Chương 38: New Meridians

Lin Yi looked over the beginning of the Solitary Yang Bamboo grove and was satisfied for the time being. It would likely take time for the bamboo to flourish, but he was willing to wait. After all, if everything went as planned, he would live here for the next hundreds or even thousands of years. He walked back towards the house and to the beehive. As he neared the colony, he saw Xiao Jinse flying around her home. Noticing him, she landed on his head. Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz.

"Yes, we can. It's already long past that we wake them." Lin Yi answered Jinse's buzzing with a smile. They stopped together before the beehive. Shortly before he left the Outer Court, he and Xiao Jinse together let the bee colony undergo something like semi-hibernation. They currently lived only on the remaining resources in their hive. He did this not only for the journey to the Inner Court, but also so he could familiarize himself properly with his new home first. Now, the bees could be awakened again.

Bzzz, bzzz! After Xiao Jinse heard this, she was excited and flew directly into the hive to wake her children. Lin Yi didn't really need to do anything. He looked around the area where the beehive was stationed. It was some distance from the house, but not too far. He thought for a while but then decided it could stay there. He could literally expand in any direction for any plans he had in mind and didn't need to relocate the beehive. He also didn't need to build anything for the bees.

Even mortal common bees could build their own hives; spirit bees could do it even better and grander. He read that they could even build some grand structures dozens of meters in size. He walked back to his house, thinking about what he would do next. His next plan was originally to build more spaces for future projects, but that was more a thing he would do gradually as he started with them. It wouldn't make much sense to construct several buildings and then not use them.

Not to mention, he needed to master a wood-and-stone control spell first to manipulate these elements properly. Xiao Jinse currently cared for the bees, and the bamboos didn't need much supervision. He could theoretically ask for leave and visit his family, but he still wanted to wait a while and settle into the Inner Court. So it was relatively clear what he would do next, namely cultivation.

In the next few days, he would return to the ancestral lineage again to look for some useful spells, and maybe visit some neighbors and the sect market. Lin Yi nodded to himself and sat down in his house at his cultivation place. Some minutes later, he entered the mental state of Wu Wei and began his cultivation. Since his last breakthrough, he hadn't cultivated further in the current level and had focused more on his magical power.

After a few days, the flow of the energy through his meridians was no longer insubstantial. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. But it was finally time to continue reaching for higher realms. The focus in the Golden Cauldron Stage was the cultivation of the Qi and the construction of a Qi circulation system of the 12 Standard Meridians and the 8 Extraordinary Meridians. The Crimson Palace Stage was not unlike its predecessor.

It focuses on the cultivation of magical power, to a lesser degree, the Innate Qi, and on the connection of more meridians. The two former were relatively simple. The stronger the Innate Qi, the stronger the overall being is. The greater the quantity and quality of magical power one possesses, the greater one's combat power, cultivation speed, and the practice of all kinds of immortal arts.

Furthermore, a great amount of magical power was needed to break through to the late stage, also called the Purple Mansion Stage. What differed was how the meridians were used. In the early stage, cultivators created a Qi circulation; however, in the mid stage, this was not needed. The 12 Standard Meridians and 8 Extraordinary Meridians were basic pillars and essential to the functioning of the human body and life itself. The meridians used in the Crimson Palace Stage, while still important, were not used this way.

Beyond the twenty meridians existed many more meridians. Part of them were four subsets of major meridian systems. The Luo-Connecting Channels, 12 Divergent Channels, 12 Sinew Channels, and 12 Cutaneous Regions. Each had different uses, such as linking yin and yang organs and balancing energy, acting as a protective system, protecting the body from strain and damage, and influencing health. Each had twelve meridians, except the Luo-Connecting Channels, which had fifteen.

Because of their non-essential characteristics, they did not need to be integrated into a whole pathway circulation like the twenty meridians in the early stage did. The meridian progression in the Crimson Palace Stage was simpler. Each new meridian would connect to the existing circulation system through a new Qi circulation path. This path then allowed the transport of Qi and magical power, and fed the characteristics of the newly connected meridians back into the old system.

Naturally, this feedback of characteristics would never be as strong as that of the 12 Standard Meridians and 8 Extraordinary Meridians. Still, thousands and thousands of years of experience on the immortal dao path showed it was not as important.

Theoretically, it was possible to create one whole Qi circulation system of the entire body, including the 12 Standard Meridians and 8 Extraordinary Meridians, the four major subpaths, and all other minor meridians and acupuncture points, but that would take too much time that could be used for cultivation advancement. Even the most heaven-defying geniuses won't do this.

Furthermore, from the little information Lin Yi knew about the higher realms, he suspected that those Perfect, Great, and Heavenly Ones might play in completely different dimensions of living beings. It was highly likely that those realms may not be as much restricted by their bodily foundation as Qi Condensation Realm cultivators or Dao Masters. However, there was naturally still a different grade of foundation also in the Crimson Palace Stage which was still important, at least for the next two realms.

The foundation of the mid-stage was not counted by the unity of the meridians, but by how many meridians were connected to the Golden Cauldron Qi system, and how often. The Initial Beginning of the mid-stage was signified by the opening of the Crimson Palace, control of Innate Qi, and creation of magical power. The Minor Completion state meant connecting at least one complete subsystem, and Grand Completion meant connecting all four.

One could be considered Grand Completion if one at minimum connected each new meridian to the unified meridian system, but that was the most basic foundation. For a perfect foundation, one needed to forge a Qi circulation from each new meridian twenty times to the old system. Each additional Qi circulation gave one's cultivation base an easier time circulating Qi and magical power, as well as having higher harmony and gaining the characteristics of each meridian in greater strength.

Lin Yi focused his attention and circulated his Qi towards the first new meridian and started to create the first Qi circulation.