炒股配资公司

Instead, her focus was on finally taking the next step in body cultivation.

With the help of her blessing, ShouLi had been able to reach the peak of Rank 1 body cultivation without issue, but she had been blocked from going any further, and she hadn’t been able to help anyone else make similar breakthroughs. There was nearly a decade before the next competition for stewardship of the North Empire, and she wanted to use this time to figure out how to take that next step.

Within our clan, it was generally assumed that the reason no one had been successful in copying ShouLi’s body cultivation technique was that we needed to find some way to create filters for wu first. Without such filters, using ShouLi’s technique meant absorbing a mixture of random toxic energies from the environment and polluting one’s body.

Finding a solution to this problem was what had consumed all of Liang’s and NiangBa\'s attention for the past several years. However, without even a starting point to work from, they hadn’t made any progress.

I gave them as much support as I could, but eventually, it became clear that everyone was just pounding their heads against a brick wall. Seeing this, I finally decided to step forward and offer them a solution. I had hoped we wouldn’t have to use it, but at least for the moment, it was starting to look like the only way forward.

The problem was that we needed a way to cultivate pure wu of a single element without pulling in any impurities. With normal cultivation, this was done with a filter, but there was another way to achieve a similar effect, and I had used it when working on a formation for growing herbs.

First, I created a kind of reverse Qi Gathering Formation that completely from a small bubble of space. Then, I used the flame of a Yellow-Rank spirit fire to fill this space with pure wu. This created a perfect environment for cultivation, removing the need to filter energy.

After creating one of these spaces for each of the different elements, I handed them off to my clan to experiment with, but I remained concerned about possible side effects. What would happen to someone who successfully advanced in such a space and then left it? Would they begin autonomously absorbing energy from the environment, polluting their bodies? Did a body cultivator slowly use up their wu? Would they need to constantly return to these formations just to maintain their strength?

I didn’t know the answers to these questions, and that was why I had held back from providing these formations earlier. I was worried that using them would only cause more problems than they solved, so I was hoping that Liang and the others would be successful in creating proper filters. However, after several years without any progress, I felt that trying out these formations might be worth the risk. Still, I cautioned everyone to be careful and take things one step at a time.

Unsurprisingly, my admonitions for caution did little to dissuade anyone. They all wanted to gain more power, and they were all worried about falling behind. Thankfully, though, everyone was at least smart enough not to rush into anything.

Instead of giving everyone free access to the formations and seeing what would happen, ShouLi chose around a dozen members of the clan who had all shown interest in body cultivation and gathered them all in a larger chamber where my formations had already been set up. While I had not explicitly been invited to this meeting, I still showed up and took a position in the corner of the room to watch over everything.

Once everyone was present, ShouLi explained the situation.

“Lord… Su Fang believes that these formations of pure wu will allow us to cultivate our bodies, but there is a high risk that something could go terribly wrong. So, we will start with only a single volunteer to see what happens. Everyone interested in participating can draw lots for this opportunity, but no one is obligated to do so.”

Not a single person was willing to step back, and they all vied for the opportunity to become the second body cultivator in our clan.@@novelbin@@

The lucky winner was one of NiangBa’s lieutenants, Gan. He was a Peak Grandmaster earth cultivator who had recently advanced to Yellow City and was preparing for his breakthrough to Martial Lord. When he had heard news of these formations, he rushed over to take a look, and he had eagerly put his name forward for consideration.

After years of study, while they had never been able to cultivate it successfully, everyone was already intimately familiar with the cultivation technique ShouLi had created, so after stepping into the formation filled with earth wu, Gan immediately sat down and started circulating it.

At first, Gan’s actions were rather tentative. In the past, when they tried using this technique, it didn’t take long for various side effects to appear, so he was ready to cut off the technique and rush out of the formation if anything like that happened again.

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When an entire minute passed without any apparent issues popping up, Gan set his jaw and began cycling the technique with more ferocity.

I kept a close eye on the entire process, ready to end the test at a moment’s notice, but as more time passed, I began to relax.

At the one-hour mark, NiangBa stepped forward and interrupted Gan’s practice.

“Alright Gan, step outside. We need to make sure it\'s working before you go too far.”

Gan stood and followed orders.

He didn’t seem to experience any side effects upon leaving the area contained by the formation, and when NiangBa ran a simple mortal knife across Gan’s arm, the skin parted as normal. RàℕоBĚŚ

Wincing in pain, Gan glanced at his leader. “Any effect?”

NiangBa shook his head. “Hard to say. Maybe, but it’s minimal. You’ll need to do more before we know for certain. Does anything feel wrong? Any itching or burning sensations?”

Gan closed his eyes and rubbed the area where NiangBa had cut him.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think the cut hurt as much as it should have, but like you said, it’s hard to be certain.”

NiangBa looked over to the corner of the room where I was silently standing vigil.

