Trying to devise a Qi Technique
The new of the devastating attack that happened to the Immortal Devil Sect's outer-sect courtyard was spread throughout the entirety of the Divine Star Continent, almost all the major powers and powerhouses were discussing the matter. Although the Immortal Devil Sect's power did not even drop by 1%, the attack on the outer-sect courtyard was a big slap on the face, as a result, the powers and resources deployed by the Immortal Devil Sect to the Green Lotus City doubled in number, resulting the in the city's annihilation.
The city was flattened, multiple Rank 1 and Rank 2 Qi Experts of Western Wen died, including many innocent denizens and citizens, and the Immortal Devil Sect's forces started pushing into the Imperial Capital, although the main force consisted of only twenty or thirty so cultivators, that was already a reckoning force, more formidable and majestic than millions of soldiers.
Naturally, Western Wen was frantic, and it was finding it harder and harder to hold the line from crumbling, and even started requesting for aid from external powers, plus if you factor in it's neighboring arch-enemy, the Su Dynasty, who is like a tiger ready to pounce the moment there is a sign of weakness... It would not be an exaggeration to say Western Wen is going to face annihilation in any moment.
A mere sect was able to give Western Wen, an empire that was established hundreds of years ago, a run for it's money!
And although all of this sounds like it happened over a considerably long span of time, four hours haven't even passed before the escape of Song Laohu and his companions.
Sect Leader Demonfire immediately arranged for a group of powerful cultivators to head towards the Imperial Capital of Western Wen, then returned back to the main castle alongside the many elders of the sect to discuss certain matters... A mere Rank 1 Qi Expert possesses an extremely priceless Jade Talisman such as the [Heavenlock Space Cage] and heavenly refining materials such as [Solarfire Dust]? That's an extremely important issue that needs to be addressed, the many elders and leaders of the Immortal Devil Sect has long since determined the identity of the culprit, Song Laohu, and are in the middle of doing many background checks.
It is very luckily that Song Laohu has a very powerful figure supporting him from the shadows, although the Immortal Devil Sect are not afraid of that figure, they need to know who and what sort of figure supporting Song Laohu.
Unfortunately, out of the thousands outer-sect disciples, only 28 Level 3 Qi Trainees and 2 Level 2 Qi Trainees remained alive, the majority of the dead were slain by the Rank 1 Qi Experts, while 12 Level 3 Qi Trainees of Ximen Wei's group were drowned in sheer numbers.
When the battle in the central area of the sect was finished, the outer-sect survivors of the Immortal Devil Sect were healed personally by the Rank 2 legacy disciples, ensuring that no matter how much they overexerted their Extraordinary Meridians, the effects on their cultivation base and foundation would be minimal if not negligible.
Only 2 Level 2 Qi Trainees were alive, and they were Ximen Wei and Zeng Li, in the entirety of the Immortal Devil Sect's outer-sect courtyard, there were only six Heaven-tier talents. Four were Level 3 Qi Trainees, while two were Ximen Wei and Zeng Li, both were classified as 4th Heaven talents and opened eight Extraordinary Meridians, making them the strongest amongst Level 2 Qi Trainees.
The Level 3 Qi Trainees, except for Lonewitch and the 5th Heaven talent, were looking at Ximen Wei and Zeng Li as if they were monsters, they were wondering how two mere Level 2 Qi Trainees survived the onslaught of hundreds of cultivators.
Although these hundreds of cultivators had weak foundations, and the strongest of them at most opened only three or four Extraordinary Meridians, they were still a force to be reckoned with!
Twelve Level 3 Qi Trainees of the Immortal Devil Sect died at their hands, they were people who were nurtured by a qi cultivation school! The difference between one Level 3 Qi Trainee of the Immortal Devil Sect and one Level 3 Qi Trainee of the Noble Families' armies is akin to the difference between Heaven and Earth!
And yet, twelve Level 3 Qi Trainees died! While two of the 'weak' Level 2 Qi Trainees survived, even tho they were classified to have 4th Heaven tier talent, they were still Level 2 Qi Trainees..
"Truly monstrous, how did they even survive?"
"Worthy of 4th Heaven cultivators, I had to use a secret art to survive this tribulation, and yet these two Level 2 Qi Trainees made it alive?"
Hearing the conversation going on between the survivors, Lonewitch couldn't help but turn around and look at Ximen Wei and Zeng Li, she studied them for a bit before she headed towards the bottom of the mountain to take.
The other 5th Heaven Level 3 outer-sect disciple, Cai Mengyao, looked at the two Level 2 Qi Trainees and even took the initiative to strike up a conversation with them.
"Hello, junior apprentice brothers. I'm Mengyao, surnamed Cai."
"I'm Zeng Li."
"I'm Ximen Wei."
