Innate Immortal Seed
Chapter 92: The First Level, Visualization of the 5-Crystal Divine Iron
’As long as I can master the first level of the Five Crystal Glaze Body, my physical body should be strong enough to handle the breakthrough to Foundation Establishment... This is the one. Who knows, maybe I’ll really have the chance to find some Tier Five Spiritual Materials in the future!’
Bai Zichen managed to pick out a few more scrolls detailing personal accounts and insights into the various problems one might encounter during the cultivation of the Five Crystal Glaze Body.
Compared to the verbose and lengthy texts on how to begin the technique, accounts that truly revealed the secrets of its cultivation were one in a hundred.
From a normal cultivator’s perspective, as long as one successfully began, the rest of the cultivation process would naturally fall into place.
’Someone as fast as Master Ge mastered it in half a year, while slower ones took two or three years... And none of them needed to temper their bodies step-by-step. This cultivation technique is truly miraculous.’
Bai Zichen carried the five annotated scrolls to the elder on duty in the Transmission Hall and requested the technique’s inheritance and permission to borrow the texts.
"The Five Crystal Glaze Body... Nephew Bai, are you certain you want to choose this body refining technique? A True Disciple can only choose one cultivation technique from the third floor of the Transmission Hall every three years. Don’t waste this opportunity."
The elder on duty today was Zhou Suqing, an old woman with a full head of silver hair, renowned among the elders of the Qingfeng Sect.
Zhou Suqing was a cultivation prodigy. Originally a refugee, her Spiritual Root wasn’t discovered until she was in her twenties. After being brought into the sect, she successfully reached Foundation Establishment before she was forty.
She was an avid reader, specialized in all kinds of magic, and had even created her own Qi Refining Technique, which was added to the first floor of the Transmission Hall.
Unfortunately, she was not skilled in combat—one could even call her a combat idiot. She couldn’t even suppress others with her higher realm, and was once fought to a draw by a Qi Refining Great Perfection cultivator when she was already at Early-Stage Foundation Establishment.
However, her path of cultivation was smooth, and she broke through to the Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment realm over twenty years ago.
"If you’re just looking to strengthen your physique and undergo Bone Marrow Cleansing, I can find you a body refining technique from the second floor. It would be more than enough for the Qi Refining Stage."
"I’m sure. Rest assured, Junior Martial Uncle Zhou, I won’t spend too much time on the Five Crystal Glaze Body. I know my limits."
Bai Zichen knew she was concerned for him, but he truly didn’t plan on spending too much time on this body refining technique.
"Since you’re so insistent, then so be it... I won’t say any more. You’re a smart disciple; I trust you won’t jeopardize your own Great Dao."
Zhou Suqing sighed. She knew that talented disciples often saw themselves as special and were brimming with confidence, so she didn’t press the matter.
"This Jade Scroll contains the complete Five Crystal Glaze Body. Learn it here."
Bai Zichen did as he was told. A vast torrent of information flooded into his Sea of Consciousness, and the Jade Scroll in his hand went blank.
Apparently, it was a single-use inheritance Jade Scroll, specially refined for this purpose.
As for the annotated texts, his status as a True Disciple allowed him to borrow and take them with him, so long as he remembered to return them within a year.
The ones on display were merely copies. The originals were all stored in a vast Earth Palace beneath the Transmission Hall, where an array isolated them from air and moisture to preserve the scrolls for as long as possible.
Upon returning to the Moon-Locking Pool, he gave Su Lie a single instruction—not to be disturbed for any reason, no matter how important—and walked back into his Quiet Chamber.
Even after living at the Moon-Locking Pool for two years, every time he returned to his Quiet Chamber, he couldn’t help but marvel at the pure, Tier Three Spiritual Qi. He felt that the Magical Power he refined here was brimming with vitality.
Therefore, over the past two years, Bai Zichen had been spending more and more time in his Quiet Chamber, unless something truly major came up.
’The Five Crystal Glaze Body has such a grand reputation, and they make it sound so profound, even claiming that upon reaching Great Success, one could achieve Shifting Mountains and Inverting Seas with their physical body alone... I’d like to see for myself just what’s so mysterious about it.’
This technique had stumped generations of Qingfeng Sect cultivators, yet droves of people still threw themselves at it one after another, proving that the Five Crystal Glaze Body definitely had something extraordinary about it.