I gave him a slow nod.

NiangBa put a hand on Gan’s shoulder. “Alright, try for the breakthrough, but if anything feels wrong, stop immediately.”

Gan smiled and rushed back into the formation. After sitting down, he started cultivating as quickly as possible.

Even while pulling in energy as fast as possible, cultivating was still a slow process, and there wasn’t much to see, but no one was willing to leave the room. A dozen Grandmasters and Lords simply watched as Gan cultivated, hoping to catch any details that might assist them in the future.

After a few hours, the color of Gan’s skin started to fade. At this point, I got a little worried, but as there were no other apparent side effects, I held back from intervening immediately.

After nearly three full days of cultivating in an environment rich with earth wu. Gan’s skin had gone from a healthy tan to a dull, light gray, and the energy it contained had noticeably increased.

Suddenly, he seemed to hit a wall, and the wu in his body slammed to a halt.

Gritting his teeth, Gan set his shoulders and pulled in as much energy as possible.

Wu surged through his skin, and its light gray color instantly became a shade darker.

A moment later, Gan’s body slumped.

NiangBa rushed forward to pull him out of the formation, but I jumped in and blocked him.

“No. Not yet.”

I placed a hand on Gan’s shoulder to wake him from his concentration.

“Ances—” Gan’s eyes widened in fear, and he quickly corrected himself. “Lord Su?”

I smiled and nodded. “You’ve broken through. Stop cycling the technique.”

Somewhat groggily, Gan nodded and relaxed his mind, but it took several minutes for the wu in his body to come to a complete halt. Once it did, I gestured to NiangBa who moved forward and helped Gan out of the formation.

Outside, everyone kept a close eye on Gan, waiting to see what would happen, but as time ticked away and there was no reaction, a feeling of joy began to spread.

Once everyone was satisfied that the technique had seemed to work, NiangBa took out his knife and looked at Gan.

Gan nodded, and NiangBa lightly ran the knife down his arm.

This time, the blade wasn’t able to penetrate Gan’s skin, but after only a moment, something unexpected happened. Gan’s arm started drawing in energy.

Seeing this, I rushed forward and slammed a fist into Gan’s chest, sending him rocketing back into the formation as quickly as I possibly could.

No one else had realized what was happening, so this caused a bit of a commotion, but I just looked at the man lying on the ground. His body had started pulling in wu in three different areas, the place NiangBa had cut him, where I had hit him, and where he had hit the ground.

I shook my head. “If this is going to work, you’re going to need to find a way to control that. You can’t allow your body to draw in energy while outside of the formation.”

While using these formations for body cultivation had clear drawbacks, they were not enough to stop anyone, and everyone who had gathered was eager to make breakthroughs of their own.

Of all these, though, the most important was ShouLi.

She had been paying close attention to Gan’s efforts, and it had given her new ideas of her own. So, as soon as we confirmed that the cultivation process was reasonably safe, she entered the formation containing water wu.

I stepped forward and sat down next to her as she began working.

“What are you thinking?”

She grinned. “I’ve been studying various beasts on the Water Peak. The way demon beasts cultivate wu is… different. They don’t need techniques like we do. For them, it’s all natural. Still, there are a few similarities.”

She began cycling wu through her skin.

“When I first advanced as a body cultivator, I was thinking of everything as separate. First, improve my skin. Then, improve my muscles. Something like that. The demon beasts showed me that this was wrong. Each type of beast cultivates in a different way, but there is one similarity. Moving up to Rank 2 doesn’t mean abandoning whatever part of the body they cultivated at Rank 1.”

ShouLi shifted the wu cycling through her skin and pulled it deeper into her body.

“I’ve had this idea for a while now, but I didn’t have a clear enough picture of how everything worked to make it a reality.”

At first, I thought she was pulling energy from her skin and directing it to her muscles, but that wasn’t quite right. She pulled her wu into the area between her muscles and bones. She pulled it into her tendons and ligaments.

ShouLi\'s breakthrough took several days, but there was nothing holding her back. She solidly advanced to Rank 2 of body cultivation. However, she didn’t stop there.

Over the course of the next several years, she advanced through Rank 2 one step at a time and reached the Peak of that realm without any difficulty.

Then, she began working to understand how to infuse energy into her bones. This process had a few extra complications, but with the enlightenments she had already received for Ranks 1 and 2, and with nearly the entire clan supporting her research, these minor problems were quickly resolved, and she figured out exactly what she needed to do.

After a delay of only a few months, ShouLi broke through to Rank 3 as a body cultivator.

Skin, tendons, bones. As ShouLi had said, each type of demon beast cultivated things in a different order, so it was possible that there were different routes for us to go down as well, but this was the order that made sense to her.

If she had tried to enhance her muscles first, her body likely would have torn itself apart. This way, she created a strong foundation that would be able to withstand the rigors of physical combat.