Chương 73: Chapter 72 – The 'Peak' of the Mountain

Ren looked around his mountain abode with pride. When he first claimed the mountain, he had a vision where he turned its negatives into positives, but never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined this level of achievement. The air was thick with qi, and it flowed in orderly, regulated patterns all over the mountain, enriching all that it came in contact with. But amidst the bounteous regrowth remained the scars that the mountain bore from the storm he survived.

Some of the nodes of his vast mountain array were still scorched to this day. He had to redesign much of the array to account for the permanent change in the flow of qi on his mountain. Ren looked over at the heart of the mountain's formation, the impetus behind most of the change and the source of its current stability. The 5 treasures he had used as the formation's eyes had grown beyond recognition. The blood pool, which started with 3 lotuses, now had dozens of them.

The Purifying Life Lotuses growing in the pool were of the highest quality. Ren would occasionally harvest them for their seeds or roots. Some he sold and some he reserved to experiment with in alchemy, but it wasn't just them. The blood he poured into the pool would be transformed by the red crystal at the base. Over the year he had nourished it, the crystal had grown in size and quality. Now the refined liquid it produced from the blood was filled with life attribute qi.

That red liquid was now an essential ingredient for Ren to produce healing pills. The sickly Resin Willow tree sapling had grown at an accelerated rate to become a tall and healthy tree. The resin it now produced was another valuable ingredient in alchemy and forging. The array flags he also created with it were excellent conductors of qi. Ren had grown to like the scent of resin that the tree covered the area in.

So much so that Ren formed incense sticks with the resin, bark, and leaves, which were perfect for meditation. Next, at the fire node, which had briefly held 3 flames, were two different flames, one large and one small. The Ossiferous Yin Flame had grown beyond the size of the original flame he had stolen the ember from. Fed on the bones of foundation realm beasts, the flame had grown until it plateaued at a blazing campfire. From it, he had extracted two embers to start new flames.

One he used for his body cultivation, and it had already started to mutate. That was the smaller, sparkly flame. The other ember had already found a new home in a challenge array Ren had created in the inner sect. The boulder at the earth node had thick, dark red moss spilling onto the ground all around it. The Flesh Eating moss had grown strong enough to strip massive carcasses clean in a day.

Ren regularly harvested it to feed all his pets and even started to substitute it into the medicine he used to recover from his bouts of body cultivation. The moss was filled with fleshy, vital essence that was perfect for nourishing the body. Regardless of the attributes they settled into, all the tortoises enjoyed nibbling on the moss. Finally Ren's eyes landed on a large scorched patch of soil beside the metal staff. To his divine sense, the staff appeared to be growing roots.

They were actually natural veins of ore attracted from all over the mountain to grow below the metal node. Ren had been very pleased with how everything had turned out, but it had been so very close to disaster. While preparing to endure the storm, Ren knew that the metal staff was prone to attracting the bolts of lightning. While it might have helped him, Ren knew that those quantities of lightning might permanently influence the metal node.

It might have disrupted the balance of the Wuxing cycle of elements Ren had built the entire formation around. If the formation were disrupted, his entire mountain might have exploded with the quantities of qi cycling through it! Once he realized that, Ren had searched desperately for an alternative. After much study and searching, a conversation with one of his seniors had sparked an idea. Lightning was known to be excellent at refining things.

Just like tribulation lightning at higher realms of cultivation, regular lightning also contained similar, though lesser, properties. That led to Ren buying a small crystal the size of his little finger. The Cloudy Storm Crystal was an odd natural treasure that grew in deep caves. But when the opaque crystal was exposed to lightning, it would be purified and become translucent. The transformed crystal was an exceptionally useful ingredient in forging, where it imparted lightning attributes to items.

Nobody knew why it grew where it did or why it reacted to lightning of all things. Ren was just glad he managed to find some in time. When the storm culminated in that final bolt of lightning, which was thicker than a tree trunk, Ren had relied on his 3rd and last barrier. Using the metal staff to attract the bolt, he had then diverted it into a waiting array with the Cloudy Storm Crystal at its center.

The bolt of lightning had been so powerful that it had blown away the array, but not before the crystal managed to absorb most of it. Ren hadn't just survived that calamity; he had emerged from it with a small chunk of the purest, most refined Cloudy Storm Crystal he had ever seen or read about. The completely transparent crystal was only visible because of how sparks of lightning jumped around inside it.

Ren had been sorely tempted to sell it for a fortune, but he knew that he might never have a chance to work with such a valuable ingredient and ultimately kept it for his own use. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Using tiny fragments chipped from it, Ren had forged a number of weapons. The volatile ingredient had led to a few failures initially before he managed to gain control over it.

