Chapter 226 - Lost Methods and Old Enemies
Su Bai eventually found another place suitable for cultivation. Or rather, the artifact spirits found it for him.
The group led him toward the remains of what had once been an underground military hall.
He walked toward the center of the ruined chamber.
The spear followed.
"Are you cultivating again?"
"For a while."
The spear fell silent for a moment before moving toward one of the damaged entrances.
The saber occupied another without being asked.
The bow rose toward the shattered ceiling, while the heavy war hammer settled near the widest passage.
Su Bai paused.
"What are you doing?"
The saber answered first.
"Guarding."
Su Bai looked around.
The artifact spirits had spent most of the previous week insulting one another, insulting him, or arguing about which of their former masters had contributed more during battles that nobody alive remembered.
Now they had positioned themselves around the chamber without being asked.
Even the spear seemed slightly embarrassed by the silence.
"Hmph. Do not misunderstand. If something kills you while you are meditating, this one will have wasted several weeks following you."
The saber immediately laughed.
"Several weeks? You sound attached."
"Shut up."
Su Bai smiled slightly.
They had certainly become more considerate after witnessing two ancient remnant souls disappear inside him.
Perhaps fear had educational value after all.
Still, Su Bai had no intention of trusting his safety entirely to several argumentative weapons.
He raised one hand.
Nether Threads spread silently through the ruined chamber.
Thin strands slipped beneath broken stones, climbed fractured walls, crossed narrow passages, and extended into the surrounding ruins.
Soon, an invisible warning network surrounded the entire area.
The artifact spirits sensed the threads.
The hammer gave a low vibration.
"You do not trust us?"
"I trust you enough to close my eyes."
The hammer seemed satisfied.
Su Bai continued.
"I trust the threads enough to keep them closed."
The spear laughed.
With the perimeter established, Su Bai finally sat down.
He wanted to sort through everything the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele had given him.
Su Bai closed his eyes.
His consciousness sank inward.
Just like that, time passed.
...
When Su Bai opened his eyes again, his first reaction was a quiet sigh.
The two remnant souls were disappointing.
Both had once reached the Void-Shattering Realm, and the cultivation methods recorded from them were valuable enough that most sects would probably fight over either one.
Their experiences were even more useful.
But compared with the first ancient commander whose soul the Blank Stele had absorbed, these two were considerably less admirable.
The old commander had attempted to possess him.
Su Bai had not forgotten that.
Yet even at the end, that man’s obsession had still revolved around the ancient war, the creatures imprisoned inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary, and his desire to continue fighting them.
His methods had become ruthless, but something recognizable remained beneath the obsession.
These two were different.
They wanted to live.
That desire had survived everything else.
Their bodies were gone. Their era had disappeared. Their companions had become dust, and thousands of years had passed beyond their awareness.
Yet both remnants had clung to the same thought.
Find a body, take it, and live again.
The identities of the victims barely mattered.
Su Bai could understand fear of death.
He understood wanting another chance even more.
That did not make possession acceptable.
Fortunately, their personalities were gone now.
What remained inside Su Bai were the vivid memories and comprehension left behind after the Dao-Devouring Blank Stele completed its inscriptions.
And buried within one of those memories was something far more interesting than the remnant itself.
Su Bai closed his eyes again.
The memory unfolded clearly.
He saw an ancient cultivation chamber.
Several cultivators sat around a stone platform while an elder explained a method intended for those whose cultivation placed extreme pressure upon their Dantians.
It was not the remnant’s main cultivation method.
It was an auxiliary art.
The Ancient Dantian Reinforcement Method.
Su Bai’s attention immediately sharpened.
The technique did not enlarge the Dantian. It did not increase the cultivator’s Qi directly. Instead, it gradually tempered the Dantian itself against internal pressure.
Repeated cycles of controlled compression were applied along its inner boundary, each one stopping before actual damage occurred. The cultivator would allow the Dantian to recover before beginning again.
Over time, its ability to endure pressure increased.
For ancient cultivators practicing particularly demanding methods, the technique had served as a foundation measure rather than a source of strength.
Su Bai stared at the memory.
Something from much earlier suddenly returned to him.
The sign in reward from the Grand Foundation Peak (Main Peak): the Jade Slip of the Shattered Sea.
More specifically, the technique inside it.
The Nine-Fold Collapsing Sea Art.
Su Bai’s eyes slowly brightened.
That technique had been created by a Radiant Sky Sect elder decades ago.
Its principle was extraordinary.
A cultivator would violently compress their Qi Sea into an extremely dense state, dramatically increasing the amount of Qi they could effectively store.
At its peak, the increase could reach nearly a hundredfold.
During the Great Fissure, disciples who practiced it had possessed endurance far beyond what their cultivation should normally allow.
Yet that strength came with a hidden price.
The Dantian could not endure the pressure indefinitely. Tiny fractures appeared each time the compressed Qi Sea placed excessive strain upon its walls.
