This cave dwelling could probably be counted as a safe house.
In Azure Point’s main hot-blooded storyline, the protagonist had ended up in the exact same situation Xu Yuan was in now, with enemies on his heels. And because that part of the story took place in the middle stages, those pursuers were strong enough to beat the midgame protagonist into fleeing all over the world, so naturally they were no weaklings.
They might not have been able to fly through the air like Ran Qingmo, but searching along a cliff face with lightness skills would not have posed any problem for them. And yet, even so, the people hunting him had never once found the story protagonist hiding in this cave dwelling. That meant there was probably something outside the cave, or some formation, that blocked perception.
With that in mind, Xu Yuan swept his gaze around the cave dwelling once more. When he had first awakened, he had not noticed it, but only now did he realize that this place had no entrance or exit at all. It was like a hollow space embedded inside the mountain itself.
The way he and Ran Qingmo had been sucked inside had probably been the result of triggering some kind of preset teleportation array. Only after piecing together the memories he had from the game with the information in front of him, and reaching the rough conclusion that this cave dwelling was safe, did he truly relax. He had been transmigrated for so many days, and only now could he finally say that he was, for the moment at least, genuinely safe.
At the thought, Xu Yuan let out a faint sigh. If not for the fact that his method of transmigration had been so embarrassingly low-grade, he would probably have already been picked up by the Chancellor’s subordinates and taken home to resume life as a pampered young master of a top-tier clan.
How had it come to this? Xu Yuan shook his head and stopped dwelling on it. He had never been the type to fear problems. When a problem appeared, complaining was useless. You thought of a solution and dealt with it. It was that simple.
Sitting at the head of the icy jade bed, Xu Yuan used the faint glow of the luminous pearls embedded in the stone walls to begin reading the manual in his hands, the cultivation art called the Blood Origin Heartfall Art.
At present, this was the only feasible way to solve the rejection between his body and soul. Although he had already obtained a Blood Spirit Body-Melding Pill, he could not just swallow it directly. Every medicine carried some poison. A pill that was of enormous benefit to cultivators could instead be deadly poison to an ordinary person.
The Blood Spirit Body-Melding Pill was refined from all kinds of top-grade heavenly treasures, and the vast amount of source qi contained within it was far beyond what an ordinary man like Xu Yuan could possibly endure. If he ate it as he was, he would most likely end up exploding to death on the spot.
Fortunately, he had the Blood Origin Heartfall Art in his hands. This was the key to resolving the instability between his body and soul. To live through death and temper body and soul alike. That was how the guidebook had described it.
But now that the secret manual had become something real, there was no way Xu Yuan could master it as easily as he had in the game, where a click of the mouse was enough to learn it in one go.
For a time, the only sound in that cramped cave dwelling was the soft rustle of turning pages.
In the stillness, Ran Qingmo quietly regulated her breathing and healed her injuries, while Xu Yuan silently read the cultivation art.
ᯓ➤
Time passed little by little.
Then, suddenly, Xu Yuan, sitting at the head of the bed, closed the book, let out a long breath, and leaned back against the jade bed with his eyes shut in thought. This was the first time he had truly come into contact with a cultivation art from this world. It felt novel. It felt exciting. But more than anything, it was baffling as hell.
They were obviously all Chinese characters. He could understand every single one of them when read separately, so why was it that the moment they were strung together, he could not make heads or tails of any of it? What Qi Source Acupoints? What White Sea meridians? What drawing qi into the body? What Heart Origin, Soul Intent...
Who am I? Where am I? What is all this stuff? Why is it that every other transmigrator can grab a cultivation manual and start practicing on the spot, but when it gets to me, I cannot even understand the words? Xu Yuan raised a hand and rubbed hard at the space between his brows, his thoughts a tangled mess.
Clearly, the Blood Origin Heartfall Art, one of only three Blood-tier cultivation arts in Azure Point, was not exactly beginner-level material.
To put it in simple terms, it was like this. You have learned Chinese characters. Great. Now go build a nuclear bomb by hand.
After reading the whole thing through from start to finish, the only thing Xu Yuan had gained was a rough idea of the process needed to begin cultivating the Blood Origin Heartfall Art.
First, take the Soul Scattering Calamity Pill and the Blood Spirit Body-Melding Pill together. The first phase of the Soul Scattering Calamity Pill’s medicinal effect would directly slam into the hidden meridians running throughout the limbs and bones of the human body.
Unlike cultivators, ordinary people had blocked meridians that had never been opened. Just as Ran Qingmo had been unable to use qi to heal Xu Yuan earlier because he was still an ordinary man, the impact of this medicinal force would literally split those meridians open in the physical sense.
Once the meridians were fully torn apart, the body would enter a near-death state. And when the body reached that extreme edge of dying, the soul would begin to disperse. At that point, the second phase of the Soul Scattering Calamity Pill would spread outward, accelerating that dispersal of the soul countless times over.
If things continued like that, death would be inevitable. But the Blood Spirit Body-Melding Pill had the opposite effect. Its purpose was to condense the soul, gathering back together what had begun to scatter. Two medicinal effects pulling in completely opposite directions, supplemented by the circulation method of the Blood Origin Heartfall Art.
The soul inside the body would be broken apart again and again, then re-condensed again and again. Through that endless cycle, body and soul would eventually be brought into perfect alignment. And during each brush with death, the enormous medicinal power of the Blood Spirit Body-Melding Pill would also be used to repair the damage done to both body and soul.
To cultivate this Blood Origin Heartfall Art, this path of living through death, was truly a case of nine deaths for one life. If, during even one of those moments at death’s door, his mind slipped for an instant and he failed to circulate the cultivation art in time, then he would die for real.
But set against that danger was an astonishing reward. The moment one stepped through the gate and truly entered the art, not only would body and soul become incomparably solid, but all 127 meridians within the body would be opened completely.