The two replied coldly, this was the way Ximen Wei usually act, and Zeng Li didn't bother to maintain his hypocritical act of acting all 'respectful' and 'polite'.
"Junior apprentice brother Zeng Li's [Bloodhand] technique truly is formidable, in the future, you will surely become a revered fiend-path expert." Cai Mengyao said."
"While junior apprentice brother Ximen Wei's defenses are impenetrable, I've seen multiple cultivators attack you with all their might yet they were helpless in front of your [Iron Body]."
Hearing Cai Mengyao's praise, Ximen Wei became a bit wary, it must be stated that the Immortal Devil Sect is a den full of devils and demons, every single member of the sect is a sly fox who will do anything to achieve their goals and grow stronger why would a 5th Heaven Level 3 Qi Trainee praise a Level 2 Qi Trainee for no apparent reason?
Make connections? It wasn't entirely impossible but it is public knowledge that every single Heaven-tier disciple in the Immortal Devil Sect is a solitary figure who only care about their personal power, they view relying on others and having friends is the act of weaklings.
'Surely this Cai Mengyao has other hidden motives for approaching us..'
Both Ximen Wei and Zeng Li thought of the same thing, they exchanged small pleasantries then went on to their separate ways, not even bothering to entertain Cai Mengyao any longer.
Seeing how the two 'weaklings' acted, a dangerous light shone Cai Mengyao's eyes but he still put up a friendly expression and went on his merry way.
Because of Song Laohu and the rest, the Immortal Devil Sect's outer-sect courtyard had almost no buildings in it, 99% of the one-story and four-story pagodas were destroyed, the entire place became ruins, with only some buildings that used to serve as cores for the protective formation remains.
There was nowhere for Ximen Wei and the rest of his disciples to stay, so they set up camps as temporary residences, currently, Ximen Wei was seated cross-legged in one of the camps, he just finished his daily session of cultivation, and was trying to come up with ways to creaite his own spacetime-path Qi Techniques.
Unlike Magical Arts, Qi Techniques are pretty simple in nature. The ordinary ones simply 'excite' and 'manipulate' the surrounding qi particles in the environment in certain patterns to ignite a chain-reaction. For example, [Iron Body] converges all sorts of metal-type qi in one's body, the metal-type qi will enter the pores to strengthen the veins, the flesh and the skin, making the body impervious to swords and spears.
Obviously, in order to manipulate the surrounding qi, one will have to use the energy in his Extraordinary Meridians, if a cultivator was cultivating metal-path and uses [Iron Body], since metal-path qi will be used to guide and manipulate the surrounding qi, [Iron Body] will improve in strength by leaps and bounds!
Or if someone was cultivating fiend-path or blood-path, using fiend-path and blood-path qi to cast [Blood Spirit] will naturally result in superior power and speed.
Zeng Li's power was great because he was a fiend-path cultivator and he was using fiend-path related Techniques such as [Bloodhand] and [Bloodshield], if he was a pure blood-path cultivator, maybe his powers will be a little bit stronger but since fiend-path's essence and Dao rely on the combination of blood, slaughter, massacre and many other vile paths, it won't make that much of a difference.
On the other hand, Ximen Wei was a dual spacetime-path cultivator, the efficiency and power of his Qi Techniques are many times lower than that of Zeng Li, however, thanks to [Devilish Paroxysm], a supreme Qi Technique devised by Bai Gu Jing, he was able to make up for his shortcomings.
If Ximen Wei was able to get his hands on a space-path, a time-path or a spacetime-path Qi Technique, his battle prowess will increase by multiple folds, and if you factor in his eight Extraordinary Meridians, he will be able to suppress almost all Level 2 Qi Trainees very easily, in fact, he will be on par with some of the weak Level 3 Qi Trainees such as the Man-tier outer-sect disciples.
Ximen Wei's hands moved in countless incantation gestures, he copied the way [Five Niyamas of Space and Time] absorb spacetime-path qi and tried to implement it in [Strengthen]. So basically instead of activating strength-path and vitality-path qi, he wanted to activate space-path and time-path qi.
After trying for god knows how long, something finally happened!
Ximen Wei can see and sense how the surrounding spacetime-path qi particles were affected, and they moved to his body, however, when they tried to enter, something blocked them, resulting in them dispersing.
Seeing at least some results, Ximen Wei tried for couple times until he came to a conclusion.
"So not all qi act and react the same."
Indeed, strength-path qi would not react the same as the spacetime-path qi despite both acting in the same pattern.
Absorbing strength-path and vitality-path qi in one's body would result in a boost in one's mental and physical faculties while absorbing metal-path qi will make the body stronger and tougher.
On the other hand, absorbing fiend-path qi into one's body will give it an adrenaline boost but it will make one's frenzied and lose a great margin of his senses, basically the mental faculties will be affected in a negative way while the physical faculties will experience a boost.
