Qian Chen sat in the central main hall of the desolate courtyard, silently visualizing. Before long, three azure talismans materialized within his dantian.
At first, these three azure talismans drifted uncertainly like wisps of pure qi. Only after absorbing the pure spiritual true qi within his dantian did they shudder violently, transforming into an azure rainbow that surged upward from his dantian in his lower abdomen. Reaching his throat, it was spat forth together with a mouthful of true-qi-laden golden nectar and jade dew. These were three strands of fundamental magical power Qian Chen had temporarily cultivated.
So-called fundamental magical power was true qi condensed into true talismans. If a true talisman condensed into a restriction within the dantian, enabling one to derive new true talismans at will, one would reach the realm of Spell Comprehension.
A single true talisman was forged from condensed true qi; striking with it cast a spell.
When ordinary Daoist cultivators reached this stage, they had to transcribe paper talismans and swallow them during cultivation, blending their true qi with the spiritual essence of the consumed talisman to store it internally as a true talisman—this constituted a single strand of magical power. Yet once such magical power was expended, it was completely consumed and could not be recovered.
Consequently, cultivators at this stage were most wary of exhausting their magical power. They had to condense that power into an internal restriction to open an inexhaustible spring. Once a restriction layer was formed, it could refine true qi into illusory talismans, much like the restrictions of a magical implement. An illusory talisman cast outward was likewise a spell, but it lacked the longevity of a true talisman; unless nurtured within the body’s internal restrictions, it would typically dissipate within a day or two.
These illusory talismans were what cultivators commonly referred to as magical power.
A restriction could automatically absorb true qi to restore illusory talismans. Through nurturing and tempering, such illusory talismans would gradually transform into true talismans, a process known as growing fundamental magical power.
Before Spell Comprehension, casting spells consumed fundamental magical power—use a bit, and a bit was lost forever.
After Spell Comprehension, the illusory talisman magical power employed was not one's root foundation, but an expendable resource that could be replenished at any time by drawing upon the primordial qi of heaven and earth.
The true talisman magical power Qian Chen had employed, however, came at great cost. Depending on the quality of one's true qi and the nature of the visualized talisman, the resulting spiritual response varied. A single strand of magical power from some cultivators could summon only a light drizzle, gathering barely two buckets of water vapor. Yet a single strand from others could alter heaven and earth, overturning the four seas.
This was the difference in the true potency contained within magical power.
Qian Chen had absorbed the pure spiritual qi of the nine heavens, giving his refined true qi an exceptionally high quality. The true talismans he visualized this time were also drawn from the authentic transmissions of Louguan Dao recorded in the Daoist Scriptures of Geng Yuanzi. Each of the three strands possessed distinct wonders: one for Sensing, one for subtleness, and one for spirit gathering. United, they could substitute for Qian Chen in operating part of the Heavenly Net Umbrella's wonders. The true potency within them was vast indeed—an ordinary cultivator would struggle to breach the Heavenly Net Umbrella bolstered by these three strands of magical power even after three months of assault.
When he struck these three strands of magical power into the Heavenly Net Umbrella, the implement's restrictions linked with them in an instant. Because the nature of the magical power matched the artifact's essence, it could even use the umbrella to gather the pure qi of heaven and earth to continually nurture them, making the true potency Qian Chen stored within grow even more robust.
Stimulated by this magical power, the Heavenly Net Umbrella unfurled. The Huantian Azure Silk Umbrella transformed into a haze of pure qi that enveloped the entire courtyard. Gradually, this pure qi faded from view, its restrictions revealing themselves only when under spell assault.
"These three strands of magical power cost me two days of arduous cultivation... Were it not to ensure absolute safety while refining the dan, I truly couldn't bear the loss."
Despite the sting of the loss, Qian Chen let out a clear cry: "Duo!"
The Two Realms Bronze Tablets beside him flew out in response, manifesting two great doors at the entrance of the house. Dark, coarse wooden doors barred the doorway, shut tight and thoroughly unassuming.
He had not indulged in the luxury of using true talisman fundamental magical power here, so these two doors lacked the wonder of self-sustaining protection. They held only a wisp of true qi to temporarily awaken the implement’s innate sensitivity. If anyone disturbed them, their power would erupt, swallowing the intruder into the Two Realms Tablet.
At that point, the Heavenly Net Umbrella imbued with Qian Chen's magical power would close on its own, sealing the Two Realms Tablet. Inside were only worthless arms, armor, gold, and silver; Qian Chen would not grieve their destruction. Even if an intruder managed to break out through the doors of the Two Realms Tablet, breaching the Heavenly Net Umbrella's seal from the inside would be even harder.
