"Stars appearing by day... stars appearing!" Cui Dan stared dumbfounded at the scene in the sky where both the sun and the stars shone together. Even Uncle Wu, calm and composed as he was, was struck speechless when he returned to report to his young master; this external vision was far beyond his imagination. Uncle Wu paused to reflect: when his master had formed a superior-grade core back in the day, had there been any phenomenon like this?
The answer was... how could there possibly be? If his master had triggered such an external vision upon forming his core, the Sima family would have mobilized every suppression imaginable, both in the open and from the shadows!
Just look at the Wang clan, spoken of in the saying "Wang and Ma share the world"—Real Man Wang Yan, hailed by some as the "Dragon Gate of an era," led the way in pure talk and philosophical critique, while Wang Longxiang stood among the realm's Twenty-Eight Luminaries, proving the family possessed worthy successors.
Look at the Xie clan as well, who kept a low profile yet were still spoken of in the same breath as the Wangs.
Throughout history, how many of the Sima family's Golden Core cultivators had met their ends in Langya Commandery? And why was it that the young talents of the Wang and Xie families never went to the Upper Capital before reaching Core Formation?
In the distance, Wei Lecheng, the patriarch of the Wei clan, gazed toward the small retreat. His face was so calm that his chest barely rose or fell, as if he had forgotten to breathe.
Over at the White Deer Sect, Real Man Sun looked up in the direction of Jiaobu Town, her expression shifting with suspicion and shock.
Out on Jiuzhen Lake, the jianghu wanderers who had been brawling and jostling to salvage flood dragon hides and serpent scales all looked up at the sky, where the Silver River and Heavenly Market Enclosure had suddenly materialized in broad daylight. Bewilderment washed over their faces, and they even forgot the treasures clutched in their hands. The old Real Man from Yuxu Palace frowned and shook his head. "The Three Enclosures of the Astral Heaven... those rotating duty spirits are growing more outrageous by the day!"
Beneath the varied gazes that reached from nearby Jiuzhen to the eight distant horizons, the celestial stars gradually faded, and the bright light of the sun reclaimed mastery over the earth.
Inside the small retreat, Qian Chen was still somewhat dazed, but he saw that the spirit medicine within the cauldron had been nourished by the stellar primordial qi and was fully refined. Several hundred spirit pills surged from the vessel, erupting from its seven apertures and eight openings. The Gold and Silver Boys rushed forward, catching them with plantain leaves and reverently presenting them to Qian Chen. Qian Chen picked out a few and tossed them to the boys. Seeing this, the Ear Canal Deity scurried over with eager, pleading eyes.
"Whenever food is involved, you run faster than anyone!" Qian Chen chided it, yet he still shared several pills with it. After all, the little fellow had gone about gathering intelligence these past days, and had even taught itself to pick up idle chatter within a hundred li, repeating everything back to him—right down to the private conversations between Real Man Sun and her two disciples at the White Deer Sect.
"Instead of doing your job properly, you've specialized in prying into gossip and currying favor... Little guy, you're narrowing your path in life!" Qian Chen teased, though the spirit pills he gave it were not reduced in the slightest.
The Gold and Silver Boys diligently packed the pile of spirit pills from the plantain leaves into the red gourd. Raising the plantain fan, which shrank to the size of a thumb, they covered the gourd's opening with it.
They worked obediently, seemingly finding quite a bit of joy in the task.
When the three pill cauldrons opened, the external vision truly resonated with heaven and earth. Over the surface of Jiuzhen Great Marsh, thread after thread of water rose from the lake and drifted skyward, looking as if the lake's waters were falling up into the heavens.
An external vision—reverse rain.
Fishermen and jianghu martial artists out on the lake reached over the sides of their boats to catch the water droplets ascending from the surface, unable to stop themselves from shouting in wonder once more. Cui Dan and his old servant had already composed themselves. Having witnessed the grand anomaly of stars appearing by day, this sort of minor commotion could no longer rattle them.
After three quarters of an hour, the vision faded. Before Qian Chen, the emerald cauldron formed of dan qi suddenly collapsed back into mist. Within the giant hand condensed of Innate Qi, nearly a hundred streaks of spiritual radiance darted about, morphing into fire crows, blazing suns and stars, or wondrous flora—a dazzling array of manifestations. Qian Chen loosened his hand slightly, letting five of the spirit pills escape outside. Then, gripping the remaining primordial qi spirit pills, he stuffed them into the red gourd.
The Gold and Silver Boys transformed into the gourd's golden ring and the plantain fan's silver tassel, hanging at Qian Chen's waist alongside the gourd.
