novelraw Chapter 69: Withered Wood, Burning Blood, Heart-Crushing Palm
Chapter 69: Withered Wood, Burning Blood, Heart-Crushing Palm
The third day of the twelfth lunar month. Howling wind and heavy snow.
People who hadn't experienced how terrifying a northern blizzard was simply couldn't understand.
It had a rather vivid nickname: the White Fur Wind.
Once this wind started blowing, the entire world would freeze into a solid mass.
Southerners added a fire basin indoors in winter and burned two lumps of coal to feel a slight warmth.
Here at Blue Stone Platform, even the fire basin could be frozen solid.
Households without a heated kang, when the White Fur Wind came through, could be frozen along with their inhabitants into an ice coffin.
Li Qiuchen had been watching the sky look wrong these past two days and had no intention of going out, hiding indoors to secretly cultivate.
The Huyang Scroll he had obtained in the illusory realm was a truly complete cultivation technique in every sense. Not only did it have a proper beginning and end with detailed and substantial content, it also had a master's explanations, making cultivation completely without obstruction.
Compared to the Huyang Scroll, the Huanghui Scroll he had obtained previously was like a little brother.One was a normal person with a healthy body, the other was a human skin with all internal organs hollowed out.
In his previous life, reading web novels, he would always feel puzzled by how the protagonist, as someone who grew up without formal education, would suddenly obtain a secret martial arts manual and start cultivating without a second thought...
Could you really understand it?
Whether others had the brains for it he didn't know, but he certainly couldn't understand it.
Many specialized terms of the Medicine Master's school, without Li Jingyun's one-on-one explanations, he would still be completely in the dark to this day.
For example, the concept of the "Thirty-Three Heavens" was completely different from what he had initially understood.
The Medicine Master's reforging of the Dragon Court through the Thirty-Three Heavens appeared on the surface to be cultivating the spine, but was actually elevating the level of one's own life.
The spine was the Dragon Court. Hidden within the spine, the spinal nerve connecting to the brainstem was the Dragon Soul concealed within the Dragon Court.
Normal body cultivators trained from the outside, starting with muscles, bones, and skin, working from the outside inward but the Medicine Master school's body cultivation began by cultivating the hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow.
No defensive power whatsoever, with all attribute points placed into vitality.
The body tempering technique recorded in the Huyang Scroll focused on cultivating the "root system."
A tree's root system was buried deep underground, drawing water and nutrients from the earth to nourish itself.
This root system referred to the nerves and blood vessels within the human body.
As long as the Dragon Court wasn't destroyed and hematopoietic ability wasn't interrupted, even severed hands and feet or a lost head wouldn't be a problem.
Li Qiuchen had previously cultivated according to the Qi Drawing Formula in the Huanghui Scroll, absorbing Mohe the Perfected Being's life energy, and had already reached the tenth heaven realm but this tenth heaven was a hollow achievement.
Like Cao Cao attacking Eastern Wu, marching two hundred thousand troops and claiming eight hundred thousand.
Among those two hundred thousand soldiers, not all would necessarily be combat troops. Perhaps half were civilian laborers but as long as you spread this boast, people would believe it.
In reality, according to the Huyang Scroll's standards, he had just entered the third heaven, the realm of the third fundamental transformation of life's essence.
The first was receiving the Medicine Master's blessing. The second was absorbing the energy of plants and trees for one's own use. The third was absorbing the life energy within flesh and blood.
He would need to cultivate to at least the fifth heaven realm before reaching the perfection of the Qi Refining realm.
The cultivation technique in the Huyang Scroll was called the Withered Wood Technique. Its path was completely opposite to Li Qiuchen's family-inherited body cultivation technique. Not only did the practitioner not train muscles, they were required to draw in their blood and qi and conceal them within the body.
The Qi Drawing Formula in the Huanghui Scroll required the practitioner to draw the vitality of trees and plants into the body, while the Withered Wood Technique required the practitioner to absorb earth energy and compress it into the body's blood vessels and meridians. Paired with it was also a technique focusing on explosive power, named the Burning Blood Heart-Crushing Palm.
This move could drive the refined blood and qi condensed within the body into the palm, causing explosive damage to enemies.
The move itself had no particular technique to speak of and was no different from the traditional Black Tiger Snatches the Heart. But the Burning Blood Heart-Crushing Palm operating through the Withered Wood Technique possessed two extremely terrifying characteristics.
Once it connected, it could pour the cultivator's own refined blood and qi into the opponent's body, contaminating the opponent's flesh and blood and causing secondary damage.
If it connected with the heart area, it could also cause more severe damage to the heart, directly destroying the circulation of blood and qi within the opponent's body.
The effect was like a close-range shotgun blast. One palm strike would directly turn the opponent's body into a sieve.
Thinking carefully about it, this thing's effect had quite the similar approach as snake venom.
What a vicious and malicious move... what? You say this is a cultivation technique of the Medicine Master's school? Well then, never mind.
The Withered Wood Technique's method of operating energy was completely different from the Qi Drawing Formula and the family-inherited technique he had previously cultivated. To cultivate it, he would have to abandon the other two.
Li Qiuchen didn't hesitate for a single second and decisively chose the former.
In cultivation techniques, quality was prized over quantity. Being greedy for more meant you couldn't digest it all.
Compared to the complete Huyang Scroll, the other two were like disabled persons.
Even a fool knew how to choose.
What the Huyang Scroll contained wasn't just these techniques and divine abilities. It also had the pill refining, weapon refining, and weapon control methods that Li Qiuchen most urgently needed.
Pill refining methods went without saying. He was even more familiar with weapon refining methods. The simplest among them refined exactly the kind of ring beads that Mohe the Perfected Being had used.
This type of magic treasure was called a "Earth Origin Bead." The refining method was simple, the method of use was even simpler, and it was convenient to conceal and carry.
To refine this magic treasure, you first had to find materials compatible with the earth attribute, then use the Withered Wood Technique to absorb earth energy for the refining.
Both finished products and materials were on Li Qiuchen's person. Mohe the Perfected Being's set of twenty-four Earth Origin Beads was hidden in his bracelet. And the dark pearls he had previously collected were one of the best materials for refining earth attribute magic treasures.
They weren't purely earth attribute either, but rather a weapon refining material with dual water and earth properties, making them somewhat overqualified for refining Earth Origin Beads.
As long as he mastered the weapon refining method, if he happened to encounter a design for a dual water-earth attribute magic treasure, he could try to refine it.
Looking at everything together, you could say he had reaped a full harvest.
Supplementing cultivation technique, divine ability, and magic treasure all at once, and it was a complete system where each element complemented the others.
What more could you ask for?
As for the Langui Scroll... what was that thing again? Not familiar with it. Talk about it later when there was time.
Outside, heavy snow sealed the doors. The north wind howled like wailing vengeful ghosts. Li Qiuchen sat atop the warm kang, contentedly examining his cultivation progress.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of horse hooves outside the door, followed by someone slapping the door loudly.
"Is Liu Dayong home?"
Liu Da was in the middle of doing things with his wife indoors... in this hellish weather, you couldn't even get out the door, and there wasn't anything else for entertainment.
Hearing someone calling his name from outside, he cursed and grumbled, climbing off the kang and throwing on his padded coat to go to the door.
Who the hell is coming to find me in this weather? Tired of living?
The moment he lifted the door latch, two burly men pushed their way in. They looked Liu Da up and down and said in a heavy voice, "You're Liu Dayong? Our boss invites you over for a drink!"
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