Chapter Seventy-Seven: Clarity of Heart and Revelation of True Nature
“You’re such a sharp-tongued fool,” Xu Chen muttered to himself.
He stepped onto the teleportation array, a flash of spiritual light swept by, and the scene before his eyes changed.
Thunder roared.
A waterfall, a hundred yards in height, crashed down from a jug-shaped mouth. Torrents of river water plunged noisily, filling the air with the cacophony of falling waters.
Xu Chen appeared beside the waterfall, his clothes quickly soaked by the thick mist.
“Where’s the path?”
He scanned his surroundings and noticed, several hundred yards from the waterfall and through the forest, a broad earthen road stretched out.
After observing the waterfall for a while, Xu Chen made his way toward the great road.
At this time, the leaves in the forest had turned yellow, painting a scene of early autumn. A squirrel, clutching a pine nut, scampered toward the largest tree in the distance. Before it reached its destination, a shadow swooped from the sky. Razor-sharp talons pierced the squirrel’s skull in an instant.
A black hawk, wings spanning a yard, regarded Xu Chen as it flew overhead, then soared away with its prey.
Just then, Xu Chen keenly sensed the flow of time accelerating; the forest around him was swiftly transitioning toward winter.
The air grew colder, and the landscape shifted deeper into autumn.
“The flow of time quickens—how extraordinary,” Xu Chen murmured, glancing skyward as a distant black dot flew toward the tallest peak.
Emerging from the forest onto the continent, he saw the endless woods to his left, and to his right, an expansive autumn grassland.
Xu Chen strode forward, retrieving a foundational blood-qi cultivation technique from his storage pouch.
Determined not to waste any opportunity, Xu Chen had already planned to practice other blood-qi techniques while traversing these hundred thousand miles.
Two birds with one stone.
“Diamond Nine Revolutions, an optimized version of the Diamond Five Forms—should be easy to grasp.”
“The best part: once I reach the unity of form and intent, I’ll possess the strength of two dragons. That will give me a chance to hone my combat abilities in the Holy White Space.”
Recently, mastering these blood-qi techniques had gone too smoothly; Xu Chen felt something was missing. After much reflection, he realized it had been a long time since he’d suffered.
By day, Xu Chen wandered these hundred thousand miles.
Witnessing the evolution of all things, the changes of time—he gained faint insights into both, though far from mastery.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter—each day brought a fresh realization.
At night, he paused his journey to cultivate the Diamond Nine Revolutions technique.
Perhaps because he was wholly immersed in these insights, his progress with Diamond Nine Revolutions was swift—within a month, he had mastered its basics.
Inside the Holy White Space, Xu Chen pushed open the door to Diamond Nine Revolutions.
In an artificially carved mountain valley, his avatar, bare-chested, hefted a boulder weighing over a hundred thousand pounds, smashing it against a distant cliff.
Each strike shook the earth; the echoes lingered in the valley.
When the avatar saw Xu Chen enter, it dropped the boulder and walked toward him.
As the avatar drew near, Xu Chen looked up.
“Come, let's have a passionate clash between men.”
A fist, the size of a sandbag, swung at Xu Chen.
To Xu Chen, the punch was full of flaws; he sidestepped easily, then struck the avatar’s back with his palm.
Bang!
His palm landed, and Xu Chen felt as though he’d struck solid steel.
The avatar didn’t evade; it spun and punched at Xu Chen again.
“Too weak. Still stings a little, though.”
“Keep going!”
“Bring it on!”
A phantom of raging waves appeared as Xu Chen unleashed his full strength.
He struck the avatar again and again.
The avatar used no clever moves, simply trading blow for blow with Xu Chen.
But it rarely landed a hit.
This continued until Xu Chen had depleted seventy percent of his blood-qi; the avatar, unfazed, continued the fight.
“Troublesome.”
Xu Chen struck the avatar’s back, using the recoil to retreat ten yards.
“Looks like I’ll have to try something unconventional.”
He drew the Thousand-Forge Blade from his back and smeared it with Corrosive Blood.
“Don’t bother—it won’t work,” the avatar said in a muffled voice, eyeing the blade.
“How can I know if I don’t try?”
Xu Chen swung the blade at the avatar, only to find the blade couldn’t breach the protective force surrounding it.
“I refuse to believe this!”
He kept fighting, exhausting all his blood-qi, and was finally knocked out by a punch to the head.
His consciousness reformed in the Holy White Space; Xu Chen sat on the ground and began to review.
“Too tough. Its blood-qi is abundant.”
“With my current methods, I can’t break through the avatar’s protective strength.”
“If I used poison, it likely wouldn’t even touch the avatar.”
“A giant tortoise shell—this will take time to crack.”
The next morning, Xu Chen stepped out of his tent and was greeted by a chill.
Clouds blanketed the land for ten thousand miles; light snow fell, cloaking the world in silver.
Xu Chen swallowed a fasting pill and continued his journey.
The snow deepened, reaching a foot thick soon enough.
The road narrowed; ahead loomed a mountain, becoming a winding path to the summit.
Xu Chen admired the snowy scenery on either side as he walked, unhurried, up the mountain path.
At the peak, he found the snow had covered the descent.
Staring at the slope, at least ten miles long, a playful impulse stirred in Xu Chen.
He looked around, found a sturdy snow pine, and chopped it down with his war blade to fashion a sled.
He skied down the long slope on his sled.
As he slid downward, Xu Chen’s mood soared. In a moment of reverie, a strange insight washed over him.
Following that sensation, Xu Chen spoke softly.
“To see one's nature, to perceive one's heart.”
At those words, the world opened wide.
In an instant, he truly felt the heavens and earth shifting.
Xu Chen sat cross-legged in the snow, savoring the realization.
He didn’t know how long passed; the snow stopped, the clouds dispersed.
A touch of spring sunlight warmed the snowman formed by the snow piled atop him.
The snow melted, and Xu Chen slowly opened his eyes.
“Onward.”
This time, Xu Chen set his mind wholly on the journey, walking the hundred thousand miles without distraction.
He no longer sought insights deliberately from what he saw or heard.
When hungry, he ate a fasting pill; when tired, he slept wherever he pleased.
In this way, Xu Chen walked for three months.
During those three months, he didn’t cultivate any other blood-qi techniques, nor did he enter the Holy White Space; he simply kept walking.
One day, Xu Chen rose from his self-built cabin.
The sun was rising in the distance.
When the first ray of morning light touched him, a profound and mysterious feeling welled up in his heart.
At that moment, a spatial force locked onto Xu Chen.
He was pulled directly from the hundred thousand mile road.
Inside the teleportation hall, Xu Chen stood dazed, striving to explore that subtle, mysterious sensation.
The guard by the teleportation array saw this and gently wrapped Xu Chen in spiritual power, sending him to the hall’s dedicated cultivation chamber.