Though the nature of the Dragon Embrace technique was gentle, the method of its cultivation was incredibly complex, and moreover, the required environment was extremely strict. Learning that one must first master the Dragon Embrace before proceeding to the fifth stance of the Nine Heavens Star River Sword Art greatly surprised Jian Li.
However, to ensure my smooth progress in cultivation, Jian Li volunteered to serve as both instructor and guardian! In his own words, his role as my master finally felt truly deserved, being able to do something substantial for me!
It must be said, having Jian Li’s guidance was more than just a little helpful! At the very least, he possessed experience in this specific area!
He knew the exact pathways and methods for the Dragon Embrace to circulate within the body like the back of his hand. Having him nearby minimized the possibility of Qi deviation or even going berserk to the greatest extent!
Although the sword manual also recorded the method for cultivating the Dragon Embrace, it was a somewhat cumbersome version, crudely drafted by the first generation Dragon Shadow, Su Cao, over a thousand years ago. As a secret technique of the Dragon Shadow Manor, throughout the centuries, successive Manor Lords had continuously refined the Dragon Shadow Heart Sutra.
By the time it reached Jian Li, the cultivation method for the Dragon Embrace within the Dragon Shadow Heart Sutra had become exceptionally perfected! This allowed me to successfully cultivate the Dragon Embrace in the shortest possible time, using the quickest available method!
In order to master the Dragon Embrace thoroughly, Jian Li selected a secluded and quiet environment where I would not be disturbed! To facilitate this, Sester specially vacated the Warm Sun Hall within the Ice Palace to serve as my training ground!
Within the Warm Sun Hall, there was no one else present besides Jian Li and myself! To my slight surprise, the optimal time to cultivate the Dragon Embrace was at night, specifically when the moon ascended!
This was a subtle trick discovered by the past Dragon Shadow Manor Lords after years of researching the Dragon Shadow Heart Sutra! Jian Li termed this miraculous cultivation method ‘Moon-Greeting Marrow Cleansing’!
And at this moment, I was already in the peculiar posture required for the Moon-Greeting state! Cross-legged upon the open-air moon platform of the main hall, with the moon high overhead in the luminous night sky, I held my palms overlapped before my chest, gazing upward toward the celestial sphere!
Simultaneously, I adjusted the Qi within my body and began circulating my energy along the nine strange pathways outlined for the technique! Beside me, Jian Li explained with a solemn expression: “The secret to cultivating the Dragon Embrace is to use gentle Dou Qi, circulating it slowly along those nine pathways, drop by drop.
You must never rush this process!” Jian Li continued, “Even the gentlest Dou Qi can still cause some degree of damage to the body’s meridians. Therefore, truly adept martial artists, while focusing on increasing the intensity of their Dou Qi, place greater importance on strengthening their meridian toughness, and ensuring that when the Dou Qi circulates, the depletion it causes to the meridians is minimized.
The past Manor Lords all grasped the same secret for this: borrowing the moonlight to gently warm the Dou Qi within the body, softening the Dou Qi. This not only prevents damage to the body’s meridians but also transforms into an exceptionally mild protective film to safeguard the meridians, allowing them to withstand the circulation of stronger Dou Qi!” As I listened, I followed Jian Li’s cues and began circulating my Dou Qi!
“What you must do now is accumulate a small amount of Dou Qi in your abdomen (the lower Dantian), use the moon’s catalysis to gently disperse it, allowing every particle of the Dou Qi’s energy to fully dissolve into every part of your body! This is the marrow cleansing!” The profound mystery of Moon-Greeting Marrow Cleansing lies in utilizing the moon’s bath to soften the entire body’s Dou Qi, volatilizing it into every single cell, thereby achieving the goal of strengthening and cleansing the marrow!
It was incredibly simple, yet effective! For the time that followed, during the day, I utilized the circulation method of the Nine Dragons Guardian Body to rapidly recover large amounts of Dou Qi.
At night, under the moonlight, I practiced the Moon-Greeting Marrow Cleansing, transforming and dissolving the energy accumulated during the day, scattering it into every cell of my body! Repeating this cycle, after ten days, I clearly felt that my entire being had transformed!
Whether it was the flow of Dou Qi, or the flexibility and sheer strength of my body, all had greatly increased. It was practically another complete rebirth.
