Put away your magical powers now!.

Chapter 113 ["The Supreme Strategy for Reinforcing the Heavens"]

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(In the comment section, some readers who didn’t understand the situation have been questioning why my price per chapter is higher than others…

Let me reiterate one thing: because each of my chapters has the same word count as two or even three chapters of other books, my subscription price for a single chapter will be higher than others’, because the word count is higher! For example, if my chapter is 6,000 words and others’ is 3,000 words, can the price be the same?

The subscription price is based on word count, and all books on the site have the same price; it's not set by the author. Do you understand?)
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Chapter 109 ["The Supreme Strategy for Reinforcing the Heavens"]

Although Lu Sisi didn't understand why, she couldn't help but feel a sense of inexplicable solemnity in her heart when she saw Gu Qingyi's solemn expression.

"Although this technique can only be cultivated to the Dengtai Realm, the Dengtai Realm is already the ceiling for ordinary practitioners. Chen Yan is only at the Guiyuan Realm now."

Gu Qingyi's expression was serious as he continued slowly, "Moreover, the laws of nature are ruthless. In this world, it is almost impossible to transcend the Dengtai realm and break through to the celestial realm. Therefore, giving you this technique is sufficient for your use. However, Lu Sisi, before I teach you this technique to practice, there are some things I need to explain to you!"

Lu Sisi immediately sat up straight: "Sister Qingyi, go ahead."

"Although it is a method of dual cultivation of magic and martial arts, being a master of all trades is equivalent to being sluggish in none! Although you can practice both of these techniques, at the same level, you are not as good as those who have switched to physical cultivation! Your magic skills are also destined to be inferior to those who have turned to the path of cultivators!
So even if you can master it, you won't be able to beat an opponent of the same level.

Four-character evaluation: The weakest in the same realm! "

Lu Sisi was a little confused: "Why? Since he is practicing two paths at the same time, shouldn't he be more powerful than those at the same level? He obviously has one more path than others."

At this point, the girl seemed to remember something and quickly added, "Sister Qingyi, I'm just asking out of curiosity. I don't want to fight with anyone."

"It's okay, it's normal to be curious." Gu Qingyi smiled: "Because that senior created this spell, he painstakingly tried to find a balance between the two paths, but in the end, it became what it is now.

The path gained after the balance is not broad enough. In the path of body training, because of the compromise and deletion, the body training is not pure and cannot be achieved to the extreme. Therefore, many of the most powerful combat methods of the way of warfare cannot be practiced at all.

Similarly, as cultivators need to retain their combat methods, they cannot make their souls too pure when cultivating them, and must retain some murderous aura. If the soul is not pure enough, many powerful spells that require the soul to be refined to the extreme cannot be used.

The result is a mess. I can't even use my most powerful spells and combat techniques, so naturally I can't defeat someone of the same realm."

After hearing this, Lu Sisi nodded - she was originally a calm person, even a little cowardly, and deep down she had no interest in fighting!
If she can't beat others, then she can't beat others. Anyway, she doesn't want to fight with others.

"But there are benefits as well." Gu Qingyi pursed his lips and smiled. "This combined cultivation method not only cultivates the spirit, but also takes into account the physical training. In other words, after practicing, your spirit, energy, and physical body can be strengthened together! It achieves the goal of achieving the inner and outer connection, cultivating both inside and outside. Therefore, your lifespan will actually be longer than those at the same level."

"Ah? Why is this?" Lu Sisi was half surprised and half confused.

“Because practitioners generally only follow one path.

For example, I, who practiced the combat method, lived to the end, my body remaining indestructible. However, my spirit wasn't strong enough. When I finally died, my body didn't decay, and I could have lived for a long time, but my spirit had already weakened. In the end, my spirit died, but my body survived.

But those cultivators are the opposite of me. Their souls are strong enough to continue existing, but their physical bodies cannot support a long life. In the end, the physical bodies decay and decay, and the souls lose the support of the physical body and are forced to perish.

And you, by practicing both, can actually live longer than people at the same level.