Bai Zichen was also eager to find out how this profound and esoteric method of sympathetic resonance differed from normal body refining techniques.
After all, among so many cultivators, there was no shortage of truly brilliant and stunning talents, a league he, a pseudo-genius, couldn’t compare to. Currently, everyone in the sect viewed him as one of the most gifted disciples of his generation in the Qingfeng Sect. But he knew in his heart that without the support of his Spirit Body, he was merely a person of average talent, with only a minor gift for the Sword Dao.
The most recent example, naturally, was Ancestor Ge Cang. With his Wood Element Celestial Spiritual Root, he had broken a series of ’youngest-ever’ records without suspense from the day he entered the sect.
A Mid-Stage Core Formation True Man under two hundred years old would be highly regarded anywhere in Liang Country.
Even the Supreme Elder of the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect praised him for possessing the Nascent Soul Form.
Yet even a genius as brilliant and stunning as Ancestor Ge Cang had taken six years just to begin the first level of the Five Crystal Glaze Body, and even left behind a note warning Qi Refining Disciples to practice it with caution.
’The first level requires one to use the Five Crystal Divine Iron as a model, for reference and verification, until one can form a long-lasting, stable piece of Five Crystal Divine Iron in their Sea of Consciousness. That’s considered the entry point... After that, even without deliberate cultivation, the physical body will gradually strengthen and take on faint characteristics of the Five Crystal Divine Iron.’
After reading through the first level of the technique, Bai Zichen was, as expected, completely baffled. Why would forming a piece of Five Crystal Divine Iron in his Sea of Consciousness temper his physical body?
Logically, one involved the Divine Sense and the other the physical body; the two should be completely unrelated.
’But why does this feel somewhat similar to the Divine Casting Technique... That cultivation technique for training the Divine Sense requires constructing a Heaven and Earth Furnace in the Sea of Consciousness to constantly temper oneself.’
Bai Zichen inexplicably made a connection to his other cultivation technique. He could now instantly sketch out the Heaven and Earth Furnace and maintain it for about the time it takes for half an incense stick to burn.
Within the first level of the technique inherited from the Jade Scroll, there was an image of a mountain-sized piece of Five Crystal Divine Iron. Five kinds of Spirit Light flashed in alternation, creating an otherworldly color.
Looking closely, the interior of this Five Crystal Divine Iron seemed to be composed of countless grains of sand, just extremely condensed. Only by focusing one’s full visual power could one barely make out a few details.
But after staring for only a few breaths, a trace of mental fatigue set in, and the image of the Five Crystal Divine Iron grew illusory and receded.
"The consumption of Divine Sense is actually this fast!" Bai Zichen said, alarmed.
His Divine Sense was already stronger than that of many Early-Stage Foundation Establishment Cultivators, yet merely observing the image of the Five Crystal Divine Iron for a moment left him feeling drained.
No wonder Qi Refining Disciples weren’t advised to cultivate it. Without Spiritual Awareness Power, relying on one’s naked eyes alone, how could anyone possibly glimpse the mysteries of the Five Crystal Divine Iron? It would be perfectly normal to languish outside the gate for ten or twenty years.
He had experience cultivating the Divine Casting Technique and was highly adaptable to this. He stopped forcing himself to observe and instead attempted to form the Five Crystal Divine Iron for the first time.
A minuscule, blurry speck of Five Crystal Divine Iron began to form in his Sea of Consciousness. It also had a Five-Colored Spiritual Light flowing around it. Although it was only the size of a grain of rice, its shape was more or less correct.
But it only existed for a single breath before the Five Crystal Divine Iron, like a clump of sand in the wind, PUFFED apart and scattered into specks of light.
’It’s working!’
Though his first attempt at forming it had failed, Bai Zichen wasn’t discouraged. Instead, he rested for a moment, then once again summoned the original image of the Five Crystal Divine Iron for visualization and reference.
He quickly discovered that ’sympathetically resonating’ with the Five Crystal Divine Iron and sketching it in his Sea of Consciousness was far more mentally taxing than sketching the Heaven and Earth Furnace had been.
With his level of Divine Sense, after just three or four attempts, a profound weariness would well up from deep within him.
Bai Zichen knew this was a warning that his Divine Sense was depleted. Forcing himself could cause injury, so he sat cross-legged on his meditation cushion and quietly fell asleep.