The Secret of Source Qi

Through the haze of his consciousness, Xu Yuan sensed an unprecedented clarity. Whether it was an illusion or not, at this moment, he even felt he could trace the circulation pathways of Source Qi within the bodies of others. So this was what the world looked like in her eyes. Yet the moment the thought surfaced, Xu Yuan dumbfoundedly suppressed the muddled notion. It had to be an illusion. Of the few present, even the weakest, Xiao Bai, was a half-step Origin Realm cultivator; though her Dao Charm had been destroyed, her cultivation remained at peak Grandmaster, not to mention Tianyan and Lou Ji. If the Heavenly Yan divine soul truly allowed someone at Soul Condensation to probe across several major realms, the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion wouldn't have had to cower in the shadows for nearly ten thousand years. Beyond that, however, Xu Yuan gradually sensed something he had never perceived before. In his past cultivation, Source Qi had always been a colorless, formless, gaseous substance. Yet aided by the Heavenly Yan divine soul, the Source Qi in Xu Yuan's sight was tinged with colorful pigments. Blue, red, purple, azure... Faint, yet distinctly visible, weaving through one another while repelling each other, filling every corner of his vision. "Source Qi... has colors too?" With a trace of bewilderment, Xu Yuan looked at the delicate, aloof face of the girl beside the bed. He instinctively assumed these colors, undetectable to an ordinary intent-soul, were the elemental attributes of Source Qi. Just like the five-element spiritual qi in the novels of his past life. "Indeed." Tianyan's voice was soft, but her answer immediately shattered his hypothesis. "When cultivators practice, they draw qi into themselves; when they undergo physical dissolution, they return qi to heaven and earth." "..." Hearing this, Xu Yuan froze for a second, then twitched the corner of his mouth. Well then, even an immortal cultivation world followed the conservation of energy. Tianyan did not pause, continuing in her crisp, unhurried girl's voice: "As pure heaven-and-earth Source Qi circulates through a cultivator's cultivation method over a lifetime, it inevitably becomes stained with the cultivator's aura. You could say this is the trace left behind in this world by those who have passed." Pausing for a breath, she murmured a reminder: "Xu Yuan, try to avoid absorbing Source Qi tainted by the aura of deceased cultivators in the future. Your cultivation is still shallow, so you shouldn't be too heavily affected." Enduring the dizziness, Xu Yuan asked in slight confusion, "This Source Qi affects cultivators? If it does, wouldn't countless cultivators throughout history have fallen victim to it?" "..." Tianyan did not answer immediately. Instead, she glanced at Lou Ji, a flicker of contemplation passing through her limpid golden eyes, as if debating whether to reveal the reason. Shrewd as he was, the moment Xu Yuan caught Tianyan's expression, he understood that this might involve high secrets. Rather than prying further, he gave an easy smile. "If it's inconvenient to say, knowing this much is enough for me." Tianyan shook her head gently and slowly sat on the edge of the bed. "In truth, there is nothing that cannot be spoken. Even if Chief Lou learns of it, without the Heaven-Deducing Art, she would still be unable to do anything about it." "..." Lou Ji narrowed her phoenix eyes slightly, yet held her tongue. Though she held countless secrets and state affairs across Great Yan in her grasp, she was not an omniscient immortal after all. She knew that after a cultivator died, the Source Qi they had accumulated during life would gradually dissipate into heaven and earth as their body decomposed, but she had never known that this would contaminate the ambient Source Qi. When it came to ancient secrets and foundational knowledge, the Prime Minister's Manor still couldn't match an ancient sect like the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion that had endured through the ages. Tianyan continued in a slow, quiet voice: "Cultivators contaminating heaven-and-earth Source Qi has occurred since ancient times. However, once filtered through cultivation methods, less than one-thousandth of the impurities remain in the Source Qi absorbed into the body, causing no side effects to the cultivator. But that is on one condition: that they never touch the Saint bottleneck in their lifetime. "A Saint's saint origin is the purest thing under heaven, tolerating not a speck of impurity. Even if filtered down to less than a thousandth, those impurities will still form an insurmountable chasm of a bottleneck when a cultivator attempts to break through to become a Saint." Xu Yuan turned to Lou Ji and asked tentatively, "Sis..." Back in the Northern Border, he had attempted to break through to Saint in the body of an aberrant ghost, so he had never sensed this supposed chasm. "She's right," Lou Ji affirmed, a thoughtful glint in her half-narrowed eyes. She chuckled softly, the corners of her lips curling up. "No wonder the bottleneck this elder sister faced back when trying to break through felt so crushing. To think such a secret lay behind it." With that, she cast a glance at Xu Yuan on the bed, his golden pupils flickering, and offered a radiant smile. "Don't worry either, Changtian. The Saint bottleneck may be formidable, but our Prime Minister's Manor has its own ways of dealing with it. Otherwise, your father, your uncle, and... heh, they wouldn't have been able to break through to the Saint Realm." There were always more solutions than problems. Though most cultivators lacking the Heavenly Yan divine soul knew what happened without understanding why, the world never lacked geniuses. Methods to force a breakthrough to Saint against such a bottleneck were by no means scarce. Even as she thought this, Lou Ji's expression suddenly turned solemn. She cupped her hands with decorum toward the girl sitting by the bed, her tone earnest: "Saintess, this favor is accepted on behalf of the Prime Minister's Manor." How precious was a method to attain Sainthood? Though few words had been spoken, the Saintess before them had genuinely imparted a way to achieve that breakthrough. Moreover, it was a method that cut off the formation of the chasm-like bottleneck at its very root. Even though it required the Heavenly Yan divine soul and came too late for Lou Ji herself, such information remained an invaluable treasure to the sprawling Prime Minister's Manor. Even without the Heavenly Yan divine soul to distinguish the colors of Source Qi, as long as they had a general direction, they could hand the problem over to the Gewu Academy to devise specialized formations to address it. Furthermore, the lifespan of a colossal faction was measured in centuries; even if the older generation could no longer use it, it could certainly be used to nurture the next generation of powerhouses. Looking at this woman who changed expressions as easily as turning a page, Tianyan's response remained detached: "No need. As long as Xu Yuan possesses the Heavenly Yan divine soul, he would have discovered it sooner or later." At her words, Lou Ji shed her serious demeanor. Chuckling softly, she folded her arms over her chest and said playfully: "That's not up to you to decide. If I say the Manor accepts the favor, then the Manor accepts it." "As you wish." "By the way, while the Manor takes this favor, if anything happens to Changtian, I will settle the score with you personally." "Very well." "Saintess, this 'Emptiness' state of yours is truly dull." "Oh." "..." With those words, silence descended upon the room. At this critical juncture, no one present had the heart to delve deeper into the matter of cultivators contaminating heaven-and-earth Source Qi, let alone squabble. All eyes were fixed on Xu Yuan, who sat cross-legged in the center of the bed. Amidst the quiet, Xu Yuan's condition gradually stabilized. The traits of the Heavenly Yan divine soul were steadily solidifying within his intent-soul, and hazy fragments of memory began to drift before his eyes...