Xu Yuan might not know much about other areas of cultivation, but he did know a little about meridians. That was because the meridian system was a very important mechanic in Azure Point. It directly showed up on the player’s experience bar. The more meridians a character had open, the less experience they needed for each level-up.
In the game, the gap between a character with all 127 meridians fully open and one with every last meridian blocked was about twentyfold for every level. Put in numbers, if someone with fully open meridians needed five experience points to go from level one to level two, then someone with completely blocked meridians would need a hundred.
And because of that, if all 127 meridians in a person’s body were naturally open from birth, they would gain a special title, Innate Physique.
Of course, Azure Point’s developers had probably wanted to show a little mercy to the maniacs who enjoyed torturing themselves. So even if a player started with a crippled body, they could still cultivate, build up source qi inside themselves, and then use cultivation arts to slowly force that source qi through their blocked meridians one by one, gradually improving their cultivation speed.
It was just painfully slow. To go from zero open meridians to all 127, a character had to keep cultivating all the way until the Source Awakener Realm before the experience requirements of a naturally crippled body could finally match those of an Innate Physique.
And yet this Blood Origin Heartfall Art could completely ignore restrictions like meridians and source qi. From the very start of cultivation, it could open all 127 meridians at once. More importantly, opening all of a person’s meridians was only one of this art’s effects.
Soul and body tempered to the utmost solidity. That line made Xu Yuan think of another physique, one as famous as the Innate Physique. It was the Innate Soul Physique.
At that thought, Xu Yuan suddenly felt his mouth go dry. He remembered the setting. If a character possessed both the Innate Physique and the Innate Soul Physique at the same time, then their special title would become the Innate Dao Physique.
Back when he was playing the game, Xu Yuan had never cared much about talent or physique. As a high-level player, he only ever challenged self-torture difficulty. He wanted the trash-start opening, the almost absurdly perfect resource efficiency, the thrill of clearing a boss fight with a sliver of health left.
Of course, that was in a game. If this were reality, then naturally, the easier the difficulty, the better. And the cultivation art before him could let him acquire an Innate Dao Physique after birth.
Heh… This Blood Origin Heartfall Art really deserves its place as one of the only three Blood-tier supreme arts in all of Azure Point. Xu Yuan licked his lips. Under the dim glow of the luminous pearls, his dark eyes flickered softly.
The Innate Dao Physique in Azure Point was not nearly as outrageous as the kind you saw in those primordial xianxia settings. It did not grant affinity with the Heavenly Dao, nor could it directly perceive and wield the power of laws. It could not even do something as basic as skipping cultivation stages.
At its core, this physique simply allowed a person to cultivate a little faster than normal. Well, a little by several hundred million miles. But that was already more than enough.
After a long silence, Xu Yuan gradually calmed down from the shock of how absurdly powerful this cultivation art was.
Live through death, he reminded himself.
The later benefits of mastering the Blood Origin Heartfall Art were undeniably tempting, but anyone with half a brain could tell that the death in that phrase was not going to be easy. Opportunity and danger always came hand in hand. If the reward was this great, then just how great a risk would he have to take?
The Blood Origin Heartfall Art had already spelled it out clearly. To master it, one had to maintain consciousness through sheer force of will while on the brink of death, and keep circulating the technique in that state. But when a person was at death’s door, could they really stay conscious the whole time?
Xu Yuan thought back to when he had first arrived in this world, to that cave, to the hazy near-death feeling brought on by hypothermia. In that state, his mind had felt like it was sinking into a swamp. The cold seeped on and on without end, so numbing that even a simple thought became difficult, let alone operating a cultivation method.
And according to what was written in the Blood Origin Heartfall Art, this brush-with-death stage had to be repeated again and again, countless times. That...probably barely qualified as one chance to live in nine brushes with death.
Xu Yuan lowered his gaze slightly, as though a basin of cold water had just been dumped over his thoughts. He really was someone who liked danger and excitement, but that did not mean he was not afraid of dying.
Ever since he had suddenly transmigrated into this world, most of the time he had never truly had a choice. Whether it was forcing himself to talk to Ran Qingmo despite his fear at the beginning, or later jumping with her straight off Suspended Heaven Cliff into the bottomless abyss, he had done all of it because he had no other option. If he did not choose, then it was certain death.
But now they were finally safe, and he, a man who had spent his life in a peaceful age, was supposed to casually bet his life on a cultivation art that could kill him at any moment? An emotion called hesitation slowly began to spread through Xu Yuan’s heart.
Wait. In the middle of that hesitation, Xu Yuan’s breathing abruptly caught. He suddenly realized that even now, he still did not actually have a choice. Because without a body, the Chancellor would never give up the search.
Unless Xu Yuan could survive all the way until the day the plot’s protagonist killed that man, then even if he got out of this cave dwelling, even if Ran Qingmo could temporarily help him escape with his life… he still did not believe he could vanish without a trace while being hunted by a group of superhumans who could lock onto a person’s aura with their spiritual sense.
What was more, Xu Yuan had no idea which storyline route this world’s plot protagonist was currently following.
In Azure Point, there were no fewer than 25 story branches. If the other party happened to be on one of the routes where he never came into conflict with the Chancellor, then Xu Yuan would be facing a lifetime of pursuit.
And even if the plot protagonist did end up on a route hostile to the Third Young Master’s father, once everything had become reality, Xu Yuan had no confidence at all that the scripted deaths from the game would still happen the same way.
After all, Ji Qingyue had just provided a perfect example. Such a beautiful, important heroine in the original plot, and the iceberg of a woman at his side with the surname Ran had killed her the moment she felt like it. That so-called protagonist’s halo from the old story… did it really exist at all?
Xu Yuan slowly unclenched his fist, rose to his feet, and walked over to stand in front of the woman curled up in the corner. She was still wearing that same tattered black robe.
“What is it?” In the deathly quiet cave dwelling, her clear voice rang out.
Xu Yuan lowered his eyes. “I want to ask you for a favor.”
Ran Qingmo slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. “You want to use that favor I owe you?”
Xu Yuan’s expression did not change in the slightest. “I want you to teach me some basic cultivation knowledge. I just realized I’ve forgotten a lot of things, like how to draw qi into the body, things about the heart origin, soul intent, and so on.”
In the dim light, her cool, limpid eyes flickered with confusion.
Ran Qingmo could not understand why a powerful expert at the Source Awakener Realm would forget even the most basic knowledge of cultivation. Weren’t things like that supposed to have long since become instinct, carved into one’s very soul?
But she did not refuse. Instead, she answered with complete seriousness, “For that, you don’t need to use the favor. I can teach you.”
Xu Yuan slowly sat down across from Ran Qingmo and asked softly, “Can we start now?”
Ran Qingmo closed her eyes and thought for a moment, seeming to check the state of her body. When she opened them again, she gave a slight nod. “All right.”
Then after a pause, her clear, cool gaze shifted to the luxurious robe Xu Yuan was wearing. “Take off your clothes.”