As for absorbing spacetime-path qi? The body wouldn't even accept it!
"Hmm, then let's try the pattern of [Blood Spirit]."
Seeing the pattern of [Strengthen] bore no results, Ximen Wei decided to try and copy the pattern of [Blood Spirit], changing the fiend-path and blood-path qi particles with his space-path and time-path qi particles.
Because of the experience gained from trying to copy [Strengthen], Ximen Wei got the gist of Qi Techniques pretty quick, and therefore was able to devise a Qi Technique similar to [Blood Spirit] in a short amount of time, instead of a fiend-path Qi Technique, it became a spacetime-path Qi Technique.
"Time to try it out!" Ximen Wei's hands moved in an incantation gesture, it took some time to pull it off because spacetime-path qi particles are denser and harder to control but in the end, he still casted it successfully.
Whoosh!
Spacetime-path qi particles, guided by Ximen Wei's energy, converged in the air in a certian, complex pattern, forming the faint outline of a violet-colored skull. Seeing this, Ximen Wei wore an expression of joy!
However, before the outline of the skull could finish forming, everything crumbled apart, the skull dispersed into spacetime-path qi particles that returned to nature. Because of the backlash, Ximen Wei felt a bit dizzy, but it was a minor matter.
"Fuck, what happened?"
To figure out the reason behind the collapse of the Qi Technique, Ximen Wei experimented more, casting the technique he devised couple times before he figured out the reason.
"Space-path qi particles are forming the skeletal structure of the skull, while time-path qi particles are trying to fill it in.. There was no harmony with the two paths, resulting in a collision that disrupted the technique.."
"I'll try to only use space-path this time, but how am I supposed to follow the pattern of [Blood Spirit] that way?"
Qi Technique [Blood Spirit] is basically a conglomeration of different qi-paths, with the main being fiend-path and blood-path. Fiend-path is being used to establish the skeletal structure of the head, the two horns are testament to this, while blood-path is being used as the flesh and blood to power the [Blood Spirit], other miscellaneous paths serve to aid the technique such as wind-path for make it hover in the air and boost it's speed, poison-path to give corrosive properties to the blood in the [Blood Spirit], etc...
[Blood Spirit] could be said to be a formidable technique amongst Qi Techniques, because of it's complexity and power, Ximen Wei was able to defend against Song Jianyi's Level 2 attack despite being only a Level 1 Qi Trainee!
However, in front of [Devilish Paroxysm], the [Blood Spirit] is still lacking.
To devise his spacetime-path Qi Technique, Ximen Wei used space-path as the structure and time-path as the flesh, however that's clearly not working, he tried to use time-path as the structure and space-path as the flesh but he wasn't even able to cast it. Not even a skeletal structure appeared.
Ximen Wei knew that he was in the right track because upon casting his devised technique, a violet-colored skeletal structure appeared, it was just a skull with no distinct features, and it had no horns, but the most important part is it was formed from Ximen Wei's space-path qi particles!
Ximen Wei figured that he would be able to successfully make his own version of [Blood Spirit] if he only used space-path qi particles, but if he did that, the technique would be incomplete because there would be a lack of a complementary qi-path to form the flesh and blood of [Blood Spirit], it's extremely difficult to change the structure and pattern of a Qi Technique, removing an element is hard and adding another element is even harder.
In the end, he chose to keep the blood-path qi particles and changed the fiend-path qi particles with his space-path.
"I wanna see how this turns out!"
After casting the devised technique, the faint outline of a violet-colored skull could be seen forming slowly in the air, unlike the original [Blood Spirit], this one only had eye-sockets.
Space-path qi particles were guided by Ximen Wei's qi and energy, slowly forming the violet-colored skull, some areas crumbled apart but Ximen Wei hurriedly forced the structure together in order to make sure nothing goes wrong.
While the skull was forming, it started absorbing blood-path qi particles in order to form the flesh, however, the moment a blood-path qi particles touched the violet-colored skull, everything crumbled apart, resulting in yet another failure.
"Damn." Ximen Wei could not help but curse, he was mentally exhaused from all the experiments and research, and didn't have the energy to continue on.
"I need to find some guides and manuals about creating Qi Techniques and Magical Arts." Ximen Wei thought to himself.
The Qi World has many arts and professions, people can forge weapons and treasures known as Qi Artifacts, they were powered by the energy of Heaven and Earth and can explode forth with unprecedented power, for example Earth Dragon Long Gen's protective Qi Artifact, the jade pendant, was able to block the Green Lotus City's sword attack effortlessly.
Or the Song Family's [The Bronze Lamp] boosted Song Jianyi's Level 2 attack, making it akin to a Qi Technique unleashed by a Level 3 Qi Trainee.
