Chapter 412: Innate Earth-Nurturing Fetal-Breath Great Method
Wanli Dragon.
Sun Lingtong was in the dragon-head cabin, staring at the scene before him, activating his innate talent and widening his spirit eyes.
The Wanli Dragon was piercing the void!
Around it was almost pitch-black darkness; silver threads darted straight past the Wanli Dragon through the black curtain.
The silver threads were sometimes sparse, sometimes dense, and occasionally blocks of silver light condensed into cubes.
This was exactly how Nascent-Soul cultivators tunneled through the void; the Wanli Dragon was a Nascent-Soul–level mechanism whose main function was rapid travel.
Only—without a Nascent-Soul to drive it—this time mobilizing the void-traversal power would inevitably consume a great deal of fire essence; the price would be high.
For the financial situation of Sun and the Ning pair, it was nothing short of a heavy blow.
Sun Lingtong seized the opportunity and watched intently, wanting to fully experience the void-traversal process.
“This is the privilege of a Nascent-Soul cultivator. I could experience it in Foundation Establishment stage; it would greatly help future breakthroughs.”
“Pity that Ning Zhuo was rushing to heal his mother and didn’t come.”
Sun Lingtong felt regret for Ning Zhuo.
Since leaving the Myriad Medicines Sect, Ning Zhuo had been eager to slip into the forging cabin and begin the fire-burial of the fetal-breath spirit vessel.
Ning Zhuo held the fetal-breath spirit vessel in his hand and examined it.
The fetal-breath spirit vessel could shrink or expand; now it had been reduced to its smallest size, like a model, light and handy in Ning Zhuo’s palm.
Only when restored to its true size could it be used, and its weight would also return.
Ning Zhuo intended to perform a cremation now, so he did not need to restore it; he could simply burn the small version directly.
“Good boat, good boat.” Ning Zhuo casually glanced at the little vessel and praised it.
The vessel resembled a black-canopied boat; the hull had been carefully carved from thousand-year spirit wood, the wood thick and resilient, exuding faint spiritual qi.
The entire spirit vessel was streamlined, the hull slender, the bottom slightly upturned, the stern somewhat rounded—full of spirited, leisurely air.
Both sides of the boat bore exquisite carvings; the patterns were intricate yet lively, depicting mountains and rivers, cranes and pines, sun, moon and stars—natural scenes symbolizing the essence of heaven and earth.
The canopy was woven from soft spirit gauze, the roof slightly arched, the fabric giving off a gentle sheen.
Small spirit lamps hung on either side of the canopy; their flames appeared delicate and exquisite, and when they swayed they gave off a Dao resonance.
Ning Zhuo could also see part of the interior of the cabin. The cabin floor was laid with straw mats and the four walls were painted with talismans. Hanging from the black canopy top was a tiny spirit-jade wind chime, from which a faint clear tinkling could be heard.
“Pity, pity.” Ning Zhuo felt a trace of regret.
After Sun Lingtong saw this vessel, he had advised Ning Zhuo to let him use it first. As a treasured inheritance of the Myriad Medicines Sect, this spirit vessel could help cultivators enter the fetal-breath state and rapidly grow their jing-sea cultivation.
It would have fit Ning Zhuo as well.
But Ning Zhuo was preoccupied with his own mother and had not accepted that suggestion.
Just as he had confided to Zhu Xuanji—he would give everything to save his mother!
Fire Burial Prajna Spirit-Resolving Sutra!
Flames blazed; although fierce, they were silently serene.
Tongues of fire flickered through the air, sometimes shooting up rapidly, sometimes swaying gently, as if guided by an invisible hand. The flame’s dance was light and graceful, suffused with Buddhist radiance, exuding the profound mysteries between life and death.
When Ning Zhuo performed the Fire Burial Prajna Sutra this time, a sudden stir in his chest gave him a fresh insight.
Following that feeling, his fingers moved slightly.
The flames softened; their edges became gauzy and light, flowing like water.
But inside the flames they grew even hotter and more intense.
This was because Ning Zhuo’s mastery of the Fire attribute had deepened, making his execution of the Fire Burial Prajna Sutra far more wondrous and powerful.
Though a Buddhist scripture, the Fire Burial Prajna Sutra also contained Dao of the Fire element, and thus it had been magnified.
