Chapter 135: Climb the Nine Peaks

Cao Yun and Huang Cixi fell asleep on the floor of this room. They were absolutely exhausted and could not even move a single muscle. Huang Cixi's body was covered in sweat and sore all other. Similarly, her mind was strained to its limit and so was Cao Yun's. Seeing them like that, Kang Cai and Kang Hai attended to them. The twin sisters were afraid to move them, especially Huang Cixi. She had gone through a terrifying process and they didn't want to disturb them at all. As such, they brought blankets and towels. The two servants cleaned up the sweat from the young girl's body, trying as much as possible to not move her.

They stayed with them while their master was writing absolutely every single detail of the process, no matter how insignificant it might have seemed. Her spiritual senses were so developed that she remembered the behavior of every single acupoint on Huang Cixi's body. Even the tiniest of detail could give ideas to a great alchemist and she wouldn't dare omit anything. Director Ge Ling and Hua Fenfei may be able to understand more about Spirit pills, or even, maybe, about something entirely different. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Cao Yun woke up first. He had fallen asleep after his breakthrough, so his mind was still pretty fired up. When he saw Huang Cixi's body on the ground, he quickly went to her.

"Young Master Chen. Miss Huang is fine. She just needs some rest." Kang Hai spoke to him with a whispering voice. "My master asked to see you as soon as you woke up, if you will." The young woman showed the door.

Cao Yun was hesitant to leave Huang Cixi behin but he fully trusted Xiao Xuefeng. Seeing that his servant was breathing just fine and that her face was full of color, he let her be. Cao Yun followed Kang Hai while her sister stayed with the sleeping girl. Kang Hai brought him to the room he had been before, with the Universe Engulfing Sparrow array formation. Xiao Xuefeng had become somewhat paranoid, especially after Director Ge Ling's words. She suspected that demonic cultivators may have purposefully lead her to join this sect. If so, she feared that she had always been one step behind them. Maybe, they had way more spies than she thought.

As long as a demonic cultivator with a lower cultivation practiced demonic arts, Xiao Xuefeng was confident in finding them out. But if they were stronger than her, or if they didn't practice any demonic art but were still following their master, she had no way to detect them. Before Luduo Bu fully embraced the demonic arts, she couldn't see through him at all unless she had violated his mind. But if she did so for everyone, many people would die, most of them innocents. However, she was wondering if she should use the Soul Memory Search method against highly suspicious individuals. She had a terrible history with penetrating someone else's mind, and she wasn't sure whether or not she would be able to do so.

Interrupting her thoughts, Kang Hai knocked on the door and lead Cao Yun in before closing it back, leaving them alone together.

"Cao Yun, sit down." As they were absolutely isolated from the outside world, Xiao Xuefeng was not afraid to use Cao Yun's real name. Strangely, this was his old name that felt strange now. It kinda ticked him off. The name his parent had given him was feeling strange to him. This wasn't a good thing. Living under a false name with a false background wasn't really enjoyable.

"Guest Elder Xiao, thank you. My gratitude cannot be expressed with words. I'll always remember this kindness."

She waved her sleeve. "I wasn't alone in this endeavor. My Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute worked together to refine this pill. If you just remember this favor, this is enough for us. I do believe you will achieve great things. And I do not think that you are the kind of man who would forget his benefactors."

The name of the institute brought back memories. "Guest Elder Xiao, may I ask if you've seen Feng Yingyue?"

"Of course, I did. She's a great girl. In fact, she's already a 5-star Earth alchemist and her cultivation is following smoothly. She gave me a letter for you." Xiao Xuefeng was starting to feel like a homing pigeon. From her spatial ring, a small letter appeared and she handed it over to Cao Yun. He didn't want to read it in front of someone else so he put it in his uniform with care.

"There are many reasons why I called you here. The first one is to hear from you exactly what happened during my absence."

Seeing the stern on her face, Cao Yun knew she was talking about Lü Bai's attack. Thus, he recounted every single detail of it.

