As long as the winds were so violent outside, it was a bad idea to get out. As such, both Cao Yun and Huang Liyue stayed within the cave. And both of them were working on their cultivation.
The wounded woman was advancing her soul cultivation thanks to the altered version of 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks'. Although it was incredibly slow, she was able to literally feel her Soul Embryo steadily healing. Right now, she was just trying to stabilize her condition. Maybe she had some hope of regaining her past strength. As long as they could leave this dead world, she knew that her family would be able to find the right pills to heal her Soul Embryo. The only worry she had was that her wounds could worsen. But with this help from Cao Yun, this wasn't a problem anymore. Unless she recklessly used her spiritual senses, her wounds would even improve over time.
From time to time, she also left her meditative state to look at Cao Yun. He had truly advanced in his mastery of her stealth technique. In less than a week, he had reached a proficiency that was very close to what she estimated to be Small Success.
Small Success in the 'Ashen Feather Seal' was reached when someone was able to fully seal his body and completely hide his Qi. For now, Cao Yun was only able to hide his bodily functions such as his breathing and his heartbeat. And he was still using 'Locking the Seven' to help him reach such a state. Here and there, he was able to limit the amount of Qi one was able to feel from him. But this was still very limited. However, he had understood the concepts behind it. Thus, it was only a question of time for him to fully reach Small Success. Once Small Success would be reached, he would be able to hide from most Mortal Warriors because he would not disturb the Qi in the environment around him.
Then, True Success would be reached when he would be able to also seal his sea of consciousness. In such a state, he would be able to hide from spiritual senses. Obviously, hiding from someone like Xiao Xuefeng would probably be impossible though. Her perception was truly insane, even for a Spirit Warrior. But thankfully, there was only one Xiao Xuefeng in the Hongchen Kingdom.
Finally, Perfection was the grade Huang Liyue had almost reached. If Cao Yun mastered it, he would become invisible to almost everyone. To be more precise, he would still be there, but no one would be able to notice him. This was a state Huang Liyue did not fully master yet. However, she was still able to disappear in front of some weaker cultivators. Unless she acted, Mortals and even Mortal Warriors could not even know she was in the same room as them. Even if she was right in front of them, they would probably not think anything was strange at all.
Now and then, Cao Yun stopped his meditation and tried out some moves with his spear. He did not use any martial arts because he didn't want to destroy the cave they were in. But he still tried some moves to see if he could keep his stealth while moving around. Sadly, as long as he moved around a bit too much, the ashes turned back into mere Qi. As a Mortal, it was still very good that he had been able to manifest those ashes, but he lacked experience with Qi Manifestation.
That was very frustrating to know what he had to do, feel it, and then lose the sensation right in the middle of doing it.
But he knew that he was on the right track. Although he could not manifest his Qi outside, he had been able to do it within even though he could not perfectly control it yet. Maybe if he broke through again, he could improve upon it.
Thus, Cao Yun decided to try and improve his cultivation. After all, they were trapped in this cave and they had no way to know how long it would take. The problem with the stealth technique was not his understanding but his experience with Qi Manifestation. With a slightly higher cultivation, he could probably be better at it. Indeed, he had heard of some 9th-grade Mortals being able to partially manifest their Qi. Of course, it required a great mastery of this realm, but it was theoretically possible to get very close to a real Qi Manifestation.
What Cao Yun didn't know was that his blood had become so potent that he should have been able to perform a pseudo-Qi Manifestation, just like Huang Cixi had done in her fight against Gui Bei. Since it was so rare, even Cao Yun had never heard of it and it was not mentioned in the 'Cultivation of Wrath'. Maybe, if he had read some beast tamer manuals, he could have gotten the idea, but his knowledge in that particular domain was very scarce. After all, beast tamers themselves were pretty rare in the Hongchen Kingdom and their heritage was not that profound either.
Since he had half of the 6-demonic core Huang Liyue had given him left, Cao Yun could use it to finally open all of his acupoints. The number of difficult acupoints remaining in his body was ridiculously low. And all the other ones could be open in a matter of one or two hours each. So, if he really went for it, he would probably be able to break through in less than ten days, or even a week. But he still wanted for his breakthrough to be as perfect as possible considering the situation.
Once more, he spoke with Huang Liyue and bowed.
"Senior Huang, please excuse my boldness. You've already given me so much with these cores and that technique, but may I trouble you for some array formation flags?"
Obviously, Huang Liyue knew that Cao Yun was a 5-star Earth array formation master. And it happened to be that she had array flags in her spatial ring. They were quite simple flags because she only had small attainments in array formation.
"This is just a tiny favor compared to you saving my life."
From her spatial ring, around fifty flags appeared.
"I imagine that you want to create an array formation to refine the 6-demonic core completely. But do you have your compass with you?"
Cao Yun had not taken his compass with him. Once more, if he had the ability to use a spatial ring, life would be so much easier. Even without a compass, he could still try to set up some array formation, but the results would be way less potent.
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As she said that, a simple compass appeared as well. This was the most standard compass, the 'Twenty-Four Mountains and Eight Rivers Compass'.
"Do not mock my poor compass please. I only know a handful of array formations so I don't really need any impressive tool. But I guess that you already trained with this kind of compass..."
Indeed, this was the very first compass of most array formation masters. As such, it would be easy for Cao Yun to use it.
"Thank you, Senior."
