The Spiritual Pivot of Mortal Cultivation

The title of "Secondary Resident" may seem insignificant, but when it comes to someone, it's a truly serious burden.

Bai Xuanxin found out the next day.

The medicinal pool on the back mountain was originally divided into three levels. The outermost few pools were always used by outer disciples to promote blood circulation, remove blood stasis, and soak their muscles to relieve fatigue. Although the medicine contained some ingredients, it ultimately only circulated between the skin and flesh. Soaking for a long time would only make people feel a little more relaxed. If you wanted it to truly penetrate deep into the joints, it was still far from being effective.

The side room they opened for him is on the innermost floor.

The pool wasn't large, surrounded by bluestone on all sides. The water was a deeper color than the pools outside, resembling a pool of old ink stained with medicinal juice from afar. As soon as one approached, a mixture of bitter, pungent, astringent, and fishy odors assaulted the nostrils, mixed with an indescribable metallic rust smell, as if some medicinal stones, after being boiled over a fire, had drawn out the old blood and qi before the cold and dampness in the bones had been completely expelled.

The old disciple guarding the pond lifted his eyelids, glanced at Bai Xuanxin, and then pointed a wooden plaque inside.

"Inner layer, half an hour."

"Don't be reckless on your first time going down."

Bai Xuanxin nodded without saying anything more, took off her outer robe, and stepped barefoot into the pool.

The heat wasn't immediately apparent after the first step.

The second step: the water had reached above his calves, and the mist rising from the surrounding stone walls suddenly enveloped him.

As soon as I slowly sat down in the pool, the medicinal sensation seemed to awaken like a living creature that had been lying at the bottom of the water, and it began to seep into my pores inch by inch.

It doesn't hurt.

It's a soreness, a swelling, and a dull, numb sensation that feels extremely fine and heavy, like countless fine needles slowly moving between the muscles and tendons under the skin, and then trying to wedge themselves into the joint capsule, ligaments, and fascia gaps little by little.

Bai Xuanxin closed her eyes and remained silent, her back pressed slightly against the pool wall, letting her breath sink down little by little.

Traditional Chinese medicine says that medicine travels through the meridians and tendons, nourishing the bones and joints;

If we were to use the explanation he learned before his transmigration, the medicinal power wasn't just "replenishing" the body, but rather rewriting the body's stress patterns—the fascial chains loosened first and then tightened, the joint capsules opened slightly under the dual stimulation of the medicinal power and heat, and the deepest parts of the ligaments, those details that were usually the least likely to be touched by training methods, finally had the opportunity to be truly "washed" clean.

Only a medicinal pool like this can truly be described as "penetrating to the bone".

Bai Xuanxin sat in the water, with only the strong smell of medicine lingering in her nostrils, yet her mind was surprisingly calm.

Keep your shoulders relaxed.

Lock your hips.

The spine must be upright.

You need to calm down.

These words, written very simply in the manual yesterday, suddenly came alive when they were placed in the medicinal pool.

He guided his qi with his mind, first sinking it inch by inch down along the midline of his spine. The fiery true qi that had previously only rushed and erratically along the meridians, under the pressure of the medicinal pool, seemed to finally lose its previous scattered and restless energy, instead gaining a sense of being slowly pressed down. Correspondingly, the watery qi that was originally more yin and slippery no longer simply hid downwards, but began to slowly rise along the heaviest line between his waist, hips, and groin.

The water doesn't get messy.

The fire is not allowed to ignite.

Some time ago, Bai Xuanxin had only managed to separate, arrange, and suppress these two streams of energy, preventing them from overwhelming him to death like the original owner had. That was merely to save his life.

But today, with the combined power of the medicinal pool and the sect's fundamental techniques pressing down, he truly realized for the first time that these two forces were not merely mutually restraining.

If things go smoothly, they can travel side by side for a short period of time.

It's not a matter of water and fire mixing.

It is not a perfect balance either.

They finally moved from a state of "neither side would yield to the other" to a state of "sharing some of each other's strengths".

This slight change might be hard for others to understand.

But Bai Xuanxin, who treated herself as a medicine furnace, a medical case, and a specimen for deduction day after day, knew all too well.

What he lacks most right now is not speed.

It was a decoy.