So, I have an evaluation of this method:
In terms of fighting, he is the weakest among those in the same realm!
If you don't fight, you will live the longest in the same realm."

Lu Sisi nodded, her eyes filled with joy. She didn't ask for much, just that she could live longer and stay with Chen Yan forever.

As for the other things, as for being the weakest in battle among those at the same level, she didn't care at all.

Gu Qingyi pointed casually, and a branch from the tree trunk was broken and fell down, and she picked it up in her hand.

Then, Gu Qingyi took a branch and slowly drew a line of words on the ground.

"Taishang Butiance?" Lu Sisi read it once, her expression a little awed. "Taishang Butiance? This name sounds so powerful."

Gu Qingyi smiled casually: "The name was given by the great master who created this technique. He was arrogant, so he chose such a name. Actually, in my opinion, it is a bit exaggerated."

She, Gu Qingyi, nourishes her spirit through fighting and follows the path of killing on the battlefield, so she doesn't think much of this kind of martial arts that is the weakest among those at the same level in combat.

Fortunately, all Lu Sisi wanted was a long life.

"Secondly, you must remember this: I've passed this technique on to you, and you can tell Chen Yan about it later, but... you must never pass it on to anyone else! Your relatives, friends, parents, siblings, or family members, absolutely cannot even hear a word of it!"

Upon hearing this, Lu Sisi nodded solemnly: "Don't worry, I will never tell anyone else! Apart from Chen Yan, I will never tell anyone, and I will never teach anyone else!"

“Not just anyone…” Gu Qingyi smiled and said, “This technique originally belonged to the Chen family.

The great senior who created the martial arts technique I just mentioned is also an ancestor of the Chen family.

If you and Chen Yan have children in the future, you can pass it on to your offspring. Only those with the surname Chen can practice this technique!"

Lu Sisi blushed at first, especially the part about [if you and Chen Yan have children in the future], which made her face droop. But after hearing the rest, she was stunned again: "But... my last name is not Chen, can I also practice cultivation?"

Gu Qingyi waved her hand. "According to the old rules of the Chen family, this technique is passed down to the daughter-in-law, not the son-in-law. Since you are following Chen Yan, you will be the daughter-in-law of the Chen family in the future. It's okay to pass it down to you - as long as you don't pass it on to anyone outside the Chen family."

After saying that, she looked at Lu Sisi's blushing cheeks and sighed slightly in her heart.

Gu Qingyi did not tell Lu Sisi the origin of this martial art.

This technique was given as a betrothal gift by Chen Jue, who is now notorious in the domain, when he personally visited the Gu family to arrange engagement many years ago, before Gu Qingyi was even born!
It was originally intended to be left to Gu Qingyi, the future daughter-in-law of the Chen family.

Now, there is nothing wrong with passing it to Lu Sisi.

·
In the room, Chen Yan and the little girl sat opposite each other.

“I can’t practice both, I can’t practice both…”

Chen Yan fell silent for a moment, thinking carefully in his heart. After a long while, he shook his head and said, "If that's the case, doesn't it mean that every cultivator has weaknesses?"

The little girl glanced at Chen Yan with interest in her eyes: "Oh? What do you mean?"

Chen Yan sighed: "Even if you cultivate to the highest level, such as reaching the Saint level, the Venerable, or even the Great Heavenly Venerable, you are still a lame man walking on one leg.

Either the soul is strong or the body is strong.

Not to mention how strong he is in combat, just talking about his lifespan, it is actually far from reaching the upper limit of his potential.

For those who cultivate the soul, no matter how strong the soul is, the body will decay. On the other hand, for those who cultivate combat methods, the body may be indestructible, but if the soul is not strong enough, the soul will be destroyed and the person will die.

Chen Yan’s meaning is actually very clear.

Many times, what we are competing for is lifespan.

If you have a talent of 95 points and you practice for a hundred years, you will die.

My talent is also 95 points, but I can practice for a thousand years.

In the final achievement, who is stronger and who is weaker?
From this perspective, all practitioners are limited first of all in terms of lifespan.

Just like the barrel theory, the shortest board determines how much water the barrel can hold.

