Chapter 61: Other Hills May Polish Jade

Stop, stop, stop, let me catch my breath. Help me get something to eat!

Achy all over, Feng Xue raised his hand to call a halt. Liu Yunxi, whose face bore a genuine, smiling expression, stopped instantly without the slightest hesitation, as if whatever had just transpired carried no personal emotion whatsoever.

To be fair, it wasn't as though she was being truly vicious; after all, following more than half an hour of sparring, Feng Xue didn't even have a few genuine bruises on his body. Yet every single one of her attacks had targeted his soft spots. There were no serious injuries, but the pain was undeniably real!

Seeing Liu Yunxi turn and head to the kitchen to prepare some food, Feng Xue collapsed straight onto the floor. Instead of resting immediately, however, he forced himself to pull his phone out of the Heaven-Gathering Pouch, inserted the memory card loaded with Daoist scriptures, and began to research.

Since the reference materials he had prepared were far too comprehensive, trying to find them book by book was somewhat impractical. Furthermore, the weight limit for this crossing meant he lacked the computing power required to run a locally deployed AI.

Even so, this did not stump him. He simply tapped the keyword search function, inputting terms like "Qi," "Primordial Qi," "Five Elements," "Yin and Yang," and "Thunder Technique" to conduct a precise search. Upon finding content of interest, he would read the surrounding context while extracting any unfamiliar keywords as search terms to pull from the database.

Although this would inevitably miss a few things, it was currently the most efficient learning method available to him. His gaze constantly skipped across the text until he suddenly spotted something of interest.

"The Five Qis of the Five Organs are the specific manifestations of the nutritive and defensive qi within the five organs... I know the Five Organs' Five Qis—the Water-Organ Thunder of Kidney Water leading Liver Wood, the Crimson Palace Thunder of Heart Fire leading Lung Metal, and the Geng-Xin Sword Qi of Heart Fire and Kidney Water tempering Lung Metal... But this nutritive and defensive qi..."

Seeing a familiar yet elusive term, Feng Xue immediately began searching for information on nutritive and defensive qi. After reviewing several documents, he pulled out a memory card related to traditional medicine theory and studied it for a while, only to confirm that this concept was actually a foundational premise dating all the way back to the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon.

"Nutritive and defensive qi circulate continuously, with the viscera engendering the five qis. Nutritive qi is somewhat like nutrients transported by the blood; these nutrients nourish the five organs, generating the five qis of the viscera, which then transform into the meridians, collectively known as defensive qi. It can ward off external pathogens and strengthen the physique. Primordial Qi, on the other hand, is a person's innate qi, which can be understood as an inherent attribute of the body, and it slowly grows during the circulation of nutritive and defensive qi...

"According to this theory, the so-called Qi and Blood of martial artists in this world is actually nutritive and defensive qi—blood is the nutritive, and qi is the defensive. The so-called martial cultivation is the refinement of control over the nutritive and defensive circulation to achieve the purpose of strengthening the body. Mystical cultivation, meanwhile, uses defensive qi to nourish and magnify innate primordial qi, which is then fed to the soul. As for the so-called nourishment of the physical body in return, it is likely the blending of yin-leaning magical power into the nutritive qi to bolster the defensive qi, thereby obtaining a far greater physical nourishing effect than mere eating, and even allowing one to supplement the five qis by ingesting things like jade."

Feng Xue was not well-versed in traditional medicine theory, so he could not be certain whether these crude thoughts of his were accurate. However, as far as the mystical cultivation systems he had encountered so far were concerned, this train of thought should be correct, with at most some minor flaws in the details.

Still, given his fatalistic nature, he didn't care much about missing details. What he was currently pondering was whether he could leverage these theories to invent some techniques based on Yin-Yang and the Five Elements.

It wasn't that he wanted to abandon his advantageous magical power, but rather that he wanted to forge a mold for it.

In terms of the cultivation process, perceiving and manipulating nutritive and defensive qi was much easier than handling magical power or primordial qi. This was probably because nutritive and defensive qi had dedicated pathways (nutritive flows through blood vessels, while defensive qi flows through meridians). Magical power, however, not only borrowed paths but also required the soul as a master control system to assist, yet before entering the Dao, the soul could not even be considered fully developed.

To use a rather vulgar metaphor, it was the same principle as how an undeveloped child cannot ejaculate, yet can urinate quite a distance away.

Following this theory, if one could cast spells directly using defensive qi, would it be possible to achieve a higher level of control and mastery?

Feng Xue didn't even demand formidable power, because as long as he could pull it off, he could entirely use defensive qi to make a shell and wrap the magical power inside it. Yes, it was the missile theory: separating the warhead from the control section, leaving the magical power solely responsible for destruction while letting defensive qi handle everything else.

At this thought, he immediately took out his portable notebook and recorded this idea. Although he wanted to study it right away, his static stances had only just begun, and while making it circulate within his body was fine, being able to use it detached from that circulation was still some distance away.

Lost in thought, Feng Xue began to examine more content related to nutritive and defensive qi and the five qis of the five organs. He also dug out a few related Daoist scriptures, including "The Original Intent of Journey to the West," which interprets cultivation methods through Journey to the West, carefully comparing other worlds' hypotheses and understandings of Yin-Yang, the Five Elements, and alchemical cultivation.

Of course, Feng Xue knew that different worldviews might not always be interchangeable, but since the theoretical foundation was the same, there was never any harm in trying.

As he continuously took study notes, various ideas based on the circulation of nutritive and defensive qi and primordial qi kept popping up. The imaginative sparks of a former web novel author rapidly boiled over, and one spell framework after another was left behind in his notes. By the time he snapped back to reality, Liu Yunxi's primordial-nourishing meal was already prepared. Feng Xue ate while operating the ingestion technique, followed by a session of body-tempering arts after the meal, and the prior fatigue and pain vanished instantly.

Without any hesitation, he resumed his interactions with Liu Yunxi. Only this time, it was no longer just about practicing the application of magical tools and enduring a one-sided beating; experimental procedures were added as well. Most of those plans, however, simply ended up as Mo Ying's dinner.

...

"Bah, bah, bah! Accursed grey rat, just you wait until I get past my human tribulation and I'll deal with you!" Because the mountains were crawling with rats, the demonic cultivator had no choice but to rely on the most primitive method—digging open his own grave with his bare hands. Grandmaster though he was of several centuries, the moment his spirit and flesh parted ways, it was already destined that he must bid farewell to his past self.

Now stuck at this awkward node, he couldn't necessarily guarantee he could handle that massive rat of nearly five hundred years of cultivation.

Since he had already ascertained that this was a human tribulation, trying to run away or hide was clearly the most foolish course of action. Living in this world, one could not escape the cycle of cause and effect. Rather than fleeing Lucheng only to run into a wandering grandmaster on the road, it was better to engage in a battle of wits with the local mystical cultivators in this terrain he was somewhat familiar with.

"Right now, I only possess the standard of a half-step grandmaster. However, relying on my experience and the characteristics of turbid karmic malice, I don't need to worry too much about mortal mystical cultivators. I just have to measure my actions carefully—I mustn't push them to the point of summoning their patriarchs to possess them, but I can't be too weak either. Once I fail to draw enough attention, inevitably someone will get distracted and investigate my existence. Although I don't know why they are looking for me, since that grey rat has already made a move, it's definitely no trivial matter!"

As a demonic cultivator who had reached the grandmaster realm, he possessed ample experience in fighting mystical cultivators and naturally understood that every orthodox mystical cultivator brought a whole train of ancestors behind them. While demonic cultivators also had ancestors, the problem was...

When demonic cultivators went to the netherworld, they steered clear of the Underworld's territory; the ones capable of fighting mostly operated in foreigners' domains, while those who remained locally were weaklings carving out ghost domains in remote corners. Even if dragged out, they might not be able to fight as well as he could.

"Sigh, that grey rat couldn't find me, so it might get others to come later. I shouldn't stay on this mountain. Anyway, I'll figure out a way to sneak into the city and scout out the situation first!"