"I see... I fear that this may have been a plot to make us believe that everything was cleared. But we still do not know who the demonic cultivator behind Lu Meihan's death is. And we can't be sure that Lü Bai was the real culprit. No matter what you think, you were under the effect of an illusory array formation. If a Spirit Warrior was behind this, he could have shown you exactly what he wanted to in order to make you believe that the culprit was dead." Xiao Xuefeng was really on point. Concerning matters related to perception and illusion, she was the number one expert in the Hongchen Kingdom.

"We don't have any more lead anyway. They're still several steps ahead of us... You should be extremely careful! They will probably target you next year outside of the Wubei Sect. But if you stay within, you'll miss on many opportunities. I'll give you this."

She gave a tiny sphere to Cao Yun. It was half the size of a fist and perfectly blue. Cao Yun took it but he had no idea of what it was.

"This is a Spirit Condensation Barrier, a shielding charm. You just have to crush it. It's imbued with part of my Qi within and it will activate a defensive barrier around you. It can resist against one attack from an early Spirit Warrior or many attacks from Mortal Warriors. This really depends on their strength so I can't tell you for sure, but it should allow you to survive and flee. I do believe that you have good stealth techniques. Just work on them a bit more, that way you could use this shielding charm to distract your enemies while protecting yourself and then disappear."

Cao Yun was stunned both by the effect of this small sphere, but also by the fact that Xiao Xuefeng even knew that he knew stealth techniques. She must have investigated him very thoroughly to know precisely what martial arts he had studied in the Wubei Sect.

"Then, I'd like to talk a bit more about your future. What do you intend to do during your next year?"

Cao Yun had indeed thought about that. Even though he had been plagued with doubts about his future life, he had had a very good idea about his next actions for a long time.

"I'll investigate the Wolf Head Sect. I know that you all destroyed their headquarters. But as the Lunar Marsh showed, some of them fled and survived. I may be able to find some leads on whether or not they attacked my family and on who lead them."

"So you'll first go back to the Lunar Marsh?"

"Indeed. And if I don't find anything, I'll try and go to their old headquarters. This is very unlikely, but maybe I'll find something no one noticed..."

"This isn't a bad idea at all. However, this will be very dangerous if you encounter other demonic cultivators. From what you told me, their leader clearly saw your face. And some demonic cultivators may have stalked your residence for weeks or even months. Some of them may also be able to recognize your face." Xiao Xuefeng thought about it for a while. "I'm not too sure about this, but I'll try to think of something before you leave the Wubei Sect..."

"Thank you, Guest Elder Xiao. You're really too kind to me. I didn't even repay you from saving my life twice."

"I did not help you just out of the kindness of my heart. You are worthy of my investment. I'm sure you won't forsake the people who helped you or mankind itself."

"Never!" In Cao Yun's eyes, Xiao Xuefeng saw what she recognized as a firm conviction. She was absolutely right about him.

She then felt a bit flustered as she was dying to ask him about something else. After her words about helping him for mankind's sake, it felt a bit hypocritical but she really had to ask.

"Do not take it the wrong way. I'm not coveting your possession. But... would you tell me about your mind cultivation?"

Her embarrassment was absolutely obvious. In fact, she did nothing to try and hide it. With her spiritual attainment it would have been easy but she didn't want to appear deceitful while asking for someone's cultivation method.

Cao Yun was in doubts. This mind cultivation was not really his. He had obtained it by mere chance and it used to belong to Dun Mofan. It wasn't some secret technique taught to him by an old master. In fact, he could freely share it with anyone. However, he had realized how effective it was and didn't want it to be used by the wrong people. On the other hand Xiao Xuefeng was clearly the right person to learn this technique. Given her aptitudes, she could maybe even master the first layer in a few weeks.

"Guest Elder Xiao, this is but a small repayment for all the kindness you showed me. Allow me to share it with you." Cao Yun had the small green manual on him and took it out from his uniform to show it to Xiao Xuefeng.

