The righteous path punishes Heaven

Chapter 49 Ascension

Zhang Yunling quickly returned to his cave dwelling and hurriedly closed the stone door. At the same time, he spread his divine sense throughout the cave dwelling to prevent others from knowing what he was doing inside.

He carefully took the hard-won manual out of his storage bag. The cover had three big characters written on it: Innate Skill.

"This is the cultivation method created by the first patriarch of the Quanzhen Sect. I suppose the current sect leader has already noticed it. I must act quickly." Zhang Yunling opened the first page of the Innate Skill manual, where he saw densely packed texts about how cultivators should practice.

The above describes how cultivators absorb spiritual energy into their bodies, transform it into spiritual power, circulate it throughout their meridians, and after one cycle, it returns to the dantian for storage, which is called a Great Circulation.

However, he pointed out that this is just the breathing and cultivation method of ordinary cultivators, while the method of the Innate Skill is to allow the spiritual energy in the body to circulate once and then not store it directly in the dantian, but to flow through the dantian and continue to the meridians in front.

He continuously absorbed spiritual energy and transformed it into spiritual power, which circulated within his body until his body reached its limit. Finally, he poured all of this spiritual power into his dantian in one go.

The advantage of doing this is that you can train the strength of your meridians at any time during breathing exercises. Meridians are the only way for spiritual energy to flow through the body's limbs and bones. The more you expand and extend them, the more spiritual energy your body can use, and the better the effect will be.

The same principle applies to using a large amount of spiritual energy to impact the dantian. Both aim to raise one's upper limit and strengthen its resilience, so that if a breakthrough occurs in the future, the dantian, as the source, can more stably guarantee that one's cultivation will not collapse.

Following the words page by page, Zhang Yunling did his best to imprint all the contents into his mind. Through this manual, he learned the highest level that each realm could reach after perfect foundation building—the height that the first generation patriarch of the Quanzhen Sect had reached.

Just like the perfect foundation building in the Foundation Building Realm, the Golden Core Realm, Nascent Soul Realm, Deity Transformation Realm, and even the Dao Inquiry Realm all have their corresponding perfect realms.

Zhang Yunling's cultivation has now reached the Foundation Establishment stage. The next step is to break through to the Golden Core stage. The highest level of the Golden Core stage recorded in the Innate Skill is called the "Mysterious Purple Core".

Purple is the color of supreme nobility and auspiciousness. If a cultivator's golden core can be refined into purple, then he is a supreme being who has come into contact with the power of the Great Dao ahead of time. Such a cultivator has already reached the peak among his peers, and few can surpass him.

However, cultivating the Profound Purple Pill is also very difficult. It requires cultivators to first reach the True Perfect Foundation Establishment Realm, and then refine and purify the Perfect Foundation Establishment Platform within their bodies for forty-nine days.

During this process, a large amount of spiritual energy must be continuously infused. For these forty-nine days, the cultivator must sit cross-legged in meditation, absorbing spiritual energy and continuously transmitting the absorbed spiritual energy to the foundation-building platform that is undergoing the refining process.

This process is long and agonizing. While refining, the cultivator will also suffer pain as if their heart is being burned by flames. If they are disturbed by the outside world during this period, they will suffer from qi deviation due to the disorder of their cultivation. In more serious cases, they will explode and die.

Having memorized all this information, Zhang Yunling gritted his teeth and ignited the pill fire, throwing the Innate Skill directly into the fire to burn it to ashes.

From then on, he became the last cultivator in the world to know the cultivation method of the Innate Skill. This was the opportunity for his rise to power and a heaven-defying chance that could change his destiny.

......

Nighttime, the council hall of the Quanzhen Taoist Elders' Pavilion.

"According to the information provided by the disciples guarding the Scripture Pavilion, these people are the inner disciples who entered the Scripture Pavilion today," Second Elder Duan Liangyong reported to the sect leader.

The other elders also stepped forward one after another to tell them the information they had received. It could be said that they had brought all the disciples who had entered the Sutra Repository in the past half month, leaving no suspicious persons unchecked.

The sect leader nodded slightly upon hearing this, his expression stern as he surveyed the dozens of inner disciples before him. He said, "Today I lost my identity token in the Scripture Pavilion. An investigation revealed that it was stolen by a disciple who even entered my private quarters. Now I'm giving you a chance. Whoever did it, step forward. The punishment will be lenient."

After the words were spoken, no one made a sound for a long time. Seeing this, the sect leader curled his lips and turned to the Grand Elder Ren Tianxiong beside him, saying, "Grand Elder, your grandson Ren Jixing clearly entered the Scripture Pavilion twice today. Why isn't he among them?"

Ren Tianxiong was a little confused by the question. He clearly remembered that his grandson had come to him at noon today to ask for a few more female cultivators for cultivation. When would he go to the Scripture Pavilion?

“Sect Master, there’s something fishy about this.” Ren Tianxiong disagreed with the Sect Master’s suspicion. “You know that Ji Xing needs to cultivate with a female cultivator to avoid danger. I saw him today and he’s been cultivating in his own cave the whole time. He clearly hasn’t been to the Scripture Pavilion even once. I think someone is deliberately framing him.”

"Oh?" The sect leader became interested upon hearing this, but did not pursue the matter further. Instead, he turned his gaze to the disciple who was guarding the entrance to the Scripture Pavilion not far behind him and asked, "Have you seen what that disciple who entered the Scripture Pavilion twice looks like?"

The guard nodded, quickly stepped forward, and pointed to a group of disciples opposite him, saying, "These people have only been here once. The disciple who came twice in seven days is not here. He complained that the sect's fees were too expensive and kicked open the door of the Scripture Pavilion. I remember him very well."

The sect leader nodded slowly, his left hand supporting his chin, a cold glint in his eyes. An invisible pressure enveloped the entire council hall, making the disciples and even the elders tremble with fear.

"Forget it, let's drop this matter. At least there was no loss, which is a good outcome. If a similar incident happens again, the sect's deacon must deal with it severely, otherwise they wouldn't be so lenient as they are today."

The sect leader flicked his sleeves, turned around and strode away. Seeing this, the second elder, Duan Liangyong, hurriedly pushed the guarding disciple and chased after the sect leader.

The dozens of disciples in the council hall looked at each other in bewilderment, then dispersed and returned to their caves. However, the sect leader knew that someone else must have stolen his token, and the person who had entered the scripture pavilion twice in seven days was the prime suspect.

On the surface, the sect leader claimed that the matter was over, but in reality, he still interrogated the guarding disciple and learned the person's background. The sect leader no longer concealed his cold smile and displayed it openly.

"Don't make a big fuss tonight. Go find him tomorrow and I'll see what's going on."

Duan Liangyong nodded and turned to leave.