This thing, just hearing it made Chen Yan feel uncomfortable - as if it was some kind of restriction, some kind of shackles?

Chen Yan suddenly became curious, "Then what about those most venerable ones who stand at the top? Do the venerable ones also only cultivate one path and walk on one leg? Hmm, that's not right. What I want to ask is, how do the venerable ones solve the problem of longevity?"

The little girl frowned and said calmly, "How should I know? If I knew, I would be a venerable one."

"...Okay." Chen Yan sighed.

The little girl thought for a moment and said, "Anyway, the Venerable is immortal. Although I don't remember many things, I am sure of one thing: the Venerable will die of natural causes!"

The Venerable One will live forever?
Chen Yan's eyes lit up: "So, if you break through to the Saint level, you can avoid the lifespan being insufficient due to shortcomings...

Well, in other words, becoming a saint is the way to achieve immortality!"

Chen Yan suddenly had a vague idea in his mind: No wonder there are only forty-two saints under the rules of the Heavenly Dao in the domain.

Otherwise, if everyone could cultivate to the Venerable Realm and become a Saint...

Wouldn't that mean everyone would be immortal?
Wouldn’t the world be in chaos then?
In that situation, unless war breaks out, if no one dies, the population will only grow larger and larger. Even if there are more resources, they will not be enough to consume them. The final result will be...

I always feel like something is not quite right...

"Actually, I've thought about your doubts before." The little girl said slowly, "You're thinking about lifespan, but I'm thinking about other things, like the power of a saint.

"Sages with powerful spirits and powerful bodies all have shortcomings. So, they actually have natural weaknesses in terms of strength."

"What do you mean?" Chen Yan was a little confused.

The little girl frowned and said, “Practice, practice, whether it is to cultivate the soul or to cultivate the physical body, no matter which path you take, the ultimate goal of cultivation is the same: flawlessness!

To cultivate the primordial spirit, one must cultivate it to be pure and flawless!

To cultivate the physical body is to cultivate the physical body to perfection!
Although everyone is pursuing "perfection", the final result has a huge drawback.

If you think about it this way, isn’t it contradictory? "

Chen Yan nodded: "It seems to make sense."

The little girl's face showed a bit of confusion, and she whispered, "Actually... it seems there should be a way to practice both."

"Is there a way to practice both?"

"Well, but..." The little girl held her head and scratched her hair, a distressed expression on her face. "I remember there seemed to be a method like this, but that method seemed to have some shortcomings. It's just... hey, I don't remember."

Chen Yan looked at the little girl and understood her feelings. It was like you misplaced your phone at home and couldn't find it. You clearly remember that you had a phone, but you just didn't know where it was.

"Don't worry about not being able to remember something." Chen Yan consoled him, "Your memory problem probably can't be solved by forcing yourself to think."

The little girl sighed and ruffled her hair in distress.

"So, back to my cultivation... In my current situation, I'd better pursue the path of cultivating the Yuan Shen." Chen Yan smiled. "It's not that I don't want to cultivate combat techniques, but practicing combat techniques to temper the body requires entering the Dao through combat. Where in this world can I practice killing and cultivate my evil spirit?"

"That's right, then you should cultivate your soul." The little girl sighed.

Then the little girl sat up straight, her expression becoming serious: "Chen Yan, listen carefully!
There should be many methods to cultivate the primordial spirit, but they all have the same basic principles. In the final analysis, the cultivation of the primordial spirit is divided into three steps: tempering the spirit, nourishing the spirit, and traveling in the spirit!

The first step is to train your soul, letting it go through all kinds of trials and tribulations, making it more resilient and condensed! Just like forging iron, you need to temper your soul.

But this process will also cause some damage to the soul.

The second step of nourishing the spirit is to use the exercises to nourish the primordial spirit. It can not only repair the damage to the primordial spirit, but also make the primordial spirit stronger.

These two steps are repeated back and forth, tempering, nurturing, tempering again, nurturing again, and repeating over and over again."

"I see. One is quality, the other is quantity." Chen Yan was very smart and immediately understood this principle: "To forge the spirit is to improve the quality of the spirit. To nourish the spirit is to increase the size of the spirit."