He used half the crystal to forge 17 swords that he called the Storm Series. The swords were of impressive make, but it was their ability to transform channeled qi into lightning-based attacks that made them prized weapons. With just those swords, Ren had firmly engraved his name as not just a talented herb grower but also as an outstanding weapon forger. Ren hadn't understood why until his respected senior Chun Wei had explained it to him. It wasn't just because the swords were powerful.

All weapon forgers occasionally got their hands on powerful ingredients. What made everybody take notice was the levels of improvement shown between each iteration of the Storm Series. The final blade, beyond being beautifully designed, had wide, sturdy meridians and channeled qi effortlessly. It actually enhanced the wielder's strength well above their norm, the mark of an exceptional weapon. Now, beyond requests to grow specific herbs, disciples of the inner sect also sought him out to forge weapons for them.

Ren accepted when he could because it allowed him to work with new materials and practice not just the sect's forging manual, the Heavenly Sword Smith Art, but a number of lesser styles as well. Exposure to more techniques allowed Ren to experiment, and he succeeded more often than not, earning him much wealth. Having another source of money pouring in meant that Ren had more to spend on his various interests. A lot of his wealth had gone into buying alchemy recipes and the required ingredients.

Ren stubbornly refused to give up on the profession. He knew just how useful the skill was and how valued alchemists were. With the new body cultivation method, the Heavenly Fire Body Refining manual not weakening him as much as his previous method, the Balanced Yin Body Refining Art. It was a lot less painful, and Ren had a lot more time and energy to dedicate to other interests every day. Still, without his cultivation manual, Ren wouldn't have been able to achieve nearly half as much as he had.

Ren had to acknowledge just how special the Causality of Karma truly was to allow him to make such rapid progress. He still meditated every day, but even if he didn't, the qi would still accumulate and condense within his dantian. The unique cultivation method of cultivating through karmic connections depended more on the merit or sin gathered through the various connections he formed with people.

Through all the challenge trials he created, the herbs he grew, the weapons he made, and even the books he wrote, Ren had made incredible progress in his chosen cultivation method. Regardless of the degree, he had influenced hundreds of lives and earned enormous amounts of positive merit. Even for the connections reinforced through karmic strand constructs, Ren only kept the meritorious ones.

All that amassed heavenly merit meant Ren's cultivation kept pace with the most talented cultivators, leaving him more time to explore his other skills and hobbies. He didn't mind the trade of even swifter progress for honing his diverse interests. Ren was still well on schedule for his current aim to qualify for the Golden Dharma Trial. Life was made for living, and he enjoyed experiencing new things more than simply cultivating all the time.

Even the lack of epiphanies since his qi gathering days couldn't bother him too much. It only made him more aware of just how precious they truly were. Some nights Ren would wonder if he severed karmic connections that attracted sin too swiftly. Despite just how tumultuous his life had been when he had a connection pouring sin into his Fire of Life, he couldn't deny that he had made far more progress at those times.

Disaster and opportunity would arrive hand in hand, and if he were smart, he could seize the opportunity while escaping the disaster. But despite this theory, Ren had been hesitant to put it into practice. Maybe sometime in the future he would, but he wanted to enjoy the peaceful and steady growth for the time being. Not to mention, Ren felt, he wasn't the only one to benefit from his cultivation.

Ren had long suspected that the connections that formed by themselves during breakthroughs were karmic connections that, even without his strand constructs, were from particularly strong karmic bonds. It had happened again when he broke through to the 5th and 6th layers of the foundation establishment realm, and he had over 25 reinforced strands connecting to his Fire of Life. Balance meant that just as he benefited from the connections, so did the others when he broke through.

The clearest examples were Mei Ling and Bao Hua, whom he had confirmed to be some of the spontaneous connections. Whenever he broke through, he observed that they had a brief period of extraordinary luck from clearing bottlenecks to finding treasures to surviving deadly threats. Those bouts of luck had even coincided with the Ren's actions of forging superior-quality objects with his remaining half of the Cloudy Storm Crystal to gift them.

Ren had presented Mei Ling with a set of pristine acupuncture needles forged from silver and a quarter of the crystal. The lightning's purifying properties were transferred to the needles, making them especially useful for healing. For Hua, Ren had forged another heavy blade. Like before, they had worked together to make the weapon. Ren had brought his experience, the yin flame, and the last quarter of the Cloudy Storm Crystal to the forging.

Combined with the fangs of the Beast Tyrant Bao Hua helped slay and the high-quality lightning attribute ore he found on his expedition, it was inevitable that the creation had been magnificent! Unlike last time, Hua stayed awake until the end and named the gigantic blade 'Storm Tyrant', foiling Ren's plans for the second coming of the Tortoise Defender. Ren was brought out of his memories by a small voice sounding in his head.

"Ren! Food?" asked Yu Ran. The little snake was coiled atop its customary spot, the tortoise with a golden-green shell, the last one of the Myriad Path Tortoises to have settled on a qi attribute.