Nine Transformations of the True Spirit

The next morning, when Chen Yuan went downstairs to eat, the lobby of the inn was bustling with people, and more than 20 tables were full.

These people were the drivers and guards of the caravans. They got up early to eat, gathered together, told obscene jokes, and laughed from time to time. It was very lively.

Chen Yuan looked around and found a table with an empty seat and sat down.

There were two big men sitting at this table, each holding a bowl of mutton soup, breaking the white flour cake in their hands and soaking it in the mutton soup.

When they saw Chen Yuan sitting down, they took the initiative to move their bowls to make room for him.

Chen Yuan smiled and thanked him. After waiting for a while, the servant brought a bowl of mutton soup and a few white flour cakes and placed them in front of him.

The inn is not a restaurant, and it does business with caravans. There is no exquisite food, only mutton soup and white flour cakes.

Chen Yuan picked up the pancake and followed the two men's example, breaking it into pieces and putting it in the soup bowl. He scooped a spoonful of mutton soup mixed with mutton, mutton offal, and pancakes, which tasted quite good.

He had a big appetite and finished a bowl of mutton soup in a few mouthfuls. He waved to the waiter and asked for another bowl of mutton soup and a few pancakes. He also told the waiter to put more mutton and mutton offal.

While Chen Yuan was feasting, the two men chatted among themselves, talking about what they saw and heard during their business trip.

"Have you heard? The Liu family fleet sailing on Yongping River had an accident a while ago. All the people were gone, but the boat and the cargo were still there. They said they were eaten by a water monster. It's really scary..."

"Just listen to their nonsense. There are no monsters in the world. They must have been robbed by pirates."

"Pirates only kill people and don't rob cargo?"

"I'm not a pirate, how would I know?"

"They were eaten by a water monster. I heard that when the Liu family fleet's boat was discovered, there was still rice cooking in the pot, and the people on the boat seemed to have evaporated..."

"How could it be so weird? I said, Lao Li, you are so stupid. "It's a rough one. Every day there are monsters and ghosts. Is it fun to scare yourself?"

"I don't like to hear that. We are businessmen. We have to live on the edge of a knife. If we don't respect ghosts and gods, we will be eaten by monsters one day and we won't be able to reincarnate!"

"Tsk! I have been traveling all over the country for so many years. I have encountered mountain bandits, water bandits, and soldiers, but I have never encountered monsters. They are all things to scare people. You really believe them. How can you be like a woman!"

"You are a woman..."

The two argued, and Chen Yuan finished his breakfast, smiled and shook his head, got up and left.

There are countless weird stories circulating in the world, but it is hard to tell how many are true and how many are false.

...

Chen Yuan settled the bill, left the inn, rode into Yuanpingxing, traveled in the morning and slept at night, and kept on going.

Two days later, he came to a valley full of weeds and thorns and finally stopped.

This is the ruins of Black Wind Village. Under the weeds are collapsed stone walls and burned houses.

Chen Yuan carefully inspected the surroundings and found no traces of people, only the footprints and feces of wild animals, which made him feel relieved.

The place he chose was the cave where Xie Quan hid the treasure.

Except for Chen Yuan, no one else in the world knew about this place, which was just suitable for converting the true energy in the body into magic power.

Chen Yuan led the horse to the cliff where the corpse was thrown before the Black Wind Village, killed the horse, and threw it down the cliff.

He had no time to care about other things during the process of converting magic power. Leaving the horse would only attract wild beasts.

Then, he took his luggage and returned along the original route. According to his memory, he walked into a dense forest and came to the cave where Xie Quan hid the treasure.

Just like when he left, the cave was covered by vines, and the branches and leaves were even denser than before.

But Chen Yuan was not careless. He still carefully inspected it and made sure that no one had been here before he was completely relieved.

He pushed aside the vines, entered the cave, came to the deepest part, untied the bag in his hand, took out two night pearls, enough dry food for a month, and some daily necessities, and put them aside.

Then, Chen Yuan left the cave and searched around. It took him half an hour to find a huge stone weighing more than thousands of pounds and moved it back.

This trip took another half an hour. Even though Chen Yuan had amazing power, he was still dwarfed by the huge rock.

He struggled to put the rock in the right position to block the entrance of the cave. In this way, no matter how ferocious the beast was, it would not rush in.

After making preparations, Chen Yuan filled his stomach and adjusted his breath for several hours before flattening the blanket he brought, closing his eyes and meditating, with a solemn expression.

He recalled the method recorded in "Red Flame Art", concentrating his mind and calming his breath, sensing the spiritual energy floating between heaven and earth.

In less than a quarter of an hour, Chen Yuan "saw" colorful spots of light around him, floating in the air like fireflies.

If a pseudo-spiritual root cultivator practices for the first time, it will take at least three days and at most ten days to sense the spiritual energy.

But there is true energy in his body, which is similar to magic power, so he can sense the spiritual energy in such a short time.