Finally, the giant hand of primordial qi coalesced into a primordial dan and returned to rest behind Qian Chen's head.
After the qi cauldron collapsed, Qian Chen had allowed five spirit pills to escape the vessel. One was an Extreme Yin spirit pill that transformed into a wisp of pure yin qi, taking the shape of a jade toad as it fled across the great marsh. Instantly, the Pure Qi of the Nine Heavens was triggered by it. Bolts of thunder crashed down, sending rolling waves of thunder across the marsh as lightning carrying strands of Nine Heavens gangqi struck the jade toad.
The thunder shattered the spirit pill back into yin qi, driving it down into an area of ultimate yin beneath the waters.
Entwined with thunder sha and nurtured by the yin terrain, the yin qi absorbed earth qi, beginning to cultivate nine-void thunder sha qi...
Another spirit pill plunged into the poisonous mist of the marsh, adopting the shape of an emerald spirit scorpion. Breathing the miasma in and out, it gathered poison sha and began to nurture five poisons divine sha qi.
A third spirit pill had barely left the retreat when it was swept away and carried off by a lingering wisp of soul attached to the slain flood dragon's carcass.
The flood dragon's remains also received a spirit pill shaped like a tiny black dragon. The carcass sank into the lake, where its essence blood and bones drew upon earth qi to foster true dragon sha qi.
The final spirit pill fled into the great marsh just as Cui Dan hesitated over whether to seize it, only to be captured by a nine-winged exotic centipede that clutched the pill in its front legs. Only then did City God Wei and Cui Dan realize an opportunity had slipped by, and both let out helpless sighs. The man, the god, and the insect all represented aspects of the local fortune, and all shared an affinity with this spirit pill. If taken into the body, it would naturally generate destiny and aid them in advancing their cultivation... In the end, however, the marsh's destiny held greater sway than Jiaobu Town's, and the pill fell into the hands of the heavenly centipede.
An external vision—sha naturally formed.
Qian Chen silently committed the whereabouts of these five spirit pills to memory. A thousand years from now, should any disciple seek out sha qi for cultivation, they could be directed to search here.
Provided they were nurtured by earth qi for a millennium, the sha qi produced by these spirit pills would be on par with the Extreme Yin True Sha he had harvested.
Every sip and bite was bound by destiny and creation.
Finally, the aperture cauldron formed by Qian Chen's Mysterious Gate aperture stirred. A crystalline divine radiance, clear as pure ice, suddenly streaked across the space. The moment it revealed itself, the entire room within the retreat grew piercingly cold. Feeling that bone-chilling frost, Qian Chen could not help but show a look of delight. After nearly a year of arduous effort, he had finally refined this external qi primordial dan.
This dan was equivalent to the primordial dan formed by a cultivator attaining a grade-two core. With such a primordial dan in hand, Qian Chen could finally clash against Miaokong.
As the primordial dan emerged from the furnace, wondrous tones resonated throughout the chamber. The Taishang Dao Dust Pearl, his true body, had been faintly stirred, and the surrounding heaven and earth resonated with it, echoing with the Dao sound:
"The Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name!"
"Nameless, the origin of heaven and earth; named, the mother of all things..."
An external vision—True Words of the Great Dao.
The sound of the Dao flowed gently, rich with natural cadence and the principles of heaven and earth. Any cultivator who could grasp even a fraction of it would reap boundless benefits. In a trance, Cui Dan seemed to see a white-haired elder leading a blue-green ox, slowly walking out from the retreat's alchemy chamber. His knees went soft, and he nearly fell to the floor. The City God was even more overcome; unable to maintain the dignity of his divine office, he knelt toward the alchemy chamber and bowed repeatedly, crying out, "Taishang Dao Ancestor!"
"The Taishang's true words, the wondrous sound of the Great Dao!" Cui Dan groaned inward. Who would dare claim Senior Qian has no ties to the Taishang Dao now? I'd eat my own shoes!
Even the little creature hiding within his pupils fell completely silent.
The Dao voice resonated only within five hundred paces of the small building. The old servant Uncle Wu, Cui Dan, the City God, and the two little ghost messengers behind him—the Day-Roaming Ghost and the Night-Roaming Ghost—were all immersed in it, thoroughly entranced. This was a projection recorded by the Dao Dust Pearl when the Taishang had expounded the Dao. Though handed down across degrees of separation, it still held supreme and wondrous truths.
Once the five thousand characters of the Dao De Jing concluded, the voice of the Dao gradually faded. Cui Dan remained lost in thought, having grasped a thread of divine insight from the unseen. Under the scouring and tempering of the Dao voice, his Dao foundation, which had barely been patched to grade two, had quietly ascended to grade one, forging a pure and immaculate Dao body.