She was very respectful and sifted through it. Her face slowly changed. "This is Insight Writing! These characters, they're not from any specific language. In fact, they are literally the comprehension the writer had transposed into a character. Unless you understand a bit about the principle, it's impossible to read it at all."

"Can you read it, Guest Elder?"

"Yes, I can." Xiao Xuefeng had of course some understanding of the mind. As such, she was able to read the entire manual as if it was written in her own language. In the first layer, Cao Yun had to first understand the character to then read about it. It wasn't optimal. In fact, he wasn't sure about what he would do for the other layers as he still couldn't understand them. He hoped that his new attainment would give him this ability. But by watching the manual in Xiao Xuefeng's hands, he realized that he didn't understand a single character apart from the titles.

"From what I read, you should have reached Perfection in the first layer, right?"

"Yes, Guest Elder."

"But you shouldn't be able to read the next part... I'll read it to you." All of a sudden, Cao Yun focused his every thoughts and memorized every single syllable from Xiao Xuefeng's mouth. "The human body has three Dantian. The Lower Dantian is a crucible turning Jing into Qi. The Middle Dantian, in the chest, controls the blood and harbors parts of the soul. Finally, the Upper Dantian is the residence of the mind where the sea of consciousness is. Each Dantian is further divided into nine chambers. In our Qi cultivation, these chambers are not particularly useful. They're mainly known by physicians. In fact, many cultivators don't even know they exist.

"The Upper Dantian's nine chambers are Chamber of Mysterious Elixir, Chamber of Jade, Chamber of Moving Pearls, Chamber of Splendor, Chamber of Medicine Field, Chamber of Ultimate Truth, Chamber of Heavenly Court, Chamber of Government, Chamber of Bright Spirit. Apparently, the second layer of this manual consists in energizing each one of these chambers by using the combined characters you formed during the first layer. This is thus called 'Climb the Nine Peaks'. Energizing is not done with Qi, but with your own mind. Each time you energize a chamber, you'll see a white flash and your overall mental abilities will increase.

"This manual must have been written by a late Spirit Warrior or even an early Sage at the very least. His understanding of the mind is incredible. Even I pale in comparison." She kept on reading and memorized everything. With the understanding she already had, it was easy for her to read and remember. Contrary to Cao Yun, she would probably be able to reproduce it quite easily.

"I'll send to you a diagram of the Upper Dantian's Nine Chambers. It should prove useful to achieve Perfection in the second layer. Energizing them all should take you between two to five years, depending on your speed." Xiao Xuefeng then got a bit redder. "I hate to ask, but... may I share these informations with some of my most trusted friends?"

"Of course, Guest Elder Xiao. You even helped me decipher the second layer. Just understanding how to approach this could have taken me months if not years." After all, Dun Mofan had never been able to understand anything at all.

Xiao Xuefeng intended to share it with Director Ge Ling and Hua Fenfei. She wasn't sure that anyone else should have it. Maybe the first layer could be shared, but nothing else. Seeing the results on Cao Yun and reading it herself, she was convinced that this method was prodigious. Whoever wrote this was probably a great genius. The manual seemed pretty old, but Xiao Xuefeng wasn't able to determine its actual age. Could this be a manual from the Seven Treaties Era or even the Founding Era? It was perfectly possible. And as such, she had to treat it as a great art, worthy of being kept secret.

Even though the institute was also seeking mankind's betterment, it didn't mean that they would release powerful techniques for anyone to learn it. What if demonic cultivators learned it? Their main weakness was their mind, corroded by their demonic arts. If a demonic cultivator studied this technique, it would be a disaster.

"Guest Elder Xiao, I only ask one thing from you?" The woman was ready to listen to every request from Cao Yun. "Teach it to Feng Yingyue."

Xiao Xuefeng, not expecting such a simple request, burst about laughing. She gave back the green manual to Cao Yun while answering. "Of course! Even if I don't, you'll keep on sending her letters anyway."