Perfected Fenhai hummed a little tune all the way back to his dwelling. He headed straight for the study, rummaged through the shelves, and took down the most precious dharma treasures, pills, and heavenly treasures displayed in the central position. He carefully packed them into boxes and meticulously labeled each with its purpose, material, and price. Having done all this, he searched all over the house, and only after much effort did he find a jade toad tucked away in a corner of the storeroom.
From the perspective of a Perfected, this jade toad possessed only mediocre texture and ordinary craftsmanship. Aside from slightly improving feng shui and adding a bit of good luck, it was good for nothing. But what place's feng shui could ever surpass the Hanging Azure of the Empty Valley?
Yet Perfected Fenhai placed this jade toad—which would have been deemed redundant even as a mere knickknack—solemnly in the center of the display shelf, even wiping it clean several times with great care.
Originally, this compartment had held three miniature immortal swords, but they were now shifted aside.
News of Wei Yuan successfully materializing his visualization chart caused a tiny ripple among his classmates, then died down without another sound. His visualization chart had been personally sealed by True Monarch Xuanyue, so no one below the level of True Monarch could peek into it; naturally, his classmates had no way of knowing the truth.
Although the classmates were curious, they put the matter out of mind in the blink of an eye.
According to historical records, the limit of the Jade Toad Gazing at the Moon Chart was twelve zhang, with a middling anomaly. Bao Yun's eleven-zhang visualization chart was slightly smaller, but it came with a supreme anomaly, practically surpassing all predecessors. Although Cui Yu's visualization chart was only six zhang, its anomaly was also near-supreme, and the boon he received was a strand of immortal sword qi, giving him formidable overall combat strength. Moreover, with the backing of the Cui family, he could elevate it even further; one could say he had already secured a spot in the Heaven Tier.
The time Wei Yuan spent expanding his visualization chart was unprecedented. Evidently, his natural comprehension was lacking, which explained his slow cultivation. Wei Yuan's foundational talent was seven chi nine; in the outside world, that made him an unmatched genius, but among the disciples of the Palace of Grand Beginning, it was merely average. He also came from humble origins, possessing neither secret arts to open his wisdom nor methods to cleanse and temper his root bones. Consequently, his peers took it for granted that Wei Yuan was rather slow-witted for now, and that it would take a few more years for his intellect to fully mature.
Combining root bones and comprehension, if the cultivation method happened to be ill-suited as well, spending a full year merely to materialize a visualization chart was entirely possible.
If the Jade Toad Gazing at the Moon Chart were placed outside the Palace of Grand Beginning, there were plenty of mediocre people who couldn't cast a Dao Foundation even after decades of cultivation.
The classmates tacitly assumed this was an embarrassing subject for Wei Yuan, so out of mutual understanding, none brought it up again. In fact, even if they hadn't witnessed similar examples firsthand, they had heard plenty. Countless disciples of humble origin made a stunning impression upon entering the palace, only to be gradually overtaken and surpassed by disciples of prominent clans over the long course of cultivation, with many even suffering a collapse of their Dao hearts as a result. Those who truly rose from obscurity to eventually become True Monarchs were very few indeed.
The class was calm yet taut with tension. All the students had begun Body Casting, each running at full tilt along the great path of cultivation for fear of being outdone by others.
The students were already proud and arrogant to begin with, and Ji Liuli fanned the flames every single day, constantly comparing them to the Traditionalist Faction. Every class was about how so-and-so from the Traditionalist Faction had made another breakthrough, or how someone else had received some treasure from their family, driving everyone to cultivate for their very lives. Phrases like "Look at how the Traditionalists are doing" had been repeated so often that calluses had practically grown on their ears.
After True Monarch Xuanyue sealed the otherworldly fortune, Wei Yuan finally embarked on the road of Body Casting as well.
The day they returned from Sky Azure Hall, Zhang Sheng had explained to Wei Yuan in detail all the nuances to watch out for during the Body Casting stage. The first step of Body Casting was cleansing and tempering the muscles and sinews, gradually transforming the mortal body into the base material of an immortal embryo. This stage marked the beginning of shedding mortality to step toward immortality: the body would undergo pronounced changes, strength and speed would increase drastically, and one would become far more resilient to blows.
Wei Yuan had already experienced this firsthand during their last group brawl. His classmates had all begun Body Casting, their strength soaring to the point that even Wei Yuan, who was born with divine strength, could not withstand them.
After explaining the precautions, Zhang Sheng set down three bottles of Origin-Nourishing Pills, instructed Wei Yuan to cultivate on his own, and left in a hurry.
These three bottles of Origin-Nourishing Pills were not a three-month supply, but a ten-day supply. Starting now, his intake of Origin-Nourishing Pills changed from one pill every three days to three pills a day.
After Zhang Sheng departed, Wei Yuan wasted no time and began cultivating immediately. This time, he once again transformed into a jade toad, but looking at the pristine full moon in the sky, he felt somewhat unaccustomed to it. However, what came next was familiar territory: inhaling and exhaling the moon's luminescence.