The two little ghosts wept forlorn tears. The Day-Roaming Ghost whispered, "Night-Roaming, did you even understand it? What are you crying for?"
"I didn't understand it, that's why I'm crying!" the Night-Roaming Ghost sobbed.
Cui Dan came back to his senses, only to see that the ox-leading elder stepping out of the building had suddenly shifted into Qian Chen's likeness, nodding and smiling at him.
Naturally, Qian Chen had gained the most from the Taishang Dao voice. He had already grasped the subtle workings of the Taiqing One Qi Divine Talisman and glimpsed the beginning steps to cultivating such magical power. Yet after this experience, he also sensed that if the Dao Dust Pearl were to stir again, it would have to wait until he achieved true Core Formation!
Uncle Wu rose with his sword in hand, unleashing a slash of sword light that spanned a hundred feet. Sheathing the blade, the old servant bowed to Cui Dan. "Young Master, by grace of this opportunity, this old servant is about to form his core!"
He then bowed to Qian Chen. "Blessed with this fortune granted by the expert, this old servant can finally glimpse the threshold of a middle-grade core in this lifetime. The Real Man's gift is a monumental grace..."
Cui Dan exclaimed with delight, "Uncle Wu, you're finally going to form your core?" Turning to Qian Chen, he added, "Thank you, Senior, for your generous fulfillment..."
Qian Chen smiled. "I promised before that if you helped me find suitable sha qi, there would be benefits in it for you." With a wave of his hand, he sent two spirit pills across. "You come from an aristocratic clan and will marry sooner or later. This True Yang Dan is granted to you to safeguard your true yang. Even if you marry and have children, your pure yang medicine will remain intact, aiding your future Core Formation."
Cui Dan was overjoyed. "Could this be the True Yang spirit pill that lets one indulge in romance without leaking a drop of essence?"
Qian Chen shook his head. "It can only preserve your primordial yang; it cannot cure your lust... If you indulge your desires, even a True Yang Dan won't stop you from ruining your own foundation eventually!"
Cui Dan quickly lowered his head. "I only lost my composure for a moment! How could this junior indulge so recklessly!"
Qian Chen then turned to Uncle Wu, who stood flustered, holding a spirit pill that resembled a miniature branch bearing leaves and fruit. "This Core Formation Fruit is a spirit medicine I refined by mimicking the profound mechanics of forming a primordial dan; it should aid you in Core Formation. Master and servant are of one heart, so I bestow it upon both of you!"
Uncle Wu hastily tried to decline. "This is my young master's fortune. How could an old servant like me snatch it away... I beg the Real Man to retract this command."
Cui Dan hurriedly said, "Uncle Wu, you are like family to me. If you can form your core, I will be beyond thrilled! Fulfilling your path means more to me than keeping this fortune for myself."
Uncle Wu choked back tears of gratitude. Qian Chen added, "Locating the sha qi was your doing as well. Am I someone blind to merit?" Only then did Uncle Wu accept the Core Formation Fruit, carefully tucking it into his robe. Though Cui Dan had missed out on the earlier opportunity, his karmic affinity with Qian Chen had preserved his fortune; losing an earlier destiny only brought a later one, and in the end, he had still profited.
Beside them, City God Wei looked on with envy. Yet he knew he lacked any prior agreement like Cui Dan's; being able to hear the Taishang Dao voice was already a profound blessing. He prepared to offer his congratulations to Qian Chen and take his leave.
Unexpectedly, Qian Chen called out to him. "No hurry, there is a share for you as well."
"When you sent the ghost messengers to warn me before, I promised to remember the favor. Now is the time to repay it! This is a Reincarnation Dan. Should your duties in the Divine Dao come to an end and you wish to reincarnate as a mortal, then relying on your accumulated yin virtue and outer merits, combined with the aid of this Reincarnation Dan, you will possess a superior foundation in your next life, opening up an even broader path."
City God Wei could only stammer, "This humble deity is filled with trepidation; I dare not claim such merit!"
"If it's given to you, take it!" Qian Chen tossed down the pill, which resembled a tiny human fetus. City God Wei caught it with trembling hands.
"Traveling in search of sha a hundred and ten days,
White snow and yellow sprout within the crucible.
Now that the primordial dan is swallowed into the belly,
Let a single sword pose its questions to the foe!
Farewell, all—until our paths cross again!"
Qian Chen surged into a streak of sword light—an ethereal, pure wild swan that vanished into the clear azure sky in an instant, leaving no trace behind.
Behind him, the others stood watching the immortal departure, their hearts filled with mixed emotions and boundless admiration...
Chapter 78