Chen Yuan carefully operated the method, and the colorful spots of light slowly approached him and sank into his body.

A faint sense of coolness emerged, which was similar to the feeling of starlight filling the body, but it was much weaker and far less comfortable than when the starlight filled the body.

He carefully controlled the spiritual energy absorbed into his body and slowly entered the dantian along a specific meridian.

After the spiritual energy entered the dantian, it seemed that there was no room for two tigers in one mountain. The true energy immediately began to riot and ran around everywhere, and it was about to rush out of the dantian and wreak havoc on the meridians.

Fortunately, Chen Yuan was prepared. The method changed, restrained the true energy, and forcibly merged with the spiritual energy spots.

According to the "Red Flame Art", this step is the most critical and must be extremely careful.

If it fails, the true qi and spiritual energy will conflict and impact the Dantian meridians, and he will go crazy, and may even explode and die.

But Chen Yuan did not take the warning of the "Red Flame Art" to heart, and still chose to force the fusion with a very high failure rate.

"Um-cough cough!"

Chen Yuan suddenly opened his eyes and spit out a mouthful of blood.

The first fusion, as expected, failed.

But he did not go crazy, and he did not even suffer any serious internal injuries. It was just that his meridians were slightly impacted. He only needed to adjust his breath for a while to recover.

This is the confidence that Chen Yuan dared to force the fusion of true qi and spiritual energy. His strong body allowed him to ignore the consequences of the fusion failure.

According to the "Red Flame Art", only warriors with extremely strong bodies can ignore the impact of true qi and spiritual energy on the Dantian meridians after the fusion failed.

Chen Yuan's physical strength far exceeded that of ordinary warriors. When he was studying "Red Flame Art", he speculated that he should be able to ignore this impact, so he took the risk.

His aptitude was too poor. If he practiced "Red Flame Art" from the beginning, even if he worked hard and never slacked off, it would take at least seven or eight years to practice to the third level of Qi Refining.

In order to save time and increase the possibility of breaking through the late stage of Qi Refining, he could only take the risk.

He made the right bet. Although the impact of true qi and spiritual energy on Dantian meridians was extremely strong, his Dantian was solid and his meridians were tough. He was only slightly injured under the impact, which was not a big deal.

Chen Yuan adjusted his breath for a while and continued to force the fusion of spiritual energy and true qi.

"Ahem!"

The second time still failed.

"Ahem!"

The third time was still unsuccessful.

The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh...

Until the thirteenth time, Chen Yuan finally integrated a spiritual energy light spot into a wisp of true qi.

After taking the first step, the next step became a slow process.

Chen Yuan followed the cultivation method in the Red Flame Art and ran the strand of Qi mixed with spiritual light spots along the meridians for a cycle.

When it returned to the Dantian, it had been transformed from the extremely yang and strong six-yang Qi into the light red fire magic power.

"Huh..."

Chen Yuan opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath. A wave of ecstasy surged into his heart, followed by deep fatigue and hunger.

He picked up the dry food and hastily filled his stomach. After a short rest, he continued to meditate with his eyes closed to transform the Qi in his body.

The second strand, the third strand, the fourth strand...

Chen Yuan sat in the deepest part of the cave, unaware of the passage of time, immersed in cultivation, transforming strands of Qi into magic power.

Finally, after eating most of the dry food he brought, he transformed all the ninety-nine strands of Qi in his body into the fire magic power of the Red Flame Art.

Now Chen Yuan has changed from a martial artist at the peak of Huajin to a cultivator at the peak of the third level of Qi Refining, and has touched the bottleneck of the fourth level of Qi Refining.

Feeling this shaky obstacle, Chen Yuan did not stop his practice and continued to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, wanting to break through this bottleneck in one go!

This is the only favor from heaven to the pseudo-spiritual root cultivators. After crossing this threshold, what will block Chen Yuan will be a mountain of thousands of feet that is difficult to cross.

…

In the dark cave, Chen Yuan sat still, with only two night pearls emitting a dim light, reflecting on Chen Yuan's face, light and shadow interlaced, like an evil ghost.

Suddenly, Chen Yuan opened his eyes, a gleam of light flashed, and a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth:

"It's done!"

He finally broke through the bottleneck of the fourth level of Qi Refining and became a cultivator in the middle stage of Qi Refining!

But the joyful mood only lasted for a moment. Chen Yuan closed his eyes again, looked inward at himself, and looked at the Dantian that became empty again, and couldn't help but smile bitterly.

After the breakthrough, the mana in his body became more condensed, but the Dantian also became empty, and it needed to be filled again before it could break through to the fifth level of Qi Refining.

For the talented cultivators with heavenly and earthly spiritual roots, this is just a natural process, which takes only five or six months.

It only takes a little more than a year for a cultivator with true spiritual roots to cultivate to the fifth level of Qi Refining.

But for a cultivator with false spiritual roots like Chen Yuan, it would take four or five years to reach the threshold of the fifth level of Qi Refining.

Thanks to S Frostmourne S for the reward!