"Yes, you understand it correctly." The little girl nodded. "In short, it's just alternating between the two steps until your soul has been cultivated to a certain level. Then you can enter the third step: spiritual travel!"

"Daze?"

"Yes, it is possible to allow the soul to leave the body and travel for a short period of time. Even if the body dies, the soul can still exist outside the body for a period of time."

Chen Yan suddenly remembered the old ghost he met in Hong Kong City.

That guy was a cultivator in this world. He wanted to break through to the realm of heaven, but he failed and died. After his physical body was gone, he survived by relying on his soul.

From another perspective, that guy is also a natural genius!
In this world where the laws of nature suppress cultivation, one can actually cultivate to the great perfection of the stage realm and try to break through to the realm of heaven and man. If this is not a genius, what is it?
It's a pity, it's just bad luck. If this kind of person existed in the domain, with his talent, maybe he could really break through to the realm of heaven and man!

"You're at the Guiyuan Realm, which is the perfect place to start cultivating your Yuanshen. So I'm teaching you a set of Yuanshen techniques that are perfect for you." The little girl sighed. "But cultivating your Yuanshen isn't easy. Initially, you must find a quiet and safe place to cultivate, with no external objects around to prevent you from going astray and damaging your Yuanshen!"

Chen Yan thought for a moment and said, "Then...when I cultivate my soul, if I hide in the mirror world, no one will disturb me, right?"

"If you want to die, then come here and practice." The little girl curled her lips. "There's no heavenly and earthly energy in the mirror world. You'll exhaust yourself to death while practicing your soul! Practicing your soul consumes a lot of energy! You'd better make yourself a spirit gathering array first. I see that the spirit gathering array in your house is simple, but it can be considered barely usable."

"...Okay." Chen Yan frowned and nodded.

The little girl took a deep breath, muttered something, raised her left hand, and gently touched Chen Yan's forehead with her index finger: "Go!"

Chen Yan suddenly felt a black screen in front of his eyes!
Then he felt that countless golden characters were suddenly instilled into his mind, which were arranged and combined rapidly in rows and columns to form a set of exercises!
"I will first teach you three sets of skills, namely "Forging the Spirit", "Nourishing the Spirit" and "Spiritual Wandering". Remember, I will only teach you these skills. You can't tell them by word of mouth and I won't pass them on to anyone else!" The little girl looked solemn.

Chen Yan slowly stood up, bowed to the little girl seriously and saluted.

·
Jumping out of the mirror world and walking out of the little girl's residence, Chen Yan walked all the way back to his own home.

When he opened the door to the living room, he saw that the room was empty. He called out, but found that Gu Qingyi had not returned yet.

Chen Yan thought about it and went downstairs to the practice room in the basement.

There was a sign hanging on the door of the practice room. It was put up by Chen Yan after Gu Qingyi moved in. The sign read "Do not disturb during practice."

After Chen Yan hung up the sign, he entered the door, locked it, and sat on the cushion on the floor of the training room, and began to study "Forging the Spirit" carefully.

The so-called training of the soul is actually to use various human desires, emotions, feelings, etc. to sharpen the soul.

To put it bluntly, it means overcoming desires, dissolving lust, and destroying and then rebuilding.

It is stated in the chapter on forging the spirit that the desires in the human heart can be divided into ignorance, greed, anger, delusion, life, and death!
The so-called God-Forging Chapter is to first amplify these desires! Let these desires burn high!
Then see through it, restrain it, defeat it, and transcend it!
In this process, the Yuan Shen will be tempered and become more condensed, purer, and tougher - the texture is improved.

Chen Yan studied it carefully for a while and sighed softly.

The principle seems easy to understand, but it is difficult to put into practice.

People have seven emotions and six desires. If they could be overcome so easily, then everyone would be a saint.

However, "Forging the Soul" does not allow people to eliminate these desires - if they could, wouldn't people become stones without desires?

That is not the purpose of "Forging the Soul".