Qian Chen then concealed the Seven Baleful Banner by the door, gathered the Dragon Sparrow Ring into his palm, hid the Azure Phosphor Five Poisons within the ring, and suspended the Spirit Light Mirror beneath the eaves.
Having made thorough preparations, he drew out a small jade hoe, swung it, and tunneled into the earth.
This earth-escaping divine weapon shielded Qian Chen as he delved dozens of chi beneath the ground, until its protective yellow light could no longer push aside the surrounding earth and stone.
Only then did Qian Chen catch sight of rising wisps of black baleful qi. He immediately channeled true qi into the tool in successive bursts, straining to descend a few more chi until he reached a depth of roughly seventy-five chi underground.
"The core quality of this divine weapon is decent, but it lacks complete restrictions, so reaching this point is its limit. It seems I gave that Sun-Chasing Lord too much credit. If I used restrictions I know to ritually refine this divine weapon into a magical implement, not only would tunneling become silent and trace-free, but even refining a single layer would let me plunge over a hundred chi deep."
Qian Chen shook his head at the pure yet faint baleful qi. "Fortunately, this baleful qi is not buried too deep. Otherwise, I would have had to waste nearly a month re-refining the implement."
Here, nearly eighty chi below ground, pitch-black darkness surrounded him. At this depth, only a few subterranean water veins wound past. Earth, stone, and frigid springs were parted by the yellow light enveloping his body, pushed to either side. Though he was deep underground in a space packed with rock and dirt, an icy chill blew against his face like a subterranean breeze.
Using the Dragon Sparrow Ring, Qian Chen cleared away the surrounding earth and stone, hollowing out a chamber spacious enough for several people.
Only when he stood within this cavern did the yellow light steady. The black baleful qi rushed toward him with chilling malice, sending ripples through the yellow radiance cast by the jade hoe. Fortunately, Qian Chen had created an open space with the Dragon Sparrow Ring in advance. Had he continued delving downward, the combined pressure of the baleful qi and earth escape might have overwhelmed the divine weapon. If that protective yellow light shattered, he would be in grave peril.
"Kunyuan Mysterious Yin Baleful Qi... It actually matches the Heavenly Unity Pure Gang quite well... It even aligns somewhat with Ice Soul Cold Light Gang. Though not the optimal match, it could still condense into a third-grade primordial dan!
"A pity it is still too faint. Even if its essence harmonizes with the gangqi, it could at best raise the quality of the qi dan to the seventh grade."
As the baleful qi turned increasingly sharp, Qian Chen grew more cautious. He excavated another three chi downward. Near the source of the baleful qi, a silver sheen shimmered across the black haze. A thin layer of black baleful qi drifted faintly in gossamer strands—this was the Mysterious Yin Frost Baleful Qi Qian Chen sought. It was named for its resemblance to a delicate layer of silver frost over black soil.
Because it ranked among the Twelve Baleful Qis of Kunyuan, it was also called Kunyuan Mysterious Yin Baleful Qi.
Following the baleful qi harvesting techniques of Louguan Dao, Qian Chen projected a wisp of true qi into the silver-flecked black haze. An icy chill immediately struck him, turning his pure, buoyant true qi exceedingly heavy as it became coated in black frost. Qian Chen promptly drew back his true qi, channeling that pure wisp of baleful qi into his Mysterious Gate aperture.
Only after the baleful qi was stored inside one of the aperture's internal elixir chambers was a single strand considered harvested.
"Even with the secret methods of Louguan Dao, collecting baleful qi is this arduous. What kind of uncanny fortune did Fu Ying and Hong Sihai enjoy to find ready-made gangqi condensed within an otherworldly meteorite and ten-thousand-year ice soul?" Qian Chen's spiritual sense grimaced from the cold biting through his true qi, his forehead freezing as envy welled within him.
Guiding his true qi strand by strand to absorb the subterranean yin baleful qi was an exacting, laborious task.
It took Qian Chen a full day of toil to collect most of the Mysterious Yin Frost Baleful Qi. The remaining baleful qi was merely ordinary yin baleful qi, stripped of the silver frost characteristic of Mysterious Yin. Only then did he relent. Returning to the surface, he brought out the otherworldly strange stone and carefully extracted the few remaining wisps of Heavenly Unity Pure Gang.
Once both the gang and sha qis were gathered within his Mysterious Gate aperture and stored in two separate elixir chambers, Qian Chen finally began refining the external qi primordial dan.
He had neither an alchemical cauldron nor true fire. He could only visualize the divine intent of Doushuai True Fire, elevating his true qi to manifest as spiritual flame. Using the secret art of Taishang External Aperture Alchemy, he transformed his Mysterious Gate aperture into a cauldron! Within this true-fire cauldron, he refined the primordial dan. He secluded himself in the desolate courtyard for seven days before finally refining the gang-sha qi within the aperture, dividing it into clear and turbid qis: the clear qi ascended to become heaven, while the turbid qi descended to become earth.
