Grand White Radiant Spirit Divine Restriction

To think there really was this much finely forged Five Metal! After stripping the whole Tian Ge Grand Hall for metal, An Jing found his take far from small, and could not help smiling. In truth, the metal in this hall was unexpectedly abundant—measured in the thousands upon thousands of jin—but its great age meant that most of the outer layers of the Five Metal had corroded, leaving few materials still usable as cultivation resources. What was more, the Five Metal was extraordinarily hard. Had he not advanced to Inner Breath, and without the fiend sword's aid, he likely would not have had the skill to shift and sort all these metal and iron things into order. "Mm." The Sword Spirit was rather satisfied. "It's not much, but together with my 'Sword Baleful Aura,' it's more than enough to lay your foundation." On hearing this, An Jing's thoughts cleared, and he knew at once what he should do. The youth brought out the broken sword and saluted it with the reverence owed a teacher. "An Jing, a disciple of the Gufeng An Family, respectfully beseeches the immortal sword to grant me the orthodox method of the great Dao!" "I am not your master, yet in leading you into the Dao I accept this rite. Today I transmit to you the immortal heavenly orthodox method, to dispel your benighted ignorance. I hope you will hold to the Dao with a single heart, subdue demons and quell evil, and not fail the grace of one who transmits the Dao and teaches." He asked with a sincere heart, and the Fuxie Sword Spirit gladly agreed, explaining to him in fine detail the essentials of the 'Grand White Radiant Spirit Divine Restriction.' "—The Dao overspreads the heavens and bears up the earth, expands through the four quarters, and spans the eight poles. The Grand White is the ultimate of metal: it attains the Dao's firmness and the Dao's clarity, imperishable through a hundred kalpas, beyond the burden of all things. "—By qi it divides the clear from the turbid: above, it nourishes the soul; below, it forges the body's shell. It melts the Five Metals to condense earthly fiend aura, condenses that aura to merge with the dharma restriction, merges with the dharma restriction to fortify the physical body, and fortifies the physical body to firm the foundation of the Dao—this is the Divine Restriction." The Grand White Radiant Spirit Divine Restriction was indeed an extremely high-grade body-refining method. At its core, it extracted the Geng Metal Qi from the Five Metals, and with that qi forged within the body a Spirit Restriction like a dharma treasure, tempering one's own flesh until it was as hard as a dharma implement or a flying sword. Under the Sword Spirit's guidance, An Jing silently recited the general principles of the cultivation method, holding the Fuxie broken sword in hand and mentally circulating the 'Tranquil Sword Contemplation.' He guided the pure Sword Baleful Aura within the broken sword into his body and began to prepare for condensing the 'Grand White Restriction Seed.' "The Visualization Method cultivates the spirit; the cultivation method refines qi and refines the body; the Killing Method cultivates the art of slaying to break through tribulation. When the three become one, that is a single line of true transmission." As he gave instruction, the Fuxie Sword Spirit said, "The Tranquil Sword Contemplation is the root of my lineage, filled with all manner of wonders, and the Grand White Divine Restriction is likewise a top-tier cultivation method. With these two methods, you can forge a solid foundation, and cultivating the Killing Method and Martial Techniques will yield twice the result for half the effort." Settling his mind, An Jing began his first Qi Refining session there in the ancient underground ruins. Though the Sword Spirit could only guide him by word of mouth, he did so with commanding insight and rich experience, each time pinpointing the cause before An Jing went wrong in circulating his power, and correcting it in advance. An Jing, for his part, possessed Innate Wisdom to begin with—he was quite clever, with unusually strong comprehension. Under Fuxie's guidance he grasped everything with extraordinary speed, and his cultivation proceeded with incomparable smoothness. Though the Sword Spirit said nothing aloud, inwardly he was rather moved. Judged only by his Spirit Root, An Jing's talent for Qi Refining could only be called passable; in ancient times he might have been brought into a sect, but would have found it hard to obtain the true transmission. Yet the Sword Spirit had traveled long with An Jing and knew well that it was his Comprehension and his temperament that were his finest gifts. Even had he never encountered the Tianyi Demon Sect or awakened his Destiny Pattern, he would surely have gone on to accomplish something great—for as the saying goes, an awl tucked in a bag will pierce its way out in the end, and the great