-
For several hours, Cao Yun tried to set up an array formation to extract Qi with more efficiency from the 6-demonic core. But the results were really lacking. Unfortunately, he was in a completely different dimension and his understanding of the Eight Directions was lacking. Besides, Sixty Rotations and Twelve Earthly Branches and Ten Heavenly Stems were two principles referring to time and its relation with celestial bodies. Of course, the celestial bodies in this dimension were different. And it completely threw off Cao Yun's understanding. Until now, he had only a rough idea of what those two principles were, but he only needed to consider the stars and constellations he already knew. Right now, he had to take into account the strange phenomena happening in the sky.
In the end, his Roaring Heart Waves array formation did not even reach the Perfect grade. Its effects were somewhere between 65 and 70%. Thankfully, the demonic core was from a 6-core demonic beast, so it was very powerful.
Within the array formation, the density of Qi increased crazily, and only a tiny portion of it spilled.
Once he was in the array formation, Cao Yun began to circulate his Qi cultivation. One by one, he focused on all his acupoints. With his mind cultivation, his rich blood and the density of Qi outside of his body, he was able to quickly open most of his acupoints, even the most difficult ones.
Like he had estimated, in less than five days, Cao Yun was finally able to open his very last acupoints.
As soon as he did, it was like a liberation. That was strange because the very last point he opened was Shan Zhong located near the heart. With a single new point, it was like his entire body opened. Like all the other points, Cao Yun imagined a lotus flower slowly opening up. The moment his Shan Zhong got opened, his blood flowed with even more intensity and a bit more Qi from the outside world got into it. Both his bloodstream and his Qi circulated through his entire body several times.
Cao Yun let go of all control to better feel what was going on. This flow of Qi and blood crossed through all his acupoints and the sensation was wonderful. For several minutes, Cao Yun sweated some kind of gray mixture. More and more toxins were being eliminated from his body as his blood was nourishing and improving his tissues. The circulation of both Qi and blood was improved like crazy. And so were the sensations of his entire body. Right then, Cao Yun was able to expertly feel each fiber of his being. And he further understood the next level of cultivation.
Now that he was a 9th-grade Mortal, he had a better understanding of what both the 'Universal Law of Immortality' and the 'Cultivation of Wrath' were talking about.
According to them, the human body was not just made of flesh and bones, or organs and meridians. Every single tissue in the human body was also composed of tiny elements all working together. With his new sensations, Cao Yun was literally able to feel those cells. The feeling was still rather vague, but it was there. He could feel that his very veins were composed of those cells and that even his blood had those cells in it. There was almost nowhere in his body where there was no cell or small organisms.
And those cells were in the image of the body. Just like the entire body, they had Qi circulating in them. Although they had no real meridians, they had things similar to acupoints in them.
The entire point of the 9th-grade Mortal realm was, after opening the superficial acupoints, to open the profound acupoints. Now that Cao Yun could feel his cells, he understood what those were. No amount of knowledge could trump firsthand experience. Those profound acupoints were not real acupoints. What opening them meant was to completely open one's cells to the circulation of Qi. That way, every cell in the body would be able to absorb Qi. Then, the cultivator would be able to circulate Qi even outside of his meridians.
As such, he could both absorb and send Qi from every cell of his body. And when finally the entire body - every single cell of the entire body - would be transparent to the flow of Qi, one would transcend the Mortal realm. One would become a Mortal Warrior.
To open those cells, the most essential aspect was to be able to feel them. For Cao Yun and his mind cultivation, this really wasn't a problem at all. Furthermore, thanks to Chief Instructor Peng, he had really worked on feeling his acupoints so he had a better sensation of his whole body. With just this training, he would be able to cut in half the time he needed to break through again. Instead of one to two years, Cao Yun was now convinced several months would be enough to cross that new boundary.
This meant that he would probably be able to become a Mortal Warrior either by the end of the year or next year.
But then, he also read the 'Cultivation of Wrath' with his new understanding. The description of the cells from the 'Universal Law of Immortality' were more detailed, which surprised Cao Yun. Emperor Nuwa seemed to have had a better understanding of the human physiology. However, the method from Cleansed Asura was way more powerful and efficient. Instead of only using intent and Qi to slowly open each cell, Cao Yun could use the Drop of Wrath. In fact, since his blood had now a lot of similarities with the Drop of Wrath itself, he could literally use his entire bloodstream. Some techniques could also use external constraints to force his cells open, like demonic beasts blood or dense Qi.
For now, Cao Yun should have just been happy with his breakthrough, but he could not wait to test out those ideas. By converging both his Qi, his intent and his blood, Cao Yun already tried to open up some cells. At first, he focused on his Lower Dantian where his Qi was the strongest. As his blood was permeating through his tissues, the rich Qi in it radiated and Cao Yun could feel his cells slowly align with it. Each cell had some kind of axis, just like the Du Mai and Ren Mai in a sense, and they were getting aligned with his own flow of Qi, like magnets attracted to the north pole.
In less than an hour, Cao Yun could feel billions of cells that had completely opened up to the flow of his Qi. In his body, Cao Yun was able to feel several dozens of thousands of billions of cells. Some had already been opened by his past cultivation without him even realizing it. But more than half of those cells still needed his conscious intervention to fully open. However, with this cultivation method, Cao Yun was certain that it was only a matter of ten months, maybe even eight, before finally becoming a Mortal Warrior.
In the cave, Huang Liyue had obviously felt his breakthrough as Qi had overflowed from his body all over the place. For a 9th-grade Mortal, his Qi was extremely rich and powerful. Even compared to the genius of her family, he had nothing to be envious about.
"Oh?! Congratulations!"
Both Cao Yun and Huang Liyue turned toward the only entrance to the cave. From outside, the voice of a man had echoed through the whole cave.