The old "Luo Yan Bu" was more like a wisp of smoke, a wisp of wind, a narrow, dead-end path squeezed in along the edge of a blade. Such a step was more than enough to defeat outer disciples and break through the formidable forces of the Wild Wolf Gang; but to enter a situation like the Divine Hand Valley, simply knowing how to slide wasn't enough.

You have to be able to stand firm.

We can hold on.

It can be controlled.

Only in this way can everything that follows—dismantling the shoulders, locking the elbows, twisting the knees, and breaking the ankles—have a solid foundation.

The dull, heavy heat from the medicinal pool gradually climbed from his waist to his shoulders, and then seeped into his arms little by little from the gaps in his shoulder bones. Sweat had appeared on Bai Xuanxin's forehead, but his face remained expressionless. He simply tried the most basic words of the "Rolling Root Method" on his body again and again.

Relaxed shoulders, not slumped shoulders.

Locking the hips doesn't mean locking the hips.

A straight spine is not the same as being stiff.

These things may seem ordinary, but once they come into contact with the medicinal pool and true energy, their weight immediately becomes apparent. If the shoulders sink too much, the breath in the chest will become suffocated; if the hips are locked too tightly, the water and fire energies will fight each other below the waist; if the spine is not upright enough, the energy path may seem open, but it will actually become empty when the upper body is pushed.

Bai Xuanxin sat in the pool, seemingly still, but in reality, she was changing every moment.

Change your breathing.

Change your posture.

It alters the slight difference in weight and height between the two streams of true energy when they are in opposition.

Just as he was about to run out of energy after half an hour, the two opposing forces within his body finally clashed for a very brief moment—

Before the fire reached his heart,

The water didn't sink to their feet first.

They seemed to originate simultaneously from both sides of the dantian, moving along different paths, one contracting and the other releasing, brushing past each other.

In just a moment.

It was as brief as two bolts of lightning touching behind a cloud in the night before separating again.

But Bai Xuanxin's eyes lit up for a moment.

That's the threshold.

Not big.

But that is the real threshold.

Everything he did before—whether it was dismantling, suppressing, or guiding—was all for this one moment. If he can't even grasp this moment, then everything that follows is just empty talk.

As the pool water grew cooler, the old disciple guarding the pool tapped on the stone edge from outside.

"The time has come."

Bai Xuanxin then slowly opened her eyes and got up to leave the pool.

As soon as he stood firm, he clearly felt that this time was completely different from the medicinal pools where he had soaked in the past and felt relaxed all over.

Before, after soaking in it, I felt light.

This time, after soaking, I felt truly "real".

It felt like an invisible layer of lead was pressing down deep into my shoulder blades, and the areas between my thighs and hips that were most prone to feeling empty also felt like they had been partially filled in. My movements might not be faster immediately, but the confidence I had when my feet landed—the confidence to "can I catch this first?"—was different from yesterday.

This is the real thing.

He put on his coat and went back to his house. On the way, he passed the back corridor of the pharmacy and overheard two servants talking quietly inside.

"Someone from Shenshou Valley came to collect medicine again today; they still need medicine with a strong fire element."

"This is the third time in the past few days, isn't it? It's very strange. After Doctor Mo returned to the mountain, it was as quiet as if no one was there, but cartloads of medicine kept coming in."

The other person lowered his voice: "Say less. That place has been acting strangely lately. I heard even the water delivery guy isn't allowed in much anymore."

Two sentences drifted into Bai Xuanxin's ears on the wind.

He didn't stop walking, and his expression didn't change at all, but in his mind he had already silently gone through the other side of God Hand Valley again.

The bird's eye is still there.

The soul of the melody should be formed.

Mo Juren was even more ruthless.

Although he no longer enters the valley, the fire in the valley has never left his heart. After each medicinal pool session, after each footwork practice, and after each time he uses a wooden stake to test the special technique for dismantling the soul, he habitually goes through the entire game from beginning to end.

Where the bird lands first.

If you cut from behind the house, will the first thing you see be emptiness?

If Mo Juren were to turn hostile inside the house, where should I strike first?

If Qu Hun were to pounce on Han Li from the right, should I first dislocate his shoulder or his knee?

None of these questions are superfluous.

