Chapter 74
Chapter 74
Pain!
Terrible pain!
Unbearable pain!
It felt as though my entire body were breaking apart.
And mingled with that agony was a freezing cold.
It was like shattering a block of solid ice, forcing the sharp fragments inside my body, and then crushing them together with all one’s strength.
I knew I had forcibly retained too much of the corpse core’s power. My meridians and acupoints could not contain it.
After all, I had trained under Master for only three months.
No matter how great my talent or how fast my progress, absorbing most of the power of a vicious corpse on the verge of becoming baleful was simply too difficult.
Because I forcibly controlled the energy, none of the corpse core’s power escaped. It filled my body until I swelled like a balloon.
Alongside the pain of bone-piercing cold came a new agony from the pressure.
“Ah-Zhong, don’t be so greedy! I told you to absorb as much as possible and avoid waste. I did not tell you to risk your life.”
Master’s voice sounded directly in my mind, carrying a trace of helplessness.
The intense pain and my total concentration on guiding the energy into my dantian consumed all my strength.
I entered a daze. My five senses–hearing, sight, smell, touch, and taste–all grew dull.
If Master had spoken aloud, I might not have heard her. That was why she used a technique to send her thoughts directly into my mind as a warning.
I knew this was dangerous.
But I wanted to become powerful more quickly. I wanted my cultivation to advance faster.
Then Master would like me even more, wouldn’t she?
What master did not favor an exceptional disciple?
I gritted my teeth.
Continuing to prevent the corpse core’s power from escaping, I circulated it through my meridians and acupoints, then guided all of it into my dantian for storage.
There, it transformed into my own qi.
I could clearly sense the changes in my dantian.
Joy surged through me. Even the pain eased a little and no longer felt quite so unbearable.
Endure! I had to endure. Such an opportunity came once in a thousand years. I absolutely could not miss it.
I was not stupid.
Master’s words had made it almost certain that an opportunity like this was extraordinarily rare.
Few corpse-fiends reached this level without killing or absorbing evil and miasmic energy, relying only on their own ability to gather the essence of heaven and earth.
Their corpse cores were even more precious. They might refuse to surrender one even when an esoteric practitioner was about to destroy them.
Perhaps heaven truly favored me by allowing me to obtain one.
And finding a master capable of removing the corpse qi and leaving only pure energy was probably just as rare.
Even if I had to risk everything, I would absorb it all.
Gradually, the freezing pain throughout my body disappeared.
But my abdomen began to swell, as though my dantian had been filled completely.
Only a little more. Only the final bit remained.
Just as I thought I could continue, Master’s voice sounded in my mind again.
“Enough, Ah-Zhong. You cannot go farther. Your dantian has reached its limit. Any more will rupture it.”
As she spoke, a soft, warm hand rested on the crown of my head.
The remaining energy still cycling through my meridians and acupoints, waiting for me to guide it into my dantian, instantly vanished.
Master must have drawn it out with a secret art.
“Ah…”
A muffled groan of pain escaped me.
The process truly had been unimaginably dangerous.
It was no less perilous than battling a powerful corpse-fiend or evil ghost. A single mistake could have destroyed my meridians and acupoints, leaving me forever unable to cultivate offensive disciplines such as talisman arts.
I would have had no choice but to live as an ordinary feng shui master.
Whew!
I released a long breath of stale air and slowly opened my eyes.
Master stood before me, worry written across her exquisite face and concern filling her eyes.
With effort, I stretched my lips into a smile.
“Master, I… I did rather well, didn’t I?”
“You rotten boy!”
She instinctively raised her hand as though to smack my head again.
Then she probably remembered that I had just fought desperately to absorb the corpse core’s power and was extremely weak. In the end, she withdrew it.
Well, now!
Did this mean I could take advantage of the opportunity and tease Master as much as I wanted?
She could not bear to hit me now.
On second thought, never mind. I did not have the strength.
After all, what I had just endured was no less exhausting than fighting a powerful evil being. I truly was weak.
