Chapter Ninety-Five: The Road Ahead

Li Yayuan shook her head. “You have cultivated so many mediocre martial arts that I am not even going to mention your attempt to break through to the Innate realm. I am afraid your lifespan is already running low. Your body must be riddled with hidden injuries.”

At first, she had even thought of recommending his talent to her master. But since he had cultivated such inferior martial arts, his body had likely already been ruined by them. In that case, introducing him to her master would serve little purpose.

Still, his strength was not bad. If he could be brought into the Azure Lotus Cult, he would not be entirely useless.

Her words stirred something in Qin Yi’s heart.

So this was the value of first-rate martial arts?

So this was the fatal flaw of second-rate and third-rate arts?

Unable to break through to the Innate realm?

No. He had already cultivated three scholarly arts, and a fourth was under way. His condition was still fairly good. Perhaps he was not yet at the end of the road.

“As for first-rate martial arts, only if you were to become my master’s disciple would such a thing be taught to you. But in your present condition, my master would probably not take you in. And even if you obtained a ninth-rank martial art now and cultivated it, it would not change the hidden injuries within you. On the contrary, it would only worsen them. The mistake was that you began by cultivating so many mediocre martial arts and still pushed yourself all the way to ninth-rank strength. Otherwise, there might still be a way to remedy the situation.”

Qin Yi felt a jolt of unease after hearing this, but he still clasped his hands and asked, “Thank you for clearing that up. But I would still like to ask: how does one break through to the Innate realm?”

“That question is simple and difficult at once. When your cultivation has reached the point where you can no longer advance even a single step, you may attempt the breakthrough. To break into the Innate realm, you must repeatedly use secret techniques, little by little shattering the limits of the body.”

“But if you dare to do it that way, you are simply courting death.”

“So that is how it is. I have learned something valuable.” Qin Yi bowed again.

Using a secret technique was, in essence, forcing the body to exceed its limits. With a body that could normally produce one hundred units of strength, one would forcibly squeeze out one hundred and twenty.

Ordinary low-rank fighters, lacking sufficient physical resilience, would become utterly exhausted after only a few uses of such techniques and be unable to continue for a short time. They would have to wait for their bodies to recover before using them again.

But at higher ranks, a martial artist’s physique far surpassed that of the lower ranks, and the number of times a secret technique could be used increased dramatically.

Take Qin Yi himself, for instance. He felt that, in a single day, his stamina and constitution could support the use of secret techniques more than forty times.

Yet because such techniques placed such a heavy burden on the body, he could at most use them twenty or thirty times before stopping. If he pressed on, he might incur severe hidden injuries, or even cause his body to collapse outright. He might even use them to the point of sudden death.

According to this woman’s explanation, breaking into the Innate realm meant using secret techniques to train the body under constant overload.

To keep forcing the body beyond its limits through repeated use of secret techniques, to grind it down until quantity produced quality, and then to break through the limit and reconstruct a new body?

By all appearances, such a method was nothing less than suicidal.

Breaking the body’s limits and forging an Innate foundation was, after all, not nearly as easy as one might imagine.

“What I said before still stands. This is my badge. If you ever wish to join the Azure Lotus Cult, take this token to the Yuelai Inn and hand it to the innkeeper. He will bring you to me.”

Li Yayuan tossed Qin Yi a waist token.

Though he had disappointed her greatly, falling far short of her earlier expectations, his ninth-rank strength was still impressive. If he could become one of her right and left hands, that would still be better than having no one at all.

Qin Yi caught it. It carried a faint fragrance, and there was still a trace of warmth in his hand.

“Thank you.” He clasped his hands again. Whether or not he joined the Azure Lotus Cult, the information she had just given him about the Innate realm was precious beyond measure in his eyes.

Perhaps such things were not important in the eyes of the disciples of great sects, but for someone like him, who had come up through unorthodox means, they were truly invaluable.

Still, he could also sense that the woman’s tone no longer carried the same regard as before. It had become tinged with disappointment and indifference.

Li Yayuan said nothing further. With a light step of her lotus-like foot, her figure vanished from where she stood.

Qin Yi gazed in the direction she had gone and fell silent for a moment.

Innate.

Secret medicine.

If the key to breaking through to the Innate realm was that secret medicine, then it was indeed extremely important to Qin Yi.

But from the woman’s words, even if he obtained the secret medicine, the fact that he had cultivated so many mediocre martial arts meant that the odds of failing the breakthrough still far outweighed the odds of success.

In that case, perhaps the secret medicine was not so important after all.

And first-rate martial arts did not seem quite so important anymore either. After cultivating so many second-rate arts, with his body full of hidden injuries and his foundation already rotten, even if he learned a ninth-rank art, it would not really be any different from a second-rate one.

In his view, scholarly cultivation now outweighed everything else.

It could not only preserve his life and suppress the hidden injuries that might flare up at any moment, but when he was wounded, it also allowed his injuries to heal several times faster than before.

Wait—heal.

A flash of inspiration struck Qin Yi.

So his path forward was not to join some great sect at all, but first to learn as much as possible of the scholarly arts from the nine Daoist lineages. In addition, he also needed to search for that incomplete Dao diagram he carried in his bosom.

He had always felt that this fragmented Dao diagram might bring about unimaginable gains for his scholarly cultivation.

There was also the matter that he had long worried about the Golden Alliance’s retaliation.

What he feared most were their Innate fighters.

But from this woman’s mouth, he had learned that for the time being there was no Innate expert from the Golden Alliance within Xiangzhou. That meant staying in Xiangzhou City for a while longer would be safe.

So long as he did not run into an Innate expert, he was confident that very few within the ninth rank could kill him.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten to ask just how strong the Innate realm actually was.

But the woman was already gone.

He had also forgotten to ask whether the Azure Lotus Cult had any scholarly arts.

Nor did he know how much importance the Azure Lotus Cult placed on scholarly cultivation.

“Next, then, I’ll first finish learning the Observation Method, and after that I’ll learn those two sixth-rank martial arts before leaving Xiangzhou,” Qin Yi calculated silently.

The next day, Qin Yi was still staying at He Hongjun’s home.

Inside a quiet chamber, he listened to Elder Kang’s explanation while practicing breath regulation and meditation.

In truth, scholarly cultivation appeared easier than martial cultivation.

But appearances were deceptive.

Qin Yi actually felt that scholarly cultivation was far more difficult than martial training.

The length of each session of concentration determined the length of that round of cultivation.

Moreover, martial arts had supplementary secret medicines to shorten the time required.

Scholarly cultivation had nothing of the sort. One could only regulate the breath and meditate little by little.

And there was something very strange about it: being quick in martial cultivation did not necessarily mean one would be quick in scholarly cultivation as well.