The Nine Palaces Life Wheel
Once the Spiritual Root took hold, the Heaven and Earth Qi felt significantly denser. Now, he could tell for certain: the Qi in this world was incomparable to that of the Qingyu Continent. When he lacked a root, he had merely thought it was thicker than back home, but now that he possessed one, the energy felt vivid and alive. If the Heaven and Earth Qi of the Qingyu Continent was a one, this place was at least a three or four.
“One thought of delusion, the heart gives rise to it…” Pyo Rip recited the incantation. The Heaven and Earth Qi soothingly caressed his exhausted body. He guided the energy as he willed. It flowed through his meridians, just as he intended, and wrapped around his dantian. Up to this point, it would have been possible even with a mortal body. But now, with his Spiritual Root, Pyo Rip pushed further. Cultivation is the realization of truth through enlightenment.
Pyo Rip whispered the chant of the Song of Mind Accordance. Following the teaching that all things go according to one’s will if one starts carefully with the small things, the Qi permeated his dantian, and the scriptures of the Song of Mind Accordance appeared faintly within it. Dharma-Flower Dantian. By enshrining the scriptures in the dantian, the Dharma-Flower is formed, and the foundation of cultivation is finally complete. As Pyo Rip opened his eyes, a calm, auspicious light flickered in his pupils before vanishing.
“Done.” With the completion of the Dharma-Flower Dantian, he had entered the Qi Condensation realm. He felt a slight sense of euphoria as his lifespan increased by roughly thirty years. This would extend to a hundred years as he progressed through the middle, late, and peak stages of Qi Condensation. But that was a matter for later. Pyo Rip suppressed his excitement and focused his mind.
Soon, the surrounding space became vividly clear. It was the new sense that cultivators awaken to: Divine Sense. At a low level, it was barely enough to perceive the shape of the surrounding space, but as one’s realm rose, the range expanded and the things one could do with it increased. As Pyo Rip observed the outside of the coffin with his Divine Sense, it was exactly as he had expected.
‘There are many coffins, and they contain people just like me. None of them are moving… They can’t be corpses, so is this human trafficking?’ As he thought this, Pyo Rip nodded. Memories of the factory surfaced. ‘Kidnapping? Purchase? Regardless, are they sending people to a factory to be processed into some kind of commodity and sold?’ Even if it wasn’t exactly that, it was likely something similar. Pyo Rip pondered for a moment. Should he escape now, or should he take one step further and forge his Dao Body?
‘I have no idea what the situation is outside this cargo truck…’ If he escaped, he would likely face another variable. If the security forces guarding this truck were also on the move, he would be inviting disaster for no reason. Frankly, even by Pyo Rip’s own estimation, if one were shipping human cargo, the security would be thorough. ‘Setting aside the cultivation of techniques, I must forge a Dao Body to increase my immediate combat power.’ His mind was made up. ‘I’ll forge the Dao Body right now.’
Pyo Rip immediately invoked his spiritual power and pulled another wooden box from his Ethereal Pouch. The Heaven-Defying Body-Sculpting Pill. It was a spiritual pill made from the physical bodies of the Dao Body owners and the Golden Cores of 3,690 Core Formation stage cultivators. While the Chaos Solitary Poison Dao Body was the base, it was uncertain if the same body would emerge. Even the Slaughter of Life manual stated that the resulting Dao Body from the pill’s effect was unpredictable.
When he opened the wooden box, a refreshing scent wafted out. An auspicious light, unthinkable for a demonic pill, bloomed inside the coffin. Pyo Rip immediately placed the pill in his mouth.
“One thought of delusion, the heart gives rise to it…” He recited the incantation and closed his eyes. The medicinal effects of the Heaven-Defying Body-Sculpting Pill spread, flowing along his meridians to gather in his dantian. The scriptures of the Song of Mind Accordance sparkled in his dantian and began to digest the pill.
“Ah.” Suddenly, a pain unlike anything he had felt when forging his Spiritual Root assaulted him.
The soul screams to match the forging of the body. The body screams to follow the bloated, unnatural soul of Pyo Rip.
“Grrrgh.” Amidst the agony of his soul and body struggling to catch up to one another due to the pill’s effect, a sudden sound echoed—Crack, thud!
In an instant, Pyo Rip was floating in a space embroidered with starlight and galaxies. The flow of time drifted away, and the continuity of space ceased. The overwhelming presence of some object sucked in all of Pyo Rip’s consciousness and gaze.
Crack, thud!
A massive octagonal spinning wheel turned. A wheel spinning out an immeasurable number of red threads in the void. The red threads fluttered and stretched out somewhere. Crack, thud! Where they stretched, the red threads formed a giant skein. Those skeins gathered and gathered, forming a shape.
“Haa, haa!” Pyo Rip opened his eyes. His entire body was drenched in sweat. With a cultivator’s senses, he knew only a moment had passed. Barely a few seconds. But in that wheel space, even a few seconds had felt like an eternity.
‘…What was that?’ He felt like he had seen something else after the wheel, but he couldn’t remember. Amidst his confusion, Pyo Rip took several deep breaths to steady his mind. As he channeled his spiritual power, a halo in the shape of an octagonal wheel appeared faintly behind his head. The inside of the coffin brightened with a soft, milky light. The wheel-shaped halo was rotating slowly in a clockwise direction.
Pyo Rip suddenly felt the agony of his soul and body vanish as if washed away. ‘I think I’ve grown a bit taller, too.’ Indeed, his body had transformed into an entirely different appearance. It was no longer the Mayfly exterior that looked like it had been stamped from a mold, but a face much closer to the Pyo Rip of his Qingyu Continent days. The Dao Body was complete.
‘What kind of Dao Body is it?’ The moment the question arose, his body, which had already realized the Dao, naturally knew the answer. It knew what this body could do and what kind of cultivation it required. Countless Dao Bodies had appeared in the history of cultivation, and while names were just a matter of choice, Pyo Rip knew what name suited his body best.
“Nine Palaces (Jiugong).” Because it was a wheel with eight corners and a central axis, it was the Nine Palaces. “Life Wheel (Minglun).” Because the wheel spun the red threads of fate, it was the Life Wheel. Thus.
“Nine Palaces Life Wheel Dao Body.” Pyo Rip uttered it as if making a declaration. A surge of prideful joy welled up. But given the situation, there was no time to savor it. Joyful only in his heart, Pyo Rip considered his next move. ‘Supernatural Ability.’
In other words, a Dao Body is a body that has realized the Dao. And cultivators are people who spend long years investigating the Dao. By enlightening themselves to the scriptures of techniques and spells, and realizing the Dao, cultivators finally perfect their Supernatural Abilities. That is why one doesn’t necessarily need spiritual power to manifest such abilities. As one’s realm rises, one sheds the mortal coil and becomes the law itself. If so, what about a Dao Body, a body that has already realized the Dao? The answer is that a Dao Body possesses Supernatural Abilities by its very nature.
Life Wheel Reverses Heaven, Ten Thousand Phenomena are like a Dream. As the Life Wheel reverses, all phenomena become a dream. The moment the halo of the Life Wheel intensified, time stopped.
Click, clack!
A small mechanical sound. It sounded like a machine changing gears. Immediately after, the halo brightened even more, and the Life Wheel floating behind his back began to rotate in reverse.
Clack! Clack!
With every counter-clockwise rotation, the time of the world turned back little by little. Just as the rotation of the Life Wheel was about to accelerate—
“Ah.” The reversal of time stopped. The Life Wheel resumed its normal clockwise rotation, and the time of the world flowed normally once again. However.
‘It returned.’ It had returned to the moment the Dao Body was first completed. He had turned back time by only a few minutes. Of course, because his realm could not keep up with the Dao Body, he could not turn back time by more than a few minutes. He had naturally learned of this Supernatural Ability while forging the body. For now, it was merely a test.
“Ha.” Still, he was happy. And having experienced it, he had a realization. The characteristic of the Nine Palaces Life Wheel Dao Body was fate. The aforementioned Chaos Solitary Poison Dao Body had harbored chaos. Dao Bodies always possess a fundamental attribute, so what about the Nine Palaces Life Wheel Dao Body? ‘…I don’t know.’ It changed too much depending on one’s perspective of fate. If one thought of fate as infinite possibility, it would be the Great Void; if one saw it as a single order, it would be the Great One. If one saw fate as a path of pioneering with nothing set in stone, it would be Chaos; if one saw it as a single source and a vast flow, it would be the Primordial Origin.
‘Perhaps it is all of these.’ Pyo Rip did not know. His realm was too shallow to define fate, and he had never studied the relevant techniques or spells. However, he could be certain of one thing. ‘It is no coincidence that I possess such a Dao Body.’
The octagonal wheel spinning in the space filled with starlight and galaxies. The immeasurable number of red threads spun by the wheel. His own soul, which possessed uniqueness despite not having attained the Great Dao. ‘This might be the reason I reincarnate.’ Pyo Rip’s eyes sparkled in the darkness.