“Meditate for another half hour. Stabilize the qi you just transformed and your expanded dantian. I’ll prepare some tea for you.”
Master turned toward the kitchen.
She probably meant the rare tea with miraculous effects that I had drunk once before.
“Master treats me so well! Meeting such a wonderful master is the greatest fortune of three lifetimes. I must have accumulated blessings in my previous life.”
One piece of flattery followed another.
What disciple did not benefit from a sweet tongue?
…
Half an hour later, I finished meditating and drank the tea Master had prepared.
“Ah-Zhong, test how many Evil-Suppressing Talismans you can draw in one sitting now.”
“Yes, Master.”
I went to the desk, where a calligraphy brush, cinnabar, ink, talisman paper, and everything else had already been prepared.
The easiest and most direct way to test the quantity of qi someone possessed was to make him draw talismans.
Drawing talisman arts required regulating different breathing rhythms, following the proper stroke order of the corresponding symbols, and varying the pressure of each stroke.
Most importantly, the practitioner had to continuously draw qi from his dantian and infuse it into the work.
Only then would the finished talisman possess the miraculous power determined by its symbols.
Previously, I could draw three simple and practical Evil-Suppressing Talismans in one sitting. Then dizziness and mental exhaustion forced me to stop and rest.
Now that I had absorbed the corpse core, I would try again.
I held my breath, focused, gripped the brush, and began.
One, two, three, four…
Only after drawing seven Evil-Suppressing Talismans in succession did dizziness blur my vision and leave me unable to maintain the required rhythm or draw more qi from my dantian.
“Seven! My supply of qi and every related ability have at least doubled!”
I gazed at the seven talismans on the desk in wild delight.
I had truly gained a tremendous reward.
If the mysterious female floating corpse had been before me, I might have wanted to embrace her.
Master smiled in satisfaction and nodded. “Very good. You benefited enormously. In that case, the intensity of your training must increase as well.”
I fell silent.
I wanted to cry.
By the time I finished absorbing the corpse core’s power, it was after eight in the evening.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I had not eaten dinner.
I raced home as quickly as I could.
My mother was still in the stove room–the local rural term in Sichuan and Chongqing for a kitchen–where she had kept my meal warm in a large pot on the stove.
“Mom treats me best!”
Laughing, I hugged her, took the food, and immediately ran back to Master’s house.
My mother’s affectionate scolding followed me.
At midnight, I washed promptly and climbed into bed.
Once again, I assumed the posture for sleep cultivation and quickly entered a dream, preparing to meet my household familiar, Roundy.
I wondered when it would truly enter the waking world and remain constantly at my side.
Master said the great improvement from the corpse core meant Roundy could probably accompany me whenever I wished within half a year.
Only then would I have truly entered the discipline of summoning and commanding a household familiar.
To my surprise, I did not meet Roundy in my dream that night.
Instead, I found myself beside the Chuan River outside Lianghe Town.
Wind howled along the dream riverbank, carrying a strong fishy odor and tossing my hair into disarray.
A full moon hung high in the sky. Its cold light fell across the riverbank and the water, which glittered with reflected silver.
As if guided by some intuition, I looked toward a particular place in the river.
Sure enough, a female corpse with black hair rippling like water plants floated toward me.
Despite merely drifting, she moved faster than a boat and reached the shallow water near shore in the blink of an eye.
Then, several meters before me, she slowly, ever so slowly, rose to her feet in the shallows.
Her skin was already deathly pale from the river, and the moonlight made it even more ghastly.
Black hair hung to her waist. I could clearly see that her fingernails were half a foot long and gleamed with a chilling light.
I had prepared myself. I knew she had never killed anyone, and I knew this was a dream.
Even so, the sight of the rigid, dripping corpse made my heart pound. My scalp tingled and goose bumps rose along my arms.
I swallowed and forced myself to speak first.
“Wh-what do you want? Tell me, and I’ll find a way to do it.”