But no matter what Jiang Kui thought,
Yang Ge owed him a great favor!
"How should I repay this..."
He caressed the cover of the secret manual, unable to hide his joy, yet also feeling a huge headache.
’How about sending them some food? Aren’t Lei Heng and Liu Meng setting up their flags outside the pass? They could always use more food, right?’
’Eight thousand taels of silver, minus the losses on the road, should still leave them with quite a bit, right?’
Eight thousand taels of silver were his entire fortune.
Most of it was even squeezed from the three major grain merchants the year before last.
As for the stipend he had received while serving as a hundred households and a thousand households in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, he had been giving half of it every month to his subordinates to improve their meals. There wasn’t much left over, and he had never abused his power to amass ill-gotten wealth.
Thus, after serving for so long as a hundred households and a thousand households, and even having been an imperial envoy to Jiangnan, he had only saved up eight thousand taels of silver.
’Right, the canal can lead directly to Jizhou; getting help from Lianhuan Fort could save a large portion of the losses.’
’That settles it. I’ll send a batch of food over first, and then slowly repay the rest...’
With his mind made up, he flipped through the secret manual in his hand again, going straight to the part with the cultivation route diagrams.
"First level, Rallying the Troops; second level, Dead Wood Meeting Spring; third level, Piling Up Soil to Form a Pagoda; fourth level, Supreme Goodness Like Water; fifth level, Fierce Fire Spreads Over the Fields; sixth level, Interdependence and Restraint."
"Is this the reversal training of the Five Elements?"
"Oh right, there’s also the balancing of the Five Elements within... clever!"
"First level, Rallying the Troops; the qi moves through the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, connecting upwards to the Foot Jueyin Liver Meridian at the lung and downwards to the Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian at Shaoshang, performing the Grand Circulation, where yin and yang aid each other, completing twelve cycles..."
"Visualize starting with the fierce fire refining metal and stopping with the cold moonlight sharpening the blade, inhaling and exhaling the energy of killing..."
"One cycle completes one Grand Circulation, drawing in a breath of killing energy into the Dantian, solidifying the shape of a weapon blade..."
"It is best to start and stop at the change of day and night, and even better during the harshness of autumn and winter..."
Yang Ge read over the cultivation route diagrams, visualization skills, and precautions over and over again.
Comparing it with the "Snow Drift Secret," he found that the cultivation method of "Five Elements Returning to Origin Qi" paid more attention to visualization and the external environment, giving a sense of unity with the heavens and the earth.
This was on an entirely different level than the pure technique-focused cultivation of "Snow Drift Secret"!
This reminded him again of Shen Fa once explaining to him the realms of martial cultivation, and the description of the True Essence Realm: Accumulate qi to form peaks!
He also had doubts: How could qi transform into peaks?
Now, this question was finally answered: This "peak" doesn’t refer to an actual mountain but signifies a presence!
The presence of one’s True Qi amidst the elemental qi of heaven and earth.
Simply put: If everything in the world is made of elemental qi, then cultivation in the True Essence Realm is the martial artist constantly refining and augmenting their own True Qi, transforming it into a mountain in this vast ocean of elemental qi—tall, towering, and as solid as rock—upholding the martial artist’s path.
How can True Qi grow stronger, and how can it become a mountain?
By continuously interacting and synchronizing with the elemental qi of the outside world, during this process, using a water mill approach to slowly absorb elemental qi that resonates with one’s own True Qi. Thus, achieving the goal of augmenting one’s True Qi.
Yang Ge felt that the most fundamental difference between the Qi Sea Realm and the True Essence Realm might not be the strength of Inner Qi versus True Qi, but the difference in their essence.
It’s akin to a Grandmaster of the True Essence Realm who cultivates thick earth True Qi when his True Qi resonates with the genuine qi of thick earth... From the perspective of elemental qi, the True Qi within his body is a mountain, one that doesn’t change with the seasons or the growth and decay of vegetation!
Inner Qi, no matter how refined, is still just an illusionary puff of air without substance from the perspective of elemental qi.
If one reaches the peak of the True Essence Realm and furthers their path...
Yang Ge suddenly could understand the immense strength of an unparalleled Grandmaster!
He memorized the cultivation route diagrams and visualization skills, the mental method incantations, while slowly grasping the intentions behind the diagrams and visualizations.
Time slipped away, and the sky quickly darkened.
Seeing that it was nearly the time described in the secret manual for the changeover between day and night, Yang Ge stood up, put away the manual, and went inside the house.
