Wet viviparity

Chapter 776 Sun and Moon, Guardians in the Lake
Ji Ming stared at the chessboard in front of him, which was now in disarray. He knew, of course, that Rat Four was intentionally letting him win, and that he was doing so with great difficulty.

However, his terrible move was not a natural achievement, but rather something he did intentionally.

Others practice chess and become more and more skilled, but I practice chess and become worse and worse. The reason for this is that I heard from Old Golden Rooster that the Moon Goddess of the Moon is the best at chess and often plays chess with immortals or human chess players.

When practicing Go, one should naturally cater to one's own interests.

Back then, he took the white crane's spirit feathers to the Moon Palace to pay homage to the Goddess, who promised to help him with a single thought when he was refining and consecrating the treasure.

Even now, although the old golden rooster is willing to personally consecrate the Ruyi, Ji Ming still hasn't given up on the Divine Granny, nor has he given up on the Three-Life Old Star Lord. Having an extra layer of protection is always a good thing.

Given this idea, catering to their preferences is the natural course of action.

No matter how much he practices, he can't match the masters of chess in terms of variations. So he does the opposite, honing this terrible move to perfection. If he has the chance to play against the Goddess in the future, he might let her experience a different kind of fun.

After seeing the fourth rat, Ji Ming slapped the top of his head, and three flowers appeared on the top of his head, with purple energy flowing through them.

Within this pillar of purple aura, one can see a three-and-a-half-inch long, fine needle that is like a thread of amethyst drawn from a crystal. Its tail is shimmering with golden light. This is the Taiyi Purple Aura Golden Needle that the Pleiades Star Lord once gave to him.

Over the years, thanks to the innate purple energy within this needle, it can be said that I have been spared at least a hundred years of arduous work.

It has to be said that if he had really given up and stopped bothering to fight those schemes with the Pleiades Star Lord and seek his own independence, he would have been much more comfortable. Unfortunately, he was destined to be a troublemaker.

Within the three flowers, purple energy followed the needle and entered the ancestral aperture, causing wind and thunder to rise in the Niwan Palace.

Upon internal observation, one can see that within the golden elixir in one's dantian, the yin spirit has already taken on the outline of an infant. This is his dantian embryo, and also the sign of minor success in the final lesson of the four realms, "Sun and Moon Refinement, Five Elements Stability".

At this moment, the tiny embryo, only a few inches in size, was breathing like a human, sitting in a meditation posture with its five centers facing upwards, its lower abdomen rising and falling. It was breathing in and out purple energy with its fetal breathing.

As this embryonic breathing deepened, the essence of the sun and moon above was drawn down and flowed throughout Ji Ming's limbs and bones, being swallowed by the dantian along with the purple qi.

The embryonic breathing continued uninterrupted, and the form of this elixir embryo became increasingly solid and translucent, faintly revealing a jade-like radiance. Its features were clearly visible, and the yin impurities within the yin spirit were being rapidly refined away, further advancing the transformation of the yin spirit into yang.

Above Ji Ming's shoulders, one side shone brightly, as if a sun were suspended in the void; the other side shone brightly, as if holding the clear shadow of the moon. The sun and moon appeared and disappeared. When the sun and moon were fully revealed, it meant that Ji Ming had achieved great success in this subject.

Before we knew it, more than half a month had passed.

When he awoke from his meditation, he examined the progress of his spiritual cultivation.

Whether it was a master or a monk named Li Zhu, after refining a high-grade golden elixir, it took them about two hundred and twenty years before they began to work on breaking through to the fifth realm.

Of course, this 220 years does not simply refer to the time spent in meditation and cultivation. The knowledge of cultivation is vast and complex, including the practice of magic, the refining of elixirs, the management of Taoist properties, and the management of spiritual mountains and caves. It is a complex and multifaceted undertaking, not to mention the time spent on socializing or engaging in magical battles with enemies.

Even for those who are detached from worldly affairs and focus solely on their studies, how much of their time is truly available for spiritual practice?

Those who can truly dedicate themselves to cultivation are not only the disciples of the main lineage of the True Spirit Sect, but even the True Immortals of the Huangting Palace cannot do it.

For Huangting Palace and Taiping Mountain, everything is a form of cultivation; taking time off to cultivate cannot create a truly strong person with the power to improve themselves.

Ji Ming pondered that even with the help of the Taiyi Purple Qi Golden Needle and his decades of quiet cultivation, the time it would take to break through would at most be shortened by forty years.