The jade toad opened its mouth, and the lunar brilliance cascaded down, filling the toad's gaping maw in the blink of an eye and spilling over. Even with a toad's enormous mouth, swallowing this mouthful proved a bit difficult. After gulping down the moon's luminescence, the jade toad let out a gu and burped.
Such an abundance of lunar luminescence was naturally the miraculous effect of the three Origin-Nourishing Pills. Yet the lunar luminescence alone was not enough to release the full potency of the pills, and a torrential downpour began to fall within the visualization chart.
The jade toad adjusted its posture, aligning the full moon, its mouth, and its rear into a straight line. Then, tilting its head back toward the sky with mouth agape, it caught another full mouthful of lunar luminescence. This gulp went down much more smoothly, as the lunar brilliance passed straight down its throat into its belly, bypassing all intermediate steps.
Having lunar luminescence poured down its throat like this through the entire night, dawn arrived before he knew it.
Waking from his meditative trance, Wei Yuan felt a faint tingling and itching in many parts of his body—that was his flesh and blood beginning to regrow. The visualization chart in his sea of consciousness had also changed; a small patch of ground had turned from illusory to solid. Judging by its size, however, turning the entire ground from illusory to solid would take at least six to seven hundred days.
And this was the result of taking three Origin-Nourishing Pills! The medicinal potency had already reached the limit of what Wei Yuan could endure; any more, and the jade toad would be unable to swallow it down. Yet with three Origin-Nourishing Pills a day, a single day was equivalent to several dozen days of bitter cultivation. Logically speaking, it shouldn't be this slow.
Wei Yuan fetched the transcribed copy of True Monarch Tunyue's insights and read through it carefully once more, finally confirming that something was indeed amiss with his cultivation.
Only a small fraction of the heaven-and-earth spiritual qi converted from inhaling and exhaling the moon's luminescence and the medicinal potency of the Origin-Nourishing Pills was used for Body Casting. Most of the rest vanished into thin air, with no indication where it had gone. Yet Wei Yuan was certain that this spiritual qi and medicinal potency were still within his body rather than dissipating outward; it was as if some invisible thing inside him had absorbed the majority of it.
For his first session, judging by the volume of the visualization chart he had solidified, Wei Yuan's cultivation speed far outstripped that of ordinary disciples—after all, he was treating Origin-Nourishing Pills like daily meals. However, Wei Yuan's visualization chart was simply absurd, so by proportion, his progress was shockingly slow. Ordinary students typically completed the tempering of their muscles and sinews in three or four months, and for those with fine talent and an ample supply of pills, finishing it in a single month was not unheard of.
Wei Yuan could only try not to dwell on his progress.
From then on, Zhang Sheng no longer visited once a month, but arrived every ten days, bringing three bottles of Origin-Nourishing Pills each time and speaking with Wei Yuan far more often. That counted as good news.
The bad news was that the taste of the Origin-Nourishing Pills was truly terrible, carrying a strange flavor that tasted like eating...
When he took them infrequently in the past, he hadn't noticed much. But now, with three pills a day, things went wrong. The foul taste built up exponentially and lingered indefinitely. After only a few days, Wei Yuan found them hard to swallow; the mere sight of an Origin-Nourishing Pill made him nauseous, an ordeal worse than inhaling and exhaling the moon's luminescence.
Awful as they tasted, one Origin-Nourishing Pill was equivalent to more than ten days of bitter cultivation for Wei Yuan, and three pills accelerated his Body Casting progress by forty to fifty times. Wei Yuan had no choice but to choke them down.
Wei Yuan guessed that plenty of people must have complained about the flavor of the Origin-Nourishing Pills, yet the Monastery of Creation simply refused to change it.
Wei Yuan cynically surmised what those old geezers at the Monastery of Creation were thinking: no matter how many Origin-Nourishing Pills they brewed, they would always be snapped up completely. Why waste extra effort improving the taste? The Monastery of Creation wasn't a restaurant, after all.
Every day, Wei Yuan cursed the Monastery of Creation in his heart before cultivating, and cursed them again after. But cursing aside, the pills still had to be eaten, and the lunar brilliance still had to be cycled. Thus the days passed, one by one.
There was another matter Wei Yuan had not anticipated: the foundational cleansing administered by Eldest Martial Sister every seven days had to continue as well.
Wei Yuan had once asked Ji Liuli when the cleansing would be complete, only for Eldest Martial Sister to shift her tune, claiming that the pursuit of purity was endless, not to mention that Wei Yuan's foundation was still terribly unstable, so he had to keep being cleansed.
Thus, besides taking pills and cycling lunar brilliance, he also had to be washed.
At this point, Wei Yuan discovered that the immortal path was not only boundless, but also tedious and repetitive, requiring one to endure all kinds of bizarre and unpleasant things.
He wondered if those high-and-mighty True Monarchs and Perfected were still entirely sound of mind.
Just like that, month after month slipped by. Wei Yuan felt time pass slower and slower, as if every night managed to stretch on for a few extra hours.
Chapter 49