Martial Spirit

As the sun fully dipped below the horizon, it left behind a lingering glow that gently embraced the earth whilst signalling the arrival of a lonely night.

For a good while now, Wei Wushang had been diligently working on locating his dantian.

The dantian is also known as Qi Sea or Spiritual Basin, is the vital energy center within the human body where the Qi of heaven and earth is stored and cultivated. It serves as the foundation for all cultivation practices.

In the cultivation world, there were many stories regarding the discovery of the dantian, but the most widely accepted was the tale of the Divine Mother.

In the days of old, a pregnant woman named Tian Mei was gathering herbs for her husband when she fell into a deep coma from reasons unkown.

At that time, her husband had tried every possible method, yet she remained trapped in her coma. Although Tian Mei was unaware of the outside world, her awareness of her inner self remained and had grown stronger.

During her long sleep, Tian Mei desperately sought to sense the child in her belly. But accidentally discovered a mysterious space within her abdomen, this mysterious space was rich with the energies of heaven and earth.

Years later Tian Mei finaly awoke from her slumber, only to find that her child had passed away.

In her grief, she named this space "Dantian" in memory of her unborn child.

The name quickly spread across the lands and was acknowledged as an honor for her discovery, which guided many on their path to cultivation.

If one were to view it through the lens of Qi refiners, the discovery of the dantian would be considered the single greatest breakthrough that paved the way for cultivation.

Wei Wushang's dantian had a spherical shape, while its crystalline walls defined a clear boundary between its inside and outside. Within the dantian resided a spiritual sea that emitted a soft, blue brilliance.

The bronze-tinted crystalline walls of the dantian signified that this was the dantian of a Qi Expansion stage cultivator. With cobalt blue spirit water being a precious cultivation material, cultivators mainly relied on it to execute techniques, refine pills, and advance their cultivation.

'Mm, everything appears to be in order.' Wei Wushang observed with satisfaction. He possessed low-grade aptitude, resulting in his dantian walls being composed of resilient crystal walls.

In contrast, cultivators with high-grade dantians have fragile light walls, making them five times less resilient than Low-grade dantians. Consequently, this resulted in quicker breakthroughs and a reduced need of spiritual essence.

Likewise, mid-grade dantians find their spiritual essence fortified by walls of steel, making them sturdier than light walls but not as resilient as crystal walls.

If an Qi refiner aims to elevate their cultivation base, they must expend their spiritual essence to nurture the dantian.

The cultivation ranks are classified into great realms, each of which is subdivided into minor realms. The first stage of spiritual essence cultivation is known as the Qi Expansion realm, which contains nine minor stages within it.

For Wei Wushang to progress from rank-1 Qi Expansion stage to rank-2 Qi Expansion stage, he needs to focus on nurturing the crystal barrier until the qi pathway naturally breaks apart, allowing him access to the second floor of the dantian.

If one were to carefully look above Wei Wushang's dantian, they would notice eight more increasingly larger spherical orbs enclosed by crystal walls arranged in a straight vertical line.

However, unlike the dantian at the very bottom, Wei Wushang had no access to these floating orbs.

Furthermore, they were completely empty without a single drop of spiritual essence.

Unlocking the second orb represented reaching the 2nd stage of Qi Expansion realm, and unlocking the third orb represented achieving the rank-3 of Qi Expansion stage and so on.

'I wonder what my martial spirit will be?' Wei Wushang's interest had already shifted to his undiscovered martial spirit.

In this world, every individual upon awakening their dantian would give birth to a martial spirit.

Martial spirits are carriers of the Great Dao, each possessing a magical ability. The type of martial spirit a person awakens is mostly related to their personality, life experiences, affinity, and the body potential accumulated until their dantian awakening.

This discovery was made by the cultivators of the past after conducting various experiments and research, and their countless hours of hard work have yielded the tasty fruit of knowledge enjoyed by Qi refiners today.

Martial spirits can be of various paths, such as the sword path, fire path, space path, blood path and more. But every aspiring cultivator must recognize that no martial spirit is universally unbeatable or entirely worthless.

Its effectiveness often hinges on the individual wielding it, including their skill, strategies they employ, adaptability, as well as the specific circumstances they face. The true power of a martial spirit lies in how well it is used and adapted to different situations.

Wei Wushang focused his attention within the spiritual sea, where he observed a pearly white cocoon resting at the bottom. Without wasting a breath, Wei Wushang commanded the spirit water to rush into the cocoon.

Swish, swoosh...

As the cobalt blue spiritual essence collided with the cocoon, it began to display signs of destruction with spider cracks slowly forming on its surface.

After expending nearly 60% of the cobalt blue spirit water in his dantian, Wei Wushang successfully shattered the outer layer of the cocoon, finally revealing the martial spirit that lay inside.

Initially, the martial spirit appeared blurry. However, under Wei Wushang's intense focus the small martial spirit gradually sharpened into clarity.

The sight of his martial spirit made Wei Wushang's eyebrows shoot up.

it was actually a coffin!

This ancient looking coffin exuded a inky blackness, the kind that seeps into the bones and lingers like a cold, uneasy dread.

The coffin was missing a lid, hinting there was more to be uncovered. And when Wei Wushang curiously peered inside, he discovered at its very center a small tree with scarlet leaves stood in unsettling silence.

The tree's surface bore growth rings, as if it had suffered countless eons of hardship. Strangely enough, when Wei Wushang paid close attention to the network of scarlet leaves, he realized they were not leaves at all but appeared to be brain matter drenched in fresh crimson blood.

Myriad thoughts martial spirit!

Wei Wushang's first thought after seeing the structure of his martial spirit was....

Where's my fucking saber!?

This is bullshit, didn't the records state that one's martial spirit is determined by their personality? Then what is this nonsense!

Sabers are so cool and domineering. With a saber in my hand, who dares to stand in my way? Gods and devils shall all bow before me!

But with this coffin, what am I supposed to do—lie down in it?

Wei Wushang grumbled to himself, feeling somewhat disappointed.

However, he soon calmed his emotions and refocused.

'Myriad thoughts...' Wei Wushang carefully repeated the name of his martial spirit and immediately a wealth of information flooded into his consciousness.

As Wei Wushang slowly processed the information, his eyes suddenly sparkled with newfound understanding for his martial spirit.

The ability of his martial spirit was to generate more thoughts!

'Tsk, what kind of worthless martial spirit is this? What am I even supposed to do with it? I'm poor as dirt, with nothing but my body and soul to my name. Instead of granting me a cool ability, this martial spirit gives me nothing but thoughts. Thoughts! Damn it, the heavens have cheated me again!' Wei Wushang fumed internally, his frustration bubbling over like a pot on the verge of boiling over.

But after reluctantly going through the remaining details and linking them to the basic cultivation concepts he had learned from the jade harmony slip, Wei Wushang had a sudden insight.

Though his Myriad thoughts martial spirit might not sound all that awesome, but it was an extremely practical martial spirit.

Let's start with the obvious, a person's ability to think quickly depends on how rapidly they can produce thoughts.

With Wei Wushang's Myriad thoughts martial spirit, he would be able to generate more thoughts and consequently think much faster than others.

But that's not all.

Thanks to this Myriad thoughts martial spirit, the boy should find multitasking a breeze, mastering various martial techniques comparatively easier, and overall his learning speed in general would significantly accelerate to a whole new level.

For a sharp-minded individual like Wei Wushang, this was an extraordinary advantage to have.

'Um, it's not domineering as a saber. But considering all the information I've learned from the jade slip, this Myriad Thoughts martial spirit seems like it will be pretty useful.' Wei Wushang sighed, still pondering what might have been the reason for awakening such an odd martial spirit.

After a short while, Wei Wushang pushed the matter to the back of his mind.

He was much more interested in trying out his martial spirit.

'Here it goes,' Wei Wushang watched with shining eyes as he mobilized a slender stream of cobalt blue spiritual essence into the Myriad thoughts martial spirit.

Once the Myriad thoughts martial spirit absorbed the thread of spiritual essence, its crimson "leaves" began emitting an intense bloody light that bathed every inch of the dantian in its scarlet brilliance.

Wei Wushang immediately noticed a change in his sea of consciousness.

The surface of the sea of consciousness resembled a tranquil, undisturbed sea of ancient darkness. Its dark abyssal depths were only illuminated by the soft silvery glow radiated by Wei Wushang's soul, which resided at the heart of this realm.

Upon close observation, one would notice that approximately every passing second, 5-10 translucent bubbles would ascend from this sea of darkness like ethereal lanterns, intermingling as they collided and silently exploded.

Giving birth to an array of diverse thoughts that were quickly consumed by the surrounding darkness in the atmosphere.

'So, this is how my thoughts are created. How fascinating!' Wei Wushang was filled with awe. He had never imagined he would be able to see his own soul, let alone understand the mechanics behind the production of his thoughts.

'It's happening.' Wei Wushang's curiosity peaked as he observed hundreds of crimson spots materializing in the dark sea. Then, everyone of those spots gave rise to crimson bubbles that collided and generated even more thoughts.

Under the influence of his Myriad thoughts martial spirit, tens, no, hundreds of thoughts continued to gather in his mind.

These thoughts surged vigorously, creating unforseen waves of commotion!

The memories buried deep within Wei Wushang's mind started sprouting one after another, the dust of time was swept away as these memories took on a vivid and lifelike presence.

In this short time, Wei Wushang even formulated a few reasons as to why he had awakened this Myriad thoughts martial spirit.

One strong possibility for the coffin might be that he had once attempted suicide. And the coffin's unsettling presence might be a manifestation of that period of despair.

As for the tree, it was a bit of a long shot, but in his childhood, he had once climbed a tall tree to examine a bird's nest in it. And in his quest for knowledge, he nearly fell to his death. And in the chaos of his struggle to save himself, Wei Wushang accidentally knocked the bird nest from its perch, causing the eggs to shatter.

At that time, Wei Wushang had felt so bad that he didn't eat the entire day and locked himself in his house, crying the entire time.

But of course, these were just possibilities. The true meaning of the coffin, the tree, or even the brain matter remained a mystery.

As more and more thoughts came into existence, an indescribable sensation, wondrous beyond compare, welled up within him. In that moment, Wei Wushang struggled to find the right words to convey the brilliance of this newfound clarity.

But at that very instant, he was jolted by his divine sense which detected a major disturbance outside.

Wei Wushang halted his practice and snapped his eyes open, what he saw made his heart jump!