"As expected, I will eventually have to rely on the 'Secret Record of Transformation and Mystery' to provide me with the 'resources' so that I can get to the point of breakthrough in one fell swoop and remove the yin impurities that are hindering my breakthrough." In his heart, there was always a sense of urgency. Whenever a great calamity came, this sense of urgency was like a bone-deep ailment, forcing him to become stronger even faster.

He understood that this was because he had the thought of responding to calamity during every great tribulation. Many people have this thought, but if one wants to borrow the calamity, one must have the path to transcend the tribulation.

During this great calamity in Tiannan, none of the three—Baiqin Shangzhen, Kongle Laofo, and the bamboo-obsessed hermit of Shenzhu Temple—were below the fifth level of the Fetal Spirit Realm.

I almost forgot, it seems that Baiqin Shangzhen has not yet returned to the Transformation Realm of his previous life. His cultivation level can be roughly calculated according to the fourth level of the Golden Core Realm, but considering his foundation from his previous life, it can be said that the boundary between his cultivation level and Transformation Realm is extremely blurred.

These three are not among the main ones who will face this great calamity.

Strictly speaking, the main ones should be the deity of Yunyu Temple and the Four Fiends of Yunfu, as well as the two elders of Hook and Sickle in Nanmu Mountain. These are all proper immortals, not the kind of immortals in the human world who just want to make themselves look good.

Ji Ming wasn't worried about those guys. Right now, everyone was in the probing stage, and the real fire hadn't been lit yet.

When it comes to those few individuals making a move, they will not act easily unless the situation becomes extremely unfavorable to them. This is similar to the situation during World War II, where those above the level of immortals maintained restraint.

Thinking too much was pointless, so Ji Ming threw himself back into cultivation.

At the same time, he kept an eye on the situation of his second primordial spirit body. Zhao Chi had not yet returned from Dongshazhou. How many people was he planning to invite to Diqiu Xiaocixia to learn magic?

It was midsummer, yet a bone-chilling cold inexplicably settled over Luoyin Lake, as if some invisible warmth in the world had been quietly drained away by some sinister force.

Ding Ruyi exerted force with the soles of her feet, speeding across the vast expanse of misty waters.

As far as the eye could see, the lake surface was dotted with unmelted silver flakes, seemingly frozen into a vast expanse of strangely cold, broken jade. This was the result of the activation of the array outside the Heavenly River Altar, which transformed the vast lake outside the altar into cold waves to weaken the invading demons and ghosts.

Ding Ruyi exhaled softly and reached out her hand towards the lake. Immediately, a stone pillar was pushed up from the bottom of the lake and emerged from the water.

Standing on the pillar, he first used the stone pillar to draw in the earthen essence from the ground to cleanse his body and restore his strength and true qi. Then, he used his physical body to sense the vibrations of the earth veins to detect whether there were any hidden or attacking demons nearby.

"They've finally settled down for a bit."

No one knows how many demons and monsters have been nurtured in Luoyin Lake, not even the Tianhe Shangtan, which is relied upon by Taiping Mountain as a southern barrier.

During these days, he led a group of ghost soldiers and three teams of disciples from branch altars to be stationed in the Linghe Tower in the southwest. They fought more than ten battles of varying sizes, including surprise attacks, sieges, harassment, and illusionary killings. The enemy's methods were endless, which greatly tested his temperament and courage.

He used to answer the call to come to the rescue without hesitation, thinking that he could make a name for himself just like his master when he went on an expedition to Lingnan. But now he just wants to sleep and that's all.

He has a body that's practically made of iron, but he can't keep up mentally. He hasn't really closed his eyes since he arrived here.

After resting for a while on the pillar, I looked back at the Heavenly River Altar. The entire Heavenly River Altar was like a lone boat suspended on the crest of a wave. Outside, the sky was filled with cool, sweet rain, which fell like curtains. This was the Heavenly River Altar's outer formation called the Clear River Hanging White Array.

Only by relying on the cold waves generated by the array diagram were they able to withstand wave after wave of attacks.

"I believe I am not afraid of demons who have refined their Yuan Dan, but I am already exhausted from defending here. I really don't know how my three senior uncles, Jue Guang, Luo Ji, and Hu Yan, managed to switch from defense to offense?"

Just then, a condensed, almost tangible stream of light, faster than lightning, pierced through the crystal-clear water curtain without any hindrance and shot into Ding Ruyi's arms. He exclaimed in surprise, "This is the decree from the altar, transferring me to Uncle Tiger Eye's place."

(End of this chapter)