Because he knew that Mo Juren wouldn't wait for him to slowly practice his technique.

To that old fox, Han Li is probably already ripe for the taking.

Bai Xuanxin was merely a rock that occasionally wobbled on the Seven Mysteries Sect's side. But if a rock isn't fast enough, ruthless enough, and hard enough, it will be nothing more than something someone can easily kick aside on that night.

That's why he was anxious.

Urgent, but must not panic.

The more urgent the situation, the more you should push your body towards "support," rather than simply making yourself faster, lighter, and more sinister.

In the following days, Bai Xuanxin's life consisted almost entirely of one thing.

The medicine pool.

The root-following method.

Practice the smoking step.

Dismantle the wooden stakes.

Internal refining.

In the morning, he walked the "Luoyan Step" in the woods behind the mountain, forcing himself again and again to turn the "slippery" feeling in his steps into "heavy" feeling. In the past, he loved to take a shortcut by turning and veering, but now he had to force himself to first establish the main line of his waist and hips before giving way.

In the afternoon, he went back to the house to dismantle the wooden stakes.

The wooden stake he had modified to include shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles was now covered in old marks from his hammering. The backs of his shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles were all worn smooth by his grinding. The techniques that he used to leave some "pain" and "shock" when dealing with living people had become increasingly cold, leaving only "dismantling" and "ruining."

At night, he would enter the medicinal pool again.

After three days, Bai Xuanxin finally touched the door during an internal cultivation session.

The wind was light that night, and the lights in the room were off. Bai Xuanxin sat cross-legged on the couch, his breathing steady as silk threads, the residual heat from the medicinal pool still lingering in his joints. As usual, he first guided the fire energy downwards, then the water energy upwards. He hadn't expected anything significant to happen that night, but just as the two energies approached the edge of his dantian again, the stiffness that used to always clash with each other suddenly lessened by half.

It's not that it doesn't exist.

It's just that it no longer explodes at the slightest touch.

Water is still water.

Fire is still fire.

But they were like two armies that originally went their separate ways. When they passed each other for the first time in an extremely narrow gorge, they did not immediately turn on each other and fight. Instead, they each gave each other half a step.

Bai Xuanxin was slightly shaken.

The dantian did not rise, but the true qi suddenly became a layer solid.

It wasn't a sudden outburst.

Instead, it's like a hollow skeleton that has finally been slowly filled with something that can truly hold it in place.

He knew he had touched it.

The threshold for near-first-class status.

It doesn't count as actually stepping over.

But the door has already been touched.

He slowly opened his eyes. The lamplight in the room flickered slightly, casting a yellowish glow on the window paper. Outside, the wind rustled through the treetops, making a soft, rustling sound, like someone hiding in the deepest part of the mountain night, slowly tapping an old wooden box with their knuckles.

Bai Xuanxin raised her hand and pressed it against her chest, feeling that the two energies in her body were more willing to "go together" than in the past few days. There was not much joy in her eyes, but rather a deeper sadness.

Because he knew better than anyone that this progress might be astonishing in the outer sect, but in the context of that night in Divine Hand Valley, it was far from enough for him to breathe a sigh of relief.

At least, the path is right.

The medicinal pool, root cultivation methods, and tonics offered by the Seven Mysteries Sect are not just empty flattery. The sect is genuinely investing in him, and these things are indeed gradually transforming him from a slippery, easily manipulated, and opportunistic blade into a more substantial, well-rounded, and commanding force.

This is exactly what he wanted.

Bai Xuanxin sat quietly for a long time until his true energy stabilized again before slowly exhaling a long breath.

The night outside the window was as dark as ink, and the direction of Shenshou Valley remained shrouded in darkness, with no sound reaching them. But Bai Xuanxin knew better than anyone that the situation there hadn't stopped, and might even be progressing faster than she had imagined.

He didn't go to see it again.

He simply got up, walked to the wooden stake, and gently pressed his palm on the shoulder socket that he had repeatedly dislocated, his eyes as cold as a line of icy water.

The medicinal pool has seeped into the bones.

The Kan and Li meridians have also begun to merge.

Next, we should truly put this newly grown "support" into our steps, into our hands, and into every inch of the moves that will fall on Mo Juren and Qu Hun that night.