“Huh?!” Ning Zhuo’s face showed astonishment.
Under the blaze, the fetal-breath spirit vessel remained unmoved!
Ning Zhuo looked closely and saw the vessel sitting amidst the flames yet not licked by the tongues of fire.
Instead, a thin, translucent fetal membrane had appeared around the vessel. Though delicate in appearance, this membrane held boundless power, like a tenacious shield that wrapped the spirit boat tightly.
“I did not pour any法力 into this treasure, and I confirmed there was no residual power from others inside it—so how was this defense activated?”
Ning Zhuo was greatly puzzled.
He intensified the roasting, and the fetal-breath spirit vessel underwent further change.
Spirit light seeped from the vessel’s surface and projected onto the fetal membrane, forming many lines of text.
Ning Zhuo scrutinized them and discovered they were a cultivation method titled Innate Earth-Nurturing Fetal-Breath Great Method.
“‘Fetus’—the fetus’s spirit; ‘breath’—the breath’s qi. Jing is like water, spirit is like the moon; the moon moves because the water ripples, spirit stirs because jing pulls. When water clears the moon is bright; when jing settles the spirit is wise; spirit and jing embrace, reaching great stillness, and the inner elixir forms by itself; hence it is called fetal breath…’”
“‘All living things possess jing; life resides within the jing and blood. The awareness and motion of living beings arise from the movement of jing and blood. Without jing there is no movement; it becomes an inert thing. All that stirs contains spirit; spirit is shen, and the nature is hidden within the shen. Without a shen to govern, it is as if a tree or stone—how is that not death? Thus one knows that a human’s life comes from jing and shen…’”
“‘When first learning to regulate breath, one must imagine the qi. Outward breath leaves from the navel and inward breath enters through the navel, adjusted extremely finely. Then one need not use mouth or nose, only the navel to breathe, as if in the womb—thus called fetal breath. At first hold the breath one count and use the navel to breathe, counting up to eighty-one or one hundred and twenty, then exhale with the mouth, making it extremely fine—so fine that a feather placed over the mouth or nose would not be moved by the exhale. Gradually increase the counts through practice; in time one may reach a thousand. For the old this is less; day by day it returns…’”
After roughly skimming the whole of the Innate Earth-Nurturing Fetal-Breath Great Method, Ning Zhuo immediately understood why the fetal-breath spirit vessel could not be cremated.
“So when I burned it with flame I inadvertently triggered the vessel’s fetal-breath, and to preserve itself it exerted its full law-seal.”
“This law-seal was the entirety of the Innate Earth-Nurturing Fetal-Breath Great Method, causing the spirit vessel to enter fetal-breath state and draw in heaven-and-earth essence to augment itself.”
Natural essence threads were subtle, only obscured by the flame’s light; but the gathered fetal membrane, examined closely, shimmered with many colors and flowing radiance, containing the principles of heaven and earth.
Although the fetal membrane was only a thin layer, its afterpower was boundless; the spirit vessel in that state coexisted with heaven and earth, treating the cosmos as its mother and itself as the fetus within.
If Ning Zhuo wanted to burn the spirit vessel, the mother that was heaven and earth would intervene to save it, rendering cremation utterly ineffective.
“A fine fetal-breath spirit vessel. It seems to have been used enough to gain a thin spirit, enabling it to seek survival on its own.”
“Innate Earth-Nurturing Fetal-Breath Great Method… Even the Myriad Medicines Sect hadn’t mastered this.”
The Myriad Medicines Sect had obtained the vessel long before Lin Bufan’s rise to power, and no one had ever tried to burn their inherited treasure to probe this method.
Yet Ning Zhuo had done exactly that.
And the fetal-breath spirit vessel had already gained a sliver of spirit, crossing from law-treasure toward spirit-treasure.
“If I want to thoroughly cremate this vessel, I’d likely have to break this state.”
“To accomplish that, I must master this Innate Earth-Nurturing Fetal-Breath Great Method!”
This was an unexpected gain.
Ning Zhuo studied the method again and confirmed the windfall was considerable.
Although the method’s level did not match the Five Viscera Temple Spirit Divine Art, in the present day it still unquestionably counted as a top-tier cultivation technique.