Those injuries accumulated. Eventually, the foundation failed.
That was why the technique had been sealed.
Su Bai himself had never needed it.
His Infinite Dantian possessed no ordinary boundary to constrain its capacity in the first place. Trying to increase the amount of Qi it could hold was meaningless when there was no meaningful upper limit to begin with.
For everyone else, however...
Su Bai sat straighter.
He replayed the ancient reinforcement method, then he recalled the Nine-Fold Collapsing Sea Art.
One strengthened the Dantian against sustained internal pressure. The other created tremendous internal pressure in exchange for an enormous increase in usable Qi reserves.
They had been created thousands of years apart. Their creators had never known the other technique existed.
Yet their principles fit together almost suspiciously well.
Su Bai’s thoughts accelerated.
If a disciple first cultivated the Ancient Dantian Reinforcement Method, the Dantian might become capable of enduring the Nine-Fold Collapsing Sea Art for far longer.
Perhaps the accumulated micro-fractures could be prevented entirely.
Perhaps not.
There were still too many unknowns.
The reinforcement method had never been designed for such extreme compression, while the Nine-Fold Collapsing Sea Art pushed the Dantian far beyond normal cultivation pressure.
Simply practicing both together might reduce the flaw without eliminating it.
But Su Bai had something their creators did not.
His gaze shifted inward toward the Dao-Shattering Jade.
If he could thoroughly understand both techniques, compare their structures, and remove the points where their circulation conflicted...
Perhaps they did not need to remain two techniques at all.
Su Bai’s smile slowly appeared.
A single method. Compression and reinforcement functioning together from the beginning.
The original hundredfold capacity might need to be reduced. Or perhaps the process would simply take longer.
Su Bai did not care.
Even a fraction of the original effect without destroying the cultivator’s future would be extraordinary.
He imagined Radiant Sky Sect disciples possessing several times the Qi reserves of cultivators at the same realm.
His smile softened.
He found himself missing the sect.
He had already spent more than two months inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
For the first time, the distance between this ruined battlefield and the sect felt particularly large.
Su Bai exhaled slowly.
"I really need to get out of here."
The spear’s voice came from the entrance.
"Did you finally realize that?"
Su Bai opened one eye.
"Senior Spear, weren’t you guarding?"
"I can guard and insult you simultaneously."
"Impressive."
"Naturally."
Su Bai closed his eye again.
Before he could improve the Nine-Fold Collapsing Sea Art, he needed to make the knowledge he had inherited truly his own.
Memories were useful. Comprehension inherited from someone else was even more useful. Neither replaced personal understanding.
The old remnant had once known how to perform the Ancient Dantian Reinforcement Method.
Su Bai possessed the memory of that understanding.
Now he needed to examine why each circulation route existed, what each stage accomplished, and where its limits actually lay.
Only after that could he safely begin modifying anything.
So he continued meditating.
At the same time, the Binary Void-Sun Supreme Method resumed its circulation.
While his Golden Core steadily refined what entered, Su Bai repeatedly relived the two inherited memories.
Little by little, the knowledge ceased feeling like something merely placed inside his mind.
Su Bai began understanding it from his own perspective.
...
The ancient weapons guarded the chamber.
The Nether Thread Network remained spread across the surrounding ruins.
Five days passed this way.
Until one strand moved.
Su Bai’s eyes opened instantly.
Almost at the same moment, the ancient bow spoke from above.
"Something is approaching."
The playful atmosphere vanished.
The spear lifted from the ground. The saber’s edge released a faint metallic hum. The war hammer rose without another word.
Su Bai did not move immediately.
His consciousness followed the disturbed Nether Thread outward.
One thread connected to another.
Through the faint feedback carried by the network, his spiritual sense extended into the surrounding ruins.
Several presences entered its range.
Su Bai’s expression changed.
He recognized them.
Void-Shattering Returnees.
The same beings that had returned to Layer One after the catastrophe around the spatial scar.
The last time Su Bai had seen them, they were in terrible condition.
Even after returning to the altar, their bodies had remained visibly damaged.
But now, none of those injuries remained.
Su Bai’s spiritual sense swept across them again.
The missing limb had returned. The wounds were gone. Their bodies were complete.
They looked as though the battle had never happened.
Su Bai’s gaze hardened.
For several days, one question had continued bothering him.
Why had the Ashen-Blood Miasma begun replenishing so slowly?
He had drained several regions himself, but the change had seemed broader than his cultivation alone should explain.
He had suspected the sealed flesh masses.
Now another piece fell into place.
The Void-Shattering Returnees had not simply recovered naturally. Something had supplied what they needed to rebuild themselves.
And inside this sealed battlefield, Su Bai knew exactly what possessed that kind of regenerative power.
The sealed sources.
His eyes narrowed.
If their power had been diverted into restoring the damaged Returnees, the slower recovery of the surrounding Ashen-Blood Miasma suddenly made far more sense.
Su Bai rose silently.
Around him, the artifact spirits were already preparing themselves.