“I can’t believe you completed the Moon-Greeting Marrow Cleansing in just ten days!” Jian Li was greatly astonished. “You must remember, it took me nearly a full year to complete the Moon-Greeting Marrow Cleansing back then.” “Heh.” I certainly didn't understand the meaning of modesty: “Your disciple is a genius, after all.” “What genius,” Jian Li retorted irritably.
“You’re simply an incomprehensible monster.” “Heh heh!” I could only manage an awkward laugh. Strictly speaking, my rate of progress was indeed astonishing!
But it wasn't entirely without reason. It must be recalled that I had already mastered the sixth layer of the Nine Dragons Guardian Body; consequently, my internal meridians had already been significantly strengthened once.
Coupled with the vigorous Dou Qi recovery provided by the Nine Dragons Guardian Body serving as the energy source for the Moon-Greeting Marrow Cleansing, my starting point for cultivation was far higher than Jian Li’s originally was! This is what is meant by a high starting point, leading to high efficiency!
Following the Marrow Cleansing came the expansion and strengthening of the meridians. The method was equally simple: only by focusing the strengthening target onto the meridians while maintaining the state of marrow strengthening!
Under Jian Li’s guidance, I skillfully controlled the Dou Qi within my body, catalyzed by the moonlight, to disperse and dissolve it within the meridians. Over time, I felt as though my meridians had been significantly widened!
Another ten days finally passed! If my meridian strength before was comparable to a common garden hose, now it was akin to a major oil pipeline; the flow rate and the sheer strength were incomparable!
The most immediate effect of increased meridian capacity and strength was the rapid enhancement of my ability to withstand Dou Qi intensity! In Jian Li’s words, only now was I truly prepared to adapt to cultivating the Dragon Embrace Heart Sutra using my own powerful Dou Qi energy!
That is to say, after spending a full twenty days reinforcing the strength of my body’s cells and meridians, I had finally entered the critical phase of cultivating the Dragon Embrace! With the thorough preparation from before, this stage was unexpectedly easy!
Perhaps for ordinary people, simultaneously circulating nine streams of Dou Qi of different intensities within the body to form nine distinct pathways would be an extremely complex and difficult task, but for me, it was child's play. Moreover, I could perceive that the cultivation momentum of the Dragon Embrace shared a striking similarity with the circulation pathways of the Nine Dragons Guardian Body, with the only difference being that the nature of the Dou Qi in the Dragon Embrace was even softer than that of the Nine Dragons Guardian Body!
It took less than five days for me to complete the circulation route of the Dragon Embrace Heart Sutra, forming nine additional Dou Qi circulation lines within my body, almost perfectly parallel to those of the Nine Dragons Guardian Body! This meant that at this moment, eighteen distinct streams of Dou Qi, differing in energy and trajectory, were circulating simultaneously within me in eighteen marvelous circuits!
Coincidentally, these eighteen trajectories of Dou Qi circulation formed two perfectly parallel sets—one rigid and one soft—intertwining and endlessly looping! The sensation was indescribably marvelous!
Like an engine flooded with gasoline, running at full tilt! “Your Dragon Embrace has been successfully cultivated!” Jian Li exclaimed excitedly.
“Let me see just how powerful your Dragon Embrace strength is.” “En!” I was eager to know how much my power had increased now! Under the control of my consciousness, the marvelous Dou Qi within my body slowly condensed into my right palm, gradually manifesting over the center of my hand!
For safety, I only mobilized a small fraction of my total Dou Qi power! And at that instant, a sphere of light, about the size of a ping-pong ball, rose from my palm.
I could not describe what manner of energy body this was; it shone brilliantly, radiant as the sun itself, yet it was enveloped by streams of dazzling, kaleidoscopic light. The dim moonlight was illuminated over a vast area by this strange radiance, as if it were daytime!
What astonished me even more was the feeling of astonishingly terrifying power contained within it! This intensity was something I had never encountered or witnessed before!
It felt as though what I held in my hand was not merely a ball of light, but a nuclear bomb on the verge of detonation! “Such potent Dragon Embrace energy!” Jian Li stared dumbfounded at the ball of light in my hand.
I raised my hand and shot the light sphere out! It slammed towards a small hill located a hundred meters away on the opposite side of the moon platform!
Boom! A massive roar echoed!
The peak of the small mountain was instantly pulverized, as if sliced off by a giant’s sword! “......” The scene before me left me completely stunned!
“Good heavens, that’s practically casting a forbidden spell,” Jian Li appeared as if he had seen a ghost, staring blankly at the truncated mountain peak! Even with only a small fraction of my power, the effect was this terrifying.
