Journey to the West: Starting with becoming an apprentice of the Nine Heavens Demon-Subduing Patriar

The little demon who was delivering the message lay prostrate on the muddy ground, his body trembling like a leaf in the wind, wishing he could bury his entire neck and head inside his chest.

I've finally said everything I needed to say.

The meaning is quite clear. If the task is handled well, this season's offerings will be waived. If it's messed up, the Wolf King himself will come knocking on your door.

After a moment of silence in the open space in front of the cave, Tiger Two's fangs were already half-sharp out. Although it was somewhat simple-minded, it could still sense the murderous intent in those words.

The king wants to come to the cave to "sit for a while." Whose skin will he sit on, and whose blood will he drink? Do you even need to ask?

Lu Shanjun shook his head, raised his paw, and pressed down lightly.

Tiger Two swallowed the grenade back down.

"Get up and answer."

Lu Shanjun took two steps, stood with his hands behind his back next to the blue stone at the cave entrance, and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"Since Your Majesty has a poor appetite, it means your spleen and stomach are weak. When the spleen and stomach are weak, the worst thing to do is to eat turbid food."

The little demon looked up, bewildered.

"Those villages at the foot of the mountain, the people digging the earth, the woodcutters, their sweat soaking in the mud all year round, their bodies covered in filth. The flesh of such people is coarse, tough, and fishy. Your Majesty usually has good teeth, so you can chew it without worry."

"Now that Your Majesty is unwell, consuming such filthy food will not nourish Your Majesty, but will only worsen your illness."

At this point, Lu Shanjun sighed deeply and shook his head repeatedly, forcing a loyal minister who was devoted to his master to the utmost despite his beastly appearance.

"Go back and ask the King for me: would he like a hearty meal or a nourishing one?"

The little demon dared not answer, and could only kowtow repeatedly.

"To nourish yourself, you must seek out those with delicate skin and tender flesh, those that possess vitality."

Lu Shanjun curled up a finger, "The young Taoist boys in famous mountain temples eat vegetarian food from a young age and are full of purity. Or, there are wandering practitioners who cultivate true qi in their bellies and whose flesh and blood are infused with medicinal properties."

"Such a person is worth a hundred ordinary people at the foot of the mountain."

He paused, his tone becoming serious.

"But such a person isn't at the foot of the mountain; we have to search far away and devise methods to capture him alive and bring him back. If he dies, he'll lose his spirit, and once he loses his spirit, he'll be no different from a piece of dead flesh. It will take at least ten days in total."

"Just take these words back exactly as they were. Ten days later, I will bring the 'good stuff' to the main peak. If Your Majesty can't wait and insists on eating firewood now, that's easy too. I'll go down the mountain tonight and catch ten or eight farmers for Your Majesty."

"It's just that the king's stomach was upset. Who should bear the blame for this?"

The little demon shivered.

This sin is one that even ten lives could not bear.

"Tiger Lord, your considerations are thorough. I will return and report immediately, without daring to utter a single mistake!"

The mountain deer got up, backed out of the open space in front of the cave, and darted down the mountain path in a flash.

……

Watching the yellow figure disappear into the woods, Tiger Two approached and whispered.

"Brother, are we really going to capture the Taoist acolytes?"

"What are you grabbing?"

Lu Shanjun withdrew his gaze. "Take a few of the younger ones and, starting tomorrow, wander around the mountain, making it look like you're searching everywhere. Make a big commotion so the spies on the main peak can see everything clearly. But remember one thing..."

He stared into Tiger Two's eyes.

"Not a single human hair is to be touched. Anyone who does, I'll break their legs."

Tiger Two scratched his head: "Then... what are we going to give you in ten days?"

"We'll talk about what happens in ten days."

Lu Shanjun patted its shoulder, "You only have to trust me this once. I'm going into seclusion for the next few days. My cave is sealed off, and no one is allowed to enter, even if the sky falls."

Tiger Two opened his mouth, but ultimately asked nothing.

It only believes in one principle in its entire life: what its elder brother says is always right.

……

A rock was placed at the entrance of the cave, isolating the inside from the outside.

Lu Shanjun sat cross-legged and, instead of immediately circulating his internal energy, reviewed the descriptions of cultivation realms in the book "Xiao Zhenwu Yinqi Jue" from beginning to end in his mind.

The first stage of refining qi into spirit is clearly written in the manual, and it is divided into three levels.

The first hurdle is forming the Golden Core.

After prolonged refinement of the body's vital energy, jade liquid is produced in the mouth. Swallowing it and returning it to the dantian, where it is nurtured and warmed for a long time, the jade liquid solidifies and forms a round elixir core. This elixir is still ethereal, hence it is called the ethereal elixir.

Once the elixir is formed, the true energy has a root, flowing endlessly like water gushing from a spring, inexhaustible.

The second challenge is to summon the Yin spirit.

After the elixir is completed, the spirit and soul begin to gather, and at midnight, they can leave the body and travel for hundreds of miles.

However, this Yin spirit is very fragile. It cannot withstand the scorching sun, strong winds, or thunder. Even the blood energy from a mortal army can scatter it to pieces.

The third challenge: the Golden Elixir of Rejuvenation.

The illusory core exploded, transforming into a point of pure divine consciousness. The dregs of yin within the yin spirit were gradually refined away by the essence of the sun and moon, and yang was born from the exhaustion of yin.

Only when we reach this point can we truly stand firm on the concept of "God".

Lu Shanjun opened his eyes, silently making a mental calculation.

