Chapter 27: Elemental Extremity
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Having tried it in the past, he already knew how profound the technique was,
but he also understood that he had never truly explored the depths of it.
The technique, unlike others, had a total of 9 parts,
7 of which seemed to have vanished over time, or at least, he never had them.
He had found the manual damaged and managed to recover only the first 2, but even those were already far beyond his comprehension.
Normally, the higher the level of a cultivation technique, the fewer parts it would have, because each part in itself would represent a much greater difficulty.
The technique he gave to Liang Yuexin only had 2 parts, but due to its high level, even those two were a challenge, let alone 9.
He had never truly determined the exact rank of this technique, but judging by its complexity and the fact that the person who cultivated it actually reached a level of strength high enough to ascend to the heavens,
he could comfortably say that the technique was at least at the peak of the Heaven grade, possibly even Divine grade.
A technique of this level could very well have sparked a war between empires, so he never sold it in his past life.
He sat down cross legged and took a deep breath before letting it out slowly.
The training rooms were designed to be perfect not only for practicing various combat techniques but also for cultivating.
They were supplied with a spiritual energy density higher than what could be found outside, and the higher the level of the room, the more intense the spiritual energy within.
Needless to say, these places were treasures for cultivators,
which meant that the higher the level of the room, the harder it was to get the chance to cultivate in one, given the high demand.
With the little money he had, he could only afford one from the bottom of the list, but still, it was better than cultivating outside.
He didn't waste time and started cultivating.
First of all, he had to make sure that the main opening points on his primary meridians were un-locked and began absorbing spiritual energy from the environment.
Without this first step, he wouldn't even be able to set foot in the first stage of the Mortal Realm, the Body Tempering stage.
It was the stage where one had to prepare the body for what was to come next, in other words,
make it strong enough to bear the weight of the cultivation of the following stages.
Even though in this phase the body was strengthened, the reinforcement itself would never truly end, and in every subsequent stage, a small improvement to the body would always be made,
so it could better adapt to the cultivation path chosen by the person.
In a way, in this stage one laid the foundations not only for the future development of the body but also for the cultivation path it would have to endure.
And the path drawn in the Nine Extremities Dao Scripture was far from easy.
That said, he took a deep breath, sending into his body air filled with spiritual energy, and held it in just long enough for the spiritual energy within it to be absorbed.
He directed that spiritual energy to various parts of his body, un-locking the opening points specific to the primary meridians, so that his body could do the rest on its own.
It was like giving his body an initial push so it would naturally and spontaneously start absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy.
Having already drained what little spiritual Qi he had in his body during the operation to fix his meridian deformity,
Zhu Rong now had to replenish it with new Qi in his dantian before he could start cultivating.
Now that he had started the process, the next step was to direct all the spiritual energy absorbed through his opening points towards the channels that led to his dantian.
Every person at birth had a basic dantian,
it was the organ through which a cultivator refined spiritual energy into spiritual Qi, the energy that allowed a cultivator to begin their cultivation journey.
Everyone started with the same basic dantian, except for a few rare cases where, due to various factors, a person might already have a dantian developed in a certain direction, granting them specific benefits.
Sometimes it was due to special physiques, other times due to artifacts or rare materials used to help the cultivator develop a unique dantian or physique.
Needless to say, over the course of history, cultivators had found various ways to ensure their descendants had higher talents and better opportunities.
The more prestigious and wealthy a family was, the better their descendants were nurtured, and as a result, the greater their talents were too.
Even in his family, the descendants started off with a head start compared to ordinary people, and only a few like him were born with low talent due to this or that issue.
They were the so called rejects of the family, dead weight that the family didn't kill, but didn't cultivate either.
It was cruel, but in a world where the strong ruled and the weak could only endure with their heads down, there wasn't much one could do.
You either submitted to someone stronger, or tried to build up your own strength with your own hands and attempt to climb to a higher status,
at the risk of falling without any way back.
He had chosen this latter path, and though not completely, he had managed to raise his worth in this world of crouching tigers and hidden dragons.
That said, the presence of a dantian as the main organ for cultivation didn't only determine a person's initial talent, but also their affinity with the basic elements.
Every cultivator could, in theory, train in all elements as long as they understood their nature and cultivated them constantly,
but no sane person would ever choose such an approach, because the more elements you cultivated, the harder the cultivation would be, and the longer every stage would take.
That's why every cultivator would start by focusing only on the elements with which they had the highest affinity.