If I were to exert my full strength, what level of destruction might I cause? Perhaps the entire Ice Palace could be blown to dust!
“I never expected the combination of Nine Dragons Guardian Body and Dragon Embrace to yield such terrifying destructive power,” Jian Li mused. “Good lad, even that old man in the Ice Pool might not be your match now.” “That remains to be seen,” I said gravely.
“Anything can happen within the Sacred Domain of Heaven. If they managed to secure the Hero by now, things will be troublesome.” “Legend has it that the Reclining Dragon Hero is invincible under heaven,” Jian Li mused.
“I truly wish to see who is stronger—you or the Reclining Dragon Hero.” “Don’t joke,” I retorted sharply. “I haven’t lived long enough to see that day.” It was no joke; even though I had never seen what a Hero in the Mafa World was truly like, in Legend of Mir, if opponents of the same class fought with equivalent levels and equipment, a human could never defeat a Hero!
This alone demonstrated the terrifying strength of the Heroes! However, I was equally curious about what kind of life form the Hero truly was!
Perhaps I would get to meet this legendary, mysterious existence sooner than I thought! Thinking of this, impatience welled up within me.
Since the Dragon Embrace was successfully cultivated, the next step was naturally to master the fifth stance of the Nine Heavens Star River Sword Art! One Star Chill!
Floating Star Manifests as Only One Point! The body like a startled swan, crossing a thousand li in an instant; where the will moves, the thought reaches; supremely fast and formless!
Supremely illusory and untraceable! Supremely solid and unbreakable!
Piercing metal and shattering stone! These few brief phrases depicted the terrifying might of the One Star Chill!
They also made me understand the profound essence of this technique! The key lay in the word ‘point’!
This so-called ‘point’ was not a point in the ordinary sense! Rather, it was an exposition on the application of force—condensing all power into a single point, and then unleashing astonishing destructive force!
This was what the subsequent description of supreme solidity and piercing metal referred to! Of course, this was only one aspect!
Possessing immense destructive power is meaningless if one cannot land a blow on the target! Therefore, how to direct this force accurately onto the target was equally critical!
When masters clash, life and death are decided in an instant! What is valued is swift and agile reaction.
In such a state, defeating an opponent using such terrifying power presents a significant challenge! By conventional logic, no matter how skilled a master, they will always emphasize different aspects of their cultivation!
Those who possess too much strength will naturally be slower, while prioritizing speed will inevitably sacrifice the advantage in power! Even for a master who has developed comprehensively, if the focus of their attack differs, it will inevitably lead to a conflict between speed and power.
Power and speed are like fish and bear’s paws—one cannot have both! This is also why martial artists are categorized into speed-type and power-type!
If neither aspect is outstanding, victory must be achieved through skill! This category is termed the skill-based type!
Before learning the Nine Dragons Guardian Body, I excelled in combining speed and skill to achieve victory over opponents! Naturally, these rules only applied to ordinary people!
They were not an absolute barrier that could never be broken! All-rounders who managed to balance both speed and power were not non-existent, but they were exceedingly rare!
Those who could reconcile the contradictions between the two had already stepped into the ranks of true experts! And the One Star Chill was precisely the technique that perfectly merged these three conflicting aspects to generate astonishing destructive power!
Speed: Supremely swift and formless! Power: Supremely solid and unbreakable!
Skill: Supremely illusory and untraceable! This is also the fundamental reason why cultivating the One Star Chill requires simultaneous mastery of the Nine Dragons Guardian Body, the Dragon Shadow Sword Art, and the Dragon Embrace Heart Sutra!
Undoubtedly! The Nine Dragons Guardian Body provided the most solid source of power!
The speed of the Dragon Shadow Sword Art was naturally unparalleled under heaven! The control over Dou Qi afforded by the Dragon Embrace Heart Sutra reached an unnervingly abnormal level!
This trinity was the true reason why the first generation Dragon Shadow was once invincible—he had found the balance point between these three contradictions. For him, these so-called contradictions no longer existed.
The integration and application of strength, speed, and skill had reached a state of complete mastery and perfection, achieved at will! This gave birth to the Nine Heavens Star River, this world-shaking, peerless sword art!
The exposition on power and speed had been exceedingly detailed, even describing the methods to achieve these ends, but applying this astonishing destructive force entirely onto an opponent was another hurdle entirely! And this fell under the domain of skill application!