Soon after, he came out holding a narrow, scimitar-like precious blade, resembling a sprout.
Regarding the energy of killing, he felt the killing aura on this precious blade was more intense than the scattered killing energy between heaven and earth!
He held the blade with both hands in the courtyard and commenced the rounded stances.
With a slow exhalation of a murky breath, his spirit, energy, and soul gradually converged, his mind became a vast expanse of emptiness, and in his mind’s eye, the fiery red vision of metals being tempered by blazing fire appeared.
"The Qi moves through the hand’s Taiyin lung meridian..."
True Qi around his body slowly rose with his thoughts, flowing along the hand’s Taiyin lung meridian toward the Shaoshang point on his index fingers, causing a layer of lustrous glow to emerge on his skin.
It was unknown how much time had passed when the Cold Moon sabre in his hands suddenly trembled slightly; although there was no True Qi flowing into it, threads and wisps of a cold, eerie blade light shone forth, interfacing with the glow on his body, as if man and sabre were fused into one.
One Grand Circulation, two, three...
The route of his martial practice became increasingly familiar, and the vision of fire tempering metal within his visualization grew ever more intense.
Yang Ge, in a state of holding the primal chaos and guarding the one, felt his heart growing colder while his body became hotter...
Outside, one could see his body’s pores opening and closing with the rhythm of his breathing, exhaling warm air that condensed without dispersing, enveloping him like a cocoon.
In a blink, twelve Grand Circulations had passed.
Yang Ge awakened from his meditative state and gradually ended his practice.
Upon opening his eyes, he found the sky filled with stars...
He stood up and moved his body, carefully feeling the True Qi within, yet he only felt a hint of coolness during circulation, with no significant changes.
Contemplating, he channeled a thread of True Qi and casually swung his sabre towards the rockery in the southeast corner of the courtyard.
A flash of sabre Qi, gleaming with a faint golden light, passed by, and a stone the size of a palm silently fell from the center of the rockery...
Yang Ge quickly approached, picked up the stone, and closely examined the break, only to find it smooth as a mirror, without a single burr.
"Damn, this is promising!"
As he caressed the smooth break of the stone, he was astonished at the power of the Metal True Qi combined with the sabre Qi.
In the past, such a sabre strike would have exploded a cloud of stone chips on the rockery...
Upon this comparison, he discovered that Metal True Qi, to some extent, had a similar effect to the will of the sabre.
The function of the will of the sabre was to condense sabre Qi, enhancing the power of the sabre Qi.
If it were Metal True Qi plus the will of the sabre plus sabre Qi...
Should he encounter an external power expert like Liao Chen again, he would never face the embarrassing situation where his opponent stood still and he could not cut through them!
"Not bad, not bad at all!"
He casually tossed the stone aside and turned to go into the house, "The method is correct, from a fragile assassin to a half-tough big daddy, the transformation is imminent!"
He stowed away the Cold Moon sabre and climbed into bed without washing his face or feet.
Tomorrow he still had to go to the capital to hammer that Shen Fa!
Time to sleep...
...
The next day, as soon as the rooster crowed, Yang Ge was awake.
He got up, warmed up the leftover cold rice and dishes from the night before, and together with Huang, enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast.
After cleaning up the pots and pans, he made sure the chickens in the backyard had enough to eat, then chose a few New Year’s goods that Shen Fa had sent over the day before, and he and Huang delivered them to the Liu family, asking the old Shopkeeper to look after Huang for a few days.
Liu, who closed his store and did not do business during the holiday, readily agreed.
Leaving the Liu family’s house, Yang Ge went to the Upper Right Office to fetch a horse.
But upon arrival, he learned that Fang Ke had dispatched all the remaining horses there just the day before.
"Fine, fine, fine, playing a game of removing the stove wood from under the pot, huh!"
Yang Ge, after circling the Upper Right Office several times without finding out where Fang Ke had run off to, spoke through clenched teeth with a forced smile to the always-following Gu Tong, "Tell that kid Fang Ke to find himself a main doctor in advance, I’ll break his legs when I get back!"
After saying this, he stiffly left the Upper Right Office and without looking back, he left the city, striding down the road to the capital at a pace of a zhang with each step!
This content is taken from freёwebnovel.com.
’So what if there’s no horse?’
’I’ll just use my legs to get there!’
Filled with determination, he whipped his legs into shadows, speeding away with the force of a full-throttle motorcycle, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
On the city wall, Fang Ke, in disguise, hid behind the crenellations, watching Yang Ge kick up a trail of dust as he departed, his legs went weak: "I’m so dead..."