The Chapter of Forging the Soul enables people to transcend desires - people can have desires, but cannot be obsessed with them, and will not be driven by desires. Instead, they can treat these desires with a normal mind.

To use a simple and crude analogy: it's like an LSP who, facing an alluring beauty, can control his desires, but that doesn't mean he can eliminate desires - he is still an LSP, but he won't do irrational things because of desires and be controlled by his lower body.

Be a rational LSP? Achieve a balance between desire and life?

Chen Yan sat in the training room until the afternoon. He did not immediately rush to practice "Forging the Soul", but studied and pondered.

In the afternoon, he walked out of the training room, but found that Gu Qingyi had not returned yet.

This woman said last night that she would go out to pick up a package this morning. Why does it take so long to pick up a package?

He picked up his phone and sent a message to Gu Qingyi on WeChat to ask.

Gu Qingyi replied quickly: "I'm busy."

All right... You're already an adult and have been in this world for so long, you shouldn't get into any trouble.

Chen Yan was very calm and not too worried, so he went into the kitchen to cook.

There is pork in the refrigerator. Take out a piece of pork belly and cut it into pieces, each piece is about the width of a finger.

Blanch it in cold water and add some cooking wine to remove the fishy smell. After blanching, skim off the blood foam and serve it out to dry.

Pour oil into the wok, and when the oil is hot, pour the pork in and stir-fry for a while. The aroma of meat immediately fills the air. Chen Yan takes two deep breaths, then pour in soy sauce and water, turn down the heat and simmer.

Slow cooking takes about half an hour, so Chen Yan simply went to the study to get a thread-bound copy of "Liezi Tianrui Chapter" and sat next to the kitchen, smelling the fragrant aroma of meat while quietly flipping through the book.

This copy of "Liezi: Tianrui Chapter" was taken from Chu Keqing's academy - there are many thread-bound books in that place. Although they are not ancient books, the thread-bound versions look very classy.

Chen Yan used to be a lecturer in a college, and he also talked about the principle of "the empty is not valuable" in "Liezi".

But at that time, I said these things in order to convince those distinguished meditation students to accept me.

It's just pretending.

But when I read it at this moment, I suddenly felt a vague sense of understanding in my heart.

Lie Zi's view is: All things are created by nature, thieves have no intention, time is like a journey, life and death are not as important as emotions...

"It does have some similar ideas to the "Forging the Spirit" chapter, which talks about breaking through desires and transcending desires." Chen Yan gently turned a page of the book with his fingers and sighed slightly.

The aroma of meat in the pot filled the air, my body was rumbling with hunger, and the book in my hand, when I turned the pages, had a faint aroma of ink.

The physical desires brought by external objects and the inner feelings seemed to form a subtle balance at this moment.

Although it was only a tiny bit, Chen Yan, who had spent the entire morning studying "Forging the Soul", seemed to have grasped a miraculous opportunity for balance...

After flipping through the book for more than half an hour, Chen Yan suddenly put the book down and placed it casually on the stove.

He slowly opened the lid of the pot, and steam mixed with the aroma of meat hit his face. He took a deep breath and felt the aroma of meat invading his mouth and nose.

Looking at the color of the braised pork after cooking, Chen Yan smiled, added salt and sugar, and turned on high heat to reduce the sauce.

After a while, I turned off the heat and took a small bite.

"Just right."

Well, just right.

After Chen Yan finished speaking, he was suddenly stunned. After thinking for a few seconds, he suddenly laughed.

Just right!
It turns out... it's just right!

·
When Gu Qingyi came back, she saw Chen Yan sitting at the dining table in the restaurant.

In front of him was a bowl of braised pork, and on a plate were some blanched vegetables.

Chen Yan was holding a bowl of snow-white rice, chopsticks in one hand and a book in the other, eating quietly.

A mouthful of rice, a mouthful of meat, and a mouthful of vegetables.

Eat slowly and leisurely, neither hurried nor slow.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Chen Yan raised his head and glanced at Gu Qingyi with a peaceful smile on his face: "Are you back? The food is in the pot, help yourself."

Gu Qingyi glanced at Chen Yan and was suddenly stunned.

(End of this chapter)