Having just broken through to the next realm, the true qi in his dantian was merely a shallow pool, not even showing a trace of a nascent core.

Yinhao has cultivated for over three hundred years, and has been at the Qi Transformation stage for at least several decades.

At the very least, the spirit of the underworld must have emerged.

Going deeper, given that old wolf's insidious and greedy nature, it's not surprising at all that he would put on a show of summoning a spirit to intimidate others while secretly harboring a trump card of Golden Elixir Rejuvenation Pill.

A head-on confrontation is suicidal.

It can be bypassed, but it cannot be bypassed.

Lu Shanjun tapped his knuckles lightly on his knees, when suddenly he remembered something.

According to the original story, the future master of the 800-mile-long Yellow Wind Ridge should be that yellow-haired weasel who stole oil at the foot of Mount Ling... the Great Sage Yellow Wind.

But now, after asking around the whole mountain, no one has ever heard of such a person.

In other words, the current timeline is still early.

The real master hasn't arrived yet. This Silver Howl is just a wild demon occupying a den. It has no master above it, no backer behind it, and no name in the temple.

Even if it's killed, no one will collect its body, and no one will avenge it.

Lu Shanjun's eyes slowly brightened.

A demon without a powerful background is a good demon.

Rather than waiting for someone else to ride on Huangfeng Ridge's head someday, it's better for him to sit on it himself while the temple is still empty.

"To replace it."

He rolled those four words on the tip of his tongue, then swallowed them back down and closed his eyes.

Before anything else, condense the elixir of emptiness.

……

The chapter on Qi-guiding techniques and elixir-condensing begins with only six words.

"Attain utmost emptiness, and hold fast to stillness."

This is a quote from the Tao Te Ching.

The commentary in the manual says that the elixir is not refined, but "nourished".

If the mind is not at ease, the Qi will not gather; if the spirit is not calm, the fluid will not condense. The so-called Jade Liquid Condensing Elixir is not about condensing saliva, but about condensing an unmoving mind.

It also quotes the "Qingjing Jing" (Classic of Purity and Tranquility): "If a person can always be pure and tranquil, then heaven and earth will all return to their original state."

The Taoist scriptures that Lu Shanjun had read in his previous life surfaced from his memory page by page, corroborating the incantations in the formulas, and they matched perfectly in every way.

He slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and turned back to listening.

First, one should sit in oblivion.

He forgot the wolf king outside the cave, forgot the ten-day deadline, forgot his tiger skin, and even forgot the name "Lord Lu Shan".

The churning thoughts in my mind were initially like boiling water; if I suppressed one, three more would spring up.

He wasn't annoyed; he just treated it as watching someone else's fun. In Taoist texts, this is called "not fearing the arising of thoughts, but fearing the slowness of awareness." Once the onlookers were gone and he had no fun, he gradually stopped.

When the mind is calm, the breath naturally settles.

After an unknown amount of time, a sweet taste suddenly appeared on my tongue.

Two streams of clear spring water gushed out from the Xuan Ying acupoint under the tongue, cool and sweet, making the mouth full of saliva.

The jade liquid was produced.

Lu Shanjun felt neither joy nor fear. Following the incantation, he swallowed the jade liquid in three gulps, "gurgling, gurgling, gurgling," as if holding sweet dew, and sent it back to his dantian.

The jade liquid entered the dantian and stirred with the true qi. It was like braising water curdling tofu, and the once clear water began to thicken slightly.

Next comes the control of the heat.

The secret formula says that condensing the elixir is like cooking porridge, and it all depends on the two fires, the civil and the military.

A single thought intensifies the fire of martial arts; the fire of martial arts refines and forces the vital energy back to its origin.

A gentle, slow-burning thought is like a simmering fire, nourishing the body like a hen incubating eggs.

If the fire is too strong, the elixir will dry out; if the fire is too gentle, the elixir will dissipate. In the blink of an eye, the intensity and urgency of one's thoughts can lead to vastly different outcomes.

This is the most difficult hurdle on the path to alchemy, and many cultivators get stuck on the two words "timing" and "temperature" for eight or ten years.

But as soon as Lu Shanjun started working on it, he realized something was wrong.

Everything went too smoothly.

His body, a unique white tiger species, is of the metal element. Metal is associated with calming and killing, and he is naturally able to suppress fire. His energy sinks to his dantian and becomes incredibly stable.

The Zhenwu lineage's cultivation method belongs to water, and metal generates water. The mother's energy nourishes the child's energy. That thick essence rolled around in the dantian a few times, but instead of dissipating, it became rounder and brighter with each roll.

Others condense elixir by using ordinary hands to knead a snowball; if they squeeze it tightly, it melts, and if they squeeze it loosely, it dissipates.

His condensation of the elixir was a natural and inevitable process.

day and night.

The light outside the cave had rotated once.

Inside the cave, deep within Lu Shanjun's dantian, a soft "thump" sounded, like pearls falling onto a jade plate.

The pool of jade liquid completely disappeared, and in the center of the dantian, a pill the size of a longan was suspended.

It is crystal clear and rotates slowly. With each rotation, a wisp of new true energy peels off from the elixir and flows into the limbs and bones.

Life goes on and on, enduring and everlasting.

In the sea of ​​consciousness, the green shadow also lit up.

[Cultivation Level: Refining Qi into Spirit (Empty Core Formed)]

[Technique: Lesser True Martial Qi-Inducing Technique (Minor Success 1/300)]

[Annotation: To condense the elixir in a single day is unprecedented. The mutual generation of metal and water brings twice the result with half the effort; this is a gift from heaven.]