, he slowly walked to the center of the room. After a second of silence, he started circulating his cultivation art. Blood-red flames sprang from his fist, and then he punched straight down at the floor.
BANG! Wood chips flew into the air as Xu Yuan was sent flying backward by a powerful rebound force.
THUD! With a muffled crash, he slammed heavily into the wooden wall.
His head spun violently, and even the cultivation art that had been running inside his body was scattered by the shock of the recoil.
When Xu Yuan struggled back to his feet and looked over again, he saw that beneath the shattered floorboards there was a white pearl half a foot across.