With clear and turbid separated, the true fire circulated between them, blending the clear and turbid into one and uniting the gang and sha.
A subtle spiritual resonance gradually came into being, like the awakening of conscious life after the genesis of heaven and earth. This was the Heaven, Earth, and Man Three Primes Dao of Dan, inexhaustibly profound—an internal alchemy method that probed the origins of the cosmos by imitating the primordial creation of the world.
Heaven and earth divide, and humanity begins; yin and yang separate, and the Three Powers take form!
As the clear and turbid merged back toward chaos, a spherical entity shaped like a bird's egg gradually formed. Subtle spirituality sprouted within it. Merely immersing himself in it slightly, Qian Chen felt his spiritual sense nourished.
When the dan embryo was complete, the essence of the gang-sha qi was entirely contained within that spherical egg.
Only the miscellaneous qis expelled during the fusion of gang and sha remained like primordial chaos, cradling the dan embryo. Reaching this stage brought the arduous work of nurturing the embryo. Qian Chen calculated that this external qi primordial embryo would require forty-nine days of painstaking refinement before it could emerge from the cauldron.
The preceding step—uniting the clear and turbid, blending gang and sha—had already taken twenty-one days.
Now at the stage of nurturing, Qian Chen needed to continue gathering the primordial qi of heaven and earth. On one hand, this allowed him to persist in cultivating his true qi without wasting a moment; on the other, it supplied subtle primordial qis to nourish the dan embryo and enrich its core essence. If Qian Chen were in no hurry, nurturing it for forty-nine years while gathering the finest essences of heaven and earth might even compensate for the scarcity of the gang-sha qi, allowing him to refine a superior third-grade primordial dan.
The alchemical arts of the Taishang were just that miraculous.
Even if Qian Chen could not afford to wait, he could still gather other worldly primordial qis and employ external alchemy to refine the residual qis expelled during the embryo's creation—the primordial chaos cradling the dan embryo—into other varieties of spirit pills. After all, though these residual qis were impurities in the refining of an external qi primordial dan, their essence bore the creative wonders of clear and turbid dividing to give birth to human spirit, and yin and yang separating to form the Three Powers.
They were spirit medicines comparable to many natural treasures.
By taking the various impurity primordial qis separated after the opening of chaos as the primary ingredient, and supplementing them with other harvested primordial qis, Qian Chen could refine many varieties of qi dan and spirit medicine.
This was another secret alchemical art of Taishang Dao, known as the Cauldron Miniature World.
The properties of spirit medicines were naturally mixed. When refining spirit pills, alchemists usually extracted only the primary medicinal properties, balancing rulers and ministers to forge the pill while discarding the nonconforming properties as impurities. Only Taishang Dao excelled in alchemy to the point of viewing the cauldron as a miniature world. In the creation of heaven and earth, how could anything be useless? All living things were nurtured; diversity was preserved, not wasted.
Thus, they utilized the medicinal properties of precious herbs deemed impurities, pairing them with lesser spirit herbs to refine secondary spirit pills alongside the primary one.
When the Taishang Dao Ancestor personally refined pills in ancient times, a single Nine-Revolution Golden Dan would be accompanied by dozens of eight-revolution pills and hundreds of seven-revolution pills, descending tier by tier. Even the final impurities that were nearly impossible to utilize could still yield tens of thousands of one-revolution golden dans. The lowest quality among those one-revolution golden dans was comparable to the primary dan Qian Chen was currently refining.
Of course, it was said that when the Taishang refined pills, an entire universe lay within the Eight Trigrams Furnace.
Once, an error occurred during refinement, and a monkey leapt out, kicking over the furnace before making his escape. In truth, the spiritual essence of certain pills within that cauldron universe had grown so potent that they attained living form, stole the essence of that batch of pills and the entire universe, cultivated into a mighty power, and broke free. The Taishang naturally would not slay a being blessed with such destiny and fortune, so he let him depart.
Later, as the Taishang Dao Ancestor's alchemical arts advanced further, he could refine countless varieties and tiers of spirit pills in a single furnace if he wished. He could also refine purely Nine-Revolution Golden Dans, producing twenty or thirty in one batch. If he desired to refine a Dao Venerable, a dozen Dao Lords, or even an entire cosmos, none of it was beyond his reach... Such alchemical arts had already approached the creative power of the Great Dao.
Rumor had it that many worlds across the myriad heavens were refined in the final batch before the Taishang united with the Dao.
Chapter 41