Chapter 321: Concealing Breath and Hiding |
Bing-7 stone house, deep in the night, all was quiet.
Su Ming turned his hand and cast three seals, sealing the doors and windows shut.
Inside the room, only a single glowstone emitted a faint light, stretching his shadow long and thin.
He sat at the stone table, laying out the three "Earth Escape Talismans" he had bought at great cost in a neat row.
Condensing a ball of pure water spiritual energy at his fingertip, Su Ming carefully washed the surface of the talismans with the water spiritual energy as if polishing treasures.
"Water Mirror Method."
Water permeates everywhere. If there were any divine sense marks left by others, hidden tracking methods, or if the talismans themselves were defective, they would be revealed under the infiltration of water spiritual energy.
"Hiss…"
As the water spiritual energy washed over them, a layer of earthy yellow halo appeared on the talisman surfaces, thick and stable.
"Not bad, genuine goods."
Lin Yu gave the appraisal conclusion, "That Old Blind Man may be greedy for money, but his craftsmanship and credibility are beyond reproach. The earth spiritual energy in these talismans is so full it's almost overflowing."
Su Ming breathed a sigh of relief and carefully stored the three talismans close to his body: one in his sleeve cuff, one against his chest, and one in his boot.
These were the most convenient and also the most concealed positions.
After finishing this, Su Ming was not in a hurry to rest.
He sat on the stone bed, forming hand seals, but instead of circulating the Like Water Art to cultivate spiritual energy, he adjusted his breathing, attempting to enter a state of "emptiness and nothingness."
As his breathing became faint and intermittent, the fluctuations of spiritual energy within his body began to converge extremely slowly.
However, perhaps because his cultivation progress had been too rapid recently, or perhaps because he had grown accustomed to that "commanding the entire scene" flamboyance over the past two months, Su Ming found that he actually had great difficulty completely concealing his aura instantly as he used to.
It was like a bottle filled with water; even with the lid on, a drop or two would still occasionally overflow.
Under the "observation micro state" vision, Su Ming could clearly see that although the pores all over his body were closed, a faint glow of spiritual energy still flowed over the surface of his skin, standing out starkly against the surrounding dead air.
"Too bright."
Lin Yu's voice, tinged with a hint of teasing, rang out in the Consciousness Sea, "Oh, disciple, finally remembered this housekeeping skill? Your teacher thought you had forgotten this fundamental life-preserving technique."
Su Ming slowly opened his eyes, letting out a helpless, bitter smile.
"Master, please don't mock me."
He lowered his head to look at his own hands, which were slightly rough from years of carving formation lines, "It's not that I forgot, it's just that previously, there was no need to use this method in all matters."
"That is true." Lin Yu's tone softened slightly, "This is called 'Be as conspicuous as the sun in the sky when you should be high-profile, be like wearing fine clothes at night when you should be low-profile.' But right now, you've been acting as this 'sun' for a bit too long; the restless energy on you is too heavy."
"Please instruct me, Master." Su Ming said respectfully.
"Do you remember the core theory I taught you when I first imparted the Aura Concealment Art?"
Lin Yu's voice became a bit more serious, "The so-called aura concealment isn't about holding your breath and pretending to be dead. Even corpses have a death aura. True aura concealment is 'synchronization'."
"You need to think of yourself as a rock, a drop of water, a grain of dust."
"Your spiritual energy is too strong right now. What you need to do is achieve harmony with this stone house, with the wind and snow outside."
Su Ming fell into thoughtful contemplation.
He closed his eyes and once again began circulating that long-unused Aura Concealment Art.
This time, he did not deliberately suppress the spiritual energy within his body. Instead, he mobilized the characteristics of the Like Water Art.
Water, the softest and weakest, yet capable of embracing all things.
Water placed in a cup becomes the cup; placed in a pot, it becomes the pot.
Su Ming tried to imagine the spiritual energy within his body as a pool of stagnant water, no longer with ripples, no longer flowing.
He released his perception of the external world, no longer resisting the ever-present cold air. Instead, he allowed the cold air to invade his pores, merging and blending with the spiritual energy inside his body.