There was also pill refining and elixir brewing, these pills and elixirs are extremely rare, they can be used to replinish one's energy, heal grevious injuries in the blink of an eye, boost cultivation base or even increase one's lifespan permanently.
When Ximen Wei escaped the dungeon of the Song Family, he found out that the guards were carrying potions on them, naturally he picked them up, however, these potions are only third-tier, and can only be used to replenish a little bit of energy or increase one's healing capabilities, they should not even be mentioned in the same breath as pills and elixirs.
And of course, there was the art of creation, where people can devise and create Qi Techniques, Magical Arts, secret arts, body-strengthening methods, etc... The art of creation is limitless and filled with many wonders, in order to pursue this path, one has to have a high understanding of the Dao and a vast knowledge regarding how the myriad qi particles work.
Bai Gu Jing was able to devise [Devilish Paroxysm], a supreme Qi Technique that is comparable to Magical Arts in might and power.
The various leaders and ancestors of the Immortal Devil Sect were able to create Qi Condensation Manuals from scratch such as the [Devil's Last Stand] and [Lesser Devil Awakening].
Supposedly Sect Leader Demonfire created [First Book Adittapariyaya Sutta], with the [Second Book Adittapariyaya Sutta] in the inner-sect courtyard, available for the inner-sect and legacy-sect disciples.
if people can make Qi Techniques, why Ximen Wei couldn't make his own? Although he only embarked on the path of cultivation less than two months ago, he still felt confident that he can devise his own Qi Technique. All he had to do was to study some of the principles of making Magical Arts and Qi Techniques, and look at some examples of spacetime-path related techniques.
Unfortunately, right now is the not time to go search of manuals about the art of creation, the outer-sect courtyard of the Immortal Devil Sect is being rebuilt, once it's finished, the four-story pagodas will be operational once again and Ximen Wei will be able to purchase what he needs.
Thankfully, because there is a lot of work to be done, and almost zero man-power, the Immortal Devil Sect had a lot of easy, miscellaneous tasks up and they give as much as points as the dangerous tasks that used to be posted earlier.
Almost all the survivors of the Immortal Devil Sect's Qi Trainees are doing the tasks because they're basically free points.
Ximen Wei exited his tent and went to the only four-story pagoda that is operational, because it was one of the cores of the Immortal Devil Sect's protective formation, it was undamaged when the Rank 1 Qi Experts of Western Wen's Noble Families attacked.
However, all the floors except for the first floor were closed. There were only two attendant there, one gave out and redeemed missions and tasks, there other was an envoy sent by the inner-sect courtyard to manage the outer-sect's affairs.
Next to the first attendant, there was a board where the missions and tasks were hung up, they were pretty detailed as they included the rewards, the difficulty and a thorough description of what must be done and what must not be done.
Because of the attack, most of them were about repairing certain formation points, moving materials, rebuilding pagodas and fixing other miscellaneous stuff.
Ximen Wei went to the board and picked up a mission casually, it was about assisting his senior apprentice brothers from the inner-sect in fixing a formation core that was damaged by [Solarfire Dust].
When Song Laohu used the [Solarfire Dust] to slay six Rank 1 Qi Experts of the Immortal Devil Sect, some of it was dropped on one of the protective formation cores, resulting in a degree of damage that rendered it inoperational.
Naturally the Immortal Devil Sect had to address this issue, and are planning to send 3 of their inner-sect disciples to fix this formation core.
The points rewards, although pretty good, was not that exceptional compared to other tasks and missions on the board, however, Ximen Wei picked this because he wanted to learn the art of formations.
The art of formations is an art of creation, they arrange treasures and formation poles in certain patterns and structure to harvest the energy of Heaven and Earth and perform certain functions.
Some of the four-story pagodas in the Immortal Devil Sect had magical symbols and arcane runes on them, these are meant to serve as cores and poles to guide the energy of Heaven and Earth to create a protective dome that hung over the entire of the Immortal Devil Sect.
Unfortunately, the protective formation of the Immortal Devil Sect was not activated because it was disrupted by Song Laohu's Jade Talisman [Heavenlock Space Cage].
Ximen Wei noticed long ago that formations, Qi Techniques and Magical Arts are all pretty similar. On the outside, there are noticeable differences but in essence, they are the same.
Both of them rely on the surrounding qi particles to perform certain actions, it's just that to cast Qi Techniques and Magical Arts, cultivators exhaust their energy and use the qi in their Extraordinary Meridians to guide the qi pariticles in the surroundings in a particular pattern to cast their Qi Techniques. While formations rely on cores and formation poles to absorb the endless energy of Heaven and Earth to do practically the same thing.
"Maybe this mission will aid me in devising my own Qi Technique." With that, Ximen Wei went towards the designated area of the mission.