This sensation was not unfamiliar to him. After fulfilling his original self's wish in the Panlong Realm, his cultivation had been poised for a breakthrough, but the timing and setting had been wrong, forcing him to suppress it.
In the months that followed, He Lingchuan made several attempts, yet could never re-enter that state. He came to realize that moments of destiny come and go entirely beyond human control, leaving him no choice but to wait patiently.
Now, at long last, the time had arrived again.
***
In reality, He Lingchuan sat bolt upright in the five-point meditative posture.
He had already been regulating his breath when entering the Panlong World, which benefited both body and soul.
Tonight, his true power was exceptionally lively. After completing several circulation cycles, it grew faster and more urgent, until He Lingchuan, looking inward, could hear a surging, rhythmic roar of tides.
Then, all the true power withdrew from his meridians, pulling back into his middle and lower dantians.
This was not his power calling it quits for the night; rather, it heralded an incoming tsunami—
before a sea could topple mountains and overturn the earth, there was almost always an abnormal, massive ebb tide.
Sure enough, after building up for a full quarter of an hour, the surging true power erupted from his middle and lower dantians like a bursting dam.
Had this been before the last descent of the Emperor's Flowing Dew, his meridians could never have withstood such a violent onslaught; they would have ruptured, killing him instantly. But today was not yesterday. His body was robust enough, and his meridians were tough enough.
The torrent of true power surged upward from below, gathering momentum along the way, bound for a single destination:
the Niwan Palace.
The Niwan Palace lay behind the glabella, at the intersection of the Yintang and Baihui acupoints. Once successfully opened, it would become the upper dantian.
If he failed…
Even if Young Master He didn't end up an idiot, he would be bedridden with hemiplegia for half a year or more.
Thus, opening the upper dantian was always undertaken with the utmost caution. Between the upper, middle, and lower dantians, everyone left it as their final choice.
In He Lingchuan's middle and lower dantians, the true qi had already undergone Liquefaction and filled them to the brim. It was time to open the third battlefield.
Back when he had forced open his middle dantian on Three Hearts Plain in the Jeweled Tree Kingdom, he had acted far too recklessly. If a mountain spirit hadn't ambushed him just in time and absorbed part of the Emperor's Flowing Dew's power, he would have died long ago. He took that lesson to heart this time, using only the power of his middle and lower dantians to strike at the Niwan Palace.
Though he had no external aid to rely on, doing it this way had the advantage of keeping the power precise and controllable.
The human brain was far too delicate; the slightest slip could cause irreversible damage.
Yet to open a singularity like the Niwan Palace into a third dantian still required explosive force.
He needed a surgically precise detonation.
The first surge of true power arrived and made its initial strike.
The Niwan Palace remained rock-steady.
It was like a reinforced river embankment, yielding only to a sufficiently powerful flood.
Yet behind that embankment lay fertile farmland and bustling cities; letting the flood rush about unchecked would drown the fields and harm the people, leading to unthinkable consequences.
A second time, a third time…
Even the tenth attempt ended in failure.
Undeterred, He Lingchuan pressed on, probing bit by bit.
Thanks to his soul being tempered to greater solidity in the Panlong World, he felt no mental fatigue or sluggishness as he repeatedly directed the tidal waves of true power against the barrier.
Otherwise, after making so many micro-adjustments, most cultivators would find their thoughts growing dull, unable to continue.
This was delicate work requiring absolute focus; not the slightest flaw could be allowed, or he would scramble his own brain.
To open the third dantian, one needed to maintain this degree of concentration and perform continuous micro-manipulations for at least ten hours.
Unless one's nerves were truly made of iron, avoiding errors was nearly impossible.
The upper dantian was the dwelling place of the spirit. Once opened, it invigorated energy and solidified the soul; before it was cleared, however, most cultivators faced a hard limit to the strength of their souls.
After a few failures, a person would grow dazed.
If they misapplied their strength even once, by the tiniest fraction—well, that was the end of them.
Yet opportunities to strike at the Niwan Palace were rare. If he shrank back now, who knew how long he would have to wait for the next chance?
It was a paradox.
Countless cultivators aiming to open all three dantians had fallen at this very step.
He Lingchuan's soul had been nourished in the Panlong World, granting it resilience far beyond ordinary mortals, and he still had strength to spare.
If this attempt failed, he would try again.
He had long entered a state devoid of joy, sorrow, worry, or fear. At this stage, it was no longer about weighing gain and loss, but about the probability of success.
After an uncounted number of tries, he finally sensed the slightest tremor in the Niwan Palace.
It was like the first crack appearing on a dam.
Reaching this stage, he loosened his control over the true power, letting the surging flood crash into the Niwan Palace in an unbroken stream.
The first flood crest struck hard.
Then came the second, and the third.
The cracks on the dam grew more numerous and dense.
Time ticked away.
Until the following morning, when the east cast out its first ray of dawn.
At that very moment, He Lingchuan steered the torrent of true power and shattered the barrier of the Niwan Palace in a single blow!
A great roar buzzed in his mind. The dam was breached!
This meant the breakthrough was roughly half done, but the true challenge followed immediately on its heels:
The moment true power stormed into the Niwan Palace, it sought to seize ground in every direction, threatening to submerge everything like a torrential flood.
This was the instinct of raw power. After being suppressed for hours on end, it was reluctant to obey its master's commands.
A storm seemed to break loose inside his head.
Most cultivators stumbled at this exact step, falling short on the brink of success.
Anyone who could begin opening the third dantian had cultivated extraordinarily solid middle and lower dantians, boasting abundant true power—
so abundant, in fact, that after breaching the Niwan barrier, it would shatter the newly formed dantian in one fell swoop.
By this point, cultivators were usually exhausted. Constraining the flood of true power was beyond their strength, leaving them to watch helplessly as it ran rampant.
He Lingchuan's hours of painstaking caution had been spent testing precisely how much true power was needed to break through. It varied from person to person, with no standard rule to go by.
He knew only one truth: going too far was as bad as falling short.
The moment the Niwan Palace opened, he pulled the true power back, like wrestling down a dragon's head in a raging current. The resistance and backlash he faced were immense!
Yet he was already riding the dragon, unable to dismount. His only option was to commit all his concentration and grit his teeth to see it through.
If he fell short at this stage, the outcome would be death or idiocy; even paralysis would be an impossible luxury!
Riding the true power as it stormed into the Niwan Palace felt like steering a solitary skiff over the brink of a massive waterfall.
Ahead lay a bottomless abyss; all around roared a tumbling deluge.
By rights, it should have been terrifying, but his soul had already entered a state of selflessness. No matter how many perils lay ahead, navigating them was merely following the steps.
That savage torrent of true power was forced down by sheer will. Aside from the initial one or two jolts, it merely drifted through the Niwan Palace, unable to run wild.
After another stretch of time, the dantian within the Niwan Palace was finally completed, gradually settling into stability.
From now on, this place would no longer fear the impact of true power, just like the middle and lower dantians.
This also meant that He Lingchuan had successfully opened all three dantians!
The upper dantian housed the spirit;
the middle dantian housed the qi;
the lower dantian housed the essence.
With essence, qi, and spirit each finding their home and nourishment, the foundation of his life was at last rock-solid.
Chapter 914