Gradually, that sense of discordant repulsion disappeared.
His heartbeat became extremely slow, only a few times per minute.
The glow of spiritual energy on his body's surface began to dim, eventually extinguishing completely, replaced by a dull, gray, utterly inconspicuous texture.
If someone were to push the door open at this moment, even if they swept the area with divine sense, they would likely subconsciously overlook Su Ming sitting on the bed, only feeling that a cold stone was placed there.
"Quite interesting."
Lin Yu praised, "It seems your insights into water during this period weren't wasted. The control of the Like Water Art combined with the concealment of the Aura Concealment Art—as long as you don't take the initiative to act, I estimate that even a cultivator at the early Golden Core stage might not be able to detect you from thirty meters away."
Su Ming slowly exhaled a turbid breath.
But the moment this breath left his mouth, he wrapped it with spiritual energy, dispersing it silently into the air without causing the slightest fluctuation in airflow.
"The feeling is back."
Su Ming clenched his fist. That long-lost sense of security from hiding in the shadows finally allowed his tense nerves to relax.
"Only by sheathing your edge can you deliver a fatal blow at the critical moment."
Su Ming stood up and took two steps in the narrow stone room.
There was no sound of footsteps, not even the air was disturbed.
He walked to the window and looked out at the pitch-black night through a crack.
"Three escape talismans, a body-concealing art, plus those sixty-five thousand Military Merit points..."
Su Ming stood by the window, feeling the deep quietness brought by the Aura Concealment Art within him, nearly one with the stone house.
He tallied everything he possessed: life-preserving escape talismans, concealment techniques, a massive amount of Military Merit sufficient to exchange for his dream item...
Suddenly, an unprecedented sense of completeness welled up in his heart.
His mind and spirit were unprecedentedly clear and unblocked.
Inspired by a sudden stroke of insight, he no longer suppressed nor deliberately guided, simply relaxing his body and mind, allowing the Like Water Art to circulate along its most instinctive path.
Crack—
The invisible barrier between the eighth and ninth layers of Qi Refining silently melted away under this state of "harmonious thoughts, all preparations complete."
Spiritual energy surged on its own, the circulation cycle becoming increasingly smooth and harmonious. The total amount and purity quietly rose to a new level.
Ninth layer of Qi Refining, achieved.
The breakthrough came without warning, yet felt entirely natural.
Right at the moment he finished tallying the escape talismans, concealment art, and sixty-five thousand Military Merit points, and the thought "all preparations are complete, only awaiting return to the sect" arose in his heart, a certain barrier within his body silently opened.
Like the last yellow leaf on a deep autumn branch, falling in the perfect breeze.
The spiritual energy of the Like Water Art flowed on its own, more harmonious and smooth than ever before.
Within the Qihai, the originally viscous, glue-like liquid spiritual energy now faintly showed a tendency to "crystallize"—this was the sign of the Qi Refining stage approaching completion.
"The progression from the eighth to the ninth layer should have been a meticulous, grinding process for you."
In the Consciousness Sea, Lin Yu's voice carried a rare solemnity, "But these past few months at Iron Wall Pass, you've used combat as training, used formations to comprehend the Dao, used life-and-death situations to temper your mind. Your foundation has long been solidified to the utmost."
"Today's breakthrough is not because your spiritual energy accumulation was sufficient, but because your mental state has finally reached completion."
Su Ming slowly clenched his fist, feeling the flow of spiritual energy at his fingertips, controlled with a precision three times finer than before.
He remembered the words Elder Qingquan had once said: "A formation master's bottleneck often lies not in the Dantian, but in the Consciousness Sea."
Over the past few months, he had laid the Spiderweb, imparted skills, earned Military Merit, glimpsed star guidance, comprehended the Eight Trigrams... All his accumulations converged and interconnected at this moment.
That once distant and unreachable "Earth Vein Spirit Milk" was now a reality within reach.
With thoughts clear and unobstructed, shackles open on their own.
This is the Immortal Path.