sects, too, would have sought out means to raise his aptitude for him and granted him the true transmission. Time slipped away, and another half day passed. One taught with all his strength, the other studied in earnest—everything fell into place as naturally as water carving its channel. An Jing had now worked out the essence of the Grand White Divine Restriction thoroughly. Though it was a body-refining method, at its root it was still a qi-refining art: it did not require exercising sinew, bone, skin, and flesh, nor quenching the body; rather, one embedded spells within one's frame, and by circulating the cultivation method, one could use the Killing Aura to temper the flesh from the inside out. Of the One Hundred and Eight Restrictions of the Heavenly Spirits and Earthly Fiends, each additional one condensed marked an advance in strength. If ordinary body-refining went from the outside in, then the Grand White Divine Restriction went from the inside out: by continuously condensing restrictions into the body, one turned one's flesh into a dharma treasure and gave rise to all manner of wondrous transformations. It was, in short, an 'internal' body-refining technique. Of course, knowing the essence was one thing, and putting it into practice another. To cultivate this method to any real accomplishment, beyond the accumulation of years, one also needed a great quantity of 'Geng Metal Qi' extracted from the Five Metals. The purer the Geng Metal Qi, the firmer the restrictions that could be condensed—and this was especially so of the initial 'Grand White Baleful Seed' that served as the primer, where the purer the core Killing Aura, the better. A baleful seed refined from ordinary metal qi held no advantage at all compared with other body-refining methods, and was even more cumbersome; only by drawing on the wondrous metal Killing Aura of a rare site like Difei could one gain a clear edge. Right now, An Jing had no means to go seeking out pure Killing Aura; even the Five Metals he had gathered from the Tian Ge Grand Hall were of only middling-to-upper grade. But when it came to the core alone, he had something purer. The Sword Baleful Aura of the Fuxie broken sword. "The time has come." The Fuxie Sword Spirit said, "Take out the Spirit Jade and draw upon the spirit qi within it." The purer the foundation, the better—and what was purest now were the Fuxie Sword Baleful Aura and the spirit qi within the Spirit Jade. Under the workings of the Tranquil Sword Contemplation, An Jing's mind sank entirely into his inner realm. A wisp of fine, silver-gray Killing Aura was slowly seeping from the broken sword and pouring into his body. This strand of qi was impossibly heavy, yet it was not murky like mud, sand, or gravel; rather, it resembled the finest ground metal—smooth and dense, like flowing quicksilver. Adjusting this heavy, quicksilver-like Killing Aura with a special formula and Breathing Technique, An Jing guided it along his meridians around his whole body. The process ought to have been excruciating—like lava flowing through the blood vessels, like quicksilver corroding the organs—yet An Jing felt only a gentle, weighty warmth moving through him, converging from his limbs into his chest, abdomen, and spine, and from his chest, abdomen, and spine down into his dantian. And through it all, thread upon thread of essence-qi was born from every part of his body, circulating with his blood. At the same time, three slender roots reached down from his Divine Sea, spreading from the Purple Mansion throughout his whole body. Each of the three roots showed one of three colors—'gold,' 'brown,' and 'green'—and they were none other than An Jing's three Spirit Roots. Brown merged with gold, feeding the gold until it grew strong; gold bore down on green, leaving it somewhat withered. Yet that withered green, in turn, pressed down on brown, so that the gold alone blazed with radiance. The dominant Metal Spirit Root now took command of the qi circulating through An Jing's whole body, drawing in the spirit qi of the Spirit Jade and setting the golden lines of light in motion. "An Jing." The Sword Spirit prompted him now. "The Five Metals—and the Residual Echo." An Jing nodded slightly and took the Five Metals materials into his hand. At a thought, he drew out the thread of white-gray flame-light from his Divine Sea and cast it into the Divine Sea of his spirit roots. At once, a great quantity of Five Metals Killing Aura was drawn into his body, and using the Five Metals' Killing Aura as firewood, he lit that Mysterious Prime Flame of the Residual Echo. Smoke rose and sank into his four limbs and hundred bones. Wave upon wave of cool, invigorating, warm, nurturing sensation spread through him, making his soul, his fleshly body, and his Spirit Roots all shine at once—their radiance bright, their keen edge surging high. Everything had come together as naturally as water carving its channel—and his Spirit Root awakened.