When resolving this difficulty, the first generation Dragon Shadow cleverly incorporated the most mysterious and profound mathematical principles of the I Ching from Chinese civilization! Sword Manual: Those who learn this move must comprehend the essentials of the I Ching's mathematical principles to grasp its profound meaning!
This is because this move is based on the Heaven-Fire Great Possession (Huo Tian Da You) hexagram from the sixty-four trigrams! Combined with the eighty-one steps of the Measuring Heaven Ruler and the essence of the Nine Palaces Flying Stars, it achieves the mysterious state of Chill Star Illusion, the body transforming into a fleeting swan, becoming utterly illusory and untraceable!
Fire over Heaven means the upper trigram is Li (Fire)! The lower is Qian (Heaven)!
Fire in the sky—this is the Fire of Heaven! As if scorching flames burn in the void!
The Great Possession of a clear sky possesses incomparable might! The Swiftness of Celestial Fire!
The Fierceness of Celestial Fire! The Illusion of Celestial Fire!
The Flame of Celestial Fire! Who can contend against it!
When this move is unleashed, it truly carries the power to overturn heaven and destroy earth, make stars fall and the moon vanish, chilling the very cosmos! Thus I name it One Star Chill!
The description here involved a great deal of knowledge concerning the mathematical principles of the I Ching! Perhaps even another person who understood Chinese might not grasp the true meaning of his words!
Fortunately, in my previous life, due to my interest in ancient Chinese esoteric culture, I had even attended a year-long I Ching training course in Anyang, giving me some understanding of the principles and divination arts within the I Ching! Carefully pondering it, I understood the meaning!
Ancient Chinese Nine Palaces emphasize the miraculous transformation of orientation, forming the most wondrous spatial orientation theoretical system! The very famous Eight Trigrams Formation of ancient China was essentially the Nine Palaces Formation!
The eight trigrams representing eight directions, plus the center, made up the Nine Palaces! Legend says Zhuge Liang once used this formation to trap the massive army of Eastern Wu led by Lu Xun!
“His merit covered three kingdoms, his fame secured in the Eight Trigrams Array; the river stones stand still, but the regret of failing to swallow Wu remains!” This refers to how formidable this magical formation truly was! Whether this story is fact or fiction is now lost to time!
However, in Japan, based on this principle, people have constructed the Nine Palaces Mansion and the Nine Palaces Maze for tourists to view and explore! Those inside cannot even find the exit!
It must be admitted that this is indeed a very mysterious branch of spatial studies! It was precisely by relying on this marvelous spatial theory that the first generation Dragon Shadow achieved the perfect state of being utterly illusory and untraceable in his movement technique!
As my understanding of the sword art’s essence deepened, I felt even more acutely the unattainable genius and inspiration of the first generation Dragon Shadow. It was hard to imagine that this sword art was his own creation!
What astonishing talent, comprehension, and unyielding willpower were required for this! Perhaps this was the fundamental reason why the first generation Dragon Shadow became an unrivaled martial sage throughout the centuries!
Of course, why the first generation Dragon Shadow possessed such astonishing imagination and creativity has been one of the most fascinating topics among continental martial artists for hundreds of years! However, no one could ever have imagined the incredibly profound secret hidden behind the talent that amazed the world!
Perhaps only I, a transmigrator from another world, could truly imagine it! Yes, the Nine Heavens Star River was the perfect crystallization born from two worlds, two civilizations, plus nearly two centuries of life spent continuously perfecting and summarizing by the first generation Dragon Shadow!
This was also why the first generation Dragon Shadow would rather let this peerless sword art remain buried than pass it on to later generations! The most fundamental reason might be that he could not articulate the essence of his sword art in the language and script of the Mafa World.
Yet, the power of this sword art was so astonishing, and the conditions for its cultivation so demanding, that if one failed to fully grasp its meaning and cultivated it haphazardly! Not only would the divine skill fail to materialize, but one’s very life could be forfeit!
It must be said that this was a form of profound, helpless sorrow. Even I, coming from the modern world and believing my comprehension skills to be outstanding, would hardly be confident enough to translate his original text into something understandable to the people of the Mafa World!
The I Ching of ancient China has always been called the foremost of the classics! Even in China, very few dared claim mastery over this mystical culture, let alone on this Mafa Continent!
For a person from the Mafa Continent to learn this sword art, the difficulty would be no less than a foreigner learning ancient Chinese esoteric culture! One can imagine the loneliness and helplessness the first generation Dragon Shadow must have felt when facing his own children!