Chapter 5
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 5
Seeing that most of the children showed little interest in the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art, Wang Jin passionately continued his pitch.
“The Primordial Unity One-Qi Art has many advantages. Its circulation method is simple, and the flow of True Qi is gentle. Once you become sufficiently proficient, you won’t even need to sit cross-legged to cultivate. Whether you are standing, walking, or even lying down, you can naturally draw in spiritual qi.”
Lying down…? Now that sounds pretty good.
“Then can we cultivate while sleeping?” someone asked from the crowd.
“Well… theoretically speaking, it isn’t impossible. In any case, the point is that aside from cultivation speed, the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art has zero drawbacks. And frankly, cultivation speed isn’t that much of an issue either.”
Wang Jin held up a manual for all to see. “If any of you produce results as a spirit plant Farmer and rise to the Inner Sect, you will be bestowed a superior cultivation art. When that happens, you won’t need to disperse your Primordial Unity True Qi. Because Primordial Unity True Qi is pure spiritual power unaligned with any single element, most of it can be smoothly converted into the spiritual power of your new art. In the end, the Azure Wood Origin-Nourishing Art, Red Flame Formula, Thick Earth Art, Metal Edge Formula, and Profound Water Art are nothing more than Tier 1 cultivation arts. Once you become Inner-Sect Disciples, you’ll learn far better techniques anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to start with the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art and excel in tending spirit plants?”
Wang Jin swept his hand across the six stacks of manuals on the table.
“That concludes my explanation. Each of you, step forward and take one manual of your choice.”
Perhaps Steward Wang Jin’s sales pitch had hit its mark, as more than half of the children chose the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art.
Learn the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art, excel as a spirit plant Farmer, and enter the Inner Sect? If it were truly that simple, why would only a tiny fraction ever make the cut…? Not that it matters to me. I have zero interest in becoming an Inner-Sect Disciple in the first place.
The Primordial Unity One-Qi Art really is the best choice for me, though. If I want to tend spirit fields and cultivate spirit plants completely on my own later on, I’ll need to cast spells across multiple elements.
After a brief pause, Lee Hyun reached out and chose the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art.
A few of the more suspicious or calculating children chose one of the other five arts instead.
Manuals in hand, the children sat down and began eagerly flipping through the pages. Then, one child spoke up.
“Steward, what is this ‘Primordial Unity Body’ described in the back half of the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art?”
Primordial Unity Body?
Lee Hyun turned to the latter half of his manual, finding an additional cultivation method recorded there.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Wang Jin said dismissively. “It’s useless.”
“Why is that? From the look of it, it tempers the whole body. Isn’t it a Body-Refining Art? I heard cultivators are stronger the more evenly their Essence, Qi, and Spirit are developed.”
“The Primordial Unity Body is no ordinary Body-Refining Art. Typical body-refining arts rely on the power of external resources. They require soaking in medicinal baths brewed from demonic beast blood essence to temper the skin, or consuming rare spiritual herbs and pills to forge bone, muscle, and marrow.”
The hall went quiet as the children hung on his every word.
“Sometimes they require tempering your flesh inside specialized formations, or enduring blistering heat where earthfire erupts.”
“Then how is the Primordial Unity Body different?”
“For starters, the Primordial Unity Body doesn’t rely on costly external resources for refinement.”
A murmur instantly rippled through the room. Requiring no expensive resources sounded like a dream come true to a group of destitute prospective outer-sect disciples.
“It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But if there were truly a way to grow powerful for free, why would body-refining cultivators across the world risk their lives fighting over resources?”
Wang Jin tapped the cover of the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art with a forefinger.
“The method to forge the Primordial Unity Body is simple. Instead of accumulating spiritual power within your dantian, you turn your entire body into a dantian.”
Wang So tilted his head in confusion. “Isn’t having your whole body serve as a dantian a good thing? It sounds like you could store vastly more spiritual power.”
“Yes. If you look purely at the benefits, that’s true. Spiritual power would constantly flow through your entire body, washing over your skin, muscle, bone, and internal organs in a ceaseless baptism. Master it, and your body will grow exceptionally sturdy without needing a separate Body-Refining Art. You would possess an overwhelming amount of spiritual power compared to any cultivator in the same realm. In truth, strengthening the physical body is merely a side effect; at its core, it is closer to a unique method of cultivating spiritual power.”
Wang Jin glanced over the room before pointing to a tall boy in the front row.
“You. What do you think a dantian is?”
Caught off guard, the boy stammered, “An organ below the navel… that stores spiritual power?”
“Wrong,” Wang Jin said flatly. “Anyone who has killed a man and sliced open his belly knows that no physical organ called a dantian exists within the human body.”
Several children turned visibly pale.
“Meridians truly exist. But the dantian is merely a spiritual power reservoir designated by a cultivation art. By following the guidance of an art, one establishes a specific focus in the lower abdomen and repeatedly pools refined spiritual power there, shaping it into a dantian.”
Wang Jin pressed a hand to his lower abdomen.
“The reason we use the center of the body is just as simple: it makes it easy to channel spiritual power anywhere—to your limbs, your head, or your vital organs.”
“Even so, isn’t it still possible to store spiritual power throughout the entire body?” the boy asked cautiously.
“I never said it was impossible. I said it was useless.”
Wang Jin held up a single finger.
“The hardest part of the Dao Path is not drawing in spiritual qi. It is gathering what you have drawn into a single point, compressing it, and refining it into a higher qualitative power. When a Qi Refining cultivator breaks through to the Foundation Establishment Stage, they must compress their gaseous, dispersed spiritual power into liquid true essence. Yet even when condensing the spiritual power held in a space as tiny as a dantian, countless cultivators spend their entire lives only to fail.”
He swept his finger across the entire room.
“And yet, you want to turn your entire body into a dantian? How massive do you think the volume difference is between a dantian and an entire human body? It varies depending on the art, but typically it is at least a hundredfold. Even compared to arts that build exceptionally large dantians, it is still fiftyfold.”
A heavy silence descended upon the hall.
“Do you think the ancients lacked wisdom, that they chose such a cramped space as a dantian to cultivate? They simply found the most efficient path to achieve a qualitative breakthrough with limited spiritual qi and resources.”
Wang Jin flipped to the page outlining the Primordial Unity Body and held it high.
“A method like this, treating the entire body as a dantian, was almost certainly devised in the distant past. Created during ancient eras when the Heaven-and-Earth spiritual qi was incomparably denser than it is today—or perhaps in places like the Immortal Realm, where spiritual qi floods into your pores with every breath you take.”
A sharp-eyed boy toward the back raised his hand.
“Wouldn’t it still be possible for a wealthy cultivator clan or a great sect? If they poured endless pills and spirit stones into someone, couldn’t they turn an entire body into a dantian?”
“Theoretically, perhaps. But what faction would ever do something so foolish?” Wang Jin let out a dry scoff. “Think about it. If you were the master of a sect, would you raise a hundred Foundation Establishment cultivators, or pour all those resources into nurturing a single Foundation Establishment cultivator with a whole-body dantian?”
The children were left speechless.
“And Foundation Establishment isn’t the end of the road. What about the Golden Core Stage? The Nascent Soul Stage? Common sense dictates that the return on investment is downright pathetic. Once you cross a Major Cultivation Realm, your combat prowess ascends to an entirely different plane. No matter how small the dantian of an Early Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator might be, do you honestly believe a cultivator at the 10th layer of Qi Refining with a whole-body dantian could defeat him…?”
Wang Jin paused, rubbing his chin in thought.
“Hmm… actually, he might pull it off. But even so, it would hardly be easy. And besides, there is an even greater problem!”
Wang Jin drove the final nail into the coffin.
“How many Foundation Establishment Pills would he have to consume just to force a breakthrough? Fifty pills? A hundred? Utter madness! Ordinary Late Stage Qi Refining cultivators risk their lives on lethal missions just to secure a single Foundation Establishment Pill.”
Wang Jin clicked his tongue.
“Even if a Qi Refining cultivator lives longer than a mortal, their lifespan is only about a hundred to a hundred and fifty years. Once you pass eighty, your vital essence begins to deteriorate, and the risk of perishing during a breakthrough attempt skyrockets. Most Qi Refining cultivators can’t even condense the spiritual power pooled within the tiny space beneath their navel in an entire lifetime. If they can’t reach Foundation Establishment, how could you ever hope to condense spiritual power pooled across your entire flesh and bones?”
He tossed the manual back down onto the desk.
“Read it if you like. It might give you some insight into the broader mechanics of cultivation. But if you actually attempt to practice it, you will experience the sheer despair of trying to fill a boundless ocean with a single ladle.”
After Wang Jin’s blunt breakdown, the children instantly lost all enthusiasm for the Primordial Unity Body.
Lee Hyun, on the other hand, was practically vibrating with excitement.
Couldn’t I forge the Primordial Unity Body? I have all the time in the world, and there’s no reason to rush toward Foundation Establishment. It’s not like I’m trying to race up the ranks.
In the xianxia novels I read in my past life, no matter how high your realm was, there was always some stronger bastard picking a fight… In a world like this, the lower your apparent realm, the safer you are. You can completely catch your enemies off guard! If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better to cultivate the Primordial Unity Body and become the undisputed monster of the same realm…?
Lee Hyun felt as though the Primordial Unity Body had been tailor-made for him. Of course, he had no intention of starting right this second. Falling behind the others during the initial stages of Qi Refining might draw unwanted scrutiny from the sect or get in the way of his farming duties.
I’ll cultivate the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art at a steady, unremarkable pace, learn spirit-plant farming, and slip away from Cheongha Valley before anyone notices I’m not aging. Once I’m out, I can dig a deep tunnel, hide away from the world, and forge the Primordial Unity Body in total peace.
* * *
Once the lecture concluded and they returned to the dormitory, Wang So caught sight of the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art in Lee Hyun’s hands.
“Hyung-nim, did you really pick that one?”
“Yeah.”
“Hyung-nim, not to overstep, but… there’s no way farming spirit plants will get you into the Inner Sect. The cultivation world is cold and full of deceit. Wang Jin is definitely dangling bait to lure people into grunt work!”
“You punk. You’re a fresh recruit and you already dare badmouth Steward Wang? Have you lost your mind?”
Wang So’s expression instantly froze.
“Haha, just joking. For someone who claims the cultivation world is ruthless, aren’t you trusting me an awful lot when we barely know each other? You need to watch your mouth.”
“You scared the life out of me! …Though you’re right, I was reckless. Still, I’m a good judge of character. I could tell from the start that you were someone I could trust, Hyung-nim.”
“What did you end up picking?”
“I took the Metal Edge Formula. If you’re going to be a cultivator, you have to become a sword cultivator! Sword cultivators stand at the absolute peak of combat prowess, and naturally, that means mastering a metal-attribute art. How many lifetimes would it take to reach higher realms by growing crops in the dirt?”
“Didn’t he say the Metal Edge Formula damages your meridians?”
“He said it’s fine as long as you take medicinal herbs regularly.”
“That’s going to cost a fortune in spirit stones.”
“Once I become a sword cultivator and start raking in combat merits, won’t the sect provide all the pills and herbs I need?”
“Have you ever killed someone?”
“No…”
“Neither have I. Frankly, I have zero confidence in fighting. Slaying a wild beast is terrifying enough; fighting another cultivator must be a nightmare. I’ll stick to tending plants.”
After chatting a bit longer, Wang So climbed onto his bunk, cracked open the Metal Edge Formula, and reviewed the mantras a few times before crossing his legs into meditation.
Lee Hyun sat on his own bed and opened the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art.
Compared to the Cheongha Qi-Guiding Formula, the Primordial Unity One-Qi Art was vastly more comprehensive. It detailed everything from breathing techniques to absorb Heaven-and-Earth spiritual qi and the methods of refining it, to circulating Primordial Unity True Qi through the meridians and channeling it into spells.
I need to get through these basics fast so I can cultivate lying down! Sitting cross-legged is murder on the back…
* * *
A few days later.
Steward Wang Jin began calling the newcomers who had reached the 1st layer of Qi Refining into his office one by one for individual interviews. Lee Hyun was no exception.
“Duty assignments will be handed out shortly,” Wang Jin said, brush poised over paper. “Is there any particular path you wish to pursue?”
“I would like to learn how to cultivate spirit plants and spiritual herbs.”
“With triple spiritual roots of Wood, Fire, and Earth, your aptitude is well-suited for it. What is your reason?”
“It seems safer than fighting people.”
Wang Jin’s brush halted mid-air. He looked up, amused.
“An honest fellow. But spirit-planting duties are by no means easy. You must constantly fend off spirit insects and blight, and even a slight error in the volume of spiritual rain can ruin an entire harvest. Among high-grade spiritual herbs, some even release lethal miasma. What cultivation art are you practicing?”
“The Primordial Unity One-Qi Art.”
“Is that so? A sensible choice. You will receive your assignment soon enough.”
* * *
On the hundredth day since entering the sect.
The newcomers assembled in the main lecture hall before the break of dawn.
Today was the day Steward Wang Jin would formally induct those who had reached the 1st layer of Qi Refining as official Outer-Sect Disciples, assigning them their duties and their new quarters.