Back in the Wubei Sect, Cao Yun had spent almost two months in isolation. Strictly speaking, he was not isolated since his friends had been given the right to visit him after a few weeks. But at first, everyone had agreed that he needed a lot of quiet. However, as his condition got better and better, he was still forbidden from practicing his martial arts and was confined in his chambers.
Hence, he worked on all the aspects of his training which did not directly involve his body.
His mind cultivation was progressing very steadily. In his sea of consciousness, the Five Agents were revolving around a Drop of Wrath that had become quite docile. Cao Yun still feared that it may act up one day but he had more understanding of its nature and was confident in his ability to suppress or even control it to some extent. In fact, he easily used its intent without any problem of any kind. On the surface of the drop, Cao Yun was slowly trying to carve the Five Agents. Their shapes were reflecting on the surface of the blood, but he wanted to really sculpt the blood itself.
The character that was the most interesting for him was Po the Metal Corporeal Soul. The Drop of Wrath was in fact the blood of a great expert from another species, and Cao Yun suspected, another world altogether. He had tried to use this drop of blood to survive his death. Unfortunately, only a small part of his soul had survived. It was even just a tiny portion of his own Po, the soul connected to the bodily desires and the survival. As such, the Po could be more easily swayed and corrupted by emotions.
That tiny portion of Po was the corrupted Po of Jing, soiled by anger and rage. Since the moment he had discovered that, Cao Yun had been trying to insert his own Po into the Drop of Wrath. It should have been relatively easy compared with the other agents since the Drop of Wrath was instinctively trying to reform the Jing. However, he had realized that the corrupted nature of the Po of Jing, called the Flying Poison, was corrosive. As the name suggested, it would poison any trace of the Po character. Each time, it deformed the character and Cao Yun had to battle to try and imprint it into the drop.
But, he still felt that the drop was slowly getting used to this foreign presence. When Cao Yun had first cultivated the Po character, the Drop of Wrath had been very aggressive toward it. Right now, it still rejected it but was not reacting violently. Instead, it stayed perfectly calm. Since Cao Yun's mind cultivation was not advanced enough, he had decided to be very slow and cautious.
This Drop of Wrath did not give him that many benefits, apart from saving his life when he had been sliced in two. However, paradoxically, it had given much by trying to take over his mind. Thanks to it, or because of it, he had been able to enter his sea of consciousness and had resisted the invasion of his mind, for example when Lu Meihan had used an array formation against him. The other benefits were not that big. After all, the master who had given him that drop had only used it after achieving a high level of cultivation. As such, he had not tested it very much in the lower levels. Cao Yun could imagine that a powerful expert such as Cleansed Asura was able to control it with more ease and extract more benefits from it, maybe even as a weapon.
However, Cao Yun had no other choice. There was no way to get rid of the Drop of Wrath. And now that he was getting the hang of it, he probably would decide to keep it anyway. That being said, he had decided to be proactive. He would not wait for the Drop of Wrath to escape from his control. And the time of peace and quiet he had right now was perfect to advance his mind cultivation and make sure that he stayed in absolute control.
In his two months of isolation, Cao Yun had been able to condense another Five Echoes Pearl. After the Chamber of Jade and the Chamber of Ultimate Truth which had enhanced his intuition and his intellect, he had chosen the next chamber to energize in his Upper Dantian. With the Drop of Wrath in mind, he had chosen the Chamber of Moving Pearls. This chamber that was also referred to as a palace was right in front of the Chamber of Jade in the back of the brain. And it was related to the Fire element. What had interested Cao Yun were the effects of that chamber. According to 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks', that chamber had the power to balance the mind. No matter what would happen emotionally, if a cultivator controlled that chamber, he could stay clear-minded. And he would always find the path to balance his life.
Not only could it help him in maintaining his control of the Drop of Wrath, it would enhance all his other cultivations. The ability to keep a clear head under stress was essential. And not being fixated on some sensation or emotion was also vital.
Hence, Cao Yun was sure of his choice and used the Five Echoes Pearl to energize the Chamber of Moving Pearls. In the following days, he saw a distinct improvement in his overall cultivation. It was as though his mind had been muddy all along but he only realized it now. Unfortunately, it didn't help him imprint his Po character within the Drop of Wrath any faster...
About his cultivation, Cao Yun had kept on tempering his acupoints. Learning to open and close them at will was not very taxing on the body. It was especially taxing on the mind instead. But for the body, this was in fact beneficial for his recovery. Learning to open and close those acupoints, unless it was done forcibly, was a very relaxing practice for the muscles and the deep tissues. The only way to do so was indeed to connect with very subtle sensations and feel how the body and the acupoint targeted were reacting. Then, once Cao Yun could easily open and close them, he felt a deep well-being permeating through his body.
With his mind cultivation, it had been easy for Cao Yun to find out the precise location of his 361 acupoints. And opening them turned out to be relatively easy as well. However, he had decided to take his time to enhance his sensations. The more attuned he was to his acupoints, the easier the next levels of cultivation would be and the more powerful he could become. From the 'Cultivation of Wrath', Cao Yun had learned how to use the intent of the Drop of Wrath to help.
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But after several tests, he had decided to use it in last each time. First, he focused his own intent on the acupoint. In his mind, he imagined various flowers with all kinds of colors, shapes and numbers of petals. Very slowly, his intent transported his Qi to open the petals one by one. In some acupoints, those petals would not budge or would give off the feeling that they could crumble at any time. Just like Chief Instructor Peng had told him, Cao Yun focused on the hardest acupoints first. When he was really lost, he tried out some of his intuitions and ideas on easier acupoints. For now, he had already opened around sixty acupoints, but they were all the most difficult ones to open. He was convinced that he would break through before the end of the year.
Only when Cao Yun was sure that he was on the verge of opening the acupoint he was working on, did he use the intent of the Drop of Wrath. This allowed him to strengthen the acupoint in question. He couldn't be extremely accurate but Cao Yun guessed that this intent increased the amount of Qi that could pass through the acupoints without injury by ten to twenty percent depending on which acupoint it was. Thus, it would increase his cultivation speed, but also his recuperation speed as he could absorb more Qi without problem. His meridians had been tempered enough to easily accept this increase in density and pressure.
And, it would also help him generate more powerful attacks. He couldn't manifest his Qi yet, but he had had ideas about that after witnessing Zhi Yin's fight. Cao Yun was looking forward to testing them out. Up till now, he had been very obedient with the physicians and his master, Chief Elder Baishen. As such, he had absolutely not tried out any martial technique, but it was really getting hard not to scratch that itch.
To take his mind off his martial arts, Cao Yun had immersed himself in literature and in both alchemy and array formations. Although he had become a 5-star Earth master in both occupations, he knew that there was still a lot to learn. Sun Liao and Mei Hua had reached the pinnacle of what an Earth master could achieve, but Cao Yun was still far behind them. After all, he had only trained a year on those occupations while they had studied their entire lives.
With his mind cultivation, Cao Yun's understanding had been greatly enhance. Ironically, he was able to more clearly realize that he was only scratching the surface. Before, with what he had learned in those two months, he would have believed that he had nothing more to learn in the Earth rank. However, he was now able to see vividly that he was still a novice. This new state of mind of his was allowing him to progress faster than many arrogant young masters. In truth, he was getting closer to Mei Hua and Sun Liao but he had still a lot to learn. And the two masters were not staying idle by. Even though they could not progress in their crafts before becoming Mortal Warriors, they could still learn about it and polish what they already knew. Furthermore, with the mind cultivation they had received, they were also improving faster. Mei Hua had even copied the 'Shen Visualization' invented by Cao Yun.
Finally, Cao Yun spent a lot of his time on arts, and more specifically, on poetry. He had read several times all the poems of Saint Dashan. Cao Yun had always admired him. He was a great strategist, an excellent fighter and a prodigious poet. Although Cao Yun had memorized them all, he still liked to read his poems on paper. Each time, he was discovering new ways to interpret some verses here and there. On that matter, he also read several biographies on Saint Dashan. This was hard to find accurate sources, so Cao Yun read many different texts to have a better idea of the truth.
Also, he tried to work on his martial art without his body. In his sea of consciousness, he reviewed all the moves of 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars'. From the very basics of the martial art to the five stars he had formed, he performed the moves in his mind again and again, relentlessly. So that it wouldn't delay his recovery, he decided not to circulate his Qi. But over time, his understanding of every movement was allowing him to gain a bit more proficiency. Going back to the very basic movements was not that beneficial but it still brought some improvements. Moreover, Cao Yun spent a lot of time just watching the stars themselves to see how they reacted to his movements.
Unbeknownst to him, deep in the ocean of his sea of consciousness, the weird characters that had appeared were getting more and more material. Clearly, they were Insight Writings. The more he was improving in his martial art, the less fuzzy those characters were becoming. However, they were still so deep that even he could not feel their presence.
Apart from all those activities, Cao Yun still found some time to meet his friends when the physicians deemed that his condition had improved. At first, he only met his closest friends, Sun Liao, Mei Hua and Ren Chao. They even threw a party to celebrate their first mission together. Ren Chao and Sun Liao were a bit awkward but Mei Hua lightened the mood.
She insisted that she had never truly been in danger because she had several charms and artifacts that her master had given her as protection. Indeed, she could have protected herself with those. But considering that she had been poisoned and then trapped in a cocoon, Mei Hua couldn't have activated a single one of those artifacts if she had been attacked while unconscious. Thankfully, she had known that those Soul Weaving Cyrtophoras would try to attack her soul and she had been ready for that. However, against other demonic beasts, the situation would have turned very differently. Everyone knew that Mei Hua was trying to lessen the gravity of what had happened to her. Yet, it did work.
The group really needed to lighten up. And the celebration ended with laughters and cheers.
Cao Yun also got to spend some time with both Mei Ying and Liu Ang. Both of them had become real good friends during the past months. And Liu Ang had also become a real celebrity in the Wubei Sect. During the last challenges, he had beaten a second-year that was in the upper ranks of the fighting scroll among his year. Liu Ang was full of energy and vitality. However, Cao Yun didn't really know how to treat him because he was always watching him with admiration in the eyes. His behavior was a bit too solemn and polite as well. In a word, he was too stiff. Thankfully, Mei Ying was always lightening the atmosphere and pushing Liu Ang to follow her example and be more casual. Watching them, Cao Yun had the impression that he was watching an older sister and a younger brother, despite the fact that Liu Ang was three years older than her.
Mei Ying had truly begun her cultivation. The 1st-grade Mortal consisted in tempering the body through the muscles and tendons. It was difficult to judge but Mei Ying looked like she was halfway done with this stage. Cao Yun could only estimate her progress through the visual aspect of her muscles, but he knew that Chief Elder Baishen was monitoring her. With such an expert to watch over the young girl, he was not worried at all. Mei Ying was maybe a bit slower than Cao Yun had been in his youth but that was still very fast. Clearly, both sisters had great talents.
Those discussions were also the opportunity for Cao Yun to ask about the Heavenly Swallow Faction and the challenges. Because of his condition, he had not been able to partake in the last fights and the next ones were getting closer and closer. This time, he would probably have to fight.