"An ordinary Newborn standing here wouldn't be able to see this small town at all," said the precocious-looking Wu Yaozu.
Ahead, within the brightly lit town, people came and went in a lively bustle—a scene visible only to those whose consciousness could leave their bodies.
Otherwise, just as ordinary mortals could not see a "yin spirit" on a night excursion, they would remain oblivious even if one brushed past them.
Everyone had come by entering dreams rather than arriving in the flesh, so the town beneath the night mist was bound to be extraordinarily bizarre.
"Want to go inside and take a look around?" This time, Wu Yaozu offered an invitation on his own initiative.
Although Qin Ming was tempted and wished to explore it, he held himself back.
He understood his situation all too well. The principles of the silk book scripture, which had become second nature to his flesh and blood, had only temporarily suppressed the various arts. It merely treated the symptoms, not the root cause.
If he were to "travel in spirit," he would not be like the others. His heavenly light force would congeal with his consciousness and accompany it. At this stage, however, it was far from stable, and he feared setting off "firecrackers" in this strange town.
Qin Ming asked, "Brother Wu, did you find a mangled corpse nearby? Beside her, there should be a shimmering five-colored precious bottle."
He had never stopped thinking about that bottle of heavenly light liquid. Had his body not run into trouble, he would have searched for it long ago.
Wu Yaozu shook his head. "I didn't notice one. I'll look around for you later."
In the deep night, the small courtyard emitted a faint golden glow, appearing somewhat sacred.
The bustling strange town was teeming with people. Some were doing business, others were strolling about, and beings from all paths walked its streets, yet none seemed able to see into the courtyard.
Feeling completely safe here, Wu Yaozu left his physical body in the courtyard. A streak of rainbow light flew out from within him and landed in the town as he went off to wander.
A young man with a vertical eye between his brows asked, "Little Wu, someone hasn't moved into that courtyard, have they? The lights over there are unusual."
Soon, acquaintances came over one after another to greet Wu Yaozu, clearly having entered dreams to come here more than once.
A Moon Insect dropped down from the night sky and transformed into a youth in silver armor, saying, "Impressive! His physical body actually moved into that courtyard? Did he come here from reality? Little Wu, introduce your friend to us."
Immediately after, a man with golden horns on his head chuckled. "How about I organize a gathering? I'll invite two goddesses for drinks, and we can all get together in town!"
In the night, within the courtyard gleaming with a faint golden sheen, rumbling thunder and rising flames echoed from Qin Ming's body as he attempted to resolve the "root of his ailment."
If he did not eradicate it completely now, he would inevitably end up like the founding patriarchs who had practiced this technique—accumulating so much baggage that it became impossible to reverse, until he finally exploded with a resounding boom.
He had two trains of thought. The first was that channeling was better than damming: arranging the "subdued" and "tamed" heavenly light forces into various parts of his body. For instance, the heart inherently belonged to fire, making it a perfect match for the Departing Fire Classic, while the lungs belonged to metal, aligning with the Golden Silkworm Classic.
If he proceeded like this, any force of the five elements would settle in the five viscera in the future, while other scriptures and force arts, once "subdued," could be stationed in other locations.
When the time came, Qin Ming could direct them using the principles of the silk book scripture, pushing adhesive force to its limit to govern all the arts across his body.
In that way, when various divine radiances bloomed from different parts of his body, they might even combine into unknown, wondrous powers.
After all, the contents of the Single Page of True Heritage preserved in the ancestral courts of various sects were essentially continuous experiments, testing various pairings and combinations to construct the strongest heavenly light force.
However, proceeding like this would require his control over his entire body to reach an exquisitely fine and subtle level; otherwise, an imbalance at any link would inevitably cause enormous trouble.
Moreover, the silk book method was not limited to adhesive force—it could manifest all manner of forces. Using it solely for this purpose would be somewhat wasteful.
His other train of thought was that nothing could be established without first being destroyed: to sweep through everything, bore straight through, and discard any force art that could not endure.
Just as the King of Qin had swept across the six realms and swallowed the world with his might, all arts and all scriptures would ultimately have to share the same script and the same axle gauge, reaching a grand unification that finally forged them into a whole.
However, following this line of thinking was exceedingly difficult.
Qin Ming had tried many times. When he refined the true scriptures with Mundane Fire, he discovered that what burned was not only the heavenly light force, but his own self as well—something an ordinary person could scarcely endure.
Furthermore, he felt that Mundane Fire alone was insufficient, conceiving the idea of introducing thunderfire—like internally refining the Dragon-Tiger Great Medicine—to boil and stew all the heavenly light forces.
However, thunderfire could no longer rely on Purple Palace thunderfire force; he replaced it with the silk book method instead.
Next, drawing inspiration from the records in the Destiny-Altering Scripture and referencing its methods of borrowing heaven to alter destiny, he repeatedly experimented on himself.
Later, the methods of the Overlord and certain concepts of the spirit field realm also provided Qin Ming with inspiration, emphasizing leveraging the great momentum for one's own use.
Of course, he was still far from the spirit field realm, so he could only treat his body as the battlefield, leveraging momentum to hammer and smash the heavenly light forces.
Qin Ming discovered that sweeping across the six realms was a feasible path, but it had a grave flaw: the demand on his natural aptitude was simply too high.
One slip, and instead of refining a true art, he would refine himself into ashes.
He estimated that if he were to employ all those methods, subjecting himself to torment, repeatedly sweeping and piercing through all true arts to achieve grand unification, his foundation value would have to reach at least one thousand five hundred.
According to those from the Six Imperials ancestral court, the initial foundation was not measured in jin, but was a kind of potential value. A mutant's initial foundation was close to one thousand.
Even founding patriarch-level figures in their youth, after enduring all sorts of trials and enhancements—such as entering a Mountains and Rivers Spiritual Nest or consuming dragon blood—might not necessarily have reached one thousand five hundred.
This meant that the silk book method truly had a massive flaw, because scarcely anyone met the requirements to resolve its hidden perils. Furthermore, that one thousand five hundred was only Qin Ming's rough estimate of the bare minimum.
For a moment, his face turned somewhat pale. He had indeed exceeded that minimum, but during this process, the requirement was very likely to spike to a peak.
He believed that past generations of patriarchs must have researched this and had ideas for solutions, but in all likelihood, they had given up because their initial foundation values could not keep up.
Qin Ming immediately thought of the refined silk book method in the divine temple. He wanted to draw on that patriarch's ideas, which might lower the demands on his body.
Yet the kindly stone statue grandmother had revealed to him that the place was unimaginably dangerous; unless he could resolve his hidden perils, entering it would mean death.
Qin Ming vaguely guessed that entering the divine temple might not be a matter of cultivation realm, but rather a stringent requirement that one's path be flawless.
This posed quite a dilemma. To enter the divine temple, he first had to resolve his issues, but to perfectly eliminate those perils, he wished to draw upon that patriarch's ideas—it was like falling into a vicious cycle.
He had also tactfully asked whether the grandmother could enter the temple on his behalf and take a look at the scriptures for him.
However, the old woman had shaken her head, telling him that few could reach that place, not even her, because the master of the divine temple was simply too powerful.
Back then, the old man who practiced the silk book method had indeed been outrageously formidable, debating the Dao with the temple's master for three days and four nights before walking out alive in the end.
"In the end, I still have to rely on myself," Qin Ming murmured to himself.
He had an approach, and his initial foundation was currently astonishingly potent; it was worth an attempt.
"Even if sweeping across the six realms cannot be carried through to the very end, I can still combine it with the first idea. Let's take a gamble first."
Immediately after, searing fire flared up alongside the rumble of thunder as Qin Ming once again set about resolving his own problem.
He experimented day and night until he was mentally and physically exhausted, his eyes bloodshot. During this time, the various heavenly light forces fiercely resisted as expected, rebelling several more times.
This only made him more resolute: the root of the calamity had to be eliminated right now.
In the process, he reviewed the silk book method, the Destiny-Altering Scripture, the Overlord's spirit field, Mundane Fire, Purple Palace internal refinement, and other techniques until he knew them backwards and forwards, studying them countless times.
"The most complex problem needs to be simplified to the extreme; it can't be overcomplicated."
In the end, Qin Ming went all out. He felt that if he tried to grasp everything, he would end up with nothing. Having studied these scriptures, he decided to proceed with the simplest, most fundamental approach.
In the early days, the forebears on the path of the Newborn had all consumed strange medicinal herbs while locked in mortal combat with colossal beasts, forcing their heavily wounded bodies to mutate.
"Right now, there is an issue with my heavenly light forces, which is no different from having an injured, ailing body. I need to concoct medicine to resolve this fatal problem." The Destiny-Altering Scripture contained methods for decocting medicine, capable of extracting essences even from wondrous blood. The source of his medicinal ingredients was naturally his various heavenly light forces.
As for fire, there was certainly no lack of it. Using the silk book method, he could manifest windfire, thunderfire, departing fire, and more. Coupled with Mundane Fire, Qin Ming began directly. Not long after, he let out a muffled groan as a portion of the "ingredients" inside him was incinerated, nearly causing a violent backlash.
"If once doesn't work, then ten times, a hundred times... a thousand times!" Of course, he did not want it to take that many attempts. No matter how high his initial foundation value was, it could not withstand such attrition. If he surpassed the peak threshold on any attempt, the one swept aside and bored through would be himself.
Wu Yaozu, who had vanished for five days, returned to find the small courtyard in utter disarray. Qin Ming looked as if he had been smoked and scorched by fire, parts of his body blackened, in a thoroughly miserable state.
Even the courtyard walls bore scorch marks, and the vegetable garden had nearly been ruined.
The old hen had already grown a fresh set of bright feathers, having also been singed once—clearly, it was no ordinary domestic chicken.
"Are you concocting medicine?" Wu Yaozu asked in surprise, for he had caught a faint, delicate fragrance—not smelled with his nose, but sensed through conscious perception.
"Yes!" Qin Ming nodded. As he spoke, his abdomen shone with dazzling radiance that beamed straight outside his body, making his entire person appear almost translucent.
Wu Yaozu stood dumbfounded. In Qin Ming's abdomen, he saw a divine pill, perfectly round and unified, incomparably brilliant. Purple qi steamed from it, golden mist coiled about, and silver light shone in all directions, intertwining with all kinds of luminous mists in an extraordinary display.
Then, he watched as that wondrous great medicine spun at extreme speed like clouds swept by wind, condensing all heavenly light, essence, qi, and spirit as they converged into it. All the essences across Qin Ming's body were compounding the medicine; his accumulated divine wisdom and conscious spiritual light were submerged into it as well.
Wu Yaozu exclaimed in marvel, "What fine medicine! It must be a peerless, supreme treasure elixir—wait, no, you can't eat that! That's a person, not a medicine!"
At that moment, the true elixir fractured, turning into a beam of blinding light shaped like a human figure resembling Qin Ming. It then disassembled, transforming into countless streams of light that surged into every part of his flesh and blood.
This was the culmination of Qin Ming's experiments.
He had compounded the medicine countless times. After merging, it would deliberately burst open, primarily to make the heavenly light forces become one undifferentiated whole. Refining true arts with Mundane Fire was carried out repeatedly.
Qin Ming felt it was about done; all his heavenly light forces were finally forged into a single entity.
Throughout this process, the danger had been immense. His body had almost been bored through; Mundane Fire burned his frame and thunder crashed atop his skull. He had faced peril multiple times, enduring extraordinary hardships.
He had no wish to look back on this ordeal, for it was simply too terrifying—it was practically boiling away his own life! To him, this was the most primitive form of compounding medicine, which was ultimately consumed by his own flesh and blood.
The kindly grandmother sensed this and was stirred. Her pure yang conscious spiritual light departed the stone statue and reappeared in the small courtyard. "You resolved your problem?" she asked, her white hair framing a look of astonishment.
Qin Ming nodded. "I believe compounding the medicine to this stage is just about sufficient. If I can obtain the scripture refined by that senior, I might be able to sublimate it even further."
The old woman showed a look of shock. "Compounding heavenly light forces into medicine to ultimately nourish oneself... the demands on natural talent are far too high. Back then, that old man also had such an idea, and his concepts were very well developed, but he believed no one met the requirements. Yet you actually validated it for him."
She felt that Qin Ming should now be able to go to the end of the town and try his luck at the divine temple.
Wu Yaozu immediately perked up. "Many friends from all over in the town want to get to know you! Someone even offered to treat the two... er, treat us to drinks."
The old woman reprimanded him at once. "Do you have any idea what their identities are in reality? Every single one of them has an extraordinary background